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got a Monk double CD recently I didn´t know about. With Paul Jeffrey from Newport 1975 and the other half is from the Village Vanguard from 1972. I like them very much. At first I was a bit disappointed by the way Jeffrey plays, was too used to Rouse who always seemed hand in glove with Monk, but after a few listenings I started to find his more aggresive treatment of the music quite exiting and it seemed to thrill Monk also, who plays quite fresh things. Oh ....and imagine: Dave Holland is on bass on the Vanguard sets. And Monk junior on drums really does some great stuff. I wonder why there are not more recordings with Monk father and son.

When I was still a starter and wanted to purchase some Dolphy, I got a strange album from the obscure label "Trip Records". It had Jitterbug Waltz, Music Matador, Alone Together on it and was very short, and quite an ugly cover, bad pressing etc. Obviously a bootleg. Since I liked the music, I later purchased a CD with those tunes.

John Ore can be heard as a soloist on many of Bud´s (mostly not commercially released) live tapes from Birdland 1964. He plays quite technically, using quite daring double grips or how you call it.

Well, Howard McGhee was a very important influence for Fats. I read in the book about Fats Navarro, that in later years, McGhee was a bit yealous on the publicity Fats got. Anyway, there´s some great playing of them both. Originally it was planned that Tadd Dameron would play piano on that session, but during that time (october 1948), the collaboration betweend Tadd and Fats came to it´s end. Another trivia about that session comes from an interview Howard McGhee did for Valerie Wilmer, where he said "we made 1,200 dollars each and by the end of the day Fats didn´t have 10 cents left. He kept asking me for money and I just couldn´t believe it..."

I don´t know nothing about iTunes since I´m a more old fashioned guy and got to have CDs (and before that LPs). I saw that "Themes from a Movie" on a Mingus discography many many years ago and always wondered what it might be. Since 1976 was the year when Mingus did "Music for Todo Modo" (which was supposed to be a movie score like Cumbia from 1977), maybe it´s some piano sketches from Todo Modo? Like the bonus tracks on Cumbia (Wedding March on piano, two tracks made after the group recording of Cumbia, which is the same little waltz that appears shortly on "three or four shades of blues"

I didn´t know Alice Coltrane was married to Kenny Hagood. Though I got quite a few recorded items where he sings, I don´t know nothing about his live. He worked quite much at the Royal Roost in the late 40´s and his ballad features with bop greats like Tadd Dameron, Dizzy, Bird are well known. also with Miles on Birth of Cool, and with Monk on Blue Note. I got the film "Jivin´in Bebop" with Dizzy and you got Kenny Hagood singing "I´m Waiting For You" to a nice young lady who just looks at him. Maybe she´s young Alice?

exists also a recording of Bud with Don Byas and Brew Moore (3 tracks: Rifftide, I Remember Clifford, Anthropology) from Denmark 1962. Brew is out on I Remember Clifford. But as I think, Byas loved that tune as much as Bud loved it. On all 3 recorded meetings between those two giants, they recorded that ballad (Tribute to Cannonball, Americans in Europe, and the un-issued stuff I got.

Few weeks ago I purchased the new Fats Navarro bio written by Leif Bo Petersen & Theo Rehak. I´d say this is a dream that came true. I always have admired Fats and never thought there would be a comprehensive book about his live, his times and above all his music. This book has great reviews of about everything Fats recorded, rare fotos, solo transcriptions and everything.

I was lucky I saw "Lock the Fox" quite often when he was alive. Always liked his phrasings, he had a special kind of humour in his playing. One of the most unusual encounters from Lockjaws discography is his set with Miles Davis from Birdland 1951

I know that photo from Francis Paudras´book about Bud. Well, Bud did at least two recordings with Paul Chambers. Not with Getz, but at least he recorded with two "Lestorian" tenorists: With Zoot Sims, and witz Brew Moore. The encounter with Zoot is better known. It´s from the BlueNote Café in Paris.

hi Valerie: Thanks for your answer. Well...off topic....sure Zawinul was an exceptional musician and did fantastic things, period. But to say that I´m a f a n of him would be to much. I´m a f a n of Bird, Diz, Fats, Bud, Monk, Mingus, Miles, Trane, Ornette, that´s it. Concerning Bud, I´d like to think of myself as being one of his most loyal fans. From the first note on, his approach to music, to the piano and everything......it was just that I fell in love with his music.

