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JSngry: Great reading. I heard about that John Litweiler DB article and Hank´s impressions about Paris, with Archie Shepp and Don Byas. Please, can you post the rest of the article ?

I got all the Steeple Chase material. the five CDs and the limited edition "Budism" plus some unissued live material. If you buy it only to compare it with the early Verves and BN´s, better don´t buy it. But if you want to hear Bud in a more relaxed manner, I´d recommend it. It´s not the strongest Bud from his years in Europe, but any Budfan might purchase it. One thing about the "Budism". Some of the material is good, and there are some tracks of Bud at his worst, like some of the 1954/55 Verve or the mentioned 1964 Roulette album. The recordings are from different dates from April and September 1962, and I think it was one set, when Bud played really sad, Buttercup and Confirmation are painful to hear, but there is enough good material. I think, Bud wasn´t really pleased with the rhythm section, and I think he decided to go safe and that´s why he played more easy stuff like Straight No Chaser and Blues in the Closet for more than 15 minutes. Maybe he didn´t know what to play with them, it´s possible they were not familiar with his work...., and to play with a pick up rhythm section who doesn´t know your music, you have to stretch on the few tunes they know, just to make a whole set. Yes, and one more of that kind is "Bud plays Bird" from 1957/58 for Roulette. Bud plays fine, anyway better than his Verve stuff from1954/55, but it sounds like if his solos where dubbed over. There is so little interaction between the rhythm section and Bud´s playing, that some of my friends really wondered if it´s dubbed over. And the strange thing is, that we talk about George Duvivier and Art Taylor, who sure could play, especially with Bud. They sound great on Bud´s 1953 recordings....

You make some good points. Of course, in any given Gordon set there would have been one ballad feature. On this CD it's all ballads, all taken from various sets. So while someone may not like George's playing on this set (I do), it's certainly wasn't like this on every tune, not by any stretch. And I heard this band live. It was great. Your post also reminded me of something that I think John Lewis(!) once said - to the effect that though jazz is an improvised music, there is usually far less real improvisation going on than we think. There's generally a standard routine which is mostly worked out ahead of time (even before the tour begins) and for the musicians at least, there are few surprises. And he wasn't just talking about the MJQ. That´s it ! It´s a ballad album. Maybe the next set should be an album just with medium tempo tunes. Medium tempo, thats George Cables at his best. Tunes like Cheese Cake, Fried Bananas, and above all "The Panther". I heard George playing fantastic things on that stuff. The way how he´s more laid back , more loose at the beginning of his solo, and then how he creates the tension, how he builds his solo . full of surprises. The audience went nuts, they loved it..... Make an album just with medium tempos, and people will praise it.

Well, I can understand some of your opinions about George Cables playing ballads on Dexter´s albums/shows. George got his own style, maybe he is not always my first choice, but I can recognize him after just a few bars. Too many arpeggios, yes, but it obviously was part of the "show". Look, it was latterday Dex, and like most artists torwards the end of their career they got a special standard program how they manage to get through a show. I saw so many artists torwards the end of their career, and whatever style or generation or stage manner, they have a standard routine. And part of the show is the showcase for one special band member. It could be Foley doing his stuff on "New Blues", which always was the 2nd number of the show, from the early 80´s until 1991, it could be 20 or more chorusses of John Hicks´ piano on Pharoah´s up tempo showcase "Dr. Pitt", it could be Don Pullen doing everything from stride to Cecil Taylor on Mingus´ Sue´s Changes, it might be the organ solo during Lou Donaldson´s "Midnight Creeper", ........ .....and it is George Cables when his "ballad" turn comes. Anyway, as much as I remember, there where 2 or 2 ballads he played, "More Than You Know", "As Time Goes By", and sometimes as an encore Body and Soul. Well, George Cables, seeming endless arpeggios, and part of the show was during the end of his rubato solo, when they play a few bars in time until Dexter comes back for the theme and his long solo candenza....., you bought the tickets and knew exactly what will happen.....

As many others, I own very much material with Tommy Flanagan as a sideman, but don´t have dates where he was the leader. But that´s mostly my own fault, since I don´t buy very much piano-trio. I´d like to mention a lesser known date, it´s maybe the only occasion Flanagan recorded with Miles in a Studio: The 1956 date from "Collector´s Items" (Weird Blues, No Line, In You Own Sweet Way). I particularly like the stuff Flanagan is playing on that date, especially his lovely solo on the medium tempo "Weird Blues" But I heard him as a trio unit live in 1985. It was one of those big festivals we had then, with almost everybody...... Miles, Astrud Gilberto, Pharoah Sanders, Jackie McLean, Lou Donaldson, Jimmie Witherspoon, Charlie Harden, the MJQ........, everybody ......., and a Tommy Flanagan Trio , really great with nobody less than George Mraz and Art Taylor. They really cooked. I think it was the best trio I ever heard......

