Gheorghe

who has not heard of Hans Koller ? Hard music to play, you got to read difficult sheet.....

Maybe it is not as great as "Cool Struttin´" but it is very very good. Maybe I would not have bought it if there was not Coltrane on it. I had heard that Trane, besides "Blue Trane" was on two other BN sessions (Whims of Chambers and Sonny´s Crib).

Bob Florence died much too early. I am a big band fan and have everything he cut on records and some unissued material he did here in Germany with the radio Frankfurt big band. He preferred to arrange longer tracks to give the artists solo space. For my taste he belongs to the top 2 or 3 West Coast big bands beside Bill Holmans orchestra and the Shorty Rogers Big Express. Can recommend also his album "Westlake" on Discovery/Trend (Albert Marx production). The Diz with the Double Six of Paris is a very nice record. It´s the big band arrangesments for the vocal quartet. Only the lyrics are stupid nonsens. Maybe this was the times when the record was made. Diz is in top form, some of Diz´s finest solos. And Bud is in top form as always if he was not forced to play trio but play together with great horn players. About Bob Florence: Well I know now why I never had heard his name: Westcoast..... that´s a complete hole in my infos about jazz or my records.....

Ha ha ha , this might be Vlad Țepeș . Usually I don´t like "comics" but to see the one from my second home country , who seems to be most famous to the tourists..... Near my hometown Brașov in Transsilvania is the small city „Bran” where they tell you that it was the home of "Dracula", his castle. But sure it was not because Vlad Țepeș never was there. It´s told that his place was more north, at the fancy old town Sighișoara.

Great record though the bass and drums is under recorded. Monk was so great, he could play anything and it would stil sound like if it was composed by himself. But the very very best "Monk plays Ellington" is on a video from Berlin 1969, where he plays "Sophisticated Lady", "Solitude" and "Caravan" just solo, with his fantastic left hand playing stride the way only Monk could do it. I think I have read somewhere that after that record was out, somebody asked Monk if he had been influenced by Ellington, which he sure was not. I think Monk answered "if there is an influence it´s vice versa...." Monk is so great, he was never wrong. Here this was a great pianist. He could play anything. It´s possible I heard him once with Pharoah Sanders. At least I have many albums with him as a sideman.I have heard he had died very early , but no idea what was the reason. I´ve never heard about her but she looks very very similar to Fats Navarro´s daughter ! Rena is her name or Rina.....

I think he is on some Bird live recording "Bird is Free" and plays some very fine guitar there, but somehow guitar in vintage bop settings does not really fit in other than maybe an additional soloist. But he must have been a very technical guitarist. What label is "Dobre Records".....sounds like something from Iugoslavia or Polonia... It´s strange I have read that name sometimes here in the forum, but it is completly unknown to me. Maybe I´m not the biggest big band fan (it seems that Diz, Billie Eckstine and above all Sun Ra but also Thad Jones Mel Lewis have spoiled me on other big bands) but I never heard the name

That means we are two ! I only have one album of "Sphere", and my fave on it is Buster Williams, who anyway is one of my favourites. Until I got the best of the Austrian bassists and drummers to play with, I still had it in my head that if I could have those "three wishes" , one might be "to have Buster Williams and Al Foster play with me"..... How is this other Sphere Album. Also Monk originals ?

Ken Werner the pianist ? I heard him with Archie Shepp once. Very great piano player. And didn´t he perform on Fender Rhodes too. I think he was the only electric pianist, who ever played with Mingus (together with Mingus´ regular pianist Bob Neloms on acoustic piano). I think he was much more slim when I saw him in the late 70´s or early 80´s ..... who are the others ? Is this Joe Betsch on the left ?

I read the name Bill Barron and NEVER had heard it. Had to google him. I only knew and loved Kenny Barron (didn´t know he had a brother Bill). Kenny Barron.... I had heard him with Ron Carter. Phantastic ! Jimmy Lyons is a favourite of mine too. His sound, it´s like Jackie Mac Leans case, it reminds me of gosple singer´s sound. Really deep black music history both of them. Andrew Cyrille great ! I love Cecil Taylor´s Unit Structures and El Conquistador. J.C. Moses is a wonderful drummer. He is really powerful and at home both in bop circles (he was fantastic with Bud Powell in 1964), and free forms. Ken McIntyre I heard on record if it is possible with Cecil Taylor, but I think he didn´t travel that much. Never saw him live.

