bertrand

I noticed Grachan is on this. How much solo space does he get? I usually am not a big fan of hers, but recordings with Grachan and a vocalist are rare. Any thoughts? Bertrand.

Listening to the Ousley CD right now. The arrangements are very nice and far from rote. Sound is not great, but all in all a very good record. Thanks for talking me into it, Lon! Bertrand.

Other options: The Washington smallpox blankets. The Washington post-docs. Bertrand.

David, does this alternate take of 'Witch Hunt' also have the intro which Wayne layer used for 'Pegasus'? Thanks, Bertrand.

Anyone going to the party in Baltimore on Sunday? Bertrand.

I'll have to try to find the thread later (I'm bad at searching), and I can't remember if we discussed this in the thread, but in Jeff McMillan's Morgan bio he relates a story where Lee fell asleep on a radiator in his hotel room. Wayne Shorter noticed the pungent smell and rushed over to wake him up and save him. I assumed this explains the bandages, although I don't know if McMillan gives a date for this incident. The photos were from April 1964. Bertrand.

I totally missed the new Mobley alternate - damn. Still no word on the Unity alternates? Bertrand.

I went ahead and got the Ousley (along with other goodies). The Marzette is still on my radar, but I think I need to hear some samples. Bertrand.

I think Lon has pretty much talked me into it, although now I am also eyeing that Marzette Watts ESP CD, which I assume is not formulaic free jazz.

I have 2,000+ CDs, so I would hardly think of myself as cautious. I'm just trying to avoid buying more things that are kind of always the same. The Charles Davis angle and the little-recorded angle for Ousley are what caught my eye. I will sleep on it. Bertrand.

So they are not doing work that really extends past the usual 'confines' of 'Hard-Bop'? The reason I ask is that the DG blurb seemed to suggest otherwise. But of course they are trying to sell me a CD, so I needed another viewpoint. I'll probably pass unless someone talks me into it tomorrow. No one has called this 'essential', whatever that might entail. Bertrand.

I thought it was 1974. I'm pretty sure Cuscuna did not have the session logs that early, but it could not have been too long after that. Didn't those brown two-fers come out around 1976? Tricky Dick was safely gone by then. Bertrand.

How is this?

The liner notes of Moto Grosso Feio have a whole story regarding the hunt for this session through boxes of tape - IIRC, they seem to imply that Wayne himself was involved in the hunt When the tape was found, Wayne remembered it as being recorded the day after his birthday. I always assumed he confused it with Odyssey Of Iska, and this stuck for a while. Not sure if Michael Cuscuna already had access to the tape logs at this point. I think this was in the late 70s, and Moto Grosso came out in the mid-70s. Bertrand.

And 10/13/70, just to beat a dead horse! Bertrand.

Thanks for finding this! I just joined. A friend of mine studied with Namuth so I told him about it. Love the legal disclaimer. Bertrand.

An Die Musik in Baltimore has stairs, but Caton Castle does not. Bertrand.

They were at the Kennedy Center last night. It turns out to be a mostly Shorter repertoire, in celebration of the 80th birthday. The set list was: Masqualero Fall Nothing Like You (Bpb Dorough) Unconditional Love (Geri Allen) Virgo Nefertiti Infant Eyes They did a standard as an encore. Maybe All Of You? I can't remember. Bertrand.

I just found out that Wayne will be at the Kennedy Center as part of a Blue Note records 75th birthday concert on 5/11/14. I think he was just added. Not clear if this a one-off exclusive at KC, or a package concert which will take place in many cities. I assume Wayne will play one or two pieces with the quartet. Bertrand.

Organissimo was at Twins a few years back. Jim can speak on how hard it was to get his instrument up the stairs. People have brought keyboards down into the Caverns somehow. I don't know about an authentic B3, however. Lonnie Liston Smith has been there (NOT THE DR.); not sure what he carries around. There are possible venues in Baltimore. Bertrand.

If you are in the DC area and want to hear how great Kush Abadey is, he will be part of the trio at a jam session on U street tomorrow night. Todd Simon and Blake Meister (hardly slouches themselves) are also in the group. Bertrand.

Do you already know your tour dates with Janiva for next year? Bertrand.

Slapping 5 stars on everything is inane, but he just comes off as a real jerk. Bertrand.

