Gheorghe

I have 2 CDs Vol.1 and 2 , japanese re-issue, with the whole material from 1949 - 1953 (featuring the early quartet stuff with Al Haig, who is in great form there), the sessions with Art Farmer and the later session from 1953 with Teddy Charles on it. Especially from the first session there are many alternate takes (4 or 5 takes on some tunes).

Great to see people who have the same story, the same approach to Bird, or to jazz in general.... Me to, I was 18 when I got the double LP Savoy "Mastertakes", the next was some european "sample": Charlie Parker "Jazz-tracks", it had some of the Dials. Since it was hard to purchase original stuff before the british Spotlite label started all that rare Bird, this was my first occasion to get aqainted with the Dial stuff. (The 3 LP set "Charlie Parker Story" on the french "America Label" would have had the master takes of the dials, but it was out of print. Hard times then, if you wanted something, it sure was OOP....at least 60-70% of it...

Well, the Savoy recordings were the first of Parker I purchased, so they alway will have their important place in my discography. The only fault is, that the drums are not recorded properly. I´d like to hear Max Roach more, it seems that he is barely audible. The Dials have the better drum sound and it seems that the musicians had more time at the studio to work out the stuff. On Verve I might say you got more different surroundings. Bird with combo, Bird with Strings, with Latin Touch, Bird plays Cole Porter etc. The only fault on some of the Verve stuff is, that it´s grossly overproduced (like „Night and Day“, it sounds more like movie scores from the fifties). And they virtually destroyed an otherwise interesting date with the Quintet that went to Paris (with Dorham, Haig, Tommy Potter and Roach), adding that terrible trombone of Tommy Turk. With such a trombone the lines are blurred and the solos sound more like those crowd pleasers from jam sessions. The best of the Verves is „Swedish Schnapps“. „Now is the Time“ that quartet album is also good, a very good Bird from later years…. Hard to choose. I really dig Bird and like almost everything he did.

Thanks for your replies! Yes, I also heard the stuff from 1947 where Buddy Rich was behind Allen Eager. And the WNEW session is great, I think it´s Fats Navarro who announces Buddy Rich for his drum solo on Sweet Georgia Brown. One strange thing happens on the first tune "High on an open Mike": They drop the tempo, I think it´s the piano player (Ralph Burns), who dropped the tempo.

Many of you might know about the famous Verve Album "Bird and Diz", with Thelonious Monk, Curley Russell and Buddy Rich. Most of the critics are not happy with the fact, that Norman Granz chose Buddy Rich for that date, some even say he destroyed the session. When I was younger , I also tended to say it would have been much better with Roy Haynes, or Max Roach etc., but now I think it is an interesting choose. Especially with Monk, Buddy sounds "hand in glove", Monks phrases and rhythmic aproach mix well with Buddy´s more martialic swing. Anyway, Buddy Rich seemed to play more often with Boppers, for example: With Bird on "Jazz Perennial" on the tracks with Hank Jones, Ray Brown. With Bud Powell in July 1950, when he recorded the ultra fast "Tea for Two" and "Hallelujah". Or, on Broadcast sessions: The famous " WNEW Saturday Night Jazz Session" from 1947 with Fats Navarro and Allen Eager together with Charlie Ventura and Bill Harris. And the "Band for Bond´s " also from 1947 with Bird, Fats, Allen Eager, John Laporta, Lenny Tristano, Billy Bauer and Tommy Potter. Sure, Buddy Rich never became a bopper, but later in the 70s he went as far as playing Bud´s "Bouncing with Bud" with his orchestra.

What, no mention of the SWEDISH ALL STARS band that caused quite a stir there? Not even mentioned in the lineup of the "other" bands that appeared there? (I'd say the Swedish headlines almost speak for themselves for us Germans. ) I must admit, I´m not an expert on European jazz. But who were the Swedish musicians who played at that festival. I had a look on the inside cover of my "Miles Davis Tadd DAmeron " LP with the festival program and couldn´t find about swedish musicians on the schedule. Anyway, there were few European musicians. Toots Thielemans trio, Hazy Osterwald quintet. Maybe the "European All Stars", they were on schedule for one evening.....

Will there be a reissue of Pharaoah Sanders "Life at the East"? I loved that LP, but couldnt find a CD. And how about those two "Americans in Europe" with Byas, Sulieman, Bud, Klook etc.?

