Gheorghe

Too bad that I´m not in DC. Love Tadd, his compositions, his voicings, and damn yeah, his piano playing. One little thing we wore out when we were kids was that Royal Roost stuff with Fats Navarro. It´s strange I "discovered" him only after I had purchased that Miles Davis - Tadd Dameron Paris 1949" when it came out. Hadn´t heard of Tadd but read on the liner notes that whole Paris eagerly awaited him to show them those "new chords". Heard his stuff and purchased that "Tadd Dameron-John Coltrane" and next day I went to school and told them guys "hey you must get to know Tadd Dameron, he played with Miles AND with Trane, and the youngsters said "well, then he must be something", and we all got together and listend and learned to hum his tunes. We were a crazy bunch of guys, gee boy that was some high school......, imagine it today, kids comin together to discuss that music. And well someone said "but he´s not so sharp on piano like Bud !" Others, the more moderate guys said "well he´s NOT Oscar Peterson or Errol Garner (the guys who liked more "happy easy listenin jazz"). And we spread the word: Look, Tadd knows better than all them others, he led bands with Miles and Trane playin in HIS band, so he damn knows better, he just doesn´t care and plays those short and chordy solos just cause that´s him". I even tried to copy some of his solos, but it´s harder to play than some Powell runs...... Hope somebody who loves Tadd Dameron might read this, the view of a kid of the 70´s about Tadd Dameron......., I think he himself might have liked that.....

If it´s Buster William´s day, I´d prefer to discuss him. He´s one of my favourites, period. And I love his sound, his drive behind the band and his tricky solos. One of the most interesting listening experiences I had with Buster was one occasion when he played the second, the regular bass in Ron Carter´s group. You know, Ron on piccolo bass, Kenny Barron on piano, Buster Williams on double bass and Ben Riley. And with all respect I have for Mr. Carter and I´ll never say else than he´s one of the greatests bassists after Paul Chambers, that piccolo stuff was something that got a bit too much routine. And there was Buster Williams and at one point he had his bass solo and everybody agreed that this was the stuff of the evening. And Buster together with Al Foster (one of my favourites), a dream team. I think if one can have the luck to play with Buster an Al behind him, it must be heaven on earth. I can´t praise him enogh, he is a master !

I have the DVD of the Paris Concert, plus the solo tracks of Monk playing Ellington from Berlin 1969. The greatest moment of the Paris Concert is when Philly J.J. sit´s in. Monk still played very much even if he seemed much more subdued in 1969 and looks older than 52. But the young and unknown drummer just speeds the tempo up and there are tunes which end much faster than they start, that´s not good if a drummer "run´s away". The bassist though I never heard him before, is good. And Rouse still was the best one to interprete Monk´s music. Heard later versions of the quartet with Paul Jeffrey who sure is good but I like Rouse better. Never heard about that Koln Concert, must get that. Monk did really some astonishing stride piano, he played that "Sweetheart of my dreams" as an encore also in Paris. And I like that interview he did with Jacques Hess. Monk is Monk, but he has his humour about it and even smiles. And I like his laconic answers when he is asked some question, like, when he was asked which of his compositions he likes most and he says "I didn´t rate ´em!"....... or on another occasion when he was asked if he thinks the piano should have more than them 88 keys and he says "it´s hard work to play them 88 keys".....

yes , that must be good. Anyway, Wes with Kelly at the Halfnote was one of my favourite LPs , though it also didn´t have all tracks with Wes.

I don´t have to post "RIP" just to raise the number of my posts. And too many persons I don´t have any idea who it was. If it´s about a musician who means something to me I might say why I love his music so much, or remember when I heard him/her live. Anyway, as I grew up with the jazz that was heard then, from post-war bop to 70´s rock-jazz and that´s my listening habits, say from ´45 to late 70´s , most of my idols are gone, from Diz to Alphonse Mouzon...., let´s say, so who´s left just a few....

