Gheorghe

Yes, that might be what he called, I remember it was something with Sunshine, but that´s definitly not what I want to play, neither in E nor in A . I didn´t notice that. Usually I don´t look at the keys if I play them. I didn´t know that there are "safe spaces" on the piano. The reason I "avoid" E is more that there is not so much repertory of music composed in E in the music I play. When I played with a jazz-rock and funk oriented electric group, I really dug the key of E, no problem with it. The key of H I think is more found in classical music, but I´m not a classical trained person. Yes, Oscar Peterson played "Ipanema" in Db. Anyway, that album "We get requests" is one of the very very few Peterson albums I have and can enjoy if I´m tired and want some easy listening stuff...

I got my copy today and listened to it allready. Well, yeah, really great. I love that first tune "Skagly", it really has some drive, and I love what Tony Williams does, he is my favourite drummer of that time. I´m glad I had some occasions to hear those five great musicians live.

I wish I could do the same on blowing sessions, but I can´t afford to. If we play a set of our program (which sure not includes "Misty" "Another You" "All the Things You Are", "Tenor Madness, Green Dolphin etc. ) and the second set is a jam I´m supposed to support the players who might call those tunes. If I can´t stand it, I´m free to leave the stand, get out of the club, take a breath and a cigarrete (please no "No Smokin´" discussion here ) , get back and play some more. But I don´t do this if some newbies want to play those basic tunes because I want to encourage them and support them. I leave to have a cigarette or a non alcohol beer if someone thinks he might change completly the course of the musical style of the evening. I´m not going to play "funk" on an old upright piano, if the guitar players get in exthase....., let them do there thing until they get tired of it . Before the lockdown there always came a male singer who wanted to sing "All of Me" but couldnt sing in time, he made a stupid opera area out of it. Then he called some tune I don´t like, some funk in E natural where at one points the refrain is an endless "I know I know I know I Know...." , well a guitar player played some heavy rock phrase to it, but there is nothing for me lest to "fill in". I don´t like the tune. Don´t misunderstand me, I like electric jazz and funk, but not at an acoustic jazz jam-session, but on adecvate occasions (I played electric for many years, but not on an old honky tonk piano, and not on jam sessions, but with an organized group....

Glad to read your comments about that nice key Db. Since I got perfect pitch , all keys have there certain meaning for me, to express a certain mood and if I listen to some stuff and it´s played in another key than I knew until then, sure I think about it, if it sounds better, or sometimes I think if the player used a more simple key because I have heard that there are people who have difficulties playing keys like Ab or Db.

During the last weeks I have listened to more modern material , but yesterday I went back into the past. My start with Bop was quite an unorthodox way to get into it: At the very beginning of my love for jazz I had the Mingus Paris album (3 LPs) with Dolphy and with the tune "Parkeriana". "Parkeriana" led me to listen to Bird, Diz and all of them. And so, some of my first bop albums during that time where the then availaible LPs of Diz and Bird. This here is a really nice collection of Diz from early stuff to the best period of the Big Band with Chano, James Moody, Cecil Payne, John Lewis and all . From the older material I liked most "King Porter Stomp" since I had heard the tune played by the Sun Ra Orchestra once and the joint was jumpin´..... The small group recordings are very fine, especially with Don Byas and Milt Jackson. Don Byas was so ahead of his time, it´s fantastic what he does here. The Drummer J.C. Heard ........ In 1983 he was again with Dizzy, what a reunion for a great Diz Concert with fantastic young players like Ed Cherry and Mike Howell.... Al Haig later became a great bop player, I love his playing from the late 40´s with Fats, with Stan Getz, with Wardell Gray. But in 1945/46 he still sounded very very stiff, a bit like a less dissonant version of Sadik Hakim. It´s still too edgy, it doesn´t really flow like the lines of Diz, Bird, Bud.....and of course the Al Haig 3 years later when he had learned his lessons and had it all..... The Big Band is fantastic, those great versions of Manteca, Cubana Be Cubana Bop, Algo Buena, Two Bass Hit etc. .... and "Ow" which I first had heard in the Mingus-Setting from 1964 that led me to bop..... The 2nd CD has mostly the material of Bop with Vocals, like Johnny Hartman´s wonderful voice, the fun of "Hey Pete, let´s get some meat" and "Land of Oo bla Dee"..... And the last tracks are the Metronome All Stars with most of the best bop artists plus Lennie Tristano, just a dream band..... Dizzy Miles Fats all on trumpet, J.J. and Kai ....... Lennie ......incredible !