hi ValerieB! Bud died in the summer of 1966 /July 31th I think. So this might have been his very last 2 years when he was alive. Though this has nothing to do with "early Bud", I always said I really found all his work at any period of his short live really astonishing. It is true Bud lived in Brooklyn right after his return to Birdland in september/october 1964. He worked only sporadically (a Carnegie Hall performance in march 1965 at a Charlie Parker Memorial Concert, and on May 1th at Town Hall on bill with some Avant Garde musicians like Albert Ayler and Milford Graves). Maybe a few club performances. The only recorded document of that period is the strange album "Ups´N Downs" with some studio solo and trio work and one track "Round Midnight" from the Carnegie Hall performance. It´s too bad the tape of the Town Hall Concert was distroyed, since it is reported Bud had performed a new composition "Caket in the Sea". We´ll never know how it sounded. Anyway, the "Ups ´N Downs" album has a strange, moving quality. Some say it is better than his last official studio recording from october 1964 (The Return of Bud Powell). Can you remember how Bud sounded when he practiced? I always said Bud, during his very last year of playing music seemed to have discovered some other means to express his genius: Gone are the flashy runs and long improvised lines, and something else came into his music, especially on ballads he used darker voicings and a more ad lib tempo. I have many many hours of privatly recorded material from Birdland, september and october 1964 (2 of them from the Francis Paudras Mythic Sound records: "Return to Birdland" and "Award at Birdland", where he received the "Schaeffer Award", and 17 more CDs of unissued material). This together with "Ups ´N Downs" led me to some inside knowledge of how Bud played during this very last and very unhappy period. Video tapes of later Bud show a strange picture of him. He seems to be really involved physically in what he does on the piano.

Of course I have all the Francis Paudras CDs (Mythic Sound). The tracks with Cootie Williams are very interesting because Bud already got his style while improvising, but still got other influences too. On Vol. II (Burnin´in USA) I really like the track "Tiny´s Blues" with Bud at his best. Maybe the most exiting Bud from the earlier period is on the mentioned 1950 gig with Bird and Fats. I think it is much superior to the Verve trio session from about the same time (July 1950) with Buddy Rich. Those two tunes are just a bit too much. At a slightly slower pace it would have been more boppish. Though "Little Willie Leaps" and "Dizzy Athmosphere" on "One Night At Birdland" are ultra rapid, it´s not so hurried like those two trio tracks and leaves enough space to develope out all the phrases in a manner that it "blows" and produces quick and hip stuff. I always have kind of difficulties if a pianist becomes too pianistic. Maybe that´s why I prefer later Bud, where speed slows down a little. P.S.: I also got that Allen Eager CD with the rare Bud Powell feature. It´s a nice private session. The only downer is the guy who tries to play the drums on the slow blues.

time flies.....remember when I saw Diz and he was about 60, still in his prime and with good chops and all. And now he would be 92. anyway, I often think with love about him, such a genius musician.....

Sure! I agree you 100 %! Charlie Rouse was the best musical partner for Monk as a saxophonist. With all due respect to Trane, Rollins, Griffin who did fantastic things with Monk, Charlie Rouse was the man. His sound and his phrasing would fit perfectly to Monk´s musical conception and style. Nobody knew Monk´s music better than Rouse, period. It went so far that Rouse sounded like Monk´s music even if he played with other people or let´s say on his only BN album "Bossa Nova Baccanal". That sound´s like if Monk went "latin". Griffin, who also loved Monk and had played a lot with him, once said it´s hard for most saxophone players to work with Monk, because of his way of comping. It´s apt to throw a horn player, so they were glad when at some point he laid out when they stretched out on their solos, which he would do anyway. But with Charlie Rouse, it was just "hands in gloves".

I didn´t have the occasion to see him life, but saw quite a lot of video-material with him. that kind of little dance was just part of his music. If you watch him rite, it´s like the way he plays. I love everything he did.

Count me in as one of Bud´s most loyal fans. I love everything he did. and, that´s why I chose one of Bud´s pictures as my avatar.

