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Lou Donaldson ! Will see him on July 8th and Porgy and Bess in Vienna.

Try to catch a concert with him and it will be an unforgettable experience. First I saw him in 1985, he was great, but the surroundings was a drag, because it was one of those festivals, where you had on the same time three groups scheduled and I wanted to catch each of them: Jackie McLean, Lou Donaldson, and Pharoah Sanders. So I first had to listen to some tunes by Mc Lean, then to rush to the next hall to catch Lou Donaldson, and then the last two tunes of Pharoah. Yes, Henderson has been with Pharoah for a very long time, before that he had John Hicks.

Many musicians, when they get older tend to play the same tunes. I remember many Miles shows between 1985-1988 with almost the same set. They started with "One Phone Call" from "You are under arrest", followed by "New Blues", and then "Human Nature" and so on. From 1986 on, "Tutu" was on each show. And I remember the mid seventies Mingus-Concerts, always starting with "For Harry Carney", followed by "Fables of Faubus" and then "Sue´s Changes".

Last Friday I saw the Pharoah Sanders Quartet and Porgy´s . William Henderson piano, Oli Hayhurst bass and Gene Calderazzo drums. I got to live concerts since I was a young boy and have some fantastic memories, but I´m sure this was one of the best concerts I ever heard. I was deeply impressed by the music. Mr. Sanders still has much power and played at an astonishing level. Each of the long tunes was a beauty. Though Mr. Sanders played like a man much younger than 73 years, but besides his great playing he looked much older than he is. When he didn´t solo, he left the stand, obviously to relax backstages, but when he made his way back, there he was with his big tone and fantastic music. William Henderson has played with him for many many years and did some fantastic piano solos. Oli Hayhurst and Gene Calderazzo also are really great musicians and did beautiful solos. The second set was quite shorter than the first one. We hoped he might do an encore, but he didn´t come back on stage. I had brought with me my old LP "Life at the East", which actually was the first Sanders-LP I bought almost 40 years ago. I thought maybe I´d get an autograph and could tell Mr. Sanders how much I love his music and that I bought that record 40 years ago, but then I thought it might not be a good idea to disturb the man, who gave us so much. Thought it might be a lack of respect to try to get my record signed..... Anyway, the only important thing is the music, and music he played on that evening.

Strange enough I don´t listen often to Lee Morgan´s "Sidewinder", I prefer "In Search to a New Land". Hub Tones is great, and I like the 2 "Night of the Cookers" with Hubbard and Morgan for the exiting music and the long live tracks. KD´s "Una Mas" is great, I enjoy that record. Don Cherry´s "Complete Communion", "Suite for Improvisers" and "Where is Brooklyn?". Woody Shaw´s contribution on Larry Young´s "Unity".

Saw Shepp live several times. The first time was in the late 70´s and I think this was the greatest quartet, with Siegfried Kessler on piano, Bob Cunningham on bass and Clifford Jarvis on drums. I still remember that concert very well, and the next day I hurried to the record dealer to purchase "Bird Fire" with the same group, plus an obscure trumpet player.... Later I think I saw him with Ken Werner, a bass Santi De......, and John Betsch, also a great group but not as great as the first. The last time I saw him with a trio. Maybe Mr. Shepp had lost some of his chops due to his advanced age, but he played some really Monkish piano.

