Gheorghe

After Eddie Lockjaw Davis had died, Red Holloway who used to play with Jaws came to Vienna quite often. I remember him well. Very good musician, and such a nice guy. Once I took a person who before that was unfamiliar to jazz, to the club to catch a show with Red Holloway and he sure liked it.

Brad: Yes, I did listen to Bill Harris. the first time I heard him on record was the WNEW Saturday Night Swing Session, where he is featured with Fats Navarro, Allen Eager, Charlie Ventura, Buddy Rich and others. Heard some good stuff with Flip Phillips also.... BillF: Yes, great outfit. Also got a DVD of one of their concerts.....

thank you so much, Brad! It took me some time to think if that story could be worth reading. You know, my knowledge of English is quite limited to the half forgotten school lessons, and a lifelong reading of sleevenotes from jazz albums, biografies on musicians, or talking to musicians if I am lucky....

thanks for your answer, king ubu, and good to hear other opinions. Well that "Kai Winding too" has become something like a personal play on words, if you like. But nevertheless, maybe it´s just that little rough sound that I dig. I heard it first on the live dates from Royal Roost, and like it on that early studio recordings like "Bop City", and above all on his solos with the Giants of Jazz, his solos on "I Mean You" of "Tour de Force" really knocked me out. Bennie Green, yes sure, I like him. But I must admit I don´t have much more as a leader than his 3 BlueNote albums. They good stuff, makes me happy listening to it......yeah, the very very.......slippery trombonist .....Benny Green...

Hello! Maybe some of you remember a thread I had started on the „Discography“ forum , titled „Mingus Question“. It was about the last session on which Mingus played bass in a studio, his group augmented by Lionel Hampton who produced the album, an Woody Shaw, Gerry Mulligan. As I had noticed, on of the tracks „It might as well be spring“ didn´t sound as belonging to that session and I got great help from you, telling me that this track actually belongs to the Kai Winding album „Jazz Showcase“, also recorded in 1977. You also were so kind to give me a track list. So I wanted to purchase that album since I love the way Kai plays, I was lucky to see him playing at the Viennese Club „Jazzland“ with a great local trio (Fritz Pauer, Bert Thompson, Fritz Ozmec) about the time when this album was recorded. That was one of those great evenings, where I finally met that great musician who´s trombone I had enjoyed on some bop sessions with Tadd Dameron at Royal Roost, on the Jay&Kay albums and last not least together with Diz, Stitt, Monk on the „Giants of Jazz Tour“. So, that special album brings some great memories back, it was recorded around the time I heard him and the track list is like a typical set how he did it on club dates. He even manages to play a fine version of „Epistrophy“, is great and strong as ever on faster tracks as well as playing beautiful soft on ballads. Beautiful memories: I remember during that time I was just about finishing High School, and I enjoyed to have that reputation of being a jazz expert. Jazz during the second half of the 70s was much more popular than now even among very young people, who – maybe starting with some more popular „fusion“ stuff like Return to Forever, Headhunters, Billy Cobham-George Duke and last not least the electric Miles, just began to dig into fine, timeless acoustic jazz, names like Rollins, Joe Henderson, Dexter, Griffin, Diz, McCoy Tyner, the more straight ahead playing Archie Shepp etc. As I told you, I had that reputation of being a first hand information to other kids at school who started to get interested in jazz. I remember a boy from one of the lower grades. During intermissions he would try to meet me and ask me questions about the musicians, would ask me to give him tapes from LPs I had collected etc. Since he liked the trombone so much, once I taped that „J.J. Johnson-Nat Adderly“ Yokohama Concert for him and from then on I he´d hum the theme of „Horace“ and „Walkin“ all the time. Once he asked me to come into his class room and believe it or not, he had carved all the names of the musicians (Miles, Rollins, Mingus, etc. ) into his school desk, and in big letters there was carved: „J.J. Johnson is the best!!!!!“. Few days later, Kai Winding was in town. I told my young fried „watch out, watch out, if you like J.J. Johnson you might like Kai Winding also“ . Naturally, he was underage and couldn´t get to the clubs, but I was 18, had got my first car and could do what I want, especially going the jazz clubs. So, the next morning at school I´d tell him how it was, how great sounded Kai Winding etc. He just nodded, intermission ended and everybody attended his classes. The next day, that boy again asked me to visit his class room, and believe it or not, under that carved „J.J. Johnson is the best!!“ I could read the carved letters „Kai Winding too“. The boy hadn´t even heard him, but trusted my opinion, just picking up another name of a jazz great. Can you imagine that kind of high school live nowadays? Did it happen? Anyway, yesterday I got my CD „Kai Winding Jazz Showcase“ , and before listening to it, I looked at the cover and said…more to myself „Kai Winding, too“. My wife: „pardon?“ and I just said: „well that´s simple to understand: J.J. Johnson is the best, and Kai Winding too!. My wife, who´s not really a jazz enthusiast, gave me that sweet smile and said „that´s it, as you say it….well….enjoy your music….“

