Gheorghe

Thank you kinuta for your really interesting answer. Yeah, "out of tune" , the piano sounds like that, not as much as the out of tune piano on Monk´s early Prestige session, but nevertheless. I´m lookin forward listening to the Glass Bead Games too. Somehow the period late 60´s early 70´s is not very much represented in my disco. I have a lot of Cliff Jordan with the Magic Triangle from 1975. Will be interesting comparing the Pharoah Sanders with the other better known stuff "Karma" and other Impulse records.

me to, got it yesterday and have listend to "in the World" and the Cecil Payne date. It´s interesting to hear a quite straight ahead thing with two basses and two drummers, they all are topnotch musicians. A surprise for me was the Kenny Dorham . I didn´t even know he still played that late in his life. Always thought the "Trompeta Toccatta" was his last recording. And he still sounds very good. Same with Wynton Kelly. Never heard anything that late in his career, he had more profile during the early 60s, with Miles and then with various BN artists and then with Wes Montgomery...... The piano sounds a bit tinny, maybe it was an upright. At least on one of the photos you see an upright. The Cecil Payne disc is also very good. I liked most the last track "Flying Fish", I heard that live, Cecil Payne with Ron Carter, and a young unknown tenorist and I don´t remember the rest, but it was towards the end of Cecils life. It´s strange to hear straight ahead material that late in the 60´s. I´m lookin forward now to listen today to the more free material, once I have heard the Brackeen Don Cherry stuff, cant wait hear the Ed Blackwell and the Pharoah Sanders and the rest of it.......

It´s strange but it seems this one was my only encounter with Mundell Lowe. I remember I was still almost a kid when I purchased this Parker album, which was kind of an insider album in my clique. Maybe because then "new thing" and "free" was the thing. so the title seemed to attract a lot of freaks. I remember I was impressed with the guitar on those fast tracks "Lester Leaps In" etc. and thought wow, until then I only knew Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell in the pre rock guitar field. Was quite astonished that somebody else, completely unknown to me and not even mentioned in my only information source "Jazz Book" can play so much guitar along with Bird......, , but it seems it is the only thing I heard of him. Read the name many times and also in DB, but the only listening item remained the one with Bird.....

Great stuff ! Right now I´m listening to something my wife bought me for my birthday: Woody Shaw "Bemsha Swing" . A fanstastic life date from 1986 with really fanstastic stuff.

Thank you so much !

Happy Birthday dear Jim ! The same day like my birthday ! Happy Birthday dear Jim ! The same day like my birthday !

I always loved his huge sound, love everything he did ,but especially the great VSOP dates from the 70´s. He is still great, but did he change his bass sound. He sounded more amplified on the recordings and live occasions when I saw him, and now it sounds more "traditional".

Oh thank you all so much. And great item that song Sagittarius, my zodiac......enjoyed it very much !

I justs want to thank you all for the kind inspirations. I have listened to the items and yesterday we performed it, with that simple intro vamp and all, and I really enjoyed playing it and the audience loved it. Anyway it was a fine occasion, 2 days before my birthday it was a kind of birthday set with jam after the first set. If you want to know what we played, the setlist was: 1) And then she stopped (that´s a Dizzy tune I have a special affinity to it I heard Diz play it with Sandoval), 2) Hot House 4) Dizzy Atmosphere, 5) Lover Man, 6) Ow (bass feature), 7) Con Alma, 8) Bouncing with Bud During the session there was a fine "Don´t stop the Carneval" where they went into "Happy Birthday" just with the same latin groove. Really fine. Once again, thank you for your kind help.

Happy Birthday to the genius Mr. McCoy. He made me happy so many times, great live experiences with great groups, fantastic recordings, everything, just thank you.