Me too. My college library had the 3 LP set "the Great Jazz Concert of Charles Mingus", and I had never heard anything like that, and I became enamored of Dolphy and Jordan right then. I was 18, a freshman in college. That is still a magical recording for me, and I was thrilled when it finally came out on CD a few years ago. Hello Felser ! Great to hear, that somebody else had the same "history". I was also 18 when I got that 3 LP set. What a great start to get into the music. That kind of Mingus-Music could open you up for everything. I was still a newbie and Mingus "opened" me to Bird and Bop (Parkeriana), and to Free, because all the more "far out" stuff Dolphy played, and all that changing tempo opened me for Ornette etc. About the mentioned "Percussion Bitter Sweet": The first Max Roach album I got (shortly after Mingus) was Max Roach "Speek Brother Speek". And again there was "my old friend" Clifford Jordan on it. Hey, if you want some great Clifford Jordan, check "Speak Brother Speak" (Roach with Cliff Jordan, Mal Waldron and Eddie Khan ! That´s a great little album, and Clifford is at his best, he really stretches out in similar manner like he did with Mingus. And if you like the more "far out" Clifford from that period and also got some of the Mingus 1964 stuff, I´d highly recommend "Right Now-Live at the Jazzworkshop" from Juni 1964: At that time, Byard and Dolphy had left the group, so it was only a quartet (Mingus, Cliff Jordan, Jane Getz and Dannie). I never heard a better Clifford Jordan than on that little album "Right Now".

Clifford Jordan was one of the first musicians I heard when I fell in love with jazz. Why? Because one of the first records that impressed me was the Mingus ´64 band in Paris. I was almost a kid then and didn´t know about many musicians, so each member of that band became somewhat like a hero for me. I loved Clifford Jordans big tone, and I loved his solos which where rooted in the tradition but he could get beyond that too ! The next time I heard him on record was that 2 LP BN-LA thing "Blowing Sessions" (from the original albums Griffin "A Blowing Session" and Cliff Jordon John Gilmore "Blowing in from Chicago"). An I really like the 1975 stuff with the Magic Triangle, the albums with the Cedar Walton Trio.

I´m not really good in looking for older threads that already may exist, so I´m glad if someone start´s a thread about a musician where I think I can join into the discussion..... Needless to say I like Grant Green. But like so many BN-Artists, they did too many albums. Many years ago, when I became somewhat like a BN completist, I got a lot of albums I don´t really listen to frequently. Like the many stuff he did for more commercial reasons. So if I want to listen to Grant Green now, my choice might be "Idle Moments" or the originally unissuied "Solid" with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones on it. If I want a more tender groove with organ on it, I love "I want to hold your hand" with the rare combination Hank Mobley and Larry Young. Love his lines, his sound and his musicianship. The only think I sometimes regret is that he rarely plays chords. Especially on slow or medium tempos it would be great to have more chords towards the end of a solo. Like Kenny Burrell does...... But anyway, I love them both.

I also must admit, I noticed him on Mingus at the Bohémia, which was one of the first Mingus Albums I purchased. That was the only occasion I heard him on record. Also, I was a bit disappointed of the Bohémia stuff, when I listened to it for the first time. Then, I only had the 3 LP set "The Great Concert of Charles Mingus" (Paris 1964), which is one of the greatest things I ever heard. To get further albums of Mingus, I somehow found "Charles Mingus Quintet with Max Roach" in the record store (one of the two Bohémia-Albums). First I thought that might be with two drummers, I mean with Willie Jones AND Max Roach on the same time, so I thought that might be a gas, as much action as on "Great Concert". Later when I heard it, I was a bit disappointed, because it sounded much more subdued that the stuff I was used to....

I was at that concert- it was a blast!!! Oh, you lucky ! It might be considered one of those unforgettable concerts, like the 1953 Massey Hall or something. I grew up in that period (mid seventies) and heard the guys that played and created music then. So, to me stuff like this is history. Some other personal memories about or around Herbie Hancock: I remember well when some other guy from school borrowed me the "Headhunters" album so I taped it. Until then (1975 I think) I didn´t even know that Herbie also played or plays acoustic stuff. That was the times we lived in. See: Keyboards meant electric keyboards, if you wanted to be update. From acoustic piano, during that time I only had heard from Oscar Peterson, since the older guys spoke about him or had his records. But I dug the acoustic Miles Davis stuff, because Miles was like God and you got to know everything he ever did. So, when I purchased that "Miles in Europe" (Antibes 1963) with Herbie Hancock on it..........when I played it I was quite astonished. Is THAT Herbie Hancock, is THAT THE Herbie Hancock???? Sure I loved it, because - though "old acoustic jazz", it sounded "cool" to me, fresh, you know ? Not "corny" like the "Peterson-Piano" I had heard before.....

