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all I can say I´m glad this Genius musician has given us so much. And almost from the first seconds when I got involved with jazz, he was and of course still is, one of my favourites. I still remember those golden years of the late 70´s - early 80´, when you could meet guys on the street, discussing recent or forthcoming Sonny Rollins Albums.......yeah.... that was the great times. Rollins with Genius Drummers like Tony Williams, Al Foster, the golden Era of the Milestone Jazzlabel, all those great albums, and I´ll never forget the first time I saw him live, I don´t remember the piano player, but the great Jerome Harris was on bass, and the Master of drums himself, Al Foster. And just a few weeks before, he had recorded that album featuring Larry Coryell...... "Don´t Ask", that´s the title of it........

I have the original 2-LP set and it´s enough for me. Let´s say I enjoy it and spin it from time to time, but in General it´s the Kind of Miles I woudln´t prefer to other periods. Those early 60s , you almost can feel that Miles got bored with the stuff and the surroundings. If I want to hear 50´s Miles I listen to the Prestige and earlier CBS stuff (from Round Midnite to Sketches), and if I want to hear 60´s Miles I start with 1963 with Tony, Ron, Herbie.

one of my favourites. I think the first time I heard him is on the Dexter Montmatre stuff. I love the way the drums are well recorded, you hear everything Tootie does I almost forget listening to the rest. Really, I love everything he does on drums.......

I wouldn´t put down Miles´performances from the 80´s but I got a critical point about it. Well, Miles went through differnt styles and surroundings, and when he stuck for a style for some years, his live shows had similar tunes, like "Walkin´" and "Autumn Leaves" during the 60´s , the Bitches Brew stuff from 1969 on, and the dense electric stuff from ´73 - 75. Even if the tunes are the same, you can improvise on that stuff and can change it a bit, but it´s hard to make musical surprises when you have to play "Human Nature" and "Time after Time" each night for several years. That´s when Miles´ concerts became "Shows", you knew what you might expect.

That´s great news !

I love his Music and I´m lucky I caught him live on several occasions.

Must get thet. Henry Grimes is one of my favourite bass players and one of the true giants. I love everything he did and does. He can play anything from straight ahead to free, and he´s so strong he could play unplugged with a big band and you would still hear him.

"Dont Ask" is from 1979 about the time I saw Rollins live at the Velden Jazzfestival (Austria). It´s a nice album, maybe the track "Disco Monk" is not just my kind of stuff, but generally a good album. Larry Corryell was also on schedule at that Festival and played solo and trio (with Art Farmer´s Cousin Julius Farmer). But they (Rollins and Corryell) didn´t perform together.

Yes, that's right. He toured with Art Blakey to Japan, in 1969. The next year followed a failed comeback in New York, because he was tired, very tired. After about 2 years Byas passed away..... Yeah I always wondered how it might have sounded. Anyway it seems to be quite untypical for Blakey to get old masters for his Messengers. He always got Young Players and it was even hard to book band alumnies for Special Events. Like on his 70th birthday in Leverkusen, when they wanted to surprise him with Jackie McLean, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard etc., and he said he would Play only with his Young band. So Don Byas might have been an unusual, but interesting choice. Anyway, Byas was one of the greatest Tenor saxophonists ever, period. He could Play with anyone....

I remember that Statement of Stan Tracey too. I think it was in the Ronnie Scott book. If I remember well, Lucky Thompson was even worse. He said to Mr. Tracey "if you must play crap, play it slow !". Don Byas, well on that Black Lion LP with a danish rhythm section he seems comfortable with Bent Axen, NHOP and William Schiopffe. The Don Byas - Lucky Thompson stories remind me of the trumpet Player Joe Newman. He played sometimes in my hometown Vienna and nobody wanted to play with him. He couldn´d be pleased. It was strange. There are greater stars, who really had a very kind attitude towards the local musicians.

I remember Xanadu LPs best for reissue of Minton´s stuff, like the trumpet battles with Joe Guy, Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldrige etc...., with early Monk, Charlie Christian, Klook etc., and some "Bebop Revisited" with Diz from 45, some early Dexter, the sides that Fats Navarro made with Earl Coleman and so on...... During my Teenager years it was a quite good possibility to get in touch with the sounds of early bop......

Byas really looks healthy and happy on that. I love it to see him relaxin with a fishing-rod. I don´t know how many jazz musicians/jazz Lovers like to go fishing, but it seems to be a good combination, since I also have done it that way since I remember........, listening/playing jazz, and catchin the trout, pike etc. etc. ....., I even think that certain music brings luck for certain species of fish. If I listen to Dexter, I´ll catch trout or grayling. If I listen to Mingus, I´ll catch carp or bream......., Max Roach......and it will always be a pike, that´s it. (I don´t listen to the music WHILE fishing, but in the car on the way to the rivers, so it depends on the musician I listen to, which mood I´m in and how that vibrations will lead me to the fish). I love Don Byas ! . I think the first stuff I heard was that Black Lion LP "Anthropology". I was astonished that he played all the bop stuff, Anthropology, Night In Tunisia, Billies Bounce and all that, since he seemed to be at least 10 years older than most of the "Bop Fathers". I love his Savoy sides from the mid forties. It´s strange he didn´t record much from the mid fifties to the early sixties. The only mid fifties stuff I found was "Byas and the Girls". He seemed to get more publicity in the 60´s. He seemed to love to perform with Bud, because on at least 3 occasions he recorded with him (Paris 1961, Denmark 1962 also featuring Brew Moore, and Koblenz 1963 Americans in Europe............ I also remember I read, that his "homecoming" was a disappointment for him. Gigs where scarce, since he had been to Long away from the Scene, and 1970,71 was not the best times for acoustic jazz in Clubs. I´m not sure but I read he also did a short tour with Blakey even to Japan, is that right. And he died shortly after his US-sojurn, right ?

