Gheorghe

You are welcome, I´m glad that I can amuse you with my confusing Billy and Cecil. Well during that time I already knew the key figures of jazz and already had a considerable LP collections mostly with many albums from my favourites like Bird,Diz,Miles, Mingus, Monk, Rollins, Trane, Ornette Coleman, and of course other artists from bop to free, like Fats Navarro, Bud, Kenny Dorham, Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, but still didn´t have a Cecil Taylor album and somehow when I picked it up (since the dealer told me it has some Bud I still might not have) I only had a glance at the names, Art Tatum of course, Erroll Garner well yeah some easier listening, Bud of course, and I had thought the next logic step might be after swing , bop , hardbop, so it might be Free. Billy Taylor was not very much mentioned in jazz books of my generation (J.E.Behrend, Arrigo Pollilo), so I hadn´t heard of him, since he is not so much present on the recordings of those days (BN, Prestige, CBS, Impulse). I later got to know him mostly as a Music Expert and speechman of the music, often commenting on jazz documentaries. So I remember when first listenig to the Echoes of an Era , when it came to Side D I closed my eyes to prepare myself for maybe heavier approach of Free Forms and atonal passages on piano and was a bit puzzled when I heard that more traditional setting, nicely played but not as daring as Bud and Monk would have been at that time.....

I remember those 2-LP sets titled "Echos of an Era". Side One and Side Three was also on a Parker Sampler called "Jazz Tracks" by Bellaphone. I also had the "Echos of an Era" with Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, Bud Powell and Billy Taylor. When I bought it I was just a beginner and thought it might be chronological, I mean from swing to modern. I had confused Billy Taylor with Cecil Taylor and thought, that after side three (Bud Powell), there might be some advanced stuff and was quite disapointed when I heard some nice, but not very modern piano style.....

I never chose it for my own repertoire....too familiar...., but played it many many times on jam sessions and it was always in Eb. The only time I ever had to play it in C was when I had to play bass fiddle instead of piano on a gig with an alto player in 1980 and he played it in C (that´s strange because if he was an alto player and had the old Real Book and it would have been written in C for Eb instrument, why did he play it in C and not in Eb ? The only explanation for this could be that he gave the sheet to the piano player (we have to remember that the piano player was a 15 year old kid ), and the kid played it in C since it was written in C, and so they played it in C. I was not there for the repetitions, since they still didn´t have a bass player but when I mentioned at my office that I also play some bass, one colleage said that his nephew (the 15 year old kid) needs a bass player for a gig I said why not...... Eventually I dropped the bass fiddle and went back to piano only.

Also got a notice from Amazon. Also had ordered it in June. A few days ago I read here that it will be in stock in november 26th, so I was looking forward gettin it soon and now I got a mail from Amazon were they ask me if I´m still interested in the order, since it still is not available. Are they kiddin´?

Really nice set of Monk. All players are great. Larry Gales even plays some very fine bowed bass solo on Well You Needn´t that reminds me of Chamber´s solo on the same tune on "Steamin´". Ben Riley is fantastic. I saw him only once, with the Ron Carter Quartet in 1979. The only thing that´s a bit disturbing here is that the bass is too loud. I don´t know what kind of attachments were used in the late 60´s , but the bass is too loud.

Same here. Wynton Kelly Trio sounds nice, but doesn´t really exite me.

Good idea: I should get back to listen to the original version again. In the last weeks I was listening more to 70´s jazz and so it was the "Maiden Voyage" played by VSOP.

oh, that´s nice ! I got to know him in the late 80´s just when he came to Austria. If I remember right, he had stayed some time in Ungaria where he had bought some book about old transilvanian folk music , I think once he said he wants to do something with that stuff, some kind of Béla Bartók but from another point of view. In Eastern Europe it was not unusual to combine eastern european folk music with so called "jazz". I think after playing much "standard" jazz he wanted to do something else, and to dig back into the folk roots. The strange thing is that on one of the two Graham Moncur albums for BN (I think it´s the one with Shorter on it, maybe it´s titled "Some Other Stuff"...... and the first tune sounds exactly like some folk music from România. A bit like those fanfare music from Transsilvania or Bucovina. Graham Moncur III may never have been in RO, so..... who knows from where he got that inspiration ???? I spinned it once and my wife came in and said what´s that ? Thats romanian music...."

