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I love this, and I think when I was very young it helped me to "dig" Ornette Coleman, maybe because it has a more straight ahead swing done by Scott La Faro and Ed Blackwell. So it was easier to get into so called "Free Jazz" than with the other album I also had then "Crisis" , where they avoid straight ahead. Is it possible that "Ornette" is a lesser known or lesser popular Ornette Coleman album, since it´s not so much mentioned in jazz books.

It´s strange but maybe typical for my generation, that I only heard Yeah Man ! and other Fletcher Henderson stuff played by Sun Ra Arkestra. I know this is the wrong way to get in touch with it (like I only heard "Tiger Rag" on that 1947 Bands for Bonds with Bird and Diz and Lennie) . It´s only so that whenever I say I should try some traditional jazz listening, I say later baby not today.....,

I can understand this, I also like much of his later stuff, but in my case I like it more if I hear a bit more interaction with the drummer, like let´s say "Time Waits" from 1958 with Philly Joe Jones, like the european performances with Kenny Clarke. On "Strictly" it seems like if it´s overdubbed over a rhythm machine, very little movement in the group....... it´s not that I "need" Bud in technical top form, but I need to hear things happening in between the musicians, and this doesn´t happen on that album.......

I have not listened to Bud Powell for quite a long time but I remember I have this one on LP with another cover, of Bud much later and much fatter, probably in Paris. It´s a strange album. If I remember, it was done somewhere in autumn 1956, that must have been before he went on the Birdland ´56 package tour. His recordings from 54-56 somehow make me feel depressed. In general, this is better than some of the worst ´54, ´55 stuff, but still disappointing. I remember it is almost only medium tempos, with very heavy chord playing which sounds nice, but on improvisations the lines sound like they are blurred. The best track might be "There will never be another You" . Bud used this intro and this block chord treatment very much on his later live recordings of that tune, but here the greatest disappointment comes in the moment when he starts soloing. Some years later, especially in Europe he found back to much of his former brilliance and especially on encounters with other Americans he could be great (Hawk in Germany, Blakey in Paris).

Wow, all those bass fiddles on the thread about JackieMcLean. I´d like to go back to one of his albums that was mentioned here: ´Bout Soul. I should give " ´Bout Soul" another chance. If I remember I didn´t spin it often. I think Jackie McLean in the 60´s was eager to reach other areas of sound , that´s why his music became more and more open and just as a cross between the old hardbop and the new free jazz. He just tried to check out how much he can get "out" of the traditional changes and rhythm patterns (Destination Out) without loosing the boundaries of modern jazz. The next step was New and Old Gospels with Ornette on trumpet, but this still had the swing that maybe Alfred Lion and Francis Wolfff demanded (it must schwing). And maybe after that he wanted to try something totally free, completly out like let´s say the New York Contemporary Five or all those ESP albums that came out. And that´s what it seems to be, a complete free jazz album where you avoid changes and avoid a traditional beat. So it´s even farer out than much of Ornette Coleman´s stuff, because even with Ornette you have sections where the bass just walks . Ornette´s two last albums for BN from 1968 sound much more traditional than Jackie´s 1967 Bout Soul. But it seems that even JackieMc Lean thought that it´s a bit too much of atonal a-rhythmic stuff on Bout Soul, because after this , his recordings were much more conventional, starting with "Demon´s Dance", and so on through the 70´s and the next 3 decades.

IMHO "New Land" is one of Morgan´s best albums from the later period.

I saw this group live in the same year. I hadn´t known Jimmy Ford , only from a foto in Ira Gitler´s book Jazz Masters of the Forties, where he is seen with the Dameron group. Too bad no broadcasts exist from his playing with Dameron. With Arnett Cobb together, I must say I was very impressed by Jimmy Ford. I didn´t know the trumpet player Calvin Owen, he was okay but not the greatest.....

Today I choose to listen to Sam Rivers´ earliest sessions for BN. And Larry Young is great, though I like his next album "Unity" even more. But here especially for his collaboration with Sam Rivers.

