Gheorghe

Just have finished it. Very interesting bio. Until then, most information came from fellow musicians who had great memories about that band. Though my main interest still is "Mr. B and the Band", I love all his singing, love his voice, his phrasing, his musicianship. Highly recommended.

I hope it will be in a soon future that we can read the Dexter bio written by Maxine Gordon.

Happy Birthday Mr. Clark Terry, and thank you for your wonderful music !

I want to thank you all very very much !

My best wishes for a Happy Birthday !

One of the best live performances I saw, was his fantastic group with John Blake on violin. That sextet he had. I still remember the more than 20 minutes performance of "The Seeker". I love his Milestone albums from that time "Horizon" , "4 Quartets" and "Super Trios"....

I´m really lookin forward hearing this CD, for more than one reason: 1) I got recordings of Bud from November 1957 at Club Saint Germain (Cookin´at Saint Germain) and he really plays very fine, so he must have been in better form than the years before. 2) because it´s with two great horn players. There are too many trio albums of Bud. Even if Bud plays fine on let´s say "Bud plays Bird" also from 1957 for Roulette, it´s not very interesting because of the quite unispired Duvivier and Art Taylor. Nothin´happenin from the rhythm section, bop is much more than just keepin time. Same on the Victors, not very much happenin. 3) Dance of the Infidels: I remember during the same year 1957, Donald Byrd recorded it on an Hank Mobley album for Blue Note, so it might be very interesting what he did with it when playing it with the composer himself. 4) Groovin High: Bud didn´t play it very often. One time with Zoot Sims, and another time in Sweden at Golden Circle, and Lover Man, because I got only one recorded version of Bud playing it (very fine) in Paris.....

Keynote label ? Is it possible there was also an album with Lennie Tristano. The earliest one with the trio. I think I have an LP (japanese re-issue) from 1946-47, And it´s very short.

Oh my God, and yesterday I mentioned him in conversation, because I remembered that he played with Ben Webster, and now that bad news. RIP

Yes, great interview. Saw Mikey Roker on several times, mostly with Diz, maybe with some others too, but I am not sure. But I love everything he did on record. Drummers are very important to me. I can´t enjoy a record if the drummer isn´t good. And Mr. Roker sure is one of the greats. Every musician must be glad to work with someone like him......

I started playing "jazz" when I was a kid, 17 or 18 years old. Have been "self taught" or played "from hearing" what my father played (easy classical pieces). My first "jazz" sounded weak, but guys told me I got talent so I worked on it, self taught. I don´t read music, just chord progressions, but got perfect pitch and used to play tunes after I heard them. Played a lot of club dates during the late´70´s , ´80´s until 1992 and then I stopped . Played my stuff at home and thought I´d never return to play in public again, even if I thought I might sound much better now than during the time I was "active". this year, in May I went to hear my old drummer doing a gig, and he told me he want´s me back and will get a good bass player so we´d do a trio gig, so finally I decided to play two gigs and really felt comfortable playing again. After almost 20 years I noticed two things: You are older, you slow down, but even if I play "Salt Peanuts" of "Cherokee" or some fast shit like that, it sound´s better and I feel much more comfortable than 20 or 30 years ago. And ballads, I played them when I was young, but it seems you got to get older to "feel" them and make people enjoy listening to them.....

Well, I´m lookin forward purchasing that. About "Lover Man": It´s not the only '"Lover Man" But recorded. He did a short but very nice version with Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke on the "Life at Blue Note Cafe" which was reissued on ESP Disk. There is some confusion if it was done in 1961 or 1962, but it´s a very good record, much better than "Portrait of Thelonious" and as I said, the only "Lover Man" until then. He plays it with the original arrangement, with the intro and the coda, like Diz and Bird did it with Sarah Vaughan...... I wondered why Bud didn´t play it more often. He played "I remember Clifford" almost on every record from 1961 on, but seemed to have "forgotten" about Lover Man......

