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Gheorghe

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Everything posted by Gheorghe

  1. I bought it in the late 70´s and still enjoy reading it. Really interesting inside the live of a musician in trouble. It has quite a happy end, Hampton Hawes back in action, enjoying a new family live also. Too sad he died in 1977, he would have deserved much more recognition......
  2. Would have been a great encounter. Love Mulgrew Miller and heard him on several occasions, with Blakey, with Woody Shaw, with Curtis Fuller/Benny Golson, all of ´em ...... Remember one strange thing, once I heard and saw him playing some boppish stuff, maybe Stablemates something like that, very Powellish and Mulgrew looked very alike Bud, the same position of his head, the same look, and the movements of the lips like the eternal bubble gum......, great musician, I love everything Mulgrew did
  3. Yeah, the 90´s and the Toshiba Mini-LP album covers. We still had two record shops in Viena, one of them was the Virgin and it seemed they were specialized in Japan-Import Blue Note. And I was kind of a BN Freak then. Sure, "Am I Blue" was not my first Grant Green album, but I liked it, tough the best thing is the title tune. Not every tune is of same interest. And sometimes I´m in the mood to listen to this. But my favourit on Grant Green with Organ is "I wanna hold your Hand" with Larry Young and Hank Mobley. That´s the best of all. And, my wife liked those two title tunes from those two albums. Sounds like musical love poems, she said when she heard it for the first time.....
  4. I was a big Miles Freak and bought each album just when it came out. My favourite from the pre-"Time after Time" period was "We Want Miles" just because it is not perfect. Amandla was the best thing after "Siesta" , I like Siesta for the sound and the atmosphere, but somehow I had difficulties to get happy with "Tutu", maybe because I´m to much a Jazz listener. I liked the live versions of all those Amandla Tunes when he played them from 1989 on, I remember how they stretched out on Mr. Pastorius, Kai Akagi the keyboard player was great, at last a virtuoso on keyboard.....,
  5. When I started to listen seriously to jazz, "free jazz" still was quite a lot en vogue and people who had more knowledge and more listening experience than me wouldn´t consider a new listener a "full member" if he would keep listening only to "straight ahead" stuff. The mentioned early Ornette Coleman albums "The Shape of Jazz to Come" and "Ornette!" were those albums that made it easy for me to get into that, since they still had the "easy thing" for me, straight ahead walking bass , though the impros were not based on traditional chord patterns. In my first encounters with so called "New Thing" or "Free Jazz" I didn´t mind how far they go out if they did "swing"... Maybe this was also Alfred Lion´s touch to the whole thing, he recorded Ornette, he recorded Don Cherry and you can listen to "Complete Communion" and don´t fall asleep, since it grooves, it bounces, you can follow it. It took more time and more close listening for me to get into Cecil Taylor´s albums. Coltrane´s "At Village Vanguard Again" (the stuff with Sanders, with Rashied Ali). If I would listen to that I might say I got to have time to really listen to every aspect of it just to know what it is about.... What I want to say, I got to get me that kind of "education", not to become lazy and say "I only listen to Blakey´s "Moanin" and "Blue March" or to Horace Silver´s "Song to My Father" and say I only listen to what "I like" and where I can keep tappin my foot. I first started to hear Bird and advanced Bird fans told me "if you dig the music, move on, open your ears, listen to the next steps, and then come back and then talk to us, maybe...."
  6. I´m aware of that opinion...... many listeners hear influences of Trane in Pepper´s later work, but I would like to add something: Only the fact that Pepper´s sound and approach became more "aggresive" and there´s a bit more modal thing in his tunes doesn´t lead necessarly to the conclusion that he´s under the influence of Coltrane. It´s just how it went on. Pepper had been hurt so much, or better said he had hurt himself so much, so gone was the more mellow side of his playing, but his ballads like "Winter Moon" have a special, very moving quality. Sure he liked Trane, he stated he liked Freddie Hubbard very much too, but he didn´t mention too many other players. And it was the rhythm sections that pushed him in certain directions. If you play with George Cables, Billy Higgins, Al Foster, guys like that you can´t go on with the more mellow early 50´s west coast sound, you´d be lost. You better get into another direction and I think Mr. Art Pepper did it in a very individual manner. His tone on latterday performances is sharp, but not in the way Jackie McLean would do it, it´s something else. I like it.