Well, Lou´s saying exactly what the critic, jazz author and a part of the audience want´s to hear. It seems to thrill them if musicians fight each other, Miles saying unkind words about fellow musicians, Mingus throwing a drum at some musician or hitting them in the mouth, Miles and Monk fighting at the studio (which never took place)....but see, it´s heaven for a lot of people, so it´s natural if Lou developed his own brand of puttin´on the audience. He sure can afford to do so. I remember well the way Lou announces the next tune ("....rite now we gonna play a tune, not recommended for fusion and con-fusion players, it´s called "Wee", pretty nice tune....here we go...."). I really enjoy everything he did, but I can enjoy a lot of so called "free jazz" and fusion, without being bothered by Lou´s statements. So it´s just part of the scene, I think.

I heard him live several times. Once, the famous quartet with Kenny Barron, Ben Riley and Buster Williams. I must admit I liked more, what Buster Williams did on his few solos, that the piccolo solos of the leader himself. But I like most of his work very much. One album as a leader I always liked much is "Parade" from about 1979.

I also like the way how Brew Moore managed to keep his own style when playing with some of the fastest players of the bop-movement, like he did with Miles Davis at Birdland 1950 (with J.J.Johnson, Fats Navarro, Tadd Dameron, Art Blakey), with Howard McGhee for BlueNote, and his partnership with Howard McGhee on some Machito recordings (also live dates). From his time in Denmark, I got a rare example of Brew Moore playing with Bud Powell. It reminds me of the Bud Powell/Zoot Sims collaboration, another example of a Lestorian tenorist doing a fine set with the Master of Bebop-Piano.

I especially like everything that Duke Jordan did from about 1960 on, the BlueNote recordings as a leader and as a sideman, the Steeplechase stuff etc etc, his fine compositions, his thoughtful pianowork. He may not be my first choice if listening to piano, but he really had much beauty in his work. Maybe, concerning his work with Parker, the piano lines don´t make me really happy. I can´t say exactly why, but somehow it sounds stiff, not the way Bud Powell would do it. Same about the comping, Tadd Dameron or John Lewis did better jobs on that. Well don´t misunderstand me, I´m referring only the the time of the 40´s . I was astonished when I heard some 60´s BlueNote Work and all the stuff that came later, since it seems Duke Jordan had improved very much. About Miles: Well of course I also read what he said, but Miles is Miles, and who would expect kind words from him? Anyway, even during the time when they worked as a unit (Bird, Miles, Duke Jordan, Max, Tommy Potter), if Miles was successful in telling Bird to use another piano player, they did replace Jordan with other piano players I mentioned.

Well, with Mingus of course, and shortly after Mingus´death I saw the quartet (with Cameron Brown) in Vienna. Great musicians, and I was glad to see how those young guys (with the exception of Richmond they all were in their 30s) are contributing to the music. Their music was a reason for me to believe jazz goes further, since it was quite a blue period in my life when I heard that Mingus had died.

Well, with Mingus of course, and shortly after Mingus´death I saw the quartet (with Cameron Brown) in Vienna. Great musicians, and I was glad to see how those young guys (with the exception of Richmond they all were in their 30s) are contributing to the music. Their music was a reason for me to believe jazz goes further, since it was quite a blue period in my life when I heard that Mingus had died.

Now that the UCLA stuff is availablie on CD, and the 1970 sessions from Paris also, wouldn´t it be a great idea to re-issue the LP from 1965 titled "My Favourite Quintet" also? Since I´m a great fan of Mingus (for almost 35 years), only this LP was already OOP and I read that it was never re-issued on CD. That particular album might be interesting with "So Long Eric" on side A and a ballad medley on side B. I mean, on the 1964 Monterey stuff we have that great Ellington-Medley, so the set recorded at Minneapolis one year later would be quite important. Why this never was re-issued, remains a secret....

Somewhere in my archives I have a video of Miles with Gil Evans, where Miles plays fluegel on "The Duke". That video was done around 1960, so it´s 3 years later than "Miles Ahead". But I don´t think Miles had appearances on fluegel after that. The only thing is, I think I remember during the end of his live, Miles was planning to pick up the fluegelhorn again. I heard it´s easier to play if a trumpet player starts to have problems with his chops. On "Musings", Miles doesn´t play fluegel, on most of the tunes (especially those from the Ahmad Jamal repertoire) he plays harmon mute, but sometimes seems to be a bit out of tune. I like the album, though it´s not perfect. Somehow it´s not very good recorded, the piano sounds somewhat tinny, and even the great Oscar Pettiford sounds somehow unsteady. It´s interesting that Miles on his autobiography says he likes that album. I mean that´s interesting for a man who never looked back and said about his work with Bird and Gil Evans "shit I´ve already forgotten".....