As has been mentioned above, you can download a free app for whatever device you want to use (e.g., tablet, computer, phone). Here's the link to the book from both Amazon and Amazon.de. Both have links on the right side to download the free reader app. http://www.amazon.com/Wail-Life-Bud-Powell-ebook/dp/B0079NR9IC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1329863417&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.de/Wail-Life-Bud-Powell-ebook/dp/B0079NR9IC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329863247&sr=1-1 So if you have an Amazon account, the app will link to any e-books you buy, as well as public domain works that are free through Amazon and Project Gutenberg. Thanks Pete! actually I knew the amazon link, I got an amazon account since I purchase my CDs, books and DVDs from amazon which I do since we don´t have record stores anymore, about since 1999 or so. Actually , I was aware about that forthcoming "kindle" book about Bud and I had a look at amazon every day to see if it´s finally published. Well, the other things, "download a free app" etc. it´s all greek to me, but I got somebody who will check it for me. I just purchase the stuff and he will fix it for me so I can finally read it... What can I do? All I know is the music, that´s the important thing....

I also got a mail yesterday that the book is finished. I must admit, until I heard about the book as being released as a kindle, I didn´t even know what kindle is. I also must admit I like to read a book in the traditional manner, the way I read since I can read. But I´m such a big fan of Bud I got to get this. Since my knowledge of all that "modern stuff" incl. "kindle" is zero, I got to get an advice how to do it, how to order, how to use it, anything. I´m lazy learning new technologies, but I´ll manage it with the help of someone I know. But as I said, if it´s for Bud.... I´d do anything....

Now that you say it I remember it very well: The lineup during march 1980 must have been George Adams, Joe Ford (I hadn´t heard his name before, the only Ford I know is Ricky Ford who was with Mingus few years before) and that "mistery violin player" John Blake. I said "mistery" since I wasn´t really aware of violin players, something ´bout the sound that I couldn´t get with, ....but that violin with McCoy was cool. Yes, I also remember how I saw Fambrough a few month later, it must have been in autumn 1980 with Blakey (with Valery Ponomarev, Billy Pierce, Bobby Watson, James Williams!) : And believe me or not, I remember how Blakey announced him as "composer, arranger, bass player" (Bu introduced everybody like that, but with all due respect to Fambrough I doubt he might be remembered as a composer and arranger, he´s a helluva bassplayer and sure rote some tunes, but "composer, arranger" ....not really) . And Blakey made some remarks about Fambrough former with Tyner. Blakey´s comment about "wanted to play some JAZZ" is typical Blakey of that time. I think he didn´t like the more popular 70´s evolutions, the succesful Milestone Albums with that wider range of music. Blakey then believed that Jazz must be just straight ahead hardbop like "Blues March" and "Moanin´" maybe. But I heard him do quite open and "free" stuff also with a later edition with Blanchard and Harrison and those guys.

Thank you jay2b2! So....I was right guessing that it might have been in the late 70´s . I´ve read much about that 1978 concert at the White Houses. Mostly in context with Mingus, but also with Diz, Dex, and Cecil Taylor.

Hello! I had the possibility to listen to a broadcast with Dexter , Dizzy , George Benson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams all together on stage, doing fantastic versions of two extended tunes "I Remember April" and "Caravan". I have no idea when and were it was recorded. The only thing is I suppose it was in the late 70s, Dizzy still had great chops, Dexter is just Dexter the way I love him most, and the rhythm section is really cooking, sounds very exiting like those V.S.O.P concerts. I think that was one of those very rare moments when a "dreamband" was put together, I don´t know whether it was planned or just happened. Couldn´t find discographical sources or informations, I just suppose it might have been somehow around 1978, deducing from the way they played.

