Gheorghe

From your description it´s no wonder I didn´t have no idea who it is. Never got in touch with "smooth jazz" .

ahm, wait a minute.....Eddie Gale about whom I was talkin´ is the free jazz trumpetist. But who is Eric Gale ?

I have it on the Mosaic Strata East Recordings. But I bought that Mosaic almost exclusily for the Rhythm X which was a very rare record I liked when I was in my teens (since I was crazy about Ornette, Cherry and so on), but had it only on tape. The Zodiac with Cecil Payne is solid, but like other sessions from that set it´s somehow outwordly since it has musicians who sure had bitter years then, playing straight ahead or more in tradition based music when even Free Jazz slowly came to it´s end. The Brackeen-Don Cherry thing is nice and very similar to Ornette Coleman, but other sessions somehow have an air of death , it seems to be the last Kenny Dorham recordings, even 4 years after his splendid album series for BN had ended, same with Wyton Kelly who was in demand anymore like he was in the late 50´s and early sixties. Somehow those recordings depressed me. But I have heard Cecil Payne play that composition "Flyin Fish " maybe 35 years later, if I remember right it is a cross between latin and swing......

That´s a great album, I love it ! I´d also wonder about the date 1972. Dave Schnitter was part of the comeback of Blakey in the late 70´s , ´77, ´78 and as much as I remember, in the early 70´s the Messengers practically didn´t exist since Blakey was constantly touring all over the world with the Giant´s of Jazz. And also the next years were absolutly lean years for the Messengers. Only the renewed interest in acoustic jazz in the late 70´s brought them all back for top billing. It was the band with Schnitter, Ponomarev, Bobby Watson, James Williams, Robert Irving that brought them back into full action and full houses...... Very interesting trumpet player. I first had heard him on the two Cecil Taylor albums for BN. I think, not many people know that he was about the last musician to receive some advices and encouragement from Bud Powell, who lived round the corner.

Hope you will not kill me, but me here in the "outbacks" don´t really know about Bill Barron, and I have never heard the name of the cornet player. But as a musician I say the set list would be a dream job for me, all them tunes I´ve played so often, and it is really "drummer´s tunes" which I like most anyway, and Philly Joe Jones ´famous solo on "Salt Peanuts" from the Miles Davis LP was one of my first musical impressions as a kid. Philly Joe Jones was my hero. To bad somehow I never could see him live. To have Walter Davis, Paul or Spankey on bass, is also great. Spanky DeBrest was a very good bass player, kinda bebop type bass player .....

who is the two ? Is that Sarah Vaughan, who is the other, is this Allen Eager ?

I have a few Grant Green albums, do not exactly remember which one, but "live" would be interesting, as all of the very few live albums that BN made. I think I have a Kenny Burrell live on which is Art Blakey..... Though I don´t know what is or was club mozambic. if Grant Green played there it must have been some gas to go there. But strange enough for BN records, with the exception of Idris Muhammad I don´t know any of the sidemen....

Oh I loved them, those strange ESP LP´s , they had cult status over here. With that modest back cover with tipe written personnell . In this special case of course I don´t know who was Lowell Davidson, but Gary Peacock and Milford Graves proove that it must be something great. ESP has done so much for me, I mean it was an important guide for me to listen to the more free forms, but it´s never completly out of rhythm. Like on BN records of free jazz artists there is always somewhere a point where it "must schwing" . Since I never was really a collector of records, my ESP discography as other stuff is quite scarce: I think I have or I know I have the Ornette Coleman Townhall Concert, I have the Sun Ra , I have the only Henry Grimes trio during that time, and though I never had heard about a "James Zitro" I have his album since it´s my mentor Allan Praskin playin on it, and I love that album, Zitro´s a helluva drummer, and the group is great, and Allan is superb. But all those stories around ESP. I never heard a musician talk positive about them, even if they offered them the first recordings. Money was zero, and it´s easy to put a logo of "The Artist decides what´s on this disc", if he was not paid. Or did near to death Bud Powell, who "recorded" for ESP just a few month before his death, "decide" what´s on the record ???? I doubt he even knew about it after a few hours since he got 50 bucks and was let out into the cold winter streets...... That´s the ugly side of it, but what remains is tons of non commercial music of huge value, all of ´em , Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman...... I have heard it and enjoyed it. I think I was very impressed by the unorthodox lines Wilbur Ware plays on his bass. And very very nice hard bop, with top hard bop players, but I didn´t listen to it again, there were so many many albums in that style and conception, sure they all is great but I didn´t have the patience to study them all.....

