Gheorghe

Once again thank you so much for your kind support, @Page, @JSngry. I´m just overwhelmed by the really useful infos you give me. Yeah I listened to the slow version of "The Way You Look Tonight", great arrangement and really the chord in bar 9 of the A section and the transition to the bridge, just wonderful. And I like that key A flat, that´s really a good warm sound I dig. The main point will be to forget about the way you comp for horn players, to get inside the lyrics, to let the singer set the pace and listen carefully to the way she developes the song and agree about the right tempo for expressing the lyrics. My luck is a got quick ears and hope I can link into it without creating a mess. I must think otherwise than I usually do. People call me for my bebop thing and I´ll have to get rid of my too Powellish touch and approach.I´m used to "hey there , give us some "Salt Peanuts" give us some heat...... See, when I do a set like I did last week , I ´d start with a rather fast stuff and switch to a complete different mood with a very slow ballad. For example, I know the lyrics of "Polka Dots and Moobeams" but when I played it last week it got another meaning because I use the more dramatic approach of Bud so it get´s another message than that for the lyrics with the "pugnosed dream". Let´s say if a singer might do it, I have to catch the meaning of the song, not to express the drama the way I usually do.... The singer sent notice that next week or after two weeks she will mail a set list (anyway the deal is about 2/3 of the program trio with our usual program, and about 1/3 with the singer. I´m lookin forward getting an idea of the tunes she want´s us to do. And another point. She prepares for her master degree at some university in some other town, and the final examen will be just a few days before the gig, uh uh , and I´ll be in Eastern Europe and be back only a few days before the gig. There will not be much time to prepare, hope I manage to make things so that I won´t mess with her stuff. At least, when I get the set list, I can try to get inside the tunes the lyrics and try to find a piano approach suitable for her. Though I still didn´t get to know her, she must be good if my bass player says she´s good, so my deepest respect for her and I´m really concerned about how to make it sound reasonable good......

many years ago it seemed I had a lot of money to spend on records and somehow I collected most of the BN stuff. Naturally I got so many Grant Green albums I don´t remember exaxtly which is which, usually if I feel it´s time for some Grant Green it always remain´s Idle Moments that will be spinned..... Is Grandstand the one with that blues "from Maude´s flat" or something like that ? Yeah, really nice, but as you told, something with the recording sound seems to be strange. I don´t hear very well due to age and my fondness for really powerful drummers, but something sounds like if it got a defect. I thought it´s the later RVG reissues, sometimes they don´t sound good, but who knows.......

Hello Page ! Thank you so much for your kind help ! Yes, I´m sure the main question will be to agree about the keys. It will be a pleasure for me to play for her in the keys she want´s . It shouldn´t be a problem. Once I had a gig with a saxophonist who was on schedule an who told me "listen man, I don´t want RB keys, I got tired to play "rhythm changes" in B flat. Play it in D flat, in A flat, in B natural anything......., and it was beautiful..... Your set list is a very good one ! Very much of the stuff I know. "The way you look tonight" ...... sure in a comfortable medium tempo, I guess. I know the tune very well because when I had to play it was considered to be ultra-fast, that´s how I know it as an instrumental, but it must be fine to check the message of that tune when it´s played softer. Great ! Nice list of tunes, really, Ballads, medium tempos. And I agree with you there must be some of Jobin. Do singers sing "Wave" ? "Corcovado"? stuff I think I remember from the Getz/Gilberto things..... Maybe I should be careful how to comp for her, compin´ for singers might be different from compin for saxophonists and trumpet players ? Kind regards, Gheorghe

I´m a piano player and though I´m not professional, I´m doing club dates with a trio and sometimes jam with other players, hornplayers, guitarists etc, but I almost don´t have experiences with vocalists. Usually we play mostly bop stuff, all the Bird,Diz,Bud,Monk stuff , up tempo, medium tempo, afro cuban (Manteca, Tin Tin Deo etc. ), ballads, all that stuff. But now a fan who digs what we do wants us to play at his wedding, a garden party something like that. He says our repertoire is cool for him he likes the Bud/Monk stuff and we should play our program, but......., for about a third of the program, some tunes in each set he wants a female singer. Can you guys tell me what kind of tunes female singers usually like to sing ? I haven´t met the singer yet, she´s busy and I think I´ll meet her just when the gig will be (beginning of summer). The guy told me "you know how it goes what people want to hear a singer do.... stuff like "Girl from Ipanema" "I can´t give you anything but love" etc etc..... Well okay, you can imagine I don´t need to "practice" or rehearse stuff like that, but I´d like to know about more tunes jazz singers usually do......, or for such an occasion. So please, if someone gives me an idea what tunes should be played so I just can imagine a bit what type of set it should be to mix vocals with instrumentals ? I know that singers sometimes want the stuff in different keys but that´s not the problem for me. If I hear a tune I might know it and should be able to play it in any key (I forget to mention I don´t really read music....... I take a glance at the chord progressions and that might be enough......)

classical piano ? Maybe that explains why I was so puzzled when I heard her version of "Good Bait" on piano. It didn´t swing. That tune is a number that swings by itself, if you can´t swing on that, no one can help you. Reminds me of Gulda, who had to learn to swing and who tells in one of his books that Art Farmer gave him the advice "try to get that edge off"..... Dizzy used "Good Bait" to teach latin percussionists the meaning of jazz-swing. When they got lost, he quoted "Good Bait" and they knew where they are..... I think, Nina Simone might get credit for being able NOT to swing on a tune that is the most simple lession for non jazz musicians how to swing...... Or, maybe that was quite her intention ?