Thank you, I couldn´t have done it. Yes, the second cover ist the one that was an all the albums for sale when we purchased them in the 70´s. You are right, the first cover looks like a mid fifties Powell, more slim, neatly dressed but of an outworldish character. The second cover shows a Powell who sure enjoyed all the french goodies, the cakes, the pastries and being around friends who loved him. I think if he would have stayed in Europe, he would have become something like a "happy old man". The track "Crosscrane", yes it sounds more boppish, but it seems it was written for the studio and then forgotten, since it never became a classic like other tunes he wrote and played them frequently "live", like "Bouncin´with Bud", "Dance of the Infidels" or the later "Johns Abbey". But this whole album is a big disappointment, even more than some other albums where he mayby fluffed a few runs, even the "Return of Bud Powell" which usually gets low rating , sound more like vintage Bud than this.

I had purchased some of the classic RCA a long time ago, during the LP era. One thing about the mentioned "Strictly Powell". It´s a record that doesn´t get much spinning. I´d say it´s the strangest and most untypical of his records. Well, 1956 was not his strongest year, but he does quite good with some really strong stuff on the Verve album "Blues in the Closet" from the same period and it´s so strange he recorded this completely untypical RCA album, where he sound´s like it might be someone else. It´s not a very exciting record. Even the bass and drums sounds almost as if it was overdubbed later, like the way Tristano would make records at some point. One strange thing was the album cover on the original RCA album, it was a photograph obviously from Paris much later, Bud very very overweight with a relaxed smile, but not a photography related to the time when the record might have been done.... So the title "Strictly Powell" is really strange, cause its further removed from Bud´s style than you might imagine.....

I have read it Hampton Hawes´autobiography "Raise up off me", that he had to go to the bathroom because of his habit and Sonny Clark who was in the studio, did one track. Maybe this one. Anyway , both Hawes and Clark had a habit.

Yes, that´s one of the questions Art Taylor laid on him, if it´s true that he gave up playing for a while and didn´t even touch his saxophone. Must have been after the collaboration with Johnny Griffin. Those "tough Tenors" Griff-Jaws sold very well. Well, Griff went to Paris after that, and maybe Jaws became a booking agent. By the way , that "Oh Gee!" is really nice. As I remember it, it´s a simple medium blues in Ab , he played it often. But otherwise than Lou Donaldson (who also never really changed his style ) , Jaws didn´t seem to play the same numbers at every show. As I remember, his repertoire was quite rich, there were bebop-oriented tunes like "Rifftide", there was wonderful ballads, some bossas, yeah like all great tenorsaxists, he also was a great ballad player. Oh yeah, and my favourite record is a Pablo thing from the 70´s with the Tommy Flanagan Trio, it got some nice tunes on it "On a clear day", "Wave", "Watch what happen´s"". And......... he signed it for me !

So much saxophone he played, I was a bit disappointed about the interview he gave Art Taylor (to be read in "Notes and Tones"). He´s statements read somehow in a blunt manner, but maybe that was his personality, the many times I saw him live he really played some great sax, and maybe had a bit of a businessman-personality, anyway I think he was Count´s road manager for a long time.

Right, I thought about Terence Blanchard, thanks man.

Hi Ted ! You are right ! That´s the club. I was a regular there in the 70´s and even played there some times. The record done at the club is titled "Land of Dreams" if I remember right. The great guitarist Karl Ratzer is on it. Art Farmer played there at least two times every year. His wife was from Vienna. And by the way, as you can see on the foto, it´s a nice fancy place with that old church. Now we also got a nice little club on the other side of the river with some good sessions. When I was a youngster, there was so many clubs in my town, we had "Jazz Freddy" (IMHO the best), "Opus One", "Jazz Gittie´s " "Jazz Spelunke" "Willie´s Rumpelkammer" are only some of them, and there was other joint´s were musicians just met to have some tastes, to hang out. You just might walk the few blocks near the market "Naschmarkt" and might meet some dudes who might say hello what´s up, you come jam with us this night ?