It´s not so hard if one section has at least 8 or 12 bars. Some tunes have 12 bars in the A section, but those 12 bars are not a blues. But it is easy to play this, "The best thing for you (is me)" is coming to my mind. I would have mentioned also "Conception", but this is not a standard I think. I play them both. Playing "April" I must admit I didn´t even think about the form. Yeah, 48 bars ABA but this song is so much fixed in my mind it was one of the first jazz tunes I heard decades ago, so you improvise on it without thinking how many bars it has. "Dear Old Stockholm" .... another example. Everybody knows that since I think everybody got some Miles from the fifties in his collection, so you hear it and hear it and anyway you hear the musicians improvising on it and can start your own chorusses if you choose to play it. "Cheek to Cheek" is another. I think I had to play it once, I mean the changes cause it was a tune based on the changes of "Cheek to Cheek". But it´s hard for me to play asymetrical bar numbers. That means a lot of listening until you know it , I mean in such a manner that you can blow your chorusses on it. Maybe it´s easier if you blow if you have sheet and read the changes, but I try to avoid to have sheet when playing. Maybe I´m a bit old fashioned in that manner but I think it looks better on stage if you dont have to read music in front of the audience.

Hello, sorry I have not noticed that thread, but would like to discuss this album or Bud in general with you. As I remember it was on 3 consecutive days in the first half of january 55 and the last day was the best. They had changed to rhythm section and got his old companion Kenny Clarke. I don´t know what medicine they gave Bud, but there where other problems on those Verve sessions too: Norman Granz was not really willing to record "vintage bop material". And a Bud who anyway was at "half speed" or under "autocontrol" had difficulties with that, or was not really willing to play it. So manybe after the disastrous results from the first day, even the guys from Verve would let him play, just to get material to publish. On the first date with Blakey, it must have been painful for Blakey to see and hear Bud like this. 4 1/2 years earlier (1950) Bud played the best piano he ever played (with Bird and Fats, and Blakey at Birdland) , by the way with some of the best Blakey. Bud improved slowly after those sad early 1955 dates, he get´s a bit stronger on the spring sessions (that album titled "Piano Interpretations", and the 1956 "Blues in the Closet", and especially when he got out of that Verve contract and could record for Blue Note again. What has to be said about Bud at any stage of his career is that he had a fantastic musical memory. When Bud returned to U.S.A. in late 1964 he got back into troubles and in that state of mind or in that state of frustration he started to play again the tunes he had recorded during his "un-years", like "Old Black Magic", "Thou Swell", There is also a very interesting version of "Epistrophy" from Birdland in autumn 1964, which is also done in that laid back manner similar to the 1955 version. Bud seemed to love to play that tune when things were bad for him, another occasion when he played it was in 1962 at Golden Circle. Nat Hentoff was right when he wrote in his liner notes that Bud´s performances in the later state of his career were uneven. At Golden Circle there are good and very bad performances, and same at Birdland two years later. From all the recorded material, there are some great moments and some days or sets where he just shouldn´t have played. But as you said, when I read the liner notes I can´t understand why Verve let Hentoff do such a bad publicity. Manybe they thought better a bed reputation than no reputation.... The guys from "Roulette" did a better job promoting a bad album: On one of his worst albums "The Return of Bud Powell" from late 1964, they write in the liner notes "and play he does on that album, better and stronger than ever".

Ornette Coleman "Ornette!" from 1961. During my youth this was not easy to purchase, I had listened to it at a friend´s place and later bought a CD reissue with a bonus track "Keen Writers" . I great album with Scott LaFaro on bass. The strange thing it´s much more straight ahead than other Coleman albums of that time. "Town Hall" is much more advanced. Ornette himself has much more emotion in his playing than on other occasions. Mostly he played in a very simple and diatonic manner , modulating through different keys, many of them unusual keys in jazz like D natural for example. Here he´s more chromatic and on the same time much more along with a straight ahead beat. Ed Blackwell is fantastic on T&T. But the best thing is the bonus track. I´ve listend to the 4 issued tracks more often and know them, but I seemed to have forgotten about the bonus track......