Thanks Larry. Well that is about from the time when I used to see him/hear him. Brings memories back to me, all them great musicians who played over here, Dex, Griff, Art Farmer (he lived in Vienna for some time) , Benny Bailey etc. etc. About the last LP on your list "Fritz Pauer-Blues Inside Out", I knew Fritz quite well during that period. Fritz together with Jimme Woode (b) and Tony Inzalaco frequently worked as a trio and accompanied a lot of great stars...., back to topic: As I told you, I´m not really associated with Pee Wee Russell, maybe it´s the instrument, maybe it´s the style, not my alley, so I can´t really compare him to Webster. I think Ben Webster traveled a lot during his last year, since he played in my hometown also. Well even then I thought he reminds me of Mingus, someone "like Mingus´daddy" , as I thought about it then, and I remember I had that "dream" that Webster should have been on stage during that Mingus Jam at Carnegie Hall, it would have been the greatest......

I must admit I don´t know much about Pee Wee Russell, but Ben Webster - like you said it : in explosiveness of accents, abrupt whisper-to a - shout dinymic shifts,......., and maybe in his whole stage manner or sometimes bad temper......, reminds me of Charles Mingus. Anyway I´m sure Mingus dug Ben Webster...... From the later Ben Webster I like most those Black Lion sides with Kenny Drew instead of Oscar Peterson. Tony Inzalaco, long time haven´t heard of him. During the 70´s he was much in order, heard him with Griffin. Maybe he was the first really good drummer I heard and saw.....

I liked Sonny Stitt from the first moment on. Since I was crazy about bop I was glad to hear him in the 70´s and I love his recordings from that time, for the Muse label I think. The first impression I had about Sonny Stitt was a funny one: During the 70´s we still had a good TV program, just two channels that´s all. On the second channel they had Jazz sometimes and there was a documentary about be bop once. I was just a kid, and didn´t know all the names, Bird, Bud, Diz, Fats of course, but not all of ´em. And there was Dizzy playing "Wee".....I remember that. It was with Sonny Stitt and I don´t remember the rhythm section but it was an electric bass, which upset me at that time, since I thought bop might be played with a bass fiddle..... Well, I didn´t know who it was on alto, but I saw that "old man" as I guessed. He played wonderful, all the stuff that I loved so much from Bird. Who might that old man be ? He sure knew Bird, but he might be older than Bird would be now, and he sure is older than Diz....., that was my impressions when I was a kid. He looked "old" to me, but played like a God....who might that be, that misterious old man who plays all that shit Bird played, but not copying him, playin his own. Eventually I saw him on a record cover and recognized him. Was quite astonished he´s much younger, born 1924, 7 years younger than Diz, 4 years younger than Bird......

Well I didn´t notice that AT did it also ? When and where. IMHO AT always was a great drummer, maybe not for Monk....

I have a DVD of that whole Paris concert from 1969, with the interview with Jaques Hess after the concert, and with 3 bonus tracks Monk playing solo three Ellington tunes on the Berlin Festival 1969 (celebrating Ellington´s 70th birthday).... About the unexperienced rhythm-section. The bass player is very good, but I don´t know why Monk picked up that kid who just wasn´t ready to be on stage. He even fails to keep time, pardon but if you play drums and can´t keep time you better stop what you doin´. Listen to "Straigtht no Chaser" where it gets faster and faster and faster, and finally Monk slows it done and the closing theme. The same thing happens on "Bright Missisipi". Philly J.J. should have played the whole concert, or Kenny Clarke, he was backstage, you can see him where the film starts, when Monk greets him. But Monk sounds great like always, Rouse too, even if he´s somehow off the mike. And I didn´t know about the bass player but he really plays some stuff, good musician..... The interview is also fun. I like Monk´s statement when he was asked which of his compositions he likes most and he says "I didn´t rate ´em ". Or...."I don´t know about geniuses"

anyway a good answer, I can see your point, even if tastes vary.....

From the moment on, when I started to listen to music by myself, I mean finding my own musical groove and spendin the money which my parents gave me for good schoolwork (my parents dug classical music, Beethoven and stuff) by purchasing records, it was jazz. So I never really was aware of other music. And that´s why I didn´t sell later typical rock or pop albums that youngsters usually bought. Since I didn´t have much contact to other music fans (too young for goin to clubs), and playin piano myself, first of all I dug jazz piano and since I still didn´t know who Art Tatum, Bud, Monk, Herbie , McCoy were, I only knew about Oscar Peterson because so called "some time jazz listeners" during that time dug Peterson, maybe because it meant easy listenin music, comfortable and educated, how you call it. I never did regret I sold them Oscar Peterson albums. Only two albums I had then, and sold, I could like again (if I´m lazy or tired or something): "We Get Requests" and "Night Train". Because that´s where he doesnt overdo everything like he usually did.......just bangin all them 88 keys just because they are there and because he "studied" them....., people told me he even had to "study" to play the blues.....oh no man.....