Strange, somehow I had that impressions, that the younger generation, those who became famous in the 80´s and so on, were that kind of clean generation. I think, even Art Blakey who had his own stories with harmful stuff, said about the youngsters who played with him that they don´t even drink anything else but orange juice , and that drug´s totally out of fashion. As I thought it, the so called young lions, those like Wynton Marsalis, Donald Harrison and that other trumpet player who played with Bu, don´t know his name now, and Roy, and Wallace Rooney and all of em, that they are that healthy generation . Imagine: Until I saw him for the last time towards the end of his live, I didn´t even know that Woody Shaw was a user, he looked to me like that clean cat, the new generation, who was the next step after Fats, Miles, Lee Morgan, without them their habit. Like the album covers like Woody III, you see him the young star, his little boy, his father - and say wow what a big trumpet- star, but also a clean family man, that´s what I thought, and I was quite shocked when I heard that drugs had made him sick.

I must admit I don´t really know much about Karl Berger, the only occasion I heard him (mostly on vibes, and some piano at one point) is on Don Cherry´s "Suite for Improvisers", which I dig and see it as a kind of advanced "Complete Communion". But since Cherry and Moncur were in the forefront of the midsixties avantgarde, I wouldn´t be surprised if they might have played together and mutually using sidemen from their own sessions, as they did on records.

Interesting story ! I remember Jaws very well, he was almost a regular in my hometown Viena, every year he played a few days at a well known jazz club. Even if he never changed his style, he got his own, you must love his swing, his sometimes rough, sometimes softer sound, he odd way of phrasing, he´s one you can recognize imediatly . The highlite was in 1978 when he brought Harry Sweets Edison with him. One thing about him: Like Brew Moore, he always remained the same, and never had to change his style. Both played with Miles in the early 50´s and each of them stood his own. Jaws on that 1951 live session with Miles is just great. And how he manages to play the bop tune "Move" in his swing style with those shorter phrases, that sly humour......

Now that you say it, I agree to you. That´s it. I can play easily in d-minor but got headaches if I´d try in D major. Never new why, but now I can understand it. But I hate keys like B natural major. One time I h a d to play it, cause the guest artist a saxophonist told us "I´m tired playin the usual keys, let´s start with "Moose the Mooche" in B major. My luck was I heard so many Bird records where the speed is up so some tunes in B-flat sound like B, that´s how I managed to get thru, just having in my mind those that are too sharp because of incorrect speed. Miles´ Nature-Boy in G yeah I think that was the first version I ever heard, when I was a kid. Then I couldn´t do much with that tune, it was the abstract arrangement. Strange record anyway, that´s Mingus who somehow sounded more "western abstract/cool" in 1954/55. Complete different to the "angry Mingus" that we love so much, the Mingus with Dolphy/Byard or later with George Adams/Don Pullen. Got another version of Nature Boy by Jackie Mc Lean which I got from my wife , got to listen to it again, if I remember right, that was in f-minor, strange I don´t remember.

In my head I hear it in E minor. But I think I might play it in Eb-minor even easier. It´s strange. I´m a piano player and should not have too much problems with keys like E natural, D natural, A natural and so on, but I think since I don´t play anything else but jazz, those keys are quite strange to me, since they are unusual keys for horn players and I think much more like a horn player. It´s only if I feel that a certain tune is supposed to be heard in a certain key. Maybe if I hadn´t perfect pitch I might be more flexible. But that way, the way how I hear it, I got it in my head and it sticks.

Thats sad news. I´ll always remember him, since I was very impressed by his playing when I saw and heard him with Archie Shepp in about 1979 (78 or 79). That was a helluva band, Shepp, Kessler, Cunningham and Clifford Jarvis......, the best he ever had. I too wondered why I didn´t see him more, just that one gig with Shepp, but never forgot it. Really solid bass work.

