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Looked for it yesterday but for sources available for me (Amazon) it is only on Amazon.UK, but why not on Amazon.de ?

Time flies. Wynton is now as old as Dizzy was when I saw him first (1978 or so). And Wynton was the "wunderkind" of 1980 or so, with Blakey, and still very fine with VSOP II in 1983. But I don´t know what he really did after that, only sometimes read his commentaries as he pretends to tell the world what is jazz and what not. But Wynton a living legend who changed music ? Like Diz ? Not at all. He is always scheduled in Europ with that Lincoln Orchestra or something like that. I never heard it.

I wrote my personal "Brubeck experience" in my posting from Thursday ora 09:29 on page 1 ! That´s what I was asking.

What can I say ? That combination is my absolute dream band. I must have it.

If my perfect pitch is still intact: Isn´t the disco part of Disco Monk in G-flat, and the slower "Monkish ballad" part in D-natural ? Both keys not often played in "jazz" ? If I think spontanously, the only D-natural tune that comes to my ear and I play sometimes, is "Thou Swell".....

My absolute jazz entry, before I heard Bitches Brew, was "Steaming". Soon after that I had "Miles in Antibes" and then "Bitches Brew". So I had a mini history of Miles within 3 albums (First Quintet, Seconde Quintet, electric Miles). But how can you handle my writing about my lack of passion for Brubeck ?

Inspired by Mark Strykers article: Sonny Stitt Nightwork with Howard McGhee, Walter Bishop, Tommy Potter and Kenny Clark. Recorded in Switzerland.

Wonderful article, Mark ! Really enjoyed it. I love McGhee´s trumpet from the first time I heard it on Fats Navarro-Howard McGhee Boptet. He is also fantastic on a Spotlite LP "Afro-Cuban" with Brew Moore and the Machito band. On Howard´s Blues it´s just incredible how strong he is. Also like very much his BN recordings 1950 and 53. He had slowed down a bit in the 60´s but still is great on the Black Lion LP "Nightwork" with Sonny Stitt as the leader. Once I read an interview with Howard McGhee´s son "Bootsy", were he says something about his father.

But many rock fans eventually became interested in jazz through jazz rock a la Miles, Headhunters, RTF, Billie Cobhan-George Duke and so on. I still listen often to Bitches Brew but always wonder why it became so popular among youngsters then, since this is quite intellectual music, it´s not so "radio playing" like "On The Corner". It´s strange that I being a 1959 born, rock never really appealed to me, I came to rock through 70´s Miles, Hancock , and so on since this was the time. So it was the other way round. I still meet jazz fans of my generation, who also listen to let´s say Led Zeppelin or so and say this is more intelectual rock. Well, my musical intellect is satisfied with jazz. If I want or must listen to something else, it´s usually "easy music" like shlagers.

I don´t know if those two were mentioned. It seems that the big Festival "Velden 1979" was mostly Milestone stars like Rollins (latest album Don´t Ask" from 1979), Ron Carter (latest album Parade from 1979, Joe Henderson (latest album "Relaxin at Camarillo" ). And the finale was Woody Herman. Here´s the album he made in 1979 with the same personnel I saw, but with great guest stars....)

Interesting that you mentioned "Time Out". When I was just starting to listen to jazz in the mid 70´s, my heroes were Mingus and Miles, and through them I got to Bird Diz Bud and so on, and also through Mingus to Ornette Coleman and so on. Through "electric" Miles also to that kind of early 70´s rock jazz. I also had a kind of names and asked someone from my class, if he knows some of them or can recommand something to me. I had written the name "Dave Brubeck" on that list and he shouted with enthusiasm "You must get into that, he is just fantastic!". So I thought if Miles and Mingus and Bird and Ornette are "fantastic", how must be this if this guy says it is so great. And then I heard that Take Five and Blue Rondo and something like "Unsquare Dance" and it didn´t mean nothing to me. I couldn´t get that deep love for music I got from let´s say Mingus. Just impossible for me. I later heard some earlier stuff on Bellaphone, it must have been some live performance, it was swinging but I couldn´t stand the way Brubeck hammered on that piano, I was used to Bud, Monk, McCoy, Herbie. So it was the wrong start for me with Brubeck. There was no vibrations for me and later I found out that the Brubeck fans is a different category of audience ...... In general, I don´t have much love for so called "West Coast" from the 50´s, though I love much later Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan. CTI the same on me. The only two I have is Mulligan/Baker 1974 at Carnegie Hall. For the big sound of Ron Carter on bass. ECM also missing in my collection with the exception of "Lookout Farm and "Drum Ode". And I had to laugh when I read Lieb´s autobio and he said that Manfred Eicher didn´t like drum ode, it was not what he liked for his label.....so....naturally I like Drum Ode since it is not typical "ECM"....