@medjuck: That´s what I´m talkin about. Those radio shows, we Europeans got them on the british Spotlite Label. This was a good label for unissued bop. Rare Bird like "Appartment Sessions", "The Band that Never Was" etc., and as I mentioned: Billy Eckstine February 1945 "Mr. B and the Band", with the stars you mentioned. With the Theme Song "Blue ´n Boogie", and everything. And that incredible MC Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman . A great review of that stuff is on the Fats Navarro Biography (Rehak?) ...... During the 80´s I read in DB that Mr. B still had a lot of unissued material of that great band. How much would I like to listen to that..... Actually , besides the few recordings we have (the 1945 Radio Shows are the best) the most we know about this band is from what told musicians who played with it and became great stars (Miles, Diz, Blakey). Each of them had fantastic memories about that Band. Same about the 1943 Earl Hines band with Diz, Bird, Sarah, Mr. B., Shadow Wilson.....

Yeah, that band with Joe Ford/John Blake was fantastic. I´ll never forget the event when I heard them in March 1980. I just had a bad kind of flu and was reluctant to go to the concert. The first number......wow......gone was the flu, I was feelin great again. it was like a healing song. I listen very closely to the music I hear, so I somehow had that first tune in my ears, 30 odd years I had it in my ears. On the "Horizon" album it was not. Later I found out the title "The Seeker". That´s the tune. It´s on that 4xQuartet, that great album that followed Horizon, with 4 quartets feat. Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, John Abercrombie and Athur Blythe. "Seeker" is one of the tunes where Bobby Hutcherson plays. Tyner and Hutcherson, great combination, got among others that BN album from the late 60s , with Herbie Lewis on bass, who often played with McCoy. Another great album on Milestones is "Supertrios", and of course a must for each McCoy Tyner fan might be the "Milestones Allstars" with Sonny Rollins, McCoy, Ron Carter, Al Foster.......just fantastic.

It´s too bad that the band wasn´t recorded properly. Well, I love those Savoy sides from 1945-1947, but the really thing where you hear the band is on that Spotlite album "Mr. B. and the Band" where you really hear what they do.

thank you, bichos. Never thought there would be a Billy Eckstine bio. I must admit I´m mostly interested in his bop years, the great days with Bird, Diz, Fats, Dex, Jug and all of em. Love his singing, though I´m not necessarly a vocal fan, but his ballads great. Only the later years from the 50´s on, that´s a bit too commercially for my tastes.....

When I was young boy and just discovered Bud Powell , I sold all the Oscar Peterson albums I had until then.

During his time in Europe, Bud sometimes sang, usually on ballads that somehow had a context with the torments he suffered: "This is no laughing matter" (on Golden Circle Vol. 5) is the only commercially released of them. "I should care", "It never entered my mind" where others. It´s reported, that Bud was made to sing to be rewarded with a drink after the set. The mentioned "Gift for my friends" if from the Mythic Sound LPs . I got most of the "Bud at Home" material on some unissued recordings with much more "singing" of Bud. Especially "Chrismas Song", then some attempts to sing "It Never Entered my Mind", some of it even with Buttercup singing....., and with Bud singing "More than You Know" along with an Art Tatum LP recording. Bud sang exactly like he talked if he talked anyway, with that plaintive voice, and on some recordings at Paudras´ home he can be heard how he will play something only if he gets something to drink, one time even repeating dozens of times "gimme a beer, gimme a beer, gimme a beer...." When I was younger, I listened much more to that "conversations" just to get hold of anything that Bud played, said, etc. ..., but what counts for me is his music, all the great things he did, even if he was less than in peak form. I can learn so much from it, the way he phrases, the way he does his chords especially on ballads, just is music......