  7. Strange but Leapin and Lopin doesn´t get as much spinning from me like "Cool Struttin" "Dial S for Sonny" and "Sonny´s Crib". I know many people say the prefer his trio album, but if I want to get the "Sonny Clark-Groove" it´s those hard-boppish medium tempos. I don´t think so much about him as a piano player, I like his relaxed solos on the mentioned albums but don´t pay much attention to his version of "Be-bop" and other up tempo stuff. Too little stuff happening with the left hand. I don´t say everybody must be a "two fisted pianist", you can overdo this showing everybody that that goddamn piano has 88 keys, but some more "fill in´s", some rhythmic patterns like the snare shots or the bombs a drummer throws would be good. I know what it means not to do too much with the left hand after a 1 year battle with tendovaginitis de quervain combined with athrithis, but I try not to forget I got a left hand too under the condition I won´t hurt it to much anymore....
  8. Must be good. I like most of Art Pepper´s later work, must admit I listen much more to his late 70´s early 80´s stuff, like Chet Baker, I listen much more to his later work. And really fast company, I love rhythm sections like this. And yeah, there could be more of that kind from other deceased musicians, more late Elvin Jones, Dexter, Mingus. Later versions of those bands were underrecorded, or they were overproduced with adding a lot of "guests", or you can´t find whole concerts (in this case, the "widow´s taste" is a great exception with double CDs from a lot of great nights)
  9. James Moody! Saw him twice, the first time 1999 in Viena, and exactly a year later in Miami. We, my wife and me talked to him on both occasions, he even remembered us from the year before. Curtis Fuller, Dave Liebman...... Maybe I would have had more ocasions to talk to famous musicians when I was very young since there were much more musicians, but then I was to shy to talk to them.
  10. After decades I gave "To Musicians Only" (Diz, Stitt, Getz) a spinning, forgot how good it is, Track ? My biggest surprise was "Dark Eyes", great the short latin section where Diz starts his solo....
  11. After decades I gave "To Musicians Only" (Diz, Stitt, Getz) a spinning, forgot how good it is, Track ? My biggest surprise was "Dark Eyes", great the short latin section where Diz starts his solo....
  12. After decades I gave "To Musicians Only" (Diz, Stitt, Getz) a spinning, forgot how good it is, Track ? My biggest surprise was "Dark Eyes", great the short latin section where Diz starts his solo....
  13. Finally I had enough time to give "For Musicians Only" a spin. Have forgotten how good this record is. And indeed, I could hear John Lewis only in the background, he plays a few things on Side B, on "Dark Eyes" and "Lover Come Back to me", but isn´t audible on Bebop and Wee. With the exception of Herb Ellis, this is a vintage bop group (Getz wouldn´t be considered as a bop musician, but his first recordings from the late 40´s and 1950 are very boppish so he knew his stuff). Stan Levey is great on drums, the strangest thing is Herb Ellis´ more old fashioned comping on fast tunes like Bebop. Lewis indeed is really subdued and off the mike like on "Bird and Diz at Carnegie Hall", after "Musicians Only" I spinned "Diz and Bird", and after that, also for the "subdued" Lewis the maybe last Bird Live from september 1954 at (?) Carnegie Hall with Lewis, Heath and Clarke (The Song is You, My Funny Valentine, Cool Blues)......
  14. Thanks for sharing. Indeed a very interesting story. I also have that record "For Musisians Only". Haven´t spinned it for a long time, but I remember that I also had the impression that the up tempo didn´t appeal to John Lewis. He was best on medium tempos. Same on Bird and Diz at Carnegie Hall. Not much to hear from John Lewis.
