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Gheorghe

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Everything posted by Gheorghe

  1. I´ve forgotten about Monk´s Epistrophy, since I think it was recorded, first with Milt Jackson in 1948 and later on serveral live recordings . That´s why I thought about 52´nd Street Theme since it was a set break tune used by many other musicians (we used it too for some time) but at least as I know , no recording evidence with Monk.
  2. You are thinking about 52´nd Street Theme ? Yes really, I always wondered if it was composed by Monk. It often happens that it´s hard to check out who originally composed those bop tunes. It´s possible that 52`nd Street Theme originally was at a slower pace. Usually it´s played very fast, like "Salt Peanuts" or "Dizzy Atmosphere".....at a speed that wouldn´t have fitted to Monk.....
  3. Right, because Hamp never would have been a BN artist. I think the few BN albums that were recorded in Europe were on occasions when Francis Wolff went back to Europe. I´ve forgotten how many were done in Europe, one might have been Dizzy Reece´s "Blues in Trinity" (with Donald Byrd,Tubby Hayes) , others the Dexter "Our Man in Paris" and one year later "One Flight Up" (the one with Byrd´s "Tanya"), then the two Ornette "Golden Circle" and quite strange the Clark-Boland "Golden Eight". I say "strange" because I never saw the connection of this one to BN.
  4. Maybe my affinity to Sonny Rollins´ work of the 70´s is just a generation thing. I was born in 1959 and it´s natural I got to see all those giants "live" during the 70´s . That means, as teenager jazz lover of course you were aware of the outputs of those musicians in the 50´s and 60´s or even back to the 40´s, but you accepted in a natural manner what those giants created 1, 2 or even 3 decades later. Let´s say: As a boy probably you first heard a Prestige Miles or Rollins album, and then you went to your first concert and saw Miles with Pete Cosey, Reggie Lucas, James Mtume and had to switch to that and say "look that´s how he played in the past and thats how he plays now and you are here and witness what happens. And see.... decades later they wrote books about stuff like On the Corner or Aghartha...... With Rollins it was less radical: He started to use electric bass, maybe electric piano, maybe he would use a percussion player and would play some more rock-based stuff, but still he would pick up some old ballad. So maybe we just grew up knowing there was the past, the historical part of it.... all those Prestige and BN stuff (if it was not OOP which happened very easy during that time, you had to relie to some compilations) , and the present time , the heydays of the Milestone Label (I noticed that many festivals had artists on schedule that were Milestone Artists - Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter etc. ). So maybe I have a special affinity to 70´s outputs of Miles, Mingus, Rollins, and all those, since this was the time we lived in, they were the musicians who had written jazz history, but they still were not really old (Rollins was maybe 40 and some years old, but had played with Bird, with Bud which had been a long time ago ) and in their prime, and as a youngster you looked at them as those who allready have written jazz history and go on writing jazz history.
  5. Reminds me of an encounter that my wife and I had around 2000 in Miami Beach, standing in front of a jazz club (intermission between 2 sets of James Moody). A fan started to talk to us about the Miami Scene and I mentioned that just a few days before Sonny Rollins was in town. That guy gave me that kind of look, said something like "I don´t like what Sonny Rollins has done since 1975...." and walked away. Even my wife (not a jazz fan really ) laughed and said "well that means he doesn´t like half of what Sonny Rollins did. I´d say from 1975 to 2012 (or when did he stop performing?) he still had a lot to say and had wonderful rhythm sections. I heard him in the late 70´s with Mark Soskin, Jerome Harris and Al Foster and if this is not a good rhythm section I don´t know what a good rhythm section is.....
  6. As much as I like to read books about musicians and the music, I think I wouldn´t purchase this one. Maybe my fault , but I think spirituality is not really my thing. Maybe it is linked to the music, maybe not....... at least I love Mr. Rollins music, all of it , but as I said it´s strictly mucic bound....
  7. Really enjoyed it, and it´s still like that. One of the greatest experiences for a young unknown musician is to be called up on stand and manage to keep up with great musicians. Wonderful thing. I almost can imagine how it happened for DeArrango.
  8. Wasn´t Birks Works composed a bit later than all the dozens of compositions he wrote during the 40´s for his combos and big band? Like: Salt Peanuts, Shaw Nuff, I Waited for You, Bebop, Emanon, Groovin High, Blue n Boogie, all were written during the 40´s. Birks Works in comparation sounds "easier". It´s the type of tune you play on jams just to be sure that everybody can blow it.....
  9. I think that thread would deserve a better title, since the original question was asked more than 8 years ago. How about a title about fans sharing their impressions on live events where they heard and saw Art Pepper. This would be helpful also with other musicians of that caliber. About the question if someone has newspaper infos about Art Pepper from Velden 1981 I only remember that Jazz Podium reviewed the festival and wrote something about how Art Pepper tried to make his references to the austrian audience by choosing Lehar´s "Your´s my heart only". I think there wasn´t much more written about it, really sad. But at that time I almost coulde memorize everything written in Jazz Podium about (US) Musicians. I don´t know why but most Podium critics were very busy accentuating the negative: From the same year about Dizzy at Nice for example "In 1979 Diz was the flop of the evening with his rock and funk orientated electric bass and drummer, in 1980 he sounded a bit more straight and in 1981 he returned to his 1979 type of performing...