I also didn´t keep a written record, but it seems that especially those earlier years in my jazz career were the key years, and getting older I remember them very well, but would not remember when concerts in the 90´s - 2000´s took place. But once again, those teenage years in the 70´s were key years, I practically "lived" in the jazz joints, even went to school after the "afterhours", having a short catnap and goin to school, especially at joints like Freddie still at Schottenfeld-Gasse, where you had jazz until 04.00 and anyway I was a kind of "maskottchen" for the more maternal waitresses....., I was weird but well educated and not doin´t shit, and I loved THEM.... they was like older sisters to me.....

Yes that is the photo on that great early Miles Davis LP. The LP was something special for me. I had known Miles only from one Prestige Record, one CBS Sampler (Greatest Hits) and "Bitches Brew" and "On The Corner" and was just discovering the music of Charlie Parker. And I was completly astonished to hear a Miles Davis who didn´t sound like Miles, sounded like Diz or Fats to my ears and together with Tadd Dameron it was THE SUPER BE BOP BAND for me then. That fast "Wee" and "Ornithology", that incredible swinging "Wahoo"..... almost as good as my then favourite bop album, also on CBS "One Night at Birdland"..... And I liked the face of that little french girl I hadn´t known who she is. She looked like the kind of girls I would scream over, bruneta, dark eyes, just the one you would like to have as a girl friend.....

well at that concert I think it was at Viena Concert House there was a "Programmheft" with pictures and short bio of all members. Some of them became famous: Steve Coleman and Dick Oatts on alto, Jim McNeely on piano, Jesper Lundgaard on bass...... They also sold an LP from the band from the same year, recorded in Polonia. So they had a lot of .....how is that new word "merchandizing" ? I mean go to concert, buy an info with fotos and descriptions, and an LP..... Lolly Bienenfeld I think I remember was a shorter and bigger young women who was a very technical trombonist, maybe somehow like Tommy Turk....., so I think as much as I remember after almost 50 years, she was quite a crowd pleaser in that sense.

just wonderful. One of my favourite vocal records. So beautiful !

Though I had never read the name, I got intested seeing that long line of best of best players (Brackin, Berg, Reid, Hart). On wikipedia infos is not much, almost nothing about him, but I see he had played with Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Big band, and read that his live long lady was Lolly Bienenfeld. Now, that means I must have heard and seen him with Thad Jones-Mel Lewis. I saw them probably in the last year of there activities. After Thad Jones had left, it was not anymore the fantastic band. Lolly Bienenfeld was a solo trombonist in that band. I never had heard here name before or later, but it´s such a bizarre name you just don´t forget it.

What a great writing, and by the way I had forgotten that thread and now realize I was the last who had written on it, but no one payin attention. So at least, I am pleased to read here something of substance about my favourite man on alto ! O think I saw some of those Mount Fujii stuff on youtube and it is great, but I always complaint that it is not on CD since I don´t really like to look at music from my PC than sittin back, closin my eyes and hear the stuff, every detail of it. I would love to have all that Mount Fuji material on CD. I saw a kind of BN reunion that is very similar, in 1983 (McLean with Hutch, Herbie Lewis, Billy Higgins), but they played bop (the finest bop I ever had heard). About Ron-Tony: Well I think I grew up with that VSOP sound, it was the first acoustic that went around after years where you never would see an upright bass or hear a piano that is not an artificial keyboard....., and it has it thing, it has power and it really can push the soloists. Your theory about guys who came from bop and tried to get into free, as you say "slump into it", is very very interesting. Well, Rollins also tried it, but even less than Jackie McLean. It´s the same when the most famous Austrian Free-Jazzer wanted me in his band, but I had to say no, even if I hated to do it, but I just can´t find myself it in. He might tell me "just don´t figure out too much, just be yourself" (but hard to be myself if I don´t know very much about it.........what´s me myself----huh ? .... I don´t know.....). Those European Free Jazz-Elite was more "philosophical people" and I just like good music, fun and that´s it....