  15. Thank you Mr. Weiss for sharing this great video.
  16. Yeah of course, all those you mentioned.
  17. Anyway it seems that Adams was best known or remembered for his time with Mingus. I think from 73-75 ? (if I remember right, after 75 it was Ricky Ford instead of Adams, and first Danny Mixon instead of Pullen, later of cours Bob Neloms, that´s maybe the last time I saw the band?) . But again, I´d like to mention why I have such great memories of musicians like George Adams: I was a newbie and first it seemed I preferred to listen to hard bop, to 50´s Miles, to 50´s BlueNote Stuff which was easy listening for a starter. More advanced fans laughed me off and kept tellin me to open up my mind and learn about what´s goin on. Completly free stuff like Contempory Five or Cecil Taylor was to hard for me, but with musicians like George Adams I could learn to open up, cause through their music they showed me there´s just one thing "music", there´s no gap between old and new things, it just flows. George Adams, Dave Murray all those great musicians from that generation.......
  18. yeah, the girl from the Dutch Big Band might have been in her twenties in 1990, was nice to see all those folks in that fancy town, Barbara Dennerlein was there, Louis Sclavis was there....., great memories...... About Moondance: Yeah Cm. Well anyway if she wants it in Ebm that will be allright. If she wants C minor it´s also okay. A lotta tunes she wants in the key of C , Aint Missbehavin, Love´s her to stay , I thought about you, Tenderly, Dream a little dream, almost the half of her list. Right now I heard Blue Champain by Manhattan Transfer, also great. On Dream a little dream anyway on the Doris Day version the piano is really audible, so I can figure out what she might want....
  19. Thank you so much @page. Well she mailed me Eb, Now one thing, am I deaf or isn´t that version C minor ? Sure its not a good recording and maybe something´s with my speakers, but I was quite sure this is C minor ? Well, I transcribed some of the tunes in the keys she wants. Anyway thanks for your advice not to trust the RB. One example: "I thought about you"...the RB chords are the Miles 1963/64 stuff, not really for vocalists. I got other chords, cause she might not be happy with the Miles thing, would´t be the right support for her.... Another thing. You from Netherlands right ? I remember many many years ago when I played at the International Jazz Festival Sibiu (RO) and the first band was a big band from Netherlands, they also had a fine young female singer. They did mostly swing stuff, the name of the band was something with Bouwkunde or Baukunde (???) Orchestra, I remember that well, they were very nice young people, the singer was a girl "Marlon", "Marleen" ? something like that. I think they were music students, that´s how it was announced.... Wait a minute, I remember the first tune was "Here´s the Band" something like that, as a starter...... Remember things that was 25 years ago but don´t remember what I did last week ...
  20. well as I said there was one edition of a Mingus Ghost Band that I saw live , I think it was 1989, yeah 89 cause Diz also was there with an All Star Band. The "Mingus Band" had Jimmie Knepper conducting, from the Mingus Alumni I recognized a quite subdued George Adams, John Handy. Danny Richmond had died already, it was Billy Hart on drums, anyway it was the last occasion I saw Adams.
  21. To me, George Adams (and also Don Pullen) was one of the most significant musicians of the ´70s. It was the time when I was young and it was a time of stylistic transition: Many fans said "acoustic jazz is out", others said "harmonies and melodies is out and free is the thing", and so on, but for many musicians it was a challenge to create a "link" between straight ahead and avantgarde, and George Adams is one of the best examples of that generation: I´ll never forget the first time I heard him with Mingus. The way how Adams would start in a more conventional manner and then get out quickly doin his thing, but never leaving the form and the structure of the song. That´s what was great. I told that so many guys who thought they great cause they can go "far out" but couldn´t do a 12 bar blues Sure I still heard a lot of him even after Mingus died, the great collaboration with Pullen and Richmond, and some other projects, yeah with McCoy that was great. I´m not soooo much into the later Gil Evans stuff, somehow I missed that. The last time I saw Adams was some really sad thing with some "Mingus Ghost Band" led by Jimmy Knepper (1989, 1990 ???), who imho was one of the best trombonists to play Mingus´ music, but that last try of Mingus revival was just a very disappointing appearence and anyway Adams didn´t get much space..... and Knepper wasn´t interested at all in what he was doin on that occasion...