Good news. It seldom happens that legendary venues last for such a long time. About music at Massey Hall: I´ve read once about the 50th celebration of the "Quintet" in 2003, I have forgot the personnel but I think Herbie Hancock and Wallace Rooney were involved, anyway some of the hottest players around, and the last surviving member of the Quintet, Max Roach, though quite at the end of his career contributed a hi hat solo and said some words about Bird and Dizzy, who are here this night...., Anyway: Was that 2003 concert recorded ? I would like to hear it....., mostly for the modern versions of some of the tunes from the original set list....

@jazzboIs that Dexter from Amsterdam Paradiso the one with Han Bennink on drums ? I have it with another cover. Is it the one with that slow version of Good Bait ? The strange thing is that on the last occasion I saw Dexter live in 1983 he played that slow version of Good Bait, really very very long version, the last time I saw and heard Dexter live, just in the period when he celebrated his 60th Birthday. @ghost of mileswow, the cover of french ballads. I´m not so much into the album covers I´m too much into the music, but let´s say "Cool Struttin´" also was one of my favourite album covers.....

Oh yeah, Ray´s Idea ! Miles played it in F, Chet Baker played it in Bb on a record for Timeless from 1983...... I played Ray´s Idea in Db as a trio, and in F with a trumpet player. I like the key of Db, Somehow I have the impression that Db was a key used quite often in the mid forties. It´s often used on those Savoy records, like Dexter´s "Dexter Digs In", thats also a tune I´ve played often. And tunes based on the changes of "Stompin´ at the Savoy". Db has that late period swing - early period of bop flair. It´s such a beautiful, somehow pastel coloured key I don´t like to overdo it, but keep it for some tunes. Just at home, only for my wife to listen too, I played for here one of her favourite songs, a Hildegard Knef song, a waltz , which is usually in C, but somehow my fingers fell on Db and it came out fine and she loves it. I think I´ll keep it if we might get out of the lockdown at some time, I could play it as a last encore only solo...... we´ll see.

My favourite Cannonball Adderly might be quite astonishing, it´s not an album as a leader, but his playing on the last track, an extended blues jam on the Gene Ammons Album live at Montreux from 1973, featuring Hampton Hawes on electric piano, Bob Cranshaw on electric bass and Kenny Clarke. On the last, extended track Dexter Gordon and Cannonball are sitting in. And Cannonball got another sound that the one I heard on his 50´s early 60´s albums. I am more into alto if it has the "sugar free" sound, I think you know who I´m referring to. But here on that 1973 jam Adderly has that more advanced, daring thing that I like. He is the most exiting player on this.

Great player yes, but starting from my first listening from the Miles Davis sextet I always listened closer to Trane, somehow it´s more my taste of music. The BN with Miles as sideman is nice, but it doesn´t get much spinning. And somehow I completly missed the most popular phase of the 60´s . It seems if it´s about the 60´s I´m listening much more to 60´s Miles, Wayne, Herbie, Henderson, Sam Rivers, Mingus, Ornette Coleman , Don Cherry , Cecil Taylor, Trane of the 60´s . I know very very many people felt enthusiastic about the kind of "soul jazz" and those hits like Mercy Mercy and all those, but somehow it never really moved me like the above mentioned artists of the same period. But I also heard some interesting Adderly on a Gene Ammons 1973 LP in Montreux, with Cannonball and Dexter sittin in on the last track, a jam blues. Thats some fun listening to...

Thanks for the report !

I had some of the material on the british Spotlite LP "Yardbird in Lotusland", I liked most the tracks with Bird and Diz at Billy Berg´s , I think Shaw Nuff is on it, and Salt Peanuts. I was disappointed that it was not on the 2 CD set of a more obscure european label something like "Rare Live Performances"..... it had only the 1946 Finale sessions with Miles and Joe Albany, which anyway was on side B of the Spotlite LP. I have not spinned it lately but if I remember right I would have preferred another drummer, Max or Kenny, since Stan Levey sounds a bit in the old Buddy Rich manner. Perfect, but too straight for bop lines....

Oh yes, all those interesting 2 LP albums in my youth. I think, the pictures were made from the Birdland paintings. Diz, Bird, Bud, Prez.....

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 "....