  10. Gheorghe

    Jazz Vocalists

    I don´t really know who is Cleo Laine, I can´t read all the answers since the thread is 15 (!) years old, but it seems that nothing has changed. I know so many jazz vocalists I don´t want to list them here, but many names that I can´t associate directly with jazz, I wouldn´t even know...., jazz is the only music I listen to....
  11. Yeah, those 1981 concerts were a highlight of all European festivals. In the summer of 1981 Art Pepper played in Austria (Velden) with a different rhythm section (with Lou Levy on piano), actually Stan Getz´ rhythm section who was also scheduled. Since we don´t have recorded documents of that event, those Stuttgart and Croydon releases are very very welcome. I´m glad I have them and have listened to them many many times. I think my personal highlights are the extended versions of "Make a List, make a wish" (or something like that), and above all "Your´s my heart only".
  12. Socks and sandals......a no go..... well at least Chet Baker wore sandals but no socks. Great remark "'Geography teacher socks"..... never heard that, but it fit´s . Reminds me of the way teachers dressed when I went to high school.....
  13. I think the list is not so bad. In general I hate rating but here I saw really some albums that might be representative for our music. About compilations, that Bird compilation is quite ok, since during that time the LP format was not invented. And Savoy-Dial Master Takes is the most durable Bird . And of course the Blue Note albums. I think there couldn´t be a "best" list without Blue Trane, Cool Struttin, Sidewinder, Song for my Father, etc...., As for the bass I was quite astonished to see "Bass on Top" in the list. It took me years to get that rare album, but more than 1 or 2 listenings I didnt give it, though its fantastic bass, but not as exiting as "Whims of Chambers". Same with Griffin, I wouldn´t have chosen his first BN album , but the second "Blowin Session". But as I said, that list is quite representative, good work
  14. in my earlier posting I wrote I don´t really know who is Al Hirt. Now I´ve googled him. Well maybe I know better now why I wasn´t really aware of him, he sure must have been a good player and in the way he did what he did and made his money, but maybe because it was not like the way I feel and hear the trumpet and think I can tell from their sounds who´s playin, let´s say Diz, Fats, Kenny, Miles, Brownie, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Don Cherry, Woody Shaw and all of those I admire..... About fashion that´s the topic here , I think all of those whom I mentioned looked sharp and dressed well. Maybe Chet Baker in later years not so, maybe that was this european pseudo hippie look , I never understood why he wore those ugly sandals, ...... but if he wasn´t lost somewhere, he played wonderful stuff until the end.....
  15. I don´t really know who is Al Hirt , but even if I hate to say dumb things like that, nevertheless I look at the picture and think he doesn´t look like a jazz musician. About musician´s fashion, well I think it started in the late 60´s early 70´s that musicians didn´t want to wear ties anymore. No problem, but when aged musicians tried to wear "hippy look" I think it looked funny. But most american musicians have and had taste and dressed well. You can look sharp with casual wear, but also with tuxedo, if you know how to feel the way the thing you wear. The worst thing in my youth was that guys in Europe thought they must look sloppy and shabbily dressed. It was almost a no go in Europe to wear a suit and a tie when playing in a jazz club. Now I think it is different. The few left who dig jazz, think that a great music like jazz need´s "style" so that you take care what you wear.
  16. Adams Apple is a really nice and easy to listen Wayne Shorter album. Like the first tune on the next album "Schizophrenia", that´s some easy to listen Shorter. I love all his BN albums, but I like very much "All Seeing Eye", harder to listen but really exiting.
  17. Well the Prestige years I think were rough years for those who recorded for them. Same with Coltrane, with Jackie McLean. They made so many albums for that label, mostly standard ballad and blues based material. I have all those records, but it seems that after years, if I don´t want to spin "a Prestige chronological order" of them, I just spin "Good Bait" and "Stardust" as two albums that I already had "then" in the 70´s. Among more certain groups of youngsters there was a Coltrane-hype then. Well, Trane was dead for 10 years, but many many people you met adored Coltrane, but mostly the 60´s phase, the Impulse years, but would have one ore two older Coltrane albums also, that´s how I got acquainted to "Good Bait".....
  18. Though I´m sure that most of my favourite musicians - and Mobley sure is one of them - have died (most of them still lived when I got my DB magazines monthly) , I think those halls of fame made sens when the musician who was voted was still alive and active. Like when Dexter Gordon made it into the hall of fame right after he had returned to the states. I remember that. Dexter was on the cover photo.