  22. Yeah, heard that ! Would be good as a bossa too, yeah. First, some minutes ago just before I looked at that thread I listened to Doris Day doin No Moon at all , sure as a swing tune. No I heard that in G minor, which sound natural to me. Wonder how it might sound in E-flat cause she mailed that she want´s it in E-flat. Not, that this might be a problem, but we´ll see. Maybe for some tunes she wrote the wrong key, but anyway I´ll fix it in E-flat too. Listend to some other tunes. Time after Time by Ella. Until now, maybe from horn players first I knew this as a ballad, but nice with slow medium swing too. Listened to Moondance, found only a Van Morrison version, but this might be cool . She seems to like Doris Day, cause a lot of that stuff is Doris Day stuff. And I thought I´m an Oldie with all my "Manteca´s " and "Salt Peanuts" the Monk Tunes, the Bud tunes, but live´s full of surprises. Last thing: You say big bands almost never do D flat. Well maybe decades ago it was else. Heard Billie Eckstine´s band doin "Our Delight" in D-flat. Usually most dudes do it in A flat. And Jay McShann "Wrap your troubles in dreams" also D-flat Tomorrow I´ll transcribe the tunes I didn´t know in the keys she wants (I mean the chord symbols, cause I can´t read a note even if it´s as big as a house You see, that´s the slower pace writin it down myself on a small paper, but that´s how I get it in my head....... after that, I´ll have some brainstorming with the bass player
  23. Bb girl Yeah B flat is a bop key, all those "rhythm-changes" tunes they in B flat, a lot of stuff. Now if I play a set, I try to avoid Bb, if it´s a rhythm tune I like Db , Eb, Ab those sound good. Db is more "pastel", Eb sounds a bit darker, and Ab even more, not only because it got a lot of black keys, it´s the "colour" of the key, how it sounds. Noticed at least to tunes from your list are also on the list I got: "I thought about you" and "No Moon at All". I´m really curious how she does "I remember you". I played that tune, mostly medium tempo. The bass player said me he will ask her if she also has some bossa , cause those are mostly swing tunes and ballads, at least "Ipanema" might be possible.
  24. Hello Page, thank you for your fast reply. I remember the "I´m beginning to see the light" with Ella withz Count Basie. My problem with sheets is, I´m quite an old fashioned guy. Never really bothered about reading sheet . Usually I listen to the tune, get the chords just from hearing it and if the form is more complicate or unusual to the stuff I frequently do, I might write the chord symbols on a little paper an that´s it. I´ll see, together with my bassist and drummer we listen to a few versions of the tunes. The key is not an issue for me. If I heard the tune once, got the chord progressions in my head , I hope I can do it in any key. My "difficult" keys are those, that are completely unusual in jazz (A natural, D natural, B natural). I started as a "B-flat man" *smile" when I was a kid. My advantage is though I don´t read music, I got perfect pitch, so if I hear the tune I know in what key it´s done. I hear the keys like "colors", you know. I didn´t study music. When i was a kid, my father showed me on the keyboard the notes. He said. now this a C, now here the next a C sharp, then a D, then a D sharp and so on. Then he would me close the eyes or let me look into another direction and would hit a note and ask "what note is it" and I might tell him. After that he might play a tune and say "listen and play it from ear", or "tell me what key I played "........
  25. Just now I got her song list. Sorry I didn´t answer earlier to your kind postings, but I thought I´d better wait until I get the song list and the key she want´s for each song. Ain´t Misbehavin in C Time after Time in Bb I didn´t know what time it was Eb Love is here to stay in C I thought about you C Tenderly C Dream a little Dream C Moondance Eb Comes Love Ab I Remember You F Blue Champagne A Im beginning to see the ligth C Howh high the Moon Eb Body and Soul in Bb They cant take that away in C So it seems she´s more into swing tunes than latin, and maybe not into portugese lyrics...., Many of the tunes seem to be easy and I know them and played some of them on several ocasion, but not all of them. Blue Champagne and Comes Love I don´t know. Some or the tunes I had played in other keys, maybe Tenderly i used to play in Eb for example, How High the Moon in G. I´ll have to listen to some vocal versions of the tunes from the list. How do you think about the song list ?
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