Car accidence. That´s what I heard. By the way: Another bass player from the Farmer family is Julius Farmer (el-b), I saw him once on stage in 1979 with Larry Coryell. I think he was announced as a nephew of Art Farmer.

Yeah, that´s the way how he did it. A topnotch musician, he had it all.

I first heard him on that Miles at Antibes album and it became one of my favourite albums. I saw him once in Vienna around 1979 with about the same group as his famous "Amsterdam at Dark". Hilton Ruiz on piano, Billy Higgins on drums (I was a huge Billy Higgins fan) and I think Ray Drummond on bass instead of Sam Jones who is on the album. George Colman was in his prime when I saw him, like everybody else I saw during that time. All those great tenor players, Joe Henderson, George Coleman, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, they all were in their late forties, early fifties and playing on the peak of their powers, so I really heard some music. I remember George Coleman played a lot of music from his "Amsterdam" album, his latest album, and he was great, and his sidemen too. And he was such a nice person.

Miles did a session with Stan Getz in 1950: Miles, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Tadd Dameron, Gene Ramey and Art Blakey : Conception, Max is Makin Wax, Woody´n You, Ray´s Idea, and Old Black Magic (with Stan Getz featured)

In the mid sixties: Maybe Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, Roy Haynes? And about Miles after his comeback 1981: Well I like that band with Mike Stern, and I´m not necessarly a patriot who would push people just because they from my country, but .... the austrian guitarist Karl Ratzer.....he got it all, I often wondered how the Miles from the early 80´s would have liked him. Dave Liebman, well he was with Miles in 1973/74, but I would have liked to see him back with Miles after his comeback, at least for a period....

I must admit I didn´t buy yet the Miles Davis/Jimmy Forrest "Live at the Barrel". I should purchase it eventually. Well, about "Wahoo", that´s like most bop tunes, they are lines written on chord changes of older tunes or standard tunes. Some say, "Wahoo" is Benny Harris´ tune based on Perdido. Other´s say it´s Tadd´s riff on "Perdido". Anyway, Miles played it as "Wahoo" on the 1949 Paris Festival "Miles Davis-Tadd Dameron Quintet". Many bop musicians played it as "wahoo", like Bird with Fats and Bud at Birdland 1950, or Tadd Dameron with Allen Eager and Kai Winding at Royal Roost 1948. Later, some mainstream musicians, who played "Perdido" , used the "wahoo" theme at the ending instead of repeating the original theme. I saw Oscar Peterson do that (I´m not Petersons´biggest fan, but when he ended Perdido with "Wahoo" I thought "wow, he starts to flirt with bop?"

Same with me! Hank Mobley is one of my favourites, I´d go so far as saying he´s my idea of a tenor player. But......not for Miles, especially during the things that would settle in the 60s. A player like Hank Mobley would have been ideal for the Miles of 1950,51, when he played a strong bop oriented horn and sometimes had Lestorian players like Brew Moore or Stan Getz together with J.J. Johnson as a line up. And yeah, sure I also have the book about Hank Mobley, but there could be space for another book.

Well, Neloms, Walrath, Ford, that was his last working band, from 1976 on. During 76, the last personnel change was Bob Neloms who replaced Danny Mixon on piano. This working band did the whole touring from later 1976 until late 77. But as I always told, it´s a drag that his studio recordings were so overproduced, and the solo space was left much more to the other big names who where on the record.

I´d say I´m really a be bop fan, but not only.... . But thinking of be bop, that´s what Miles did in the 40´s. I´d say the last vintage bop sessions of Miles are those Birdland live recordings from 1951 with J.J. Johnson, Rollins or Jaws on ts, stuff like that. But see, Miles never stood still or looked back. To dig Miles means to dig the whole developement of jazz. Miles, after his first great quintet with Trane, with Philly J.J. etc. had started modal jazz around 1958. He had to look for musicians that can inspire him, not to make him look back. The blackhawk recordings are nice to listen, and Hank Mobley is one of my favourite players, I love everything he did, but not for Miles! It was not a happy period for Miles before 1963. You can almost feel how he is bored, musically uninspired. How can you say Miles went nuts after that? You miss a lot of good, exiting stuff. Anyway, if "nuts" means to you "new thing", "free jazz", "avantgarde" ....anyway....that´s something Miles never did. With George Coleman and later Wayne Shorter, with Herbie, Ron, and above all Tony Williams, Miles got some of the greatest musicians ever....