  19. Bebop at it´s beginning was a hard music to play for beginners. I wouldn´t say Albany sounded very amateurish, but there is some truth about pianists who tried to follow the movement of Bird, Diz, Bud etc. I think the problem was they heard the music in their head but when trying to finger it, it started to sound more like some edgy western avantgard type music, with chromatic lines and difficulties to interakt with the left hand. I had the same difficulties 40 years ago when I wanted to play "be bop" and when I listened to my own playing on tape, it sounded stiff and edgy and abstract. Listen to the first Al Haig recordings with Diz and Bird at Town Hall, same thing. But Haig was learning very fast and in 1949 he was a master and had it all. Same with Duke Jordan, his playing on the early Savoy recordings with Bird sounds stiff, but listen how he flows and sounds wonderful on later recordings. Same with Joe Albany. So I would say it is not the pianist, it´s the music that was a challenge. Now bop is old stuff but I still think it´s hard to play it beautiful if you dont feel it completely. If you can make it comin out of your heart it will sound right. Like in my yough when I played sometimes with a very good LA born and Europe base alto saxophonist, who later teached in Austria, who told me one thing I´ll never forget: "Bouncing with Bud".... you know what "bouncin´" means, so make it bounce, not hammerin´it out on that piano.... Or the late world famous austrian classical pianist, who also got into jazz and recorded jazz, but at the beginning he got an advice from Art Farmer after playing some bars "Get that edge off...."
  20. Me too, that happens very often. Someone was one of "the young guys" and that stucks even after decades, usually the sidemen of the then middle-aged established masters where the young guys, the boy wonders, like George Cables, Rufus Reid with Dex, like Don Pullen and George Adams with Mingus. I saw the name Bill Watrous, but it seems I never saw him live or heard him on record.....
  21. Quite interesting. Maybe I already knew most of the infos, having read Francis Paudras´, Peter Pullman´s and Guthrie L. Ramsey´s books, and another one I think written by one Alan Grove, with is more negative. The best for my personal use has been the Carl Smith book about Bud´s records. About Diz and Bud, well I can imagine how Diz said those things about Bud. I´m sure Diz appreciated what Bud played, but couldn´t work with a super erratic Bud or Monk for a long time. But nevertheless, Diz recorded again with Bud, one track from 1960 in Paris (some sources say 1957), and the great "With the Double Six of Paris" from 1963. That´s the only occasion where Bud played and soloed on "Tin Tin Deo". Once I saw a photo of Bud with Diz during Bud´s last year of life. I don´t know why this photo doesn´t appear somewhere. It might have been in the studio, where Bud made his last album with Scotty Holt and Rashied Ali. I never knew what had determined Diz to be there as a guest in the studio, maybe to see him for the last time......., I love both Diz and Bud, Bud played a lot of Dizzy´s tunes, so sure he admired him.
  22. I love the Ornette Coleman albums "Love Call" and "New York is Now" I have thought "Empty Foxhole" was done in 1966, so it might have been still Alfred Lion ? I love Jackie Mc Lean´s "Demons Dance", but have some difficulties listening to another album "´ Bout Soul" I think, but it should get more listening, because in general I´m not deaf to free stuff, and "Bout Soul" I think doesn´t have hard bop forms and is even much more advanced than Coleman´s stuff , since it seems that Coleman even if he went far out, had swing sections in it, changing tempos but more in the manner Mingus with Dolphy would have done it.... I love the later McCoy albums for BN, especially one little album I have the cardboard cover version, can´t read what´s written on it, it´s so minuscule.... but it is a quartet with Bobby Hutcherson , I love that one, it´s one of my favourites. I like it even more than "Time for Tyner". I have some difficulties with all those late Hank Mobley albums. It´s fantastic music, solid, everything, but maybe because Mobley recorded so many many albums, I just keep spinnin certain albums like "Soul Station" and some of that , one or two albums from the 50´s, and from after 1965 I think "Dippin´" is a beautiful album. Somehow later I lost the trace, "Thinking of Home" might be a stuff, but somehow it doesn´t make me happy, it makes me sad, I don´t know why, I think something with Hanks tone had changed, it sounds like he sometimes has difficulties with breathing, maybe his respiratory problems had just started. Anyway it was published much later, in the 80´s I think.
  23. Well but I think Rouse was full time employed by Monk, and that meant a lot of touring and last not least Monk though he could be erratic at some times, he always payed his sidemen very well. Many of the full time BN artists had a harder time to find full time jobs. Anyway that one little latin album is very nice and the most fascinating thing for me is that Rouse could hold his own. It must have been a challenge for him to do a bossa album withouth imitating others who made their bossa albums....
  24. usually I ask the last minute replace what he would like to play and than it might work out just fine. If I have to use another drummer, I might worry if he´s really good, because I love drummers and the lift up the musical happenings. Though I´m a piano player, I´m a drummer´s fan. If it´s a great drummer with some stuff that inspires me, a last minute replace can be a beautiful experience.
  25. I always loved his latin album for Blue Note "Bossa Nova Bachanal" or some title like that. Really fine. And other Non-Monk stuff , well you might start with his playing for Tadd. The 1947 Band (I think they called it the "Onyx-Band") had Rouse, you hear him on the Savoy and BN sides. Good Rouse also on some Donald Byrd from 1959 , also for BN.
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