Nice thing, got it from my wife last Chrismas, fine how she knows which artists I might like and what I maybe don´t have. This is from the early 60´s, really a period I don´t have much Dizzy. I must admit that Dizzy first of all was one of my first inspirations for bop and bop influenced latin, I love all his compositions and above all his trumpet. Maybe I was sloppier in collecting stuff of Diz from the mid fifties on. He was heavy under Norman Granz and most of the albums are reunions with other musicians from other styles and sometimes I don´t hear the kind of drummers that I like to hear together with Diz. But this one is very interesting. Fine playing by all musicians, Leo Wright lived in my hometown during his last years, he was married to a very fine Viennese female singer. Very interesting the piano of Lalo Schifrin. He has a very very developed technique and really plays. But he is most beautiful when playing the lines and stuff, but maybe it´s my fault, if he goes playing block chords it is a bit too much, a bit too powerful. I like Block Chords more in a the way Garland would do it. In the way Schifrin plays it it sounds a bit like an angry woodpecker.....

Great memories. Yes, once I also sat right in front of a trombone player and had to stay rigid in place. Unfortunatly I never heard JJ in a club. He came to Viena to a bigger place in the early 80´s, I think it was when his great album "Pinaccles" came out.

His name is Nicolas Simion (we really don´t say Nicolas since in România it´s "Nicolae", but I think he changed it into Nicolas since this sounds more common for western europeans and anglo-americans. Yes, as I say, I didn´t know him, he came on stage and played......oh boy......it was fantastic,

@Daniel A Very very interesting thoughts about the difference of playing Rhodes and acoustic, Thank you so much for that fascinating thing and in my case it´s a trip into the past. I was there, when Fender Rhodes got to be used more and more. During a time, when there were no digital pianos with almost original acoustic sounds, the Rhodes was probably the only possibility to play a gig if there was no piano in the joint. And I was there, when a school colleage from high school, who mostly played classic, but liked also to play what he thought is "jazz" (some Oscar Peterson styled piano jazz) , took it with him to the place where we had our school-spring week at some country area, Every evening he played it, some blues in F always, with runs from the right hand ad doing the walking bass with the left hand, and making that "cool face".... And every kid who could play piano, those girlies who had learned "classical piano" tried to play that Fender. Poor Fender ! I soon noticed that the Fender Rhodes is an individual instrument, You can´t play Bud Powell runs, Red Garland chords and Monkish touchs on it, it would sound terrible, and I would feel pity for the instrument and get stomach pains... So, I also enjoyed the different voicings, the difference between comping the group , using the advantages of longer sustain, more sparse chords, and not those quick runs. Anyway, it was the late 70s and so my first love had been playing acoustic, mostly bop, I was happy to join an "electric" group and learn to play that kind of music also, and most of all, starting to compose and get to use other electric keyboards that came around. About different pianos. That was my daily challenge for decades. Playing in clubs you rarely had the possibiliies to play a good piano. Most of them were old upright pianos, with "slow" damping. But sometimes, if we played "bop gigs" either trio, either with good horn players, it really inspired me. I had in my mind all those live recordings of Bud on "club pianos" like Birdland, Europe , or private at Francis´ place and so it might sound. I don´t have really problems to play "Salt Peanuts", "Dizzy Atmosphere" or "Cherokee" on those "bad pianos", but the runs will sound else than on a good piano. But it also was a challenge and fun to play some really deep ballad on some "shitbox" piano. Some examples of good played Rhodes in acoustic settings: Bob James on "Mulligan/Baker at Carnegie Hall 74", and Billy Childs on "J.J. Johnson Nat Adderly Yokohama Concert 1977". The worst example of Rhodes played by a usual acoustsic pianists. Ken Werner on Mingus´"Something like a Bird" versus Bob Neloms on acoustic "....