Great musician and a key figure of the music of the ´70s, period. I don´t have too many records cause I don´t know whether the royalities go to him or to that............ One thing I always would have liked to state, maybe I´m wrong, if so, I just apologize, but...... , I always had the impression that on the live dates with Miles from 1969 he just goes too far out. I don´t have nothing against new thing and free music, but he just tries to "outfreak" the whole proceedings on that electric piano, and at some point it leaves me exhausted. Those Bitches Brew/Kilimanjaro/Miles in the Sky tunes were pretty tunes as Miles and Wayne do them, and what Chick does on the records is really okay, but the live stuff just get´s to a point where I loose it after some minutes of FenderRhodes solo from Chick. And, on video material, Miles is one thing, he don´t pay no attention to the audience, but it´s part of his game, you can "buy" that from him and say he´s into the music and that´s work, and no entertainment,...... but if you look at Chick (and Dave Holland) on those videos, it seems they try to "out-miles" Miles concerning their stage manners.....

medjuck: I have it on the Spotlite LP "Yardbird in Lotusland" It has some tracks Bird´n Diz from their LA trip late 45/46, then those AFRS with Ernie Bubbles Whitman als MC, with Bird, Willie Smith, Benny Carter, and the Nat King Cole Trio, and one number I think Cherokee just Bird with the NatKing Cole Trio, but I think it´s cut off before the piano solo starts. Then there´s some from spring 46 at the Finale Club with Miles (sounding verly much like Diz), and Joe Albany. Try to find "Yardbird in Lotusland", I think it was also on CD, but maybe this was not quite a legit, anyway the Spotlite was the best source for rare ´40´s stuff when I was young.

oh I love those Steeplechase classics. They was the music we heard in our youth, Dex, Jackie Mc Lean, Griff, Bud, we were on vacation and had rented a small house near some Mountainlakes and rivers and during the day we might go troutfishing, and the nights was with some beer some booze, and "live jazz" from the Montmatre, the Golden Circle. Man, we brought those giants in our living room.

Always loved him, especially when he set in with Bird an Bud, mostly in 1953 at Birdland. What he does on the tune " Broadway" is just fantastic, like on that date of Bud with Bird and Candido. The 4´s between Art Taylor and Candido is really something...... Saw him on a video of Dizzy´s Dreamband around the early 80´s, it seems he never aged, he looked just the same and did fantastic things on Manteca

I always wondered how Bird and Art Tatum might have sounded together, since I had read "Beneath the Underdog" when I was a boy. Mingus describes a session where Bird plays with Tatum, and I want to belive, that at least the musical parts of that bio was not fiction. I remember I heard one date Bird with NatKingCole and it was supposed to be nearer to what might have sounded a Bird/Tatum collaboration. About the "Bird" from that Verve Recording (together with Repetition) . I think I have it on that album called "Jazz Perennial". As much as I love Bird, this is one of the more forgetable albums, "The Bird" and "Celebrity", and the unhappy stuff where they added this Tommy Turk to the classical quintet, terrible. The only things I like on that album is "Repetition" and the stuff with that vocal group "In the Still of the Night" etc......

Same here. And yes I remember the liner notes on homecoming. Dexter had that thing, the way he announced to tunes, the musicians, and I think a part of it was a mild manner of puttin on the audience, just in that nice and funny way. Like when he announced Benny Green´s simple blowing vehicle "I want to blow now". Now we all know that this is nothin more than a blues riff....., but Dexter announced it as "the very very IMPORTANT COMPOSITON, written by the very very .........slippery...... trombonist.....Benny Green, and this one is called " I ..... want...... To BLOW........ NOW"- When we were kids we used to try to imitate the way he talks considering it "super cool".....

Thanks mikeweil, that really answers my question. That´it. Blakey would have talked Alfred Lion into giving Sabu a record date of his own. Many BN records happened that way. And thank you for reminding me of the Blakey-Sabu Duo from 1953. Should listen to that again. I think I have it with the original cover titled "Horace Silver Trio + Spotlite on the Drums". That always amused me, as the using of the same cover foto on that album and on the album "H.S. and the Jazz Messengers". One is red, one is blue I think....