yeah I had forgotten the Name of the author, but the book is quite interesting. But I remember the Name of the Manager, Wim Wigt, Wim and Rita organized very much for Americans in Europe or Americans touring Europe. He remembers the difficulties with Chet to make sure he will get from one town Country to another just to make the gig. Those "friendships" (Connection) were quite usual. The most famous Connection Chet Baker had was Jaques Pelzer, who sometimes played flute. And though the chapter "A Queer Night in Bruxelles" from Ross Russel´s book "Bird" is just Invention and fiction, I´m sure things like that happened..... By the way: the last time I saw Chet on stage was late in 1987, just a few month before his death. He wasn´t late, he played wonderful , was very articulate. After the first set he announced "we´ll be back in 15 minutes", and that´s exactly what it was, short break and a wonderful second set. I still remember some of the musicians from that gig: , Nico LaStila played flute and even some guitar, and on bass was the great Austrian Bassist Hannes Strasser. Another thing: they also did "Stella By Starlight" and Chet announced that it´s usually done in B flat, but "we´ll do it in G...." . Sound´s great in G. Since I got perfect pitch I think I can compare quite well the different moods of a tune if you play it in a different key.........., wonderful memories.......

yeah, I remember a Book on Chet Baker, written by a Dutch jazz expert with lot of Infos about the later part of Chet´s live. Chet never had his own place and used to stay in small Hotels and at friends, or better said "Connections". One of them, if I remember right, was a "Dr. Bob" or "Dr. Rob", a supposed MD who hosted and maybe provided with Methadone some of the junkey (or former junkey) jazzmen like Chet, Frank Morgan and Woody Shaw......

Such a great musician. I think this might have been before he came to Europe. I remember he once showed that album someboy in the club, he had another album then with some young musicians from Germany, "Just Friends" I think was the title, more in the bop groove. I love his sound, the way he improvises , the creativity, all of it. And he's a great composer I used to play some gigs with him when I was still very young.

well about the mistery about how the Newport audience "discovered" Miles in 1955, that´s just how Business went. Those Prestige records maybe didn´t sell to a broader audience. I don´t think all the crowds that went to Newport where hip to insider´s Labels, not collectors like most of us here are. They just heard Miles´ trumpet, it appealed to them, they thought about it as something "new", and that´s when Miles became a big name . About Bitches Brew. It was recorded in August 1969 I think, and Miles "did" Europe in July , all those big spots, and that´s where he played some of the later recorded Bitches Brew Stuff. Bitches Brew and other "new" stuff , I mean "new" to the record buyer wasn´t necessarly "new" to the Musicians. I´ve often heard Musicians tell "we go record what we now do live".

hi, I dont exactly know about the lenght of the tunes. I remember, I bought them in the midseventies or something like that, and maybe later Editions even on LP had more space. One thing about Steeplechase is clear. A lot of those live recordings where broadcasts, and sometimes not only lack of space is the reason, it maybe also just the end of the Radio program. Sometimes, the last track just fades out. On one Occasion (Brew Moore) you hear a danish Radio Speaker announcing the end of the program while the piano solo fades out. I love all those Steeplechase classics, it was the best time for going to a jazz Club and hear some of the giants.

I don´t know exactly which Album it might be. I got the 1972 album with the Long Version of Parkers Mood, and there´s a Bonus track on the CD which is not on the LP, and same with the "Ghetto Lullaby" from 1973. Also the to CD´s (The Meeting and The Source, feat. Dex) got Bonus tracks on the CD. I think it was the lack of space during the LP era. Many Steeplechase CDs from the "Classic Series" live have Bonus tracks. Same with Bud at the Golden Circle,

@‌hardbopjazz: thanks for sharing the fotos with Freddie Redd. He still looks sharp an sure must sound great

I remember Herman Foster very well, because it was during the mid 80´s that Lou Donaldson toured with him quite often. So it must have been a lifelong friendship, because everybody knows him from Lou ´recordings during the late 50´s early 60´. Well, I might say he was great with his heavy chords, but he played just one style. But that might have been part of the show I think. About Albert Dailey, I like his playing , I think he also did a record with Art Blakey in the mid 70´s

I just can´t rate them, I love them all. But I´d like to mention "Garden of Souls" which is really a pretty thing. "Love Call" is great On the album Ornette at 12 are beautiful things, the first tune , I think it´s titled "New York", there is also a version of that tune with string quartet "Prime Design/Time Design". And I shouldn´t forget "Good Old Days" from the "Empty Foxhole", because that was the first Ornette Coleman I heard when I was a kid......

oh my god, those liner notes , that´s really dumb stuff , the most stupid thing I ever read...

Really sad.

It´s strange, Paul Quinichette is one of the few musicians I never really got acquainted to. Only the fact, that he´s one of those Lestorian tenorists, cannot be the Point, since I got to listen to much Brew Moore and Zoot Sims. But maybe, because it came from another corner. As a "Birdwatcher" I looked for all unussued Bird and found some bop sessions with Brew, and was quite fascinated that he can play with that fast company without ever changing a note of his Lester Young stuff. Same with Zoot, being into all those Prestige sessions, Trane, Hank and everybody, I got to listen to him on "Tenor Conclave" and loved it. Great Player. Maybe, Quinichette was not very much involved with the kind of Music or the artists I frequently listen to......

well, "Goldrush" is on the Rockland Concert 1952. That whole concert is really great Bird. the other Bird with Strings live that I like very much are the two Birdland sets from 1953, with some conversation with Symphony Sid.