I never heard about it. I think that label Charlie Parker records had ended before I began to buy records. But it always happens that here or there pieces ar atributed to masters who have died long before. The only traces of Cecil Payne playing Bird tunes I have is on a record from the 70´s which I bought since it has my favourites Buster Williams and Al Foster, can´t be wrong anything with them two on a record. And I think he is on a Bird celebration gathering led by Jackie McLean, I don´t know what year it was, but it´s something my wife found for me as a surprise, when she read that it´s something with musicians she had heard of thru me ...... The last time I saw Cecil Payne on stage was quite a sad thing, he was blind and very very frail looking. But the young red haired saxophonist (I think it was Eric Alexander) who led him on stage was a great help, and what can go wrong if Ron Carter is on bass, he was on bass on that date I think in the early 2000´s .....but they didn´t play Bird tunes, more Cecil Payne compositions like "Flyin´ Fish" and so , very fine indeed, the only Bird related thing was a version of "Lover Man", but it was hard to listen to Mr. Cecil Payne on this, since the lack of breath was more evident at the ballad....., but they did all they could to cover it and help him, very very sympathetic guys on stage......

Hank Jones has also a big follower in Austria, who tells about himself that he is the "Hank Jones Administrator" in Austria.

It had another cover, but this was the very very first jazz I had. I started my live long love and affection for jazz with this album. I knew all the solos, loved Philly J.J.´s drum solo on Salt Peanuts so much, and each of those men was my "personal hero". Until I bought my second album, Mingus with Dolphy 1964, and from that point, those two became my main heroes....

oh yeah, the CD with the upper cover I have, since my wife once bought it for me for Chrismas. That´s the typical feminine touch, she saw "Miles Davis" on the cover and of course that´s the only name she "knew", but it was such a nice surprise and I enjoy listening to it just for that little story. The music of course is a bit strange for me, it sounds very much like abstract modern western music, but yeah, I listen to it, I close my eyes and listen to those strange little sounds like that one "Night sounds" or how it is titled, or that bizarre "Nite in Tunisia" with them dissonant sounds of the vibes of Teddy Charles, and the more than strange rhythm approach.

Interesting, I didn´t know that, but it´s hard anyway for me to identify guitarists, I don´t have so many guitar albums or have not played so many gigs with guitar added, mostly the rhythm sections is just piano bass drums plus the horns, that´s unsually the formats I play in. And as you say it. How is it with the Mingus album ? Do they play together or sometimes only two of them ? I never had the chance to hear that group, strange enough I heard Mingus live in Summer 1977, but when an autumn concert at the end of 1977 was allready advertised and it was booked to promote the album with the 3 guitarists (I think it was Corryell, Scofield and a belgish guy Catherine) but that concert was chancelled. My luck was that it was chancelled before I got a train or plan ticket to Dortmund, Germania, where it should have been.

Didn´t Mingus use three fusion guitarists on "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" ? And I think Miles on "Dark Magus" in addition to Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas used a guy Dominique Gaumont..... also on the studio album "Get Up with it".

Fantastic. Such energy, such great playing mood. I saw Steve Grossman live also, and was very very much impressed.

