Gheorghe

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.

I also saw the track list on amazon. it seems to be more a sampler than a recorded session or set. Cuban Holiday and another track seems to be from Bird with the Herd. The Candido tracks from Birdland ....I know only about two of them "Broadway" on "Summit Meeting at Birdland" with Candido just on "Broadway" for March 53, and later from May 53 "Cheryl". But it´s not really Cu-bop, it´s more standard Bird with Candido added. Until now, the only pure Afro Cuban "life" of Bird that I heard is the 3 tracks "Mambo", "Lament of Conga" and "Reminiscing at Twilight". Even Cuban Holiday from Woody Herman sounds more like just a bit of latin flavour from the theme......, the solos is just swing like the rest of the stuff.... Same with Kenton. As Al McKibbon said in an interview, Kenton tried to go with the latin wave for some time but didn´t know what to do with it. He just added two percussion players but didn´t know how to dig into their stuff......, I wouldn´t put down Kenton the way McKibbon did, but it really seems that Dizzy was the man when it came about the Jazz meets Cuba connection. And Howard McGhee with Brew Moore and the Machito Band, they really got involved in Machito´s music, even Brew Moore who just stuck with his Lester Young licks, but he did that all his live but could play anything.....

The only live Afro Cubop with Bird I have is on a Spotlite LP, listed from about 1950 with Machito. The tunes are "Tanga" (if I remember right), "Lament of the Conga", and "Reminiscing at Twilight", a Dance number without solos. And I think it was some private recording made by Marshall Stearns.....

So I did remember quite well.... Strange, with all that BN reissue I think I never saw a BN CD or LP with the "Three Bips and a Bop" material.

got them on individual LPs a long time ago, japanese Verve, quite expensive then. Oh yeah, that cover art was typical for Verve. Strange paintings, and quite short liner notes, not very representative for the music, not like those Ira Gitler or someone of that category would write.... Some of it sounded quite commercially for me, most of all "Temptation", more like Hollywood movie from the 50´s than Bird....

should give the Chronological a try. It´s a shame I read so much about him and would like to hear the stuff he did with Dameron (Three Bips and a Bop from Blue Note), but it never happened. I think there was some with him on a Spotlite collection "Cool Whalin´".... ... ps...: and I think one of his last performances was at the North See Jazz Festival, I think he was about 60 when he died (1979 or so)

I remember I was a bit astonished during the 90´s that many artists of my taste started to record for Verve. During my youth, it was more a label of mainstream, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald and so, and the more commercial stuff of Bird....

glad you like it. The best is still to come: cd 2, the wonderful rare ballad "If you where here", a beauty, really a heartfelt ballad. Bud didn´t play it often. And I hadn´t heard other people play it, until I discovered a Tommy Dorsey recording of it with vocals. Great the two versions of "The Best Thing for You", really Bud at it´s best, fast and "eating up" those tricky changes. And after the first version he says "same again" and plays another great version of the tune. And cd 3 is very very good. I´d say cd 1 is the worst, cd 2 still starts with a "tired" Bud on a quite lazy version of "Moose the Mooche", but then things improve. It was recorded on different dates.

@aparxa: I think, Vol. 4 is a really enjoyable album. Philly Joe Jones is great on "Buster Rides again" and I like the quite "Monkish" touch of Bud on the whole album. And "Time Waits" is a beautiful ballad. "John´s Abbey" and "Monopoly" became Powell-Standards during the following years in Europe and back at Birdland 1964. And "Dry Soul" is much more interesting than "Some Soul" from the Vol. 3 "Bud!".

and how about Vol. 4 (Time Waits) ? Do you like it more that "The Scene Changes". I wouldn´t say I don´t like "The Scene", but it´s a strange album, it sounds much more like a Sonny Clark thing than Bud

The Griffin-Powell duo (Perdido and Idaho), I think was recorded at France Paudras´home in February 1964. It´s somtimes misdated as 1960 or 1961 but I think Griff came to Europe in late 62. Bud and Griff were quite close. They played again in august 1964 at Edenville (the Black Lion album "Hot House", the Mythic Sound "Holidays at Edenville", and the obscure Duke-Label). As for the Bud -Pres "connection", that didn´t take place......, Bud played with at least two "Lestorian" tenorists: With Zoot Sims in Paris, and with Brew Moore in Copenhagen. The Zoot Sims tracks are of special interest, because here Bud plays in a very relaxed "laid back" manner. I agree with @John L about the difference between the super relaxed Lester and the tense neurotic Bud, but it seems, that the Zoot Sims date was an exception. You can find it on the ESP reissue of "At the Cafe Blue Note". I had an earlier copy on the "Mythic Sound" series....