Hancock is great in everything he does. Recently I listened again to the first VSOP, that double album from 1976 with the acoustic quintet, the sextet with Maupin and Buster Williams, and the funky stuff with Wah Wah Watson. Great stuff, a journey through more than 10 years of Hancock´s musical history.

Strange ! I wasn´t aware of March 12th, but yesterday and the days before I listened frequently to Bird. Starting with Sunday it was the Savoy and Dialsessions, the Birdland All Star 1950 and the Summit Meeting at Birdland 1951, well and yesterday on March 12th it was the 1947 Carnegie Hall stuff with Diz (by the way, some of the greatest Bird solos ever).

1) I got the Jackie McLean-book also. It seems, that there are many biographies about great musicians now. When I was young, there was one Miles Davis bio, written by Bill Cole I think, about 1973. That´s the first bio I read. And "Bird Lives" of course...... Now just in the last few years, I got books about Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, Fats Navarro, Tadd Dameron (2 books), Bud Powell, Wayne Shorter..... 2) about your comment of "never heard a piano successfully bowed".....maybe it should be a joke......, well the only thing I wanted to say is, that I remember Monk once asked his bass player (it may have been Ron McLure, it was around 1972....) not to use the bow, because he doesn´t like the sound. Maybe I can´t express myself well enough, and above all....... all I can think about here and in this context, is the music and the musicians who create and play it, and ...."bowed pianos" .... well maybe I´m too serious about the music and I don´t know enough people who would share that love with me.

Though that "apologize for his bowed solos" is still an enigma to me, maybe it´s a question of taste, like Monk stated that he doesn´t like the bow... But, with just 4 strings and a bow, Paul Chambers could blow better that some pianists with 88 keys. Brings memories back to a speech Benny Golson made to the audience, when I caught him on stage with Curtis Fuller: "look at my axe, a lot of keys on it........, and.....look at Mr. Fuller´s trombone.......no keys.....just a ......slide. And with just that slide he blows more than me with all my keys...... " In the book, he makes a similar statement about Paul Chambers. Anyway: Since Paul Chambers was born in 1935, there are more musicians still alive or even active, who could tell about him in the book, not to forget the contributions by his widow an one of his sons .

Title and author? I thought, the title of my thread is the title of the book and the name of the author ?! "Mr P.C. "the live and music of Paul Chambers" !! @BillF: apology for those bowed bass solos? How apology, Paul Chambers was the greatest when it came to bowed solos. Actually he was the first bassman I really heard, he was almost a reason why I became a jazz fan. Never in my life I had heard something like that before, that you can "blow" solos on the bass fiddle, that speak the language of Bird or Diz. I remember, that Ron Carter also tried a bowed solo on "Autumn Leaves" on the Miles at Antibes album, but it´s much weaker than Paul. Great as Ron is, he couldn´t solo like Paul. I wouldn´t say now, that a bowed bass solo is so important to me, but anyway, the Milestones album was the first I got when still a kid, and the thing that appealed most to me was the walking bass line of Paul. A reason for me to become a lifelong jazzfan. I even purchased a bass fiddle when I was 16 or 17, and after 3 years of self study and above all - listening to what Paul did, what Mingus did - , I was good enough and could fill in, when no bass player was available. I also liked to solo because I thought like the piano player I was. But I didn´t have a bow. Once I borrowed a bow from some classic dude, but it was a cello-bow, and when I tried it, it sounded like bees flyin´ around. Eventually I "forgot" about bass playin´ and stuck to the piano....

Just finished that great book about the great Paul Chambers. Great reading. The author reviews almost every recording with the bassist and gives us some informations about his personal live.