Thanks to that jazz research visionary John Boehner, I have some spare time on my hands these days so I was able to track down the article I was looking for. It is from the 5/4/67 issue of downbeat (page 11). Here is what we now know from this article: 1) Jimmy Lyons produced this UCLA Festival. He was also the producer of the Monterey Jazz Festival. 2) Lyons commissioned Shorter to write this piece as an '18-minute orchestral prelude to Davis' set on May 12th; the piece is to incorporate several Davis themes. A similar 'overture' is being written by McFarland for Coltrane'. 3) Coltrane was slated to play on 5/14, with his own group as well as with the orchestra plus strings. 4) Gary McFarland was the festival's music director. So how does this tie in with the discussion above? 1) The concert, including the piece (no title given) was announced in a downbeat article from the issue dated a few days before the concert. So yes, this would not prove that the piece was played, but Wayne must have started writing it by then. 2) The concert was reviewed in an issue dated 7/13. This was long enough after the concert that would preclude the possibility of the reviewer making up the entire thing just to meet a deadline (this has been known to happen in other instances, of course). This is a 3-page review giving enough detail to indicate that Siders was there and heard the whole thing (including a 10-minute piece by Ornette with band and strings conducted by John Carter which he hated). Siders describes 'Legend' in some detail and even mentions a section 'powered' by Grady Tate. I remember Kush Abadey 'powering' a middle section at the Jazz Standard. I am 100% sure 'Legend' was performed at UCLA. The mystery remain as to who played on it exactly, when it was performed, and how many times. 1) As Rooster pointed out, the July article never states or suggests that Miles (or Wayne) played on this at all. The piece only lists four trumpet players in the orchestra. But IIRC, Wallace Roney's orchestra had four trumpet players PLUS Wallace as soloist. So, could it be that Miles was the soloist at UCLA? 2) The reviewer complains that McFarland's orchestra played the same McFarland originals each night, suggesting that this was ripping off the audience who paid a whopping $5.50 per concert (what is that in today's dollars?). He then gives a generally favorable review to these pieces, ending with the part about the Shorter piece being the least successful. So was the Shorter piece played each night as well (which would mean that Miles did not play on it), or just the one time? And did they play this piece just before Miles' set on 5/12? The review does not address this, and also does not state explicitly that McFarland was conducting 'Legend', although it does seem to suggest it. Siders actually reviews the orchestral portions separately from the small group sets, so you don't really get a feel for when each set took place, further exacerbated by the fact that he lumps the performances of all three days together. Note that the Miles quintet had Buster Williams in lieu of Ron Carter, and that 'Stella By Starlight' and 'All Blues' were part of the setlist - by May 1967, Miles had pretty much dropped 'Stella' from the repertoire. As for the Shorter pieces interpolated into 'Legend', the May article suggests that the piece will incorporate several Davis themes, which I interpret to mean Davis originals (you know, like 'Four' and 'Tune Up' and 'Solar', all tunes we know that Miles wrote). But the four pieces I recognized are by Shorter: 'Orbits', 'Dolores', 'Vonetta' and 'Sweet Pea'. The first two had been released by 1/67 so could have been recognized by a very discerning jazz fan who had already absorbed the Miles Smiles record, but the other two had not even been recorded yet (interestingly, 'Vonetta' was recorded right after the festival in NYC, but an alternate take of 'Limbo' was recorded on 5/9/67 in LA with Buster Williams - so they came to LA a couple of days before the festival, booked a studio and recorded only one track? What else did they try to play in the studio that day? Perhaps a quintet version of portions of 'Legend'?). My point is that the themes from Miles' repertoire that we recognize now would hardly have been recognizable to the majority of the UCLA audience. As for the recording and a potential Monterey performance: a Wikipedia search does not show Miles at Monterey in 1967 at all, so I suspect Wayne thought it was Monterey in the NYT interview because of Jimmy Lyons' involvement, but it was actually UCLA. I could conceive of Lyons booking a performance of 'Legend' at Monterey that year to get two performances out of his commission, but neither Miles nor Wayne would have been involved. A quick search of the Monterey Festival Archives at Stanford does not show 'Legend' as a piece in the archives, but more research would be needed (I do see that they have recordings by the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra with Gillespie and Moody on 9/17/67, but they seem to have played compositions by the conductor Miljenko Prohaska). Wayne's reference to Coltrane clouds the issue some more since Coltrane had died in July. Coltrane could theoretically have known about a performance of 'Legend' at UCLA on 5/12/67 or thereabouts, but he would not have been there. He was very ill by then and his last known performance was in Baltimore for the Left Bank Jazz Society on 5/7/67 (not recorded, alas). The performance announced in the 5/4/67 downbeat (including the intriguing collaboration with orchestra and strings) never happened due to Coltrane's illness. Siders does not mention Coltrane in his review, even to say that he cancelled. I will check later to see if Lewis Porter mentions anything about this. I have to assume that McFarland had already written his Coltrane overture, but what happened to it? Conclusion: 'Legend' was performed at least once at UCLA between 5/12 and 5/14/67, perhaps with Miles, most likely without Wayne and most likely with Gary McFarland conducting. If there is a recording, it might be at UCLA since the whole festival was planned in cooperation with UCLA. What a coincidence - Wayne teaches at UCLA now. Any further thoughts on this topic would be appreciated. Bertrand.

These are definitely not CDR-s?