Again with some of my very special favourites. Didn´t know about it, the only thing I have is "Red Clay", as it seems this must be something similar. Well, I´m not really a great guitar fan or George Benson fan, but sure, and with Henderson, Hancock, Ron, Jack DeJohnette, what could be wrong ? Oh, must be a good thing. "On a Misty Night" has a special meaning to me. First I had heard it on the Tadd Dameron-John Coltrane album, then I heard it live done by Pharoah Sanders, and this year when we did "Porgy" , Allan who is famous for spontanously calling tunes, called it just before the second set. I had to check the chords from the bridge in my mind, but yeah, it was beautiful and sometimes I look and listen to the stream they had made, and say yes, often the best tunes the best solos are on stuff you hadn´t played yet. I have not listened to it for decades, but we often play one or the other tune from it, I think "Mayreeh" (based on All God´s Chillun got Rhythm" and that other tune based on "Lover Come Back to me" I forgot the title. And Quicksilver based on "There will never be another you". It seems that at that early stage of Horace ´s career he still was a typical be bop composer, who composed on chords from standard tunes.....

Last night I listened to this one. Well, I l o v e it . First I was reluctant to spin it since I h a d heard and seen Dexter exactly the same period, early 1983, actually the last time I saw him live and it was almost a desaster , so weak it was. It´s astonishing that in an interval of maybe 2 or 3 days Dexter sounded so splendid in Copenhaga, Danemarca. He´s just in top form and the band is superb. It makes you understand why so many Americans in Europe after some nice and healthy years in fancy European towns had to leave Europe since they missed that competition and the power of N.Y. rhythm sections. Dexter was always great in the 60´s and early 70´s and had great pianists like Tete Montoliu or Kenny Drew, but bassists and drummer just were not up to what you hear in N.Y. for example. Young Dave Eubanks is fantastic, listen how he pushes the thing on "Hanky Pranky", a tune I never had heard before, it´s pure Messenger´s sound. And some of the best "More than you know" I ever heard. In Vienna, it was really weak, it was painful to listen to and to look at Dex there. I think it was similar to other booze or drug addicted musicians in their last years, there performances were not persistent, you might catch a night were it was a stellar performance, and then on other nights you might leave with embarrassement and disapointment.....

Sounds like a dream team. Though I have some VSOP records, I mean with Hubbard and Shorter, I didn´t know about this one.

Tried some on you tube.....sure it must have something for a lotta people.....well I prefer other stuff.

Well, "All the Things You Are" I think is standard material that Mingus would play as all musicians I know sometimes do it, mostly when somebody is invited to sit in. Actually, Mingus did it on that sets of Mingus at Bohemia if I remember, it was titled "All the Things You Are in C sharp" though it´s not p l a y e d in C sharp, it´s only the intro, where they use the thing that Rahmaninov composed for a piano concert.

Fantastic ! Such a great group. And such great music. That´s really a dream team playin´ a dream set. That´s the kind of albums I like most.

I have not listened to it for decades, but as much as I remember, those are some of Bud´s best trio performances, especially because it´s Roy Haynes on drums. I think my favourite solos were on Salt Peanuts and Woodyn You, Conception and Little Willie Leaps. I think I remember there are great drum solos also. Recently I heard another track from that date, that was made with a local Big Band and has a long solo of Bud on a Blues in G, I think it´s a line that Allen Eager wrote. I think 1953 was some of Bud´s best recordings, all them Birdland sessions, the Massey Hall concert and I think at least 2 studio albums...... It´s strange that only one year later Bud was almost off the scene. Two very weak Verve records, and nothing else.

Yes, those last years were really sad, there was also a long interview that German writer Gudrun Endress made with Woody Herman for Jazz Podium. But he was really a showman. On stage he gave it all and always smiled to his audience.

Sometimes between more intelectual books I just read some easier stuff as "bedtime stories" . Like almost all books I read, they have been translated in Romanian language. I think the original title is "The last time I saw Paris" (reminds me of the tune)

Good album ! I didn´t have Kenton until my wife bought this a few years ago as a Chrismas present. Until then I had seen him only on TV when I was a teenager. Good stuff, or let´s say "Somethin´ Else" than what I usually hear.....