Hi Mark ! Yes, about "Body and Soul" it is true Dexter used Coltrane´s arrangement of that tune with the vamp in the A sections. He did it on the same way on his fantastic album "Manhattan Suite", which was his latest album during the time I first heard him live. And in 1985 on the sound track of "Round Midnight", he still played it that way. I think, Dexter often played songs on live occasions in a manner similar to his recorded versions, like "Good Bait": I got an album of Dexter at the Paradise Club in Amsterdam 1969, where he plays a very long and slow version of Good Bait. That´s also what he did in 1983, though I was quite astonished, because as I remember, "Good Bait" was not on the set lists of the concerts I heard between 1978-1981. Great story about the way you got his autograph.

Very interesting review, saw Dexter "live" around the same time, maybe a little later. the first time I saw him he opened his set with "It´s You Or No One", which he announced as "a CBS plagiat". Then followed "Fried Bananas" (Dexter: All about something very good to eat), the inevitable More Than You Know (I think he played it all the times I saw him), and the fast Blues "Backstages" with a long solo by Eddie Gladden. Later, in 1981 he was still very strong, played a fanstastic "Gingerbread Boy" and a long "Body and Soul", which was an encore I think. The last time I saw him in 1983, and I think he had slowed down a bit. Started with "Secret Love", then "Good Bait" at a somewhat slow tempo, More than you know (as always), and "Jelly Jelly Jelly" about the same way he does it on "Swiss Nites", but anyway, on that last occasion he didn´t play as much, it took almost 10 minutes until he came on stage, after his rhythm section had played 3 tunes, which I don´t remember since I was waiting for the chief....., I´m waitin for the book his widow is workin on, will be great to read it....

I must admit I´m not too familiar with that name. Could it be the pianist, who plays one track on that 1948 broadcast that I have (a kind of all star event with Benny Harris, J.J.Johnson, Budd Johnson, Lee Konitz, Bud Powell, Max Roach and others ? I think I got one track with a Barbara Carroll replacing Bud for one tune (All the Things you are), with just the rhythm section. Well, maybe she was just starting, it sounds a bit "stiff", you know, the way some piano players sound if the try to play in the bop idiom, but still with that "edge" in it. It´s like Al Haig on the Town Hall stuff with Diz and Bird. Then in that early stage of his career he still got that "edge" in his lines, but later, oh boy he could blow almost like Bud, he learned his stuff.....

Max Roach "Scott Free" (composed by Cecil Bridgewater) on the album with the same title from 1984 Max Roach "Call of Wild/Peaceful Heart (composed by Billy Harper) on the album "Max Roach in Amsterdam 1977".

Very interesting. And about his talent to learn foreign languages, I remember how he made announcements in German when I saw him live in 1978 and 1979.

I can say, Kenny Burrell has a special meaning to me. When I was very young and fell in love with jazz, the only stuff I knew was the typical bebop or hardbop setting with tp, ts/as, p,b,dr. I didn´t even know about styles and thought all that stuff is "old jazz" and stuff like Return to Forever or Miles´"Agharta" (then the stuff youngsters would listen to) which I thought might be "new jazz"...... The guitar I thought belongs to "new jazz" (70´s stuff) and I didn´t have no idea about earlier settings with that instrument. Then I purchased that double LP (BN LA-Series) "Paul Chambers & John Coltrane" which I really liked, and it´s Kenny Burrell on guitar. So that was the first time I heard a guitar player doing hornlike stuff, soloing like Trane, Miles and the musicians I knew. So, naturally, Kenny Burrell was the first guitar player I purchased albums to get my "hard bop collection"........ . I heard Kenny Burrell before Wes.....

If I might keep only two of Morgan´s albums, it would be "The Cooker", and "Search of a New Land".

I don´t remember in which thread I read it, but thanks to informations I got here, I purchased the two "Wounded Bird" re-issues of Montreux Summit. What a gathering of great musicians from different styles. Maybe it is not the highest musical standard, but anyway: Imagine.....Woody Shaw, Maynard Ferguson, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Slide Hampton, Hubert Laws, George Duke Bob James, Billy Cobham on the same stage. It´s a mixture of then modern 70´s stuff arranged by Bob James, and some standards like Blue March, Woody Shaw´s Moontrane, and others. Really long tunes, Blues March is over 25 minutes. It sure costed a fortune to gather all them great stars all together on stage.