One thing about Tadd, I think he´s got a highly individual style of piano playing. On medium tempos like "Good Bait", which is also featured on the Paris recordings, he would start with something like an anticlimax as a contrast to the other players, fast companly like Miles, Fats, James Moody, Allen Eager, Wardell Gray etc, then play some single line patterns and at one point, mostly when starting the B section, he would burst into those heavy chords. He has the same way of playing on slow blues, like "Romas" on Mating Call, or "Bula-Beige" on Fontainbleau. On ballads he plays mostly his chord based style, somehow strange how he plays every ballad solo in a kind of rhumba feeling. But it´s a mistake to write off his piano skills. It reminds me of Monk: When someone asked him if he ever played a regular piano, he would do some Tatumesque runs and licks, and stride and everything and would say he can do that but dont need that. Same with Tadd. Listen to his solo on "Eb Pob" from the Savoy sessions with Fats. He plays a hornlike piano, almost like Bud Powell, as if he would have liked to show us, that he can do that, but don´t need it. On the other hand: Try to imitate his style on piano, it´s hard, it´s almost impossible to sound like him. You can get in that Bud Powell groove if you listen much to it, even Monk, many piano players can do some Monkish stuff, but Tadd? The only one, who once came close to it was Walter Davis on "Dial for Beauty" on the Dameronia album, but even he couldn´t do it in that unique way Tadd did. "Arranger´s style"? Nonsens. There´s no arranger´s style, it´s Tadd, the composer, arranger, a n d pianist.....

The above mentioned CD with Miles-Dameron is the one I purchased. It also has the jam session at the end, which I originally heard on "Bird in Paris". I should try to purchase the BN CD "Lost sessions", Tadd Dameron with Sam Rivers sounds interesting, even if the arrangements might be a mess. How does Tadd sound on that?

Yes, the Magic Touch Album is great, but I also missed Tadd´s piano. He did one more session for BlueNote in the early sixties, but it was rejected. They say the arrangements were a mess. Anyway, one time it was issued on the BlueNote Connoisseur series, but I missed to purchase it. Tadd was playing on it. I also like the stuff with John Collins very much. I got a rare book about Tadd Dameron from a british autor Ian McDonald , "Tadd", nice to read, rare fotos etc.

I too like Tadd´s style. As much as I like Bud and Monk, my 3rd favourite on piano might be Tadd Dameron, because it´s just the opposite to Bud. He does nice short "solos" on the Royal Roost stuff with Fats Navarro, and has much more solo space on the Prestige recordings, especially on "Mating Call" with Trane. I must admit, I hadn´t heard about Dameron before I bought that Miles-Dameron Paris 1949 LP (CBS, Contemporary Masters Series, 1977). Then I was about 18 years old and hadn´t heard about else than Miles, Bird, Bud, Monk, Fats, etc., but no Tadd Dameron. But on the album cover text they rote that he´s a very important figure in modern jazz, so I started to pay much attention to him. He´s style is highly individual. People say he couldn´t play the piano and sh..., but I tell you, I can play in the style of Bud, some stuff in the Monkish manner, but Tadd....impossible

I didn´t know the 1968 version, but "Green Dolphin Street" was part of the repertory during the european tour abut 1963, the most outstanding group Sonny with Don Cherry, Henry Grimes and Billy Higgins. They mostly did very long versions of Dolphin Street and Sonnymoon for Two. Great Sonny, shades of Ornette Coleman, since he used players who came out of that style.

I love those sessions! Miles shows plays great bop trumpet on it and is almost as good as Diz or Fats. James Moody plays astonishing "modern" for the period. And I like Tadd´s solos on Dont Blame and Embraceable You. It´s strange, but the Bird album "bird in Paris" doesn´t exite me the same way the Miles-Dameron album does. The jam session at the end is nice. Rare occasion to hear Sidney Bechet and Bird sharing stage, or Miles and HotLips Page. I got some of the Paris Fotos in a rear book "To Bird with Love", a photo collection, done by Francis Paudras and Chan Parker.

Now that you say it, I remember there was a collection of some late Bud, reissued by Bud´s daughter Celia. I didn´t purchase it, since I got all the material, it´s more like a sampler from stuff I got on the Mythic Sound. I think, the title of the album was „Eternity“. I know, that „Eternity“ was a poem Bud wrote a few days before he died. I only saw the french text in Pauras´ book. Since my french is not good enough, I didn´t really understand the text, it´s something about „when you left me, I lost the joy of life....“ Was it dedicated to Francis Paudras? I´d like to read the english version of the poem, it´s told it´s on that sampler, but I wouldn´t buy the sampler if I got all the stuff, no „cherry picking“. Great to have someone who likes Bud. I couldn´t meet persons who really dig his music. Most of them are piano players, who „do“ Bud as kind of an exercise, to cover that kind of period. I heard them play Bud´s tunes, but in that „laid back manner“ obviously from some scores they had to study. One time I didn´t have the patience, asked the kid to stop a bit, jumped at the piano bench and played it myself. Well, I do that only for myself, my wife says if I „play Bud“ it sounds like some unknown, unissued alternate takes, same style, same „snarling alone the lines“, same way of sitting and holding the fingers.....