Yes, I love this record also, IMHO one of the best. I like all the stuff on BN from the 60´s that´s a bit more between post bop and avantgarde, for example this one: Though Bobby Hutcherson is the leader of the date, there´s no originals written by him, but a fantastic group with Freddie Hubbard, and I admire Sam Rivers, he always fascinated me. And Andrew Hill, especially his compositon "Catta" and the bonus track "Jasper" , Richard Davis is very strong, and Joe Chambers is a great drummer The strange cover, untypical for BN always reminded me of the covers on Miles DAvis albums from the early 70´s, like "Live Evil". But I´m not discussing album covers, the music is great, Jack DeJohnette is fantastic , and it´s one of my favourite Jackie McLean albums also, together with "One Step Beyond", "Destination Out", "Let´s Freedom Ring"....... all of them.....

very good analysis of Sun Ra´s piano style. Yes, somehow as he is into it all, from stride to post bop to free a la Cecil Taylor he almost could be seen as similar to Jakie Byard, who also could play all stiles from old stride to free, sometimes in one solo.....

Oh, I didn´t know about that book, I think this is something I need to have.

I just have finished the book about Sun Ra "Space is the Place".

I purchased all 8 volumes of Parker on Verve in the 70´s as japanese editions, I think "Temptation" "Bird with Strings" "Now´s the Time" , "Bird and Diz", "Cole Porter Songbook", "South of the border", "Jazz Perennial" and "Swedish Schnapps". "South of the Border" was Vol. 6 I think. It had both the 1951 and 1952 stuff. I think the 1951 stuff is better. On the 1952 stuff it´s a rare occasion to hear Little Benny Harris, he did not record often, but sounds a bit like he didn´t have very good chops then. And I think there was some late 40´s stuff with Machito and Flip Phillips added, "Mambo" and "No Noise" or something like that...... haven´t spinned it for quite some time.

Though Jackie McLean recorded much more originals during that time, it´s welcome to hear him play standards on this. It is much better than the many Prestige records he did in the mid fifties. I also enjoy this very much. "Let´s face the music and dance" I think was not often recorded by jazz artists. A strange tune, and not too easy running thru the changes..... quite a challenge for improvisers......

A very good record ! I´m also in the Blue Note Groove, listening to this

not tonight, and not tomorrow or next month, but I just got my ticket for april 28 to see the "Sun Ra Arkestra" under the direction of Marshall Allen. Saw the original Sun Ra Arkestra with Sun Ra himself in 1980.

I saw him a few years ago, maybe 2014 , anyway in that period. He sounded wonderful, sure he wouldn´t play with the power he had in the 80´s when I heard him first, but that´s not the point, anyway the music was of highest quality. But on the same time I was a bit in sorrow because it was obvious that Mr. Sanders was in physical discomfort. But as for playing the saxophone he really came to live, especially in the second half of the concert. I think his set´s became a stage routine, they start with a kind of rubato ballad, some uptempo straight ahead stuff with a very long piano solo by Henderson , the tune might have been "Dr. Pitt", a Sanders original from the early 80´s, a Coltrane-style standard ballad, and a powerful "The Creator has a Masterplan". That´s how it was....... Anyway you must be glad to have still the occasion to see one of the last "living legends" live in action. At that concert I even had with me my old LP "Live at the East" , the first Sanders LP I had decades ago. Maybe I had the hope I could tell him that I purchased that 40 years ago and if he would sign it for me, but I was too shy, and didn´t have the impression that Mr. Sanders is the kind of man you get in touch with him and say "Please, Mr. Sanders, would you be so kind to give me an autograph, you know I´m a big fan and this was my first record I bought, you know......"

Great ! I always have been fascinated by the music of Pharoah Sanders and was lucky to see him live twice, always a great experience .

It was composed by Denzil Best, who also composed "Move" and other bop tune´s . I remember I heard a recorded studio version of Dee Dee´s dance" on a Xanadu LP , one of those compilations "Bop Revisited". I think it was some guys from the Woody Herman Band who did some sides, I´m not sure it may have been Conte Candoli on trumpet, anyway a recorded version on that Xanadu LP exists. I haven´t listened to it for some decades, so I´m not sure who´s playing. Maybe it was a group around Chubby Jackson, that´s it is I think I remember. Chubby Jackson led a group of boppers to Sweden some months before Bird went to Sweden.....

Great, I was born in 1959 and I´m pleased that so much happened in jazz in the year when I was born. Not to forget Ornette Coleman, who was the rising star and played at Five Spot if I´m right. I think 1959 was a year of transition in jazz. Hard Bop still was very much in demand, but along came those who created other forms to get beyond the boundaries of hard bop. Charles Mingus´ Workshops, Ornette with Don Cherry, a lot of things was happening. Two major figures of jazz died in that year: Prez and Lady Day, others who would have the same fate, found more comfortable settings in Paris like Bud. It took me some years from my birth and thru my childhood to get acquainted to that music called jazz, but as a teenie in the 70´s I still could hear and see live a lot of the artists who were active in 1959.