Incredible. As if McCony Tyner´s music was not jazz. And I remember, as Blakey intruduced the members of the Band at that gig in march 1980 he also introduced Fambrough with exactly the same words.Blakey had some standard speeches, just like Lou Donaldson when he intruduces "Wee" as "not recommended for fusion and confusion players...."

Yes I remember he was only for a short time, and I checked it out from the really great book "Hard Bop academy" about the Jazz Messengers sidemen.

Hello BFrank ! In the whole context of his bands, maybe it´s true that this edition was more underrated, but if I remember right, this was the band which brought Blakey back to larger audiences and tours overseas. I remember the happy young faces hearing for the first time that music. And I think it was at Moers in Germany, and the first records for the Timeless Label were very well announced in the Jazz Podium , the magazine we were reading. And as you mentioned Keystone Korner, that´s the point. When I was browsing thru the records to find anything I could with Blakey , and you can imagine how scarce was the market for acoustic jazz in the late 70´s , there was two records, the 1957 RCA "Plays Lerner and Loewe", and the 1977 "In this Korner". Needless to say I was much more impressed with the 1977 stuff, and same thing about the other kids around me. It sounded more "hip". And as we were kids and didn´t know much more musicians, those guys were our heros: The fantastic trumpet of Ponomarev from USSR , the then still young and unknown but fiercy Bobby Watson, the steady and strong tenor of Dave Schnitter, the Mr. Wonderful himself James Williams on piano, and the solid Irwing on bass. I remember the linernotes was very much about James Williams and that during those nights at the Korner nobody less than RED GARLAND was in the house and praised the young Williams. All us little cats wanted to check out some gimmicks Williams was doing, to become better piano players...... I remember we wore that record out, all kids was listening to it, even the girls said yeah if that´s jazz, it´s not bad......

I saw the Messengers at least 3 times. The first time was march 1980 at TU in Vienna. The edition was Valerie Ponomarev on tp, Bobby Watson on as, Dave Pierce on ts, James Williams on p, Charles Fambrough on bass. I was looking forward to that concert so much, since Blakey was my favourite drummer during that time. The first recordings with him on drums I heard on that famous Night at Birdland with Bird,Fats, Bud, and fell in love with his loud and hard driving drumming. Was a bit disappointed when I first had heard a studio recording with Blakey, because in comparation to Birdland 1950 it sounded to soft and to tame to me. I was and still am crazy about really powerful drummers. That first live concert had 3 of the musicians from the Concord LP "At this Korner" from 1977 (Ponomarev, Watson, Williams) and a Philips LP "Night in Tunisa" from 1979. I don´t remember all the tunes they played, but of course they did Blues March and Moanin´. All kids in town was hummin "Moanin´" when I was young. Even non jazzers loved it. The second time was 1983 at Wiesen Jazz Festival . I think Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Toussaint, ..... but not Mulgrew Miller on p, the piano player was a nice cat I think his name was "O´Neall" . On bass I think was Lonnie Plaxico. I remember there was even some "free" passages in the solos. And there was a ballad medley, I don´t know what ballad each of them played, but O´Neall played some "Summertime" and all the girls screamed..........., and the last tune was a really fast "Wee" and up on stage came .....DIZ !!!!!. He was scheduled for the next day but was allready in town and looked really like a turist, with a photoapparat around his neck, and he scatted Wee. He didn´t have his tp or was not allowed to play it due to contractual reasons, but boy ! It was an occasion to see Bu and Diz together on stage. The last time was 1988 or 1989 at "Metropole" in Viena. A few months earlier he had chancelled a gig at "Fritz", because his little dog was sick I think, that was the reason . At Metropole he had a trumpet player, a trombonist, and the then totally unknown piano player Benny Green (not to be confounded with the trombonist). But you see, it´s easy for me to remember tunes and personnel until around the mid 80´s and after that though I saw a lot, it´s much harder to remember it. One thing I remember from the last gig. I was in the front row and near to Bu just to see and hear what he´s doin. And I was impressed how he plays different for trumpet, sax, trombone, it´s just wonderful how he makes his drums sound like brass or like wood, that´s the greatest thing i remember about Bu.