Well, I didn´t know, that Pablo released material from those very private sessions. Maybe, I´m not up to date to record labels, but during „my time“, Pablo was Norman Granz´ stuff, mostly live jams from Montreux from the 70´s, Dizzy Gillespie Jam, Oscar Peterson Jam etc. About the discographies: Well maybe they are a mess, anyway I think those who did make the records (Mythic Sound) didn´t know exactly when it was made. On my Mythic version of „Hot House“, there is an introduction where Bud greets Johnny, but I believe that took place much earlier, in february 1964 at Francis´home, where Bud stayed when he was released on weekends from the sanatorium where he was recovering from TB. On the other hand, on one of my CDs from the private collection there is an extended version of „All the Things you are“, but it´s another piano player, not Bud. That piano player sounds like someone who likes jazz but doesn´t really know how to swing, it got that typical european „edge“ in it. Anyway I think, those Edenville recordings are historical important documents. Imagine, that was a time when you could spend a holiday on the beach and each evening listen to Bud Powell…..incredible. How much would I have liked to be there. On one of the tapes, Bud plays „If I loved you“. This tune was not in his repertory until then. He announces it as „dedicated to Rini, …and my name is Bud“. „Rini“ was a young girl who was on the beach and was one of the few persons Bud would talk with. It is interesting that he kept „If I loved you“ in his repertory, he played it frequently at Birdland and it´s also on the studio recording „The Return of Bud Powell“.

I´m sure it´s a tenor axe. But anyway, the Edenville stuff, especially the tracks with Griff are too sharp, about a half note. I got perfect pitch and noticed, that Wee, a B-flat tune sounds almost like B natural. Same with the "Wee Dot" from an italian bootleg, titled only as "Blues", it sound´s like B natural. And Straight No Chaser and Body and Soul suffer from the same problem. I got the full version of Hot House, it´s about 18 minutes. On the record it´s only 5 minutes and starts with Griff in the background while the bass player is walking on a kind of a "bass solo", you can hear Griff saying "that´s Guy" (Guy Hayat). Got three tracks from another day from the Edenville tapes, it´s with Al "Big" Jones on drums and sounds better on drums.

I just noticed, that my CD also has those 3 bonus tracks from Edenville. The only "fault" is, that the bass player and the drummer are not professional musicians, but they try to do their best. Can´t see nothing "erratic" in Bud´s playing. He does his best to keep the stuff together, dig his block chords on Star Eyes, who else could play that way, really deep...

Someone on this board once noted Jackie's debt to Dexter as a player - that was a major epiphany to me as a listener. Dexter was one of Jackie´s main inspirations when Jackie was a youngster. I think, the Savoy recordings from "Dexter Rides Again" inspired him very much. It is told, that Jackie, then an established master himself, was very exited by the possibility to play and record with his youth idol Dexter.

My Kenny Drew moment came in the Dexter Montmartre recordings. That´s it. See, when I started to dig jazz, and of course Jackie McLean, it was a very rough period for record-buyers in my country. Most of the Blue Note albums where OOP and hard to purchase. The best way to listen to Jackie Mc Lean and of course Dexter was buying those Steeplechase records. That´s what I did. Great records are : live at the Montmatre 1972 with the long version of "Parker´s Mood", then "A Ghetto Lullaby", and of course the two albums with Dexter and Jackie together, all of them with Kenny Drew on piano. I especially liked what Jackie plays on "Rue de la Harp" and "Another HairDo" (where he also quotes 52nd Street Theme). It was much later during the CD era, that I could purchase all the BlueNote albums, and many of the Prestige albums.

Nicely put Jim. Indeed. I had the opportunity of seeing him once with Grachan, Hutcherson, Rene and I forget who was playing bass and drums. It was a nice gig. Jackie was cool as they come, too - intense, but very cool and a neat guy to interview. Great! Must have been a great evening! I also had the opportunity to see Jackie with Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis and Billy Higgins, one of the greatest experiences I ever had. Imagine, a combination of the musicians who played on "Let Freedom Ring" and "One Step Beyond"....