I didn´t know until now what is "workmanlike" writing, but I can imagine what you mean. Somehow very often the writing lacks emotion. I hoped there will be told much more from the personal way of it, since it´s supposed she was his last wife. No word about this, how the professional relation changed into a personal relation, how it was to change husbands, from an erratic Woody Shaw to a super erratic Dexter Gordon plus raising Woody´s child . She mentiones that Dexter took antabuse before returning to the States to keep off drinking, but I don´t think that it helped for much time. By the way, I saw both Woody and Dexter on the same schedule about a month before Dexter´s 60´s birthday, and Woody was really takin care of business and played an exiting set with his great group and was very articulate, while Dexter was late, played only three tunes, sounded weak and was stone drunk. I heard about other incidents from that early 1983 tour from other countries too (Germany, Netherlands). Nothing mentioned in the book about that tour.

Chet Baker live at "Uncle Poe´s Carnegie Hall" Hamburg 1979. That´s one of my favourite Baker records, I like the really long and extended tracks on all records from that NDR series. Chet Baker ist in top form, and Phil Marcovitz is a great pianist and ideal partner for Chet. And it´s great to have the legendary Mr. Rassinfosse on bass, and a rare occasion to hear Chet Baker with a drummer. I´m a drums freak and actually Baker is the only musician I´d listen to when playing without drums. I hope there will be further albums from that NDR Uncle Poe´s Series, I allready have most of them with exception of those who are not typical jazz musicians so it might be music I´m not listenig to.....

I had the same thoughts about the relationships, that I couldn´t find no answer. Besides that, she tells that Dexter stopped playing right after his 60th Birthday. There is a record of the music Dexter played on his birthday party and though he had lost some of his power, he still has some to play. But I must admit the Dexter we saw in Europe early in 1983 left us a bit embarrassed and wondering how long he will go on, mostly because he was evidently almost destroyed by booze. He had difficulties even to make stage announcements....... And another book about Dexter, written by Stan Britt tells another story, that Dexter still played until in 1984 when he became ill in Finland where he played with a radio orchestra. And that after that the quartet together with Maxine Gordon made a trip to Marocco, where the didn´t get paid and had to fly home on own expenses. This might be important first hand infos from Maxine but in her book it seems that Dexter just retired because he wanted to retire.....

Interesting thoughts. Of course Blue´n Boogie with Diz and Dex is a classic and I´m glad I have the Groovin High with Dexter also, and indeed it was hard to find for some time. About the piano style. I noticed, that many young piano players who started to play "Bop" had difficulties to play flowing lines, many of them seemed to think about "Bop" as a more abstract form of "jazz". It sounds like those pianists thought "Gee that´s something weird, we don´t really understand it but let´s try to play "weird" also. When Bud played with other bop stars like Bird, Dex, J.J., it never sounded abstract or weird, he had the same ideas like those bop giants. But listen to Al Haig when he started with Diz. He sounded "stiff", but 2 years later he sounded beautiful. He sounds like a piano novice in 1945 and doesn´t really know to play a bop solo but later with Wardell Gray in 1949 or with Bird in 1949/50 or with Getz about the same period, he had learned a lot and sounds great. Others .... I have difficulties listening to them. One is a Georgy Handy who plays on a 1946 track, something like "Tempo Allstars" but it sounds terrible to me, stiff and withouth melody. But I must admit when I started to play, I also sounded terrible. I Wanted to sound like Bud and didn´t have no idea how to finger it. When I wanted to play a solo, it seemed to sound like someone practicing chromatic scales. I felt something is wrong with it, and especially when listening back to it, took a lot of listening to good music to get it together, those learning years were hard....

I have that also on LP, not on CD. Interesting the 1953 sides that have much darker colours than the early ones. In general, as the years went on, I started to begin to have difficulties listening to some very early Bud stuff, since I have difficulties listening to piano runs in the highest register. First I can´t hear the high notes very well starts to sound "thin". As others I started to appreciate much more the later stuff which maybe has lost some virtuosity, but sounds really "deep", especially the way he played the chords on ballads. His "Embraceable You" here is a classic, But still he had all his virtuosity as his flashy runs on "Woodyn You" shows. This 1953 session together with the BN with Fats and Sonny or the 1953 is the greatest early Bud.