I love those tracks, always loved the way Bud plays "Embraceable You" , it´s like if he would have re-composed it. Same with "Devotion". This is a tune that speaks for itself and doesn´t need improvised chorusses. It would destroy the message of that tune. And "Woddy" and "Burt Covers Bud" (actually Bean´n the Boys, a Hawkins composition ) are just perfect. I like those 1953 recordings more than some of the earlier trio recordings. Especially on the two July 1950 tracks with Buddy Rich it´s too much high register virtuoso stuff, I like more the 1950 solos on Birdland with Bird and Fats, thats more music, not so much high register virtuoso stuff.....

Good reason to listen to a lot of his wonderful albums, on Roadshows there is also recordings from celebrating his 80th Birthday on stage.

my place is in 1130. Hi let´s go to Schonbrunn and ask if Dexter was there

I think, in Viena it was in the record shops early 1980. We saw Dexter in March 80 at "Viena Jazz Fruehling" and the next day hurried to "Radio Kratz" and asked for new Dexter albums and he handed me this one, together with Manhattan Symphony. I bought them both. Yes, those two tunes with Eddie Jefferson "Dexter Dig´s In" and "Papermoon". It´s interesting that "Dig´s In" is played in G here (original version D-flat), and "Papermoon" is in D-flat) ! I don´t like "Ruby My Dear" so much. Monk´s music doesn´t really fit to Dexter, that´s my opinion. Great cover photo ! I would have liked to know where it was made. Looks like a palace from the 18´th century. It always reminded me of the famous Schonbrunn in Viena, only 15 minutes to walk from my house. Others have to travel thousands of miles to visit it

The Sun Ra ESP was the first Sun Ra I had. I bought it together with a batch of other records from a young woman who moved to South America and sold all her stuff, among this a huge collection of jazz, mostly avantgarde and electric Miles early 70´s. So my "Nothing Is" was my first impression of Sun Ra and I liked it from the first moment on. Later, just for not wearing out my old LP I also bought it on CD (mini LP cover), since I listen quite often to it. My personal listening experience of it is that I always listen to it at dark with all lights off. I´ve kept this listening in the dark for 45 years now....(referring to this LP! ) The Sun Ra I heard in the late 70´s was more traditional, his own act of space free jazz mixed with some bop and swing standards....

Yes, and in 1979 I saw Sonny Rollins live with the quartet with Mark Soskin, Jerome Harris and Al Foster. And on the same festival was scheduled Larry Coryell. So I had to have that album when it came out, as a reflection about the live performances I attended (both Rollins and Coryell). And even if some of the albums of that time got also negative press, now that I look back and so many of those geniusses are gone, I often listen to the albums that came out when they lived and when I saw them performing. It was the time when we all waited for new albums of our favourites coming out, Hubbard, Henderson, Dexter, Woody Shaw, VSOP Quintet, Art Blakey, and we always were very quick to buy those albums....

I think he started to become irrascible quite early. It´s described in the book about the live of Paul Chambers (Mr. PC), where he starts to shout at PC in the bus in GB, when he sat next to a british bass player, and said something about "white honk" . On the other hand, on a video from the Giants of Jazz he is very articulate and announces Kai Winding to the Danish audience as being also born in Denmark and announces what Kai Winding will play. And.....Kai Winding was white. But I think Sonny Stitt became somehow a bitter person, he thought he might have gotten more fame, not being in the shadow of Bird..... Dexter, with exception of his heavy drinking and some weak performances and being late on show, was a more positive person. He could make fans and friends much easier. Art Pepper......well I think he was the most erratic of all of them.

I didn´t get to meet the famous guitarists personally, Wes was dead when I was a kid, Kenny Burrell I think didn´t tour much, in any case I can´t remember to see him on concert or festival in Austria. I jammed a few times with Karl Ratzer when I was almost a kid and he was very quiet, but wonderful to make music on bandstand when we did some standards and bop standards with Allen Praskin. Really wonderful. I played with other guitarist on gigs or jam sessions and they were very nice and cooperative with a few exceptions when they were too loud and would cover everything and do endless solos....

Yes, it seems that Hampton had an ear for modern jazz also. But he had to make money, a lot of money with his "act", I mean people jumpin´ to that hits "Flyin Home", "Hamps Boogie" "Hey Baba Rebop" and so on..... and it was still that way when I finally heard him in 1983. But Hamp really seemed to be interested in more modern musicians too, especially when he did that series of "Who is Who in Jazz" with albums with Dexter, with Mulligan, with Mingus. Dig how he plays those Mingus compositions, they have other forms than the usually 32 bars or 12 bars, and other chords than old swing music, but Hampton really manages to play them and solo on them. The only strange thing is that his vibes sound very unusual for younger ears, it sounds more like a xylophone and people of my generation grew up with Milt Jackson and Bobby Hutcherson.....