hi Pete C! Ok, that means you got a CD with some bonus tracks from the Edenville live sessions. I got the whole Edenville Material, the first release was the album "Hot House", now titled "Salt Peanuts", and many stuff from those happy holidays at Edenville just before Bud returned to USA. I dont think it is weak, well the piano is a club piano, the bass and drummer are just amateurs, not professional musicians. If someone tells me that´s weak Bud, I´d ask him how he would play with this, and a sad piano. Anyway the best moments are with Griffin, the extended tracks "Straight No Chaser, Wee, HotHouse (on the original LP is just a short version, I got the 18 minute version, and one long title mistiteld "Happy Blues at Edenville" which actually is "Wee Dot", with "Disorder at the Border" on the out chorus. I don´t care if the sound quality is weak, my ears are be-bop trained, heard worse recordings. If I have enough time, I listen to the whole Edenville stuff, some hours of music. Hope, I could give you some infos on those last days of Bud in Paris. Actually, the former "Fontana" label, later "Black Lion" issued about four albums of Bud: "Hawk in Germany" (1960 Essen Festival: Bud, O.P., Klook, Hawk), "Strictly Confidential" (late 1963/early 1964 Bud p-solo with Francis Paudras on brushes on newspaper), "Blues for Bouffémont" aka "The Invisible Cage" which you know, and "Hot House" aka "Salt Peanuts". Plus the stuff on "Mythic Sounds" Vol. 8 "Holydays at Edenville", plus some rare material that I´m glad I have.....

Jackie McLean is one of my favourite musicians. I love everything he did. But I think it was the typical „Prestige problem“. They wanted to do all those recordings without time for rehearsal, and very little possibilities for own originals or arrangements. Anyway, it is great music. Jackie McLeans plays more standards on the Prestige albums, stuff like „Sentimental Journey“ etc. I think, he got more possibilities from Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff to develope his own style. He couldn´t have done records like „One Step Beyond“ for Prestige. With all due respect to all the great musicians I heard live, I´ll never forget the two occasions when I had the luck to see Jackie McLean on stage. And I love his sound.

I agree with you about the Blue Note sessions from 1957,58. Especially on „The Scene Changes“, Bud sounds very much like Sonny Clark on that album. It seems that Bud wanted to add something to the hard bop boom of the late fifties, even the compositions „Cleopatras Dream“ and „Duid Deed“ sound very much like hard bop. It´s like Dexter Gordon, who was some influence for John Coltrane, and later got some of Trane´s stuff in his playing. It´s true, that Bud later returned to his early style. Some of the best recordings are from 1959, when he sat in with Blakey´s Jazz Messengers. Those two versions of „Bouncing with Bud“ and „Dance with the Infidels“ are as great as the 1949 recordings, even more interesting, because Bud plays more chorusses, each of them brilliant. I didn´t understand, why „Blues for Bouffemont“ should be weak. And I havent heard about two sessions. This album was recorded on July 31 1964 in the studio. I like the bop tunes „Moose The Mooche“, „Relaxin at Camerillo“, „Little Willie Leaps“ and the new originals „Una Noche Con Francis“ and „In the Mood for a Classic“ (dedicated to Randy Hultin). There was no other studio date. But I got the Mythic Sound CD with some rehearsals one day before the recording date. Only Bud and the french bass player doing the two mentioned originals as a rehearsal. Bud is great on that also. Maybe you think it is more relaxed as a studio album. Later , back in New York, if you got him right, he still had much to say. I got 15 hours of Bud ad Birdland, much of it is great, Bud got a more Monkish touch and still is very strong. Only on the studio recording „The Return of Bud Powell“ it seems that he had some cups before the session started, anyway how inspired can you be if the only reason to make a recording is to get some tickets back to France? (where he anyway didn´t return).

I decided to listen again to those two Victors. The second one „Swinging with Bud“ is somewhat better, more vintage Bud Powell. His „Shaw Nuff“ is nice, but not as good as later versions like from Essen-Germany 1960. His Salt Peanuts is very short, like the version on the 1955 „The Lonely One“. One thing that disturbs me on those mid fifties recordings is that there is no real interaction between the musicians. On the early 1955 recordings which are weak anyway, Art Blakey is on drums but you don´t hear him. Another album from the 1957/1958 period is Roulette´s „Bud plays Bird“. It´s similar to „Swining with Bud“, has longer solos, but to little interaction with the bass and the drummer. Art Taylor was such a great drummer, he could do much better that that metronomic beat all over „Bud Plays Bird“. Anyway it seems that from the late 50´s on, Bud somehow returned to his „act“. In 1956 (Strictly Bud Powell) it seems like he didn´t want to take no risks, playing mostly medium tempos and good sections of block chords. Again, bass and drums do not contribute much to the music. To be inspired, Bud needed musicians who would respond to his phrases, to interact with him. I know it was recorded in the studio, but it´s so strange, „Striclty Powell“ sounds like if the bass and the drums would have been recorded before and Bud would have played over it later. Even the sound is somewhat blurred. I´m not an audiophile, I dig most club dates and even bad tuned pianos, but it´s got to be music played in an inspired mode.