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Hey yes ! And the interesting thing is, that a lot of the numbers that is on this Bud from earlier years, later re-entered in Bud´s set lists. In France he played mostly bop classics like Salt Peanuts, Shaw Nuff, Anthropology, Ornithology etc etc, and when he returned back to New York, he started to play those typical old American standards again, like "Deep Night", "Black Magic" and "Though Swell" and since those melodies some of them are from the late 1920´s , Bud plays some stride sections on them, So this earlier album made shortly before Bud left the States to go to Paris might be an important Milestone. And as you know how I get pissed up if the drums are not recorded properly, here you can HEAR Max Roach, not so inaudible like on "Jazz Giant". Oh I will have to purchase this. From all trumpet players who played with Mingus, Walrath was the best for my tastes. Man, I witnessed those magic live moments from 1975-77 and he was becoming stronger and stronger. I think on "Changes 1 & 2" he still had to find his place in the band, but 1 & 2 years later he was just incredible fine. NEVER in live I will forget his strong, Fats Navarro influenced sound on that first latin solo on "Cumbia&Jazz Fusion". I mean the studio version is fine, but the live versions I heard was a bit faster and without the added studio instruments. Or on "Three or Four Shades of the Blues", listen to Walrath´s trumpet. It´s interesting that I have not heard so much about him after he had left Mingus. Same with Ricky Ford and Bob Neloms, somehow I remember them best for the days they were my heroes because they were on stage with Mingus and Richmond......

Richie Cole was very much in demand in the early 80´s I remember. He was described as 2nd generation bop player or so, but somehow I have the impression that after that he slightly disappeared from the main jazz scene. I once saw him live at a festival, some nice tunes but nothing exceptional, he had a completely unknown rhythm section. But it was somehow unkind for Richie