The strange thing is that as a boy I got to Bird through Mingus. And Miles. Mingus with "Parkeriana" and Miles with "Ah-Leu-Cha" from one of his CBS-Albums with the first great quintet. I thought: Who must be that legendary Charlie Parker they are referring to and tell that they had learned stuff from him ? So the next day I first bought that Savoy Double Album (Master-Takes?) and was mesmerized. I became a Parker fan from the first notes I heard. A week later it was the Dial records with Miles, and on some tracks Jay Jay Johnson, and the earlier sides "Cool Blues" with Garner.... And at the same time "Bird and Diz at Carnegie Hall". But a key moment for me was even one week later when I found "One Night at Birdland" the CBS double album with Bird,Fats, Bud.

Thank you John for your interesting comparation of Dexter and Stitt. I had the same impression, that Dexter though he was drinking excessivly, he at least came in action on stage and at least between 1978-1981 he seldom disappointed his audience. In March 1980 I had the interesting possibility to see them both within an interval of 3 days in Viena. Stitt played with some stellar European players like the great Fritz Pauer on piano, the great Aladár Pege on bass and Fritz Ozmec on drums. It was obvious from the first moment that Stitt was quite juiced. He nevertheless played a satisfying two sets concert, though there were moments when he became shitty and treated those great musicians like schoolboys, lecturing them on stage. About chain-smoking, well smoking on stage was the most normal thing then, but I observed that Stitt didn´t smoke sooo much, and if he lighted sometimes a cigarette, he took two or three smokes and threw the cigarette down. After the concert he was invited to continue at the famous club "Jazz by Freddie", but then it was a disappointing thing. Stitt was so drunk it was incredible. He played with the same rhythm section but had to sit down. There were to other young and fine tenorplayers who shared stage with him: Roman Schwaller and Harry Sokal. It was announced as "The Father of the Tenor Saxophone and Two of his Sons". Well, Stitt sure was a legend, but he never would have been "The Father of the Tenor Saxophone". They played two Blues in B-Flat, maybe "Tenor Madness" and "Blues Walk", and then things went out of control. Stitt sat down at the piano and started to fumble around at the piano, tried to "sing" and made grimasses at the audience. When the set was over, he would have left without his saxophone and someone had to run after him and give him his saxophone.......just sad I´d say. Dexter´s long set 3 days later was much better. Though it was obvious that Dexter also had a great amount of alcool in his blood, he at least played really extended solos and still was not as far behind the beat as he would be later. The group was Dexter with Kirk Leightsey, John Heard and Eddie Gladden and as much as I remember they played "It´s You or No One", "Fried Bananas", "More than you know" and "Backstages". On Backstages there was an endless drum solo by Gladden and that´s the only time Dexter had a bottle of beer and a cigarette. The last time I saw Dexter was in 1983 and it was a performance almost as embarassing as that Stitt-Performance I already described. Otherwise during my decades of listening to live music I seldom was disappointed, there was only one more time we all left embarrassed, when Woody Shaw did Viena in 1987. It was chain smoking and chain drinking on stage and a very shaky trumpet playing....

I would have liked to hear Cedar Walton with that fantastic trio live. I saw Cedar Walton Trio somewhere in the beginning of this century, but don´t remember the personnel, but sure it was not Billy Higgins. About Lionel Hampton, I saw him with his BigBand in 1983, but this personnel seems to be a quite "modern" company for that time.

Erroll Garner sang "I See You In My Dreams". Dexter Gordon sang "Jelly Jelly Jelly". David Schnitter sang "Georgia on My Mind on a 1976 Messenger Album "Bag Gammon" (I think that´s the title of the album" Bud Powell sang "This is no laughing Matter" on Steeplechase Golden Circle Vol. 5, and "Chrismas Song" on a Bud at Home recordings on Mythic Sound.....

Great, I have them all. The first one, is that live (I only know the Milestones double album "Fats Navarro with the Dameron Band")? And I have a Musidisc "Tadd Dameron-Fats Navarro" mistitled "Birdland 1949" (actually "Royal Roost 1948). And of course the studio stuff , All the Savoy and BN Material. From the 1956 records I love most "Matin Call". The last thing "Magic Touch" , I have some difficulties with it. IMHO it´s more "smooth" than the great Dameron of the 40´s , and I really miss Dameron´s piano. He had that special style of his own, but I think that at that time (60´s) he was already so ill he couldnt finger the piano anymore, like Mingus on "Me Myself an Eye" where he couldn´t play bass anymore).