Oh yes, I like to listen chronologically to "Sky", "Filles" and "Silent Way"....

I don´t really know very much about other renditions of the tune, I think Dexter did it on some Steeple Chase , and further I´m not even sure if I have the original Garner Album, I don´t have very much Garner.... But I think, from the 70´s on, when I started to play active, it was often called. It´s strange, there are ballads I can´t hear often enough like "Round Midnite" , but I got tired of Misty

Oh yes, Same here in Austria. it was to tune "Horace", that was spinned. And in our school we had a kid, who started to learn trombone. I made him a tape of the album and he loved that tune and always hummed it. And he had carved in his classroom-desk "J.J. Johnson is the best !" One week later, Kai Winding was in town. The kid was underage, but I was 18 and went to the show and told him about Kai, and about their long time association and how great Kai sounded on the show. And the next day, this kid had carved under the "J.J Johnson is the best" "Kai Winding too !" (he hadn´t heard before about Kai Winding, but my word.......

Same here, bought it shortly after it came out. During those days, when informations were difficult to get, we had that wonderful saturday night radio show "Jazz Shop" hosted by Herwig Wurzer. He was a unique guy and had that kind of "voice".....you know......like there was Symphony Sid´s voice in the night.....we had our Austrian Symphony Sid. And this unique DJ spinned one or two tunes from each new album with some hip talk commentaries, and we went to the record dealer and bought them or if they still didn´t arrive, we ordered them .

Your are right ! That was also my problem, that the tunes are a bit over-familiar. Thanks for helping me to find the right expression. And, about "4 Generations", I didn´t really understand how it was meant. 4 Generations might mean, Jimmy Cobb from the late 50´s style, and Mike Sterne from the 80´s style. But both Coleman and Ron are from the 60´s style. So , if I want 4 generations, I might place one from the 50´s, one from the 60´s , one from the 70´s and one from the 80´s. So I could say, Cobb, Carter, LIEBMAN (from the 70´s), and Stern from the 80´s. Or, Cobb, Coleman, and for the missing 70´s maybe Mike Henderson on bass, and Stern. And same about the birthdates: Cobb was born in the late 20´s, but both Coleman and Ron in the 30´s and Mike Stern in the 50´s. So there might have been also a player born in the 40´s (Liebman for example). As for Carter: I could have seen and heard him here in Vienna on september 19th, but that was our 25th wedding anniversary. And even if I would have gone with my wife (who also would have gone with me to Liebman-Beirach), due the covid she was afraid of too many people at one place. Liebman in march 20 was chancelled due to covic, Ron was not possible.... And yeah, Carter is also in great form on 4 generations, but he´s not easy to hear...

This was my first Wayne Shorter album when I was a teenager. It´s still a favourite of mine. A wonderful thing.

an alltime favourite of mine

A later encounter of Dex with Slide Hampton can be found on the monster 2 volumes of 2 LP thing "CBS Allstars at Montreux 1977" (or how it´s called). Most stuff is very long tunes with fusion heads and some straight ahead swinging, arranged by Bob James , but there are some small group performances like Dexter , Woody Shaw and Slide Hampton on "Fried Bananas" and "Moontrain" among others, and it´s some of the best Dexter with Woody and Slide that I ever heard. On "Bananas" Dexter plays some of the greatest solos I ever heard him play......