Charles Lloyd sure is a great musician. I heard him once and liked what they played, a very good group. I remember when I was a kid, there was something like a Charles Lloyd hype. People had all his albums, more albums than Coltrane or Sonny Rollins. I think I remember I heard one or two with that great group with Jack DeJohnette and Keith, and dug it. But even then, and I still was almost a kid, I tried to find out what made him so great, so popular.

I love his powerful drumming on the live dates with Miles from 1969 on, and several other occasions. But it´s my fault, I´m not an ECM - man, it´s not my kinda music. So I enjoy more his really powerful outputs, especially because he´s a non boppish drummer, I love bop, but very much the stuff beyond......

One thing I remember about the gig I saw in 1990 with the Gunter Lenz Trio was the last number. He played an ultra fast version of "Mr. Sandman"......

really very little information about her. The only photo that shows her shows a really beautiful young lady

I think he was still with Blakey in 1957. Got a really rare album of the Messengers playing "Lerner & Loewe", RCA-stuff I think. Dockery IMHO had some influences of Horace Silver, maybe something like a cross between Bud and Horace. Once I got the chance to talk to Bill Hardman, who also played with Blakey during that time, and when I mentioned the "Lerner&Loewe" Stuff he said he remembers that session quite well.......

I remember I heard him live once about 1990 at the former "Opus One" in Viena. He played tenor only, and I think he was with the Uli Lenz Trio. Great music, and as you said, he played more "mainstream" than in the early 70´s . But I love his soprano sax with early electric Miles also......

I have wondered for quite some time when it will be ready. Can´t wait to purchase that..... And since I know that Mrs Maxine Gordon did very much research work, I´m sure it will be a great book......

Sonny Rollins Road Shows Vol 1 - 3

thanks John ! Yeas, it was a good one.

Yeah it´s really a moving story that Jackie McLean tells in his liner notes about how he met Tony and brought him to N.Y. Tony really had a great start in early 1963 there with the legendary McLean-Graham Moncur III -Bobby Hutcherson - line up, besides recording they performed at the Living Theatre I think. And the "Una Mas" with K.D......, until he got the call from Miles..... Tony Williams is one of my all time favourites.

That´s really some fantastic musicians, Peter Friedman !

Thank you very much. The music I heard on my birthday was the stuff "Clifford Jordan and the Magic Triangle" live, got the albums from my wife. Great music, brings memories back....

yes, Barry got a lighter touch, your are right !

I remember it was many years ago I took my youngest son , a teenager at that time to hear Don Menza. Especially I remember how he run through the chords of a Rhythm Changes tune exactly the way Monk did sometimes: G flat - B natural - E – A – D – G – C – F – B flat..... if you know what I´m talkin´ about. Really strong. During intermission we met him at the bar. My boy looking deadly serious, maybe he was kind of awed by the meeting, and Don Menza „hey you lookin so serious ! Smile a bit, can´t you smile ?“ I told him my boy is a bit timid at the moment but likes very much what you play, and I told him how I liked the way he treated the rhythm tune and Mr. Menza seemed to like what I told him. Later he talked to a swiss couple and I was astonished to hear that he spoke fluently german...., I knew he had lived in Germany for some time, but I didn´t know he speaks so fluently german...

Very interesting article, and it confirms some of my impressions about Harris´ style. He admits that if he plays a Monk composition it sounds more like the way Bud would interprete Monk. I always had the impression, that Harris sounds very very much like latterday Powell, the Powell from the 60´s after he lived in Paris for some years. I don´t know if the two men were close, but at least they met on several occasions and exchanged musical ideas. One of those occasions is recorded, where Harris plays some of Bud´s compositions and Bud seems to enjoy it very much. It must have been at the Baroness´ place..... Then, years later I heard a little record Dexter made in N.Y. in late 1976 "Bitin´ the Apple". I was astonished to hear Harris ´solo on the title tune. It really sounds like Bud in his very last years. The more Monkish touch, the more laidback manner, it sounds so close to 1963, 1964 Bud you might think it´s him if you didn´t know that Bud at that time was dead for 12 years.....

anybody who knows more about the forthcoming release "Roadshows Vol. 4" ?

does somebody remember the late Siegfried Kesser, born in Germany, but he lived and worked in Paris. Some might know about him, since he worked frequently with Archie Shepp (and recorded with him ! ) . He could play everything from bop to avantgarde, could play the blues really strong , I heard him live not only with Archie Shepp, also with Jimmy Witherspoon and Dee Dee Bridgewater......, great pianist.

It seems it wasn´t recorded that much. A really good performance of a set of the acoustic sextet from the mentioned period was done in 1976 on the first VSOP album. It´s the first set the classic VSOP quintet representing the mid 60´s period, than the set from the "middle period" and the last set the electric group.

interesting point ! thank you !

with Azar Lawrence, that might be a kind of Alumni from Davis´ ´74, ´75 bands Dark Magus , Aghartha, Pangeea....