I´ve been a bit more into 60´s avantgarde the last days. Just heard Cecil Taylor´s "Conquistador". Forgot how great this is. You got to get into that music, and will find a really wealth of music. They all are great. Taylor got such a phantastic touch and I think RVG recorded his piano really fine. Everything he plays, the more tender moments alternating with the clusters. You can hear were Jaky Byard comes from. And the horn´s are great. Bill Dixon and of courses Jimmy Lions. Especially on "With (Exit)" he almost sounds like Bird sometimes. Just a fantastic record.

I just ordered it ! Thank you for the kind info, I would never have thought that I´ll find it on a box, and the other CDs also are very very promising. Just as an "aperitiv" for the Mosaic Box with so much Don Cherry on it, I spinned "Complete Communion" yesterday. That´s some memories of my youth. I wanted to get into so called "free jazz" because I was afraid others might laugh at me if I can´t dig into something beyond bop and hard bop. And that guy who had that huge record collection of 90% free music, borrowed me the "Communion" and the "Rhythm X" and that was ideal for a free-jazz starter who´s still a bit afraid of "free", because it has portions of "straight ahead" where the bass walks, like I loved it. "Rhythm X" was a bit further out, but still understandable for a 15,16 year kid. I had both of them on tape, bought the Communion CD later and now I´m lookin forward to hear that Rhythm X. Will bring a lot of memories back, of the shy kid who wanted to be with the "hipsters" ......

Really ? Never thought it might be in the Cliff Jordan Box, since it´s quite far from Jordan´s musical directions. But live is full of surprises.

It was a good idea during that time, late 70´s if I remember right, there where two different groups of fans, those who preferred acoustic and those who preferred electric, and since Ornette was deeply into electrics with Prime Time, there were attempts of his former bandmates to please those who only dug the classic Ornette Coleman Trio/Quartet. It was very similar to the VSOP, Miles classic quintet with Hubbard replacing Miles who was into electrics (or was taking a break). I think it was mainly Charlie Hadens idea to form that Old and New Dreams. He was an acoustic purist, which was not the case with Ornette and Don Cherry, they were interested in electrics. Anyway, there was a great little record of "Ornette Coleman without Ornette Coleman" in the late 60´s, I think it was called Charles Brackeen Quartet. The man of Joanne Brackeen, who seems to be much better known. But it has Don Cherry, Charly Haden and I think Blackwell, or Higgins I´m not sure. This record sounds very much like an Ornette Coleman record. I´d like to have it , but it seems to have disappeard and was not in the reissue circle.

I heard the Rikers Island only on tape once. Remember a very far out Night in Tunisia, but I think bad recorded. Well I don´t care for bad sound quality as a stone bebopper and used to rusty sound of Birdland Tapes etc , . Remember also 2 great vocals "It shouldn´t happen to a dream" with Earl Coleman. Hope is just fantastic comping the singer, he should have done that more often. And a funny "Groovin High" with I don´t know who doin some really funny scat. But can someone tell me the story behind that Rikers Island. I always knew that this was a jail, and I read somewhere that Philly J J was incarcerated there in 63. Was that record made in jail ?

I didn´t even know Spaulding made 45 rpm record. As much as I know his music a 45rpm would not offer enough space of time for his outbursts. As for "the East" yes I remember it as the place where Pharoah made his album "Life at the East". Imho one of the best albums he ever did. It was my first then in the 70´s and I still have it. Mtume? The great percussionist who later played with Miles ?

Really sad news. Saw him live with Ron Carter

I´ll have to purchase this. Really great company. I saw McCoy Tyner with Joe Ford and Ran Blake in March 1980 and I still remember the first tune they played that I liked much, and couldn´t find the title of the tune until someone from here said me it´s "The Seeker" , which is on "Quartets" which I purchased as soon as I heard about it. I also like Horizon very much, and the double album with the two trios. And of course, the "Milestone Allstars" .