I got this two years ago for father´s day , from my wife. Really a nice album. Everybody is playing great here. I´ve read somewhere that George Coleman didn´t feel too comfortable with the lack of a piano and Mike Stern instead of it, but I liked Mike Stern from first listening when he was with Miles in 1981-early 1983. He could play heavy rock, really bluesy stuff and straight ahead jazz. And his special sound and aproach of chords. Unique. The material of the album could have been a bit more into the time after the 50´s . So, only the tune "81" is from the mid sixties, the rest is late fifties, but played really great. I like Mike Sterns into on Blue in Green. George Coleman is great as ever, and I would have liked to hear a bit more drum solos of Jimmy Cobb. He is great on a quite short drum solo torward the end. The only thing that somehow surprised me was the sound of Ron. I was a great fan of Ron´s bass, but haven´t heard so much of him after the early 80´s. Maybe I´m too used to the 70´s sound, but here it´s sometimes hard to HEAR the bass, at least for me. He plays great and has great solos, but it sounds underrecorded to me, and more like an older style acoustic bass. But in general something very very nice to listen to, not very demanding, but nice after a day of hard work.

Very very interesting to read. I think I was too young for the effective Charles Lloyd-hype of the 60´s. When I started to play, some older guys talked enthuastically about Charles Lloyd and I had not heard about him, since he was not so much mentioned in jazz books of that time. I think in one book or interview someone told about long lines at a club were he played and Coltrane played in another club of the same town and someone said to a Lloyd fan "why don´t you go to club so and so to hear the original?". And he was off the scene in the 70´s. One of the Lloyd fans gave me two albums from 1966/67 and I liked it, but it seems that after some hearing I didn´t get back to it so much as I would have in case of Trane , Rollins, Sanders , Wayne, Henderson, Rivers and so on..... Shortly after his great comeback I saw him live with the quartet with Michel Petrucciani. Sure it was great music, but there were others on the festival who moved me more, like let´s say Jackie McLean. I remember Lloyd was quite uncommunicative to the audience. He looked dead serious and I think even Miles smiled more often or waved his hand to the audience. But that´s non-musical observations that don´t count really......

I love that record. The two leaders are playing so beautiful, and there is that combination of old stuff like "Walkin´", "Worksong", "Lament" and some beautiful new stuff, like the most exiting "Jevin", dedicated to JJ.´s son Kevin who is on drums here. I know , that acoustic purists may not like the electric keyboards , but Billy Childs really can play them all and has a great virtuosity and imagination. It´s interesting that he plays electric piano on the straight ahead tunes, and some acoustic on the solos of more "funky" tunes. An interesting aspect is that it´s quite an unusual album for the "Pablo" label. Usually they had more straight ahead material or combinations of bop musicians like Diz with older guys like Roy and so on, like the old JATP, well.....Norman Granz.....

Misty is nice, but there are to many horn players on so called "Jam Sessions" who always call "Misty" if they want to play a ballad. "Misty" or "In a Sentimental Mood". Why ? Because they don´t know so many ballads. During the last few years most of my "gigs" were our group for the first set, and "jam session" for the 2nd set. That was the rule at the club. And most of the session-players called "Tenor Madness" , "Blue Bossa", "Misty" and so on. Good point about references to "I want to talk about you". The best "jam sessions" I ever played was when really great musicians came in and "cleaned" the stage, and you got a lot of challenge and inspirations. I´ll never forget a night some decades ago, when I guy around 30 whom I never saw came in, packed out his tenor and played and played and played....., and when it came about a ballad, he played one of the greatest versions of "Round Midnight" that I ever heard. I was so happy to play with him and everybody in the audience asked who he might be, and why they haven´t seen and most of all....heard him before. When the session was over, I asked around, who he is and they told me he just came from an East Europe country. Since I know the language, I talked to him. He later became very prominent in Europe and also played with a lot of US Stars. And he started to dig into the roots of old popular music from his home country to combine it with jazz, but I always will remember him as some of the best tenor saxophone I ever heard..... That´s always the few great moments on jam sessions, if somebody comes and "lifts up the stage".....

One of my favourite McCoy Tyner albums. Great Music. Wonderful early Brownie before the classic Brownie-Roach Quintet.