Well I´m not the Keith Jarrett freak like many were during that special time in the mid 70´s, late 70´ all those solo performances and the ECM stuff. Sure it must be fantastic music, but not my kind of thing. I really dug Keith for his piano with the Charles Lloyd Quartet of the late 60´s . Even if Lloyd never was my first choice, this was a very good group. I love his electric piano/organ stuff on Miles´ 1971 group, and later I picked one album with a very fine acoustic trio, something dedicated to Miles.... He sure can play fantastic, no question, but somehow I never was t h e Keith Jarrett groupie like many folks from my generation were or still are.....

I love everything Pharaoh did and does and heard him live on several occasions. the last time was 2 years ago. He still played great but looked frail and I wondered if he will be active for more years. So I´m very glad to hear he´s still playing. The fotos look wonderful. Hope he will do Europe again....

Maybe I also have two or three CDs from that label ? Is it possible there was a lot of OOP material from CBS Lps from the late 70, ? I got Dexter´s "Great Encounters" on that label, and is it possible, that the huge 1977 Montreux All-Star-Band Vol. I and II is also a Wounded Bird production ? It´s more than 3 hours music, with some of the greatest musicians from bop to jazzrock, like Maynard Ferguson, Woody Shaw, Slide Hampton, James Moody, Hubert Laws, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Benny Golson, Bob James, George Duke, Billy Cobham.....

snakes......if I don´t expect them drunk people, or let´s say I try to avoid them

That´s interesting, because I once read a statement done by Miles. When he was asked what he thinks about the "New Thing" "Avantgarde" (Free Jazz), he aswered something like that he doesn´t know what´s so revolutionary about it. He said "Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz" already did that stuff in the late 40´s, but then it did make sense....

Maybe from Konitz, really. Anyway, Lennie Tristano sure had the occasion to work with good drummers too. He worked with Max Roach, then there are the broadcasts "Bands for Bonds" from 1947. Two sessions, one with Max Roach, the other with Buddy Rich. Well those were pick up all star groups......, like the Metronome All Stars.....

Not exactly John Coltrane, but: I think it was in the 70´s that Tristano, who didn´t perform anymore made a statement that if he ever would play again in public, he would like to have Elvin Jones

Understood. From my perspective in the US, the Swingles sound - which was pretty ubiquitous in the 1960s - was like the musical equivalent of how Europe was visually portrayed in the "foreign" films that I loved watching as a kid, even though I didn't understand anything about them. There would always be these montage scenes that juxtaposed, for example, rococo fountains and ancient Roman ruins against images of Mini Coopers and stylish young Europeans. The mixing of jazz and classical in the Swingles for me reinforced that juxtaposition of a long, rich, cultural tradition against unabashed, bold modernism and modernity. So much of the music recorded between, say, the late 1950s to about the mid-70s to me comes across as this crazy and irreverent tapestry of styles. It was like everything was up for grabs and the artists could make anything fit. And while some of this may have been driven by trendiness or a need to simply stand out, the best stuff always reflected optimism and possibility (for me, at least). HA! Not only a favorite of mine, but the version of "Tin Tin Deo" on that album is my very favorite rendition of that tune! Yeah, it´s really a nice little album, I still remember it was quite hard to find in my youth. Anyway, Tin Tin Deo is one of my favourite tunes, it´s didn´t happen often that I heard a weak version of that tune. And "One Bass Hit" on that album is also great, with Pierre Michelot. It´s just a great combination, the Swingle Singers with Diz, Bud, Klook (and of course the great Pierre Michelot, who anyway was Bud´s bassist in Paris) , really a rare encounter.

Thank you all for that really interesting discussion. TTK sure is right when he says my point of view is an over-simplification, but somehow it was my impression then..... As for the old Jazz Podium, yes, brings memories back, and I had the same experiences with MJQ . In my "wild" years it just wasn´t my kind of stuff, I was focussed on Mingus for example..... but now there are days I can enjoy it. Same with bossa.... Big Steave Beat: your statement about Lionel Hampton - Concerts. You got the point. I remember school-time, we had an old teacher who said in an angry manner "what kind of crap you are listening, youngsters "hey baba ru bap" (sic!) , I think he referred to Hampton. It was amusing, because this was in the earyl 70´s and I don´t think there were so many teenies listening to Hamp......