Prestige was one of the main labels I bought records of, when I was at the beginning. Other than BN (which was very hard to achive in Europe or each second LP was OOP and no more in the "Bielefeld Jazz-Cataloque" , Prestige hat a lot of records, and those that was OOP was at least on the Double Albums. So double Albums was the most looked after thing. More music for relative less money..... But that was the "golden 50´s", where all them hard boppers went weekly to RVG to record... But I´m always kinda depressed if I hear a Prestige stuff from later, let´s say the 60s or the 70´s since I´m sure musicians like former BN artists (Dexter Gordon) were better paid by Alfred Lion than by Prestige (wasn´t Prestige the half mafiot Richard Carpenter ? ).

Thank you my friend ! I also have heard about some Parker Memorial, but somehow Parker Memorials have something bitter-sweet in them. Let´s say 1965 when they somehow put a completly drunk Bud Powell alone on stage to stumble at some "Round Midnight", although even in that very last moments of his live, drowned with alcool, he still had his "touch" !!! And maybe that 1970 stuff was similar, with an almost dead Kenny Dorham on stage. I had heard he died of kidney failure. Kidney ailments are often very long stories with dializă or if you are lucky with transplant. I feel so sorry with all people who suffer from that thing, it´s harder to repair than a weak heart or somethin.....

Oh thank you, now it´s clear why I never had heard that name. It seems that in my hometown there was not much organ fans, at least among the musicians of my time. Everybody was tenor and drums, I think those where the favourite instruments of all of em. I personally liked the bass mostly, so seein and hearin Mingus was heaven on earth, but it is possible that the hammond fans where not so much hangin´ around. What sometimes was spinned very late in the night might be some long track like Jimmy Smith´s "The Sermon" or that kind of "organ with horns"....., it was them fine after hours joints. When I was 18 or not yeat 18, I´d do quickly my school lessons there in some back room, than havin a short nap of sleep, a strong coffee and goin to high school......, sometimes directly from the after hour joints.....

Thank you for that help, since I had totally forgotten about this. But I think in comparation to Blue Note Strata East was relativly low profile. By the way, I have the Strata East stuff as a Mozaic box, but if I´m honest I bought it only because of "Rhythm X", which was quite of favourite music in my early teens, when an older guy had it, and I had it then on cassetofon, until finally thru those mozaic sets I could purchase it. I fear my impression on the other CDs of that box was not very big. I heard some tunes with strange titles like "Viena" and "Uagadugu" , it sounds nice but somehow depressed me, since for 1969 it has such an air of mortality in it. Even the liner photos show obviously cats who had seen better times....., 1969 was not a good year for acoustic music and the interest of jazz got smaller......

It seems that I had a wrong start with Dollar Brand. It was in 1979 at an international Jazz Festival (greats like Elvin Jones, Alphonse Mouzon Electric band, Larry Coryell, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Chet Baker, Woody Herman) and on one of the 3 days that program had started with Dollar Brand Orchestra, but after 5 minutes I left and went out to wait for the next band, since there was nothing happening, at least of what could reach me , it was him standing in front of an Orchestra and it was some thing that always repeated itself, no stuff of big band what I might like (Sun Ra for example)......

I´ve never heard of Charles Earland, but Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson are my favourites..... Maybe the to me completly unknown leader her was not well known in Europe ?

One of the best albums of that great time, one of my first idols as a musician, so it is one of my alltime favourite albums. I have heard Liebman when he was with Miles, and then with "Lookout" Farm, then during his World Tour with Chick Corea, at the same time for some days "off" during that time (1978) at Jazzland with Fritz Pauer Trio, and one year later or so with the first "Quest"-band, when Dave Liebman signed me my "Drum Ode" copy. It was John Scofiel, who had led me to the Master, to get my album signed (with my name !) .

Time flies. There were still dozens of them alive, when I was a teenager. But now I regret I didn´t listen to those, whom I had considered "oldies" in those days (Basie, Ellington, Goodman, Buddy Rich..... and so on). I had started only with what was THEN called "modern jazz" including free jazz and rock jazz, that means from Bird to the then super nova electric Miles....

Didn´t know that Kenny Dorham still played so late in his career. I had thought he had stopped after "Trompeta Tocata".

Oh yeah ! My wife says it sounds like that kind of music as key theme for an old police thriller series of the 60´s or early 70´s and it sure has something of it. I live that album and I love the Coltrane stuff from 1965 on most of all, like the great "At Village Vanguard Again", the sheer impact of that music. Here I was super fascinated by the sound of the two basses and the great drumming of Elvin.