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Gheorghe

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Everything posted by Gheorghe

  1. Well thank you Mr. @AllenLowe, I was not so much aware of it. I have not listened to Bud Powell records for many years, I did when I was a teenager and remember I had such a 2 LP album titled "Best Years" and it was the greatest. It had one side from 1947, one from 1953, one from 1960 in Paris, and one from 1964 again in N.Y. The first one, well I always have a little problem if I don´t really hear what a drummer like Max Roach does, on those old records they always underrecorded.... About the ballads...... yeah but really the best ballads I heard from Bud are much later. On the second side that says is from 1953 (which by the way has a wonderful "Woody´n You" and "Bean and the Boys", the ballads on that, especially "My Devotion" I like much better than on Side A. Side C is very nice and sounds very fine, though Clarke plays only brushes, you really HEAR him and that´s best for me. On Side D I find the most lovely ballads, "Someone to watch over me", "If I´d love you" and "I remember Clifford" are superb, those chords man, it´s sooo deep that stuff ! And it has a wonderful version of "The Best thing you have is me" or how it is called. Guys tell me it´s "hard to play" but what´s hard, well it has 12 bars in the A section and 8 bars the bridge, so what ? "Conception" also has that form and you play it easily... What I try to say, I read the book of Pullman just as a guide line what really was the live of Bud about. That´s nothing you read for information, it´s what you read if you relax at the pool or before sleeping.... but special years if this was in this year or that year is not the really point for me, I just try to pick up the best from the music. I´´m not a collector but I have also stuff from let´s say 1955 1960 or 1965 and it sounds good, maybe not like the young Bud, maybe the very last records have one or two fluffs, but who cares? It all is Bud. By the way: As I get older, my hearing is not good and high frequencies don´t reach my ears, so on all those early stuff on let´s say Verve, those many tracks of some Get Happy or Tea for Two, I don´t hear that high note shit , those runs in the upper registers, but one octave more down, like let´s say the same stuff 10 or 15 years later maybe does not have that speed , but I can hear it and enjoy it..... and I like the touch of the keys from later Bud Recordings more than on the early stuff....
  2. terrible idea.....😄 If I would own an album with a butterfly on the cover, Serena would urge me to through it away. She has a fear and HATES butterflies as much as all other insects.... but Butterflies mostly.
  3. This is my favourite Lee Morgan album. If I might keep only one, which would be easy since I am not a collector and play more my own music, but I would keep only this one ! But what means Blue Note anniverary, is that better sound or bonus tracks ..... well I have the CD, bought it when the first bunch of BN CDs came out, I think it was pre RVG as most what I had bought.... As I got a compilation of all the Griff-Jaws stuff I never know which is which. Some of them have Monk tunes, some are live and the last ones have a completly unknown pianist called something like Fort Myers, on the others it is Junior Mance, who has a lotta technical stuff, but sometimes, especially on Monk tunes like the wonderful "Epistrophy" it´s too much, it´s like if Oscar Peterson would have had to play that tune which he sure didn´t do....
  4. It´s strange I never saw him live though he might have been the ideal pianist for me when I was deeply in bebop piano. But in the CV of my wonderful trumpet player who plays in my band, it reads that he had played with Barry Harris (he also had performed with Lee Konitz !) .... It´s interesting that Barry Harris plays on several BN-recordings sessions but it´s strange that Alfred Lion never let him do his own album.
  5. That´s the right English name for that country. I always have difficulties here with names of European countries since I use the latin language family based names for them: Polonia, Cehia, Germania, Olanda, Suedia, Finlanda, Danemarca, Lituania, Estonia, Spania, Italia, Franța, Grecia, Turcia..... and so on and so on.... I can´t say I would know them just right now in English 😀
  6. Glad to see you like Pharoah Sanders "Love is Us All". I love that tune and so many of Pharoah Sanders. It´s interesting that though my start to jazz was Miles and Mingus, one of my first 10 LPs was a Pharoah Sanders LP "Live at the East" and can´t explain why, but it moved me and has moved me since that time in the first half of the 70´s. Anyway, actually the most stuff I listen to is the late Trane stuff, the Sanders stuff, the Sun Ra stuff, and so on.....
  7. Hawk is great, he was so much ahead of his time, like contemporanious other genius musicians like Lester Young, Billie Holiday and Roy Eldrige. I don´t know much about pre-bop music, but those four are my favourites and I love him the same like all that came after..... I think I also have a Flip Phillips album from Verve recordings, but I think some of the recordings are even earlier, from the late 40´s. There might be one, that has a bop trumpetist on it (could be Howard McGhee). The first Flip Phillips I ever heard in my live is on that great little LP with Roy Eldrigde on one side and Fats Navarro on the other side "Saturday Night Jazz Session" on the french America Label. The side 1 has Roy Eldridge with Flip Phillips (Flip and Jazz is one title). Great !
  8. I think I have heard him on some Woody Shaw records before the time I really HEARD him (with his classic quintet with Steve Turré, Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James and Tony Reedus !). I think he sounds great. Once I had heard, that towards the end of their collaboration they had a big dispute, really a big clash that ended there collaboration. Due to the fact, that both of them were alcoolics and drug addicts or so, it´s very possible that their hassle was for non musical causes.... I was astonished to hear that he would have died in Austria, but in that Article (I could not read it because there came a "Pay Pal Button", they write that he had died in Polonia ?
  9. One of my favourite Donald Byrd records. That great tune in minor, it´s also on a live double CD from Half Note I think... I saw Harry Sweets Edison together with Eddie Lockjaw Davis, it was in 1978 ! But I still remember that the first tune was the bop standard "Rifftide" ! I have a 4 or 5 CDs compilation of all Griff-Davis albums, but must admit that this one I have not so often listened like the CD with the Monk tunes. I have no idea who is Lloyd Mayer´s . I just had a look at the personnel and think I had remembered him as "Fort Myers" 😄. About the music : That 2 tenor tandem was great and they played much again in the next decades, once in an all star formation with Diz and Milt Jackson. I´ve played also with 2 tenors the famous Lockjaw Davis composition loosly based on "Body and Soul" but at brisc tempo..
  10. who has not heard of Hans Koller ? Hard music to play, you got to read difficult sheet.....
  11. 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).
  12. 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.....
  13. 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.
  14. 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.....
  15. 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
  16. 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 ?
  17. 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 ?
  18. Gheorghe

    Jackie McLean

    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.
  19. 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.....
  20. 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.....
  21. 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.
  22. just wonderful. One of my favourite vocal records. So beautiful !
  23. 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.
  24. Gheorghe

    Jackie McLean

    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....
  25. 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 ? ).
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