Hello BillF: I´m not so sure. the bossa nova craze was not so bad, you can get some nice music out of it, but I think those folks who normally listened to concert music were not conscious of bossa nova. I think, bossa nova should have some nice percussion on it, and at least I never saw Bossa Nova ( even easy goin´ like Getz Gilberto and so on) in the shelves of the non-"jazz" houses. Oscar Peterson and Errol Garner (though they sure are good musicians), they had that "something" that made non-jazz middle class western people like it more than Diz, Miles or Trane. Anyway I seldom saw "horn players" in non-jazz family living rooms... , maybe Louis Armstrong, but piano "jazz" appealed more to the classical trained ears...... Anyway, if you looked at the album covers, they had title to things those people "knew": ....... Garner plays Gershwin,........ Peterson plays Westside Story (if something like that exists, I dunno.....) ,

Yeah, I think that swingin´Bach-stuff was just a way to get classically trained people to jazz. I must admit I never could get with that. Third stream ist just not my cup of tea, but whoever loves it. Well, I think it was just the times: Typical middle-class families with the traditional musical tastes Mozart, Beethofen, Bach and so on just had one or two so called "Jazz Records" in the shelves, usually that Bach-Swingle Singers, or some Jaques Loussier, or in case they could get away for a minute from the connections to classical music, they usually had one Oscar Peterson-album or Errol Garner album......

got that DVD too, but I was disappointed when they showed the Ornette Coleman trio only traveling, but very little music. the Roland Kirk stuff is nice, but more ok without John Cage.....

same with me, we might be about the same generation. Remember that radio "Schlager für Fortgeschrittene", though I didn´t listen to it, I listened to Jazz-Shop with the legendary host Herwig Wurzer, from where I got inspirations what records to buy.....

About the unamplified bass from the 40´s . Look, they got another tehnique to play it, and they got their strings about maybe 1,5 - 2 cm up from the fingerboard. Hard work plucking the strings that way, but the only chance to cut through the other instruments. Those guys where the unsung heros of bop. Listen to Tommy Potter, to Curly Russel, to Al McKibbon and how they manage to cut through a whole Dizzy Gillespie Big Band. And Mingus. He always complained that the young bass players have no chops to master their instruments. Now ....bass players got their strings low, just a few millimeters up from the fingerboard. That´s why they play all that fast little shit , but they would die withouth the pick ups, the amps, they were lost.....

I´m glad that I´m not the only guy who thought the Swingle Singers had something to do with the word "swing". Yeah that kind of vocal groups was a big seller during the 60s and 70s. Every household had at least one record with the Swingle Singers, or with Manhatten Transfer later..... I still have the old record Diz made with them, where they sing all the boppish big band arrangements. And Bud on piano on some of the tracks.... I like that record, the way they do the original arrangements and I think one of them scattin the original line of a James Moody solo. I read on the album cover that it also got lyrics in french, some kind of abstract fairy-tales I think. Well my french is only a few words, though I love that language, but I couldnt understand the lyrics from the record.....

Yeah I think I read this interview. It´s from 2013. But nothing new about the book she want´s to publish about Dexter.

sounds very interesting. I have the japanese sony of VSOP "Tempest at Colloseum" , was something like a "cult record" when I was young, just a "must". So it might be interesting to have a record only with the trio. Anyway, with Tony Williams on drums nothing can be wrong.....

Well, sure I love Shadow Wilson with Monk, maybe a diferent topic ? Anyway, Shadow Wilson was a helluva drummer. Must have been a delight for anyone to have him play

think I saw him once during the early 80s with some austrian free jazz pioneers, like Fritz Novotny, who did very much for the austrian avantgare scene. If I remember rite, Burton dug Monk very much and when it was about time to do an encore, he choose "Crepuscule with Nelly". Mr. Novotny later told me it was quite hard a hard time for him to play that tune, I heard a tape, it sounded good.....

That´s it. So I think he came to Vienna only sporadically, but it was always a gas to hear him with greats like Fritz Pauer, Bert Thompson and Fritz Ozmec. Remember one time Erich Kleinschuster sat in for a really fast "Move". Carl Drewo might have been in his late 50´s maybe 60 but looked smart and much younger, more like an aging sportsman than a jazz musician. I was quite surprised that he died soon after that, he looked so healthy.....