Thanks, Marcello!

Yes, that two albums from Switzerland, Lausanne and Geneva. It´s really great Bud Powell, this and the "Blakey in Paris 1959" and "Essen Festival All Stars" . If I listen to that Geneva album and to the worst tracks from "Golden Circle" especially on the limited edition of 3 C Ds "Budism" it seems that Bud still could be the greatest of all the time, if the vibrations were rite. If something hurted or annoyed him, he would loose all his musical energy.... But all that great albums from some happy moments during his European stay from ´59-´64´don´t have much to do with that album "Up´s n Downs". That´s another story. I got that album to and have been listenig much to it. I got the original Mainstream LP and later a CD with the two bonus tracks "No Smokin" and "I´m alway chasing after rainbows". And it has some studio photographs, you can see Diz on it, and Stollmann the producer, and Rashied Ali and Scott Holt, who are the "unknown" bassist and drummer.

yeah, I remember Rollins´ collapse. Thanks God he is still there and I´m lucky I saw him live. but back to my questions: I asked if somebody knows more: That discography ends in july 77 and that must be incomplete, I´m sure! Mingus also played in Tunisia, it´s where he got his inspiration for "Three Worlds of Drums", and he did his last tour through Arizona in october 77. Sue Mingus mentioned it in her book, and Brian Priestly mentions it in his book about Mingus. And I remember a tour with the line up with the electric guitars to promote his "Three Or Four Shades of Blues" album was already scheduled and we were lookin forward to it, when it was chancelled (November 30 1977). So, what´s about Mingus´ activities between the last European concert and before his album with Hamp from november 6th 1977 (supposed to be the last time he played bass) ????????

Hi, yeah of course I saw and heard some great stuff. About an austrian trombone player you mentioned: Good trombone, sure. Saw him play "Move" once at a pretty fast tempo. But if I remember rite, it was in 1973 at "Stadthalle" when Miles was doin his stuff he did then and some of those "local big names" would boo him out (exactly at a point when there was a more quiet and lyrical passage, which determined Miles to spit on the floor and leave the stage not to come back) . We all hoped Miles would return but I think it was enough for him. It was just a drag how they put him down only because he managed to go into some directions, and the most ridiculous thing was that those guys later tried to copy some of his stuff, trying to play "jazz rock" at the clubs...... Miles´midseventies stuff was heavy for me and I must admit I feel more comfortable if I listen to his acoustic or semi acoustic stuff, but at least I was hip enough to listen to it, to buy that stuff and hear some things...... Back to Tyner: Yeah! It must have been Fambrough on the bass and Ronnie Burrage on drums. Now I got the line up I was lookin for. Thanks!!!!

Rite now I remember they also played a short version of "Wee" (Griffin). About the broadcast, is it possible it was "Jazz mit Erich Kleinschuster" (the austrian trombonist).... I´m not his biggest fan, especially how he did that broadcast, well he´s not as hip as "Symphony Sid" *smile*..... About "Wee". Anyway, Griffin loved to play fast rhythm-change based tunes, Wee was a favourite of his. And now I remember why I know they played it. I listened to the broadcast, taped it and was quite annoyed when Mr. Kleinschuster made his anouncements or comments and the last thing he said was " ...jetzt läuft dahinten noch Wiiiii (that´s how he pronounced "Wee") ......"

King ubu: yes, that might be the exact track list from Johnny Griffin. Anyway, Autumn Leaves was the first tune, the second tune was a 3/4 time vehicle, and announced as "slightly viennese" because of the waltz metro. Griffin seemed to like that gimmick, because I remember he announced 3/4 tunes played in my hometown as "slightly viennese" also on other occasions. And the last tune was the at least 20 minutes long "soft and furry" , that´s sure, I remember that. And I already knew it from the Steeplechase album "Blues for Harvey". The personnel from the guitar -vibes duo is correct. I didn´t want to mention names because I don´t want to be killed if I say I didn´t dig it. My "fault" in general is, maybe I´m not "sophisticated" enough for "european jazz". Don´t misunderstand me, I love so many aspects of jazz, but some kind of it, mostly the more "cerebral" stuff just doesn´t make me happy.