Gheorghe

Maybe you should give some of Miles´ 1981/82 recordings a try. Here you have Miles again playing acoustic trumpet withouth the "wah wah" which I think you don´t like from stuff of Miles in the 70´s. Here in 1981 you even have some moments when Miles looks back into the 50´s playing a quite new version of "My Man is Gone Now" where he alters funk with swing so it could be a link for fans of the "old Miles" to the Miles of the 80´s . On the album "We Want Miles" I think may of his old fans would find something thats more interesting for them than "Aghartha" or "Pangeea".

Glad to read that there are still jazz festivals with Jazz Musicians, not like in Vienna where the "Jazz Fest" IMHO doesn´t have names that I can associate with what I´m used to listen to. And who is "Jamie Cullum" ?

I think the winter broadcasts with Oscar Pettiford and Roy Haynes are the best from all 1953 Bud Birdland broadcasts especially for the tunes he chose. Later, from summer 1953 on his performances became a routine, he played to many tunes in the same key (F) and did dozens of versions of the same tunes (I´ve got you under my Skin, I want to be happy etc.). But what really knocked me out is the few tracks on Summer Broadcasts with Bird and Candido. But when I was young, the following LP really puzzled me: It was from those cheap Musidisk LPs, an easy way for us Europeans to buy records. It´s titled "From Birdland 1956" and has listed Paul Chambers and Art Taylor but as soon as I heard it I knew it must have been earlier and with another bassist and drummer, so soon it became clear that it was the "Winter Broadcasts" from the ESP label. I think ESP tried to publish as much Bud as they could since Bernard Stollman would have liked to be Bud´s "manager". They also issued some Bud in Paris at Blue Note 1961 and also Bud´s very last appearance in a studio in the mid sixties was intentioned to be for Stollman´s label but years later was published on Mainstream with no informations at all and wrong recording dates (Ups´n Downs).

I have the CD with both sessions, one is a studio date, and the other one is live. Sorry to say right now I have most stuff sealed cause I move upstairs and have to wait to check out who´s on it, but if I remember well it´s the same group. They toured Sweden during that time, late 50´s I think 1958. The great swedish trumpet player Ericson is on it. I think it´s the only record of Tommy Potter under his own name. And quite late in his career, but he also did some tour dates with Bird-Memory groups feat. Howard McGhee, Sonny Stitt and sometimes J.J. Johnson plus Walter Bishop and Kenny Clark in the mid/late 60´s, also can be seen on a video tape of one concert. I always liked his bass playing. And on the rare occasions when he did a solo, it´s really fine. What really knocked me out is Tommy Potter´s ballad feature "Talk of the Town" on a ballad medley Bird,Dorham from "Bird at Cafe Society.......

I have the same ! Really a great collection. It´s interesting how Diz sounded on the earlier big band stuff and on the 1949 stuff he tried to reach a bigger audience I think, with more vocals and funny tunes like "Hey Pete, let´s eat more meat". And I think it was the first time, I heard that mistery "Metronome All Stars" . Until then I had seen only a picture of that all star summit.

"A Portrait of Thelonious" only has some Monk tunes, it´s not a whole Monkt tunes album. But listen to the Mythic Sound CD "A Tribute to Thelonious" from 1964, it has only Monk tunes, the first half of the album is solo and done in the Paris Appartment, and the trio stuff is with John Ore and J.C. Moses. The photo I think was early 1964 when Monk came to Paris and was greeted by Bud on the Airport. And there was a tour in spring 1961 with both Monk and Bud, I think it was some Italian towns, among them San Remo. Bud played the first half, and then Monk, there´s also a CD about it "Pianology" with the stuff Bud did and some by Monk.

You missing a lot if Seven Steps to Heaven is about the latest Miles stuff you listen to. Well, with the exception of that remark on "On the Corner", the author wrote other "strange things" too: About Paris 1949, that Miles was "bored" there, that the Paris stay was "boring" to him. Now, I think most people know that Miles was fond of Paris and the audience and you can hear it through his playing. This is fast stuff like only Diz and Fats could do it at that time I think.

I love the way Mr. Flanagan plays. And his trios really were trios to listen to, he had the best bassists and drummers around so it was not like in other cases that it´s all piano piano piano and the bass and drums have only a supporting role. To have Flanagan with Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers that´s just a dream team. I was lucky the only time I saw Mr. Flanagan live it was also a helluva trio, he had George Mraz and Art Taylor and so I´m more into groups with horn players and on that festival schedule we had Miles, Jackie McLean, Pharoah Sanders, Lou Donaldson etc, but I´ll never forget the fantastic set of Tommy Flanagan with Mraz and Taylor........

Just for fun : Someone who remembers this one ? I want to say this was the only Miles Davis book around, when others didn´t exist. Actually it was also one of my first "jazz books". The author also had difficulties with Miles 70´s music but actually it was written when the latest Miles album was "On the Corner", so it must have been from 1972 and I think in 1977 I purchased it. The strange thing is, Mr. Cole says about "On the Corner" that "it´s an insult on the intelect of people"..... can you imagine that. So even when this book was brandnew, I had albums that even didn´t exist when the book was written: Aghartha, let´s say "Agharta" was the latest record that existed when we were teenies, we all tried to be cool like Miles Davis, to wear sunglasses and all that things, you could say we was "Children of Agharta". Nobody knew really much about it, there was no liner notes, and from the cover art some even thought that it was "recorded under water" since you see the NY skyline and some water plants and fishes and stuff..... Anyway, I was the biggest Miles fan around even if I didn´t know more than two of his albums "Steamin´" from 1956 and "Agharta" from 1975 because that´s what was in the record store

I wouldn´t say I´m a big Oscar Peterson fan, but this album has a special meaning to me. A friend of mine at high school had it when I was just starting to listen to jazz. See, Oscar Peterson was something that people dug who otherwise didn´t listen to jazz . But later, just a few years ago I bought the CD just for historical reasons, since I liked it so much when I was still a boy. And I want to say, I like THIS, and "Nighttrain" best. I don´t usually listen much to Peterson, but what I like on those albums is that Mr. Peterson doesn´t "overdo" the stuff. He had a helluva technique, but this here is really a beauty, nice spare piano, things that I can dig after a day of hard work when I maybe dont want to "figure out" heavier stuff like Mingus or Trane or whatever......

Oh, this really looks like something fantastic !

Is this Dorothy Donegan ? I think I saw her live once, but IMHO she overdoes the piano a bit, very technical really, but maybe some pianists just think if the piano has 88 keys you have to play them all at once......, I like the piano more if it can also get out of the way, leaving space for the other musicians.....but if I here someone like Dorothy Donegan I always think I can imagine them as child wonders, beeing carried from one competition to the next, and then at some point they switch to "jazz"...... And maybe she was not presented were she expected to be presented, it was a small cellar club, fine but maybe not for her, she seemed to be a little lost and overdressed for that joint....... poor Mrs Donegan......

I think it took me some time to get used to Dizzy Reece´s trumpet sound, it sound´s a bit "squeezed" . But he got really a hell of a band for that record. I think "Star Bright" and "Sounding Off" are my favourite records he made.

I think I remember having heard about Sadao Watanabe, but I am not sure in which context. Didn´t he play a very bird like altosaxophone on some Galaxy records with some US musicians. I don´t know what has happened to Galaxy, there was a whole bunch of recordings made in Japan. But I think, Watanabe made some fusion albums also, for money. And I think some Europeans knew him especially for that fusion stuff....... I saw Terumaso Hino live with Dave Liebman, can you imagine that ? About the question about pre 1975 japanese jazz.... hard to say, wasn´t the early 70´s a quite rough period for jazz with many guys having difficulties to get jobs and a lot of joints closed? But I think I remember there was a japanese guy dont remember his name, a quite long and not pronouncable name, who had a big band called "New Herd" and who recorded some tracks with US Stars in the early 70´s. He can be heard on an ill fated Mingus in Japan album from around 1971, and on a Monk album also from that period which was quite unhappy for both Monk and Mingus.....

wow, never saw Mobly bespectacled. Maybe on some pics with sunglasses.

I don´t really understand all that discussion about Quincy Troupe´s book, since this is an old thing, I think it was published around 1989, right ? I would have liked to read that new book, but sorry to say I think I´m too conservative for Kindle. To read a book means to me to read paper format, not to press buttons. I tried Kindle, when Peter Pullman´s "book" about Bud Powell came out. I even bought that Kindle Equipment and someone told me how to handle it, but I fear I have forgotten how it has to be done, and have misplaced the Kindle Book somewhere. And the guy who was my "computer expert" died to early, so I´m alone and lost with stuff like that........ I hope, that new book will be published some time on paper format.

Great !

100% agreement ! I´d say I had the same impressions: And I think they were exactly how Miles played his live shows in those years 1983-1985: The 1983 "Star People" reflected what I saw "live" in spring 1983: Still a band playing instruments, Al Foster on drums, Mike Stern AND John Scofield so you had both elements, the more rock-sounding Mike Stern and the more cool and laid-back Scofield, and a lot of playing. There was no keyboard player, only Miles filled in on keyboard here and there, as he did in 1974-75. The 1984 "Decoy" .....well maybe it´s my own fault, maybe after liking Star People so much I expected more, or better said, something else. I think, and that´s how I felt when I saw Miles again in 1984, that 1984 was a year of "transition". Miles, who had started his comeback with a really playing stage band in 1981 and kept that kind of stuff until 1983, was looking for a change but still did not no in which direction to go. Finally in 1985 he had decided to go "pop" and commercially strong. The electronic keyboards got a bigger role, the drums became more mecanic and could have been replaced by machines, the stuff became more music you can hear on headphones, not necessarly famous for jazz solos. I saw Miles twice in 1985. In July he played exactly what´s on "You Are Under Arrest" and in November which was quite a tired, weak thing, I think there was more from "Rubberband" in it, I remember then he had Marylin Mazur on percussion....

One of my all time favourites.

Oh yes, this explains much. I noticed that as soon as 1967 (see Sam River´s "Dimensions and Extension") he sounds much more subdued and a bit "rusty". And right, I think I have read that he did very much educational work. I remember the first Donald Byrd record I had was "Long Green", the Savoy record with Frank Foster, Hank Jones, Kenny Clark and Paul Chambers.

zischfrisch

But what really had happened to Donald Byrd that he sounded so weak on that recordings? Even Miles after 6 years off trumpet, when he sounds very shaky on that tape when he was sittin in with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band, sounded better than Donald Byrd on that Sonny Rollins album. And Donald Byrd was not that old, I think he was about the same age like Sonny. I have a lot of Donald Byrd records from the 50´s and 60´s and he was one of the fastest trumpet players around.

One of the most fascinating recordings. But was it really recorded by Blue Note ? Somehow I can´t believe this would have been recorded in the RVG Studio. I never associated Mingus and Duke with BN. Max was on some recordings , but not as many as other drummers....... This one

I haven´t listend to it for years, but if I remember right, I thought that "Amandla" had a bit more playing of real musicians, than just machines. "Mr. Pastorius" sounded much more like a tune played by musicians, and I think on one track they had flown in an acoustic pianist too (was it Joe Sample ?). Maybe in reality there was also a lot of machines and synthies and drum computers, but it didn´t sound so artificial as was the case with "Tutu".

Yes this is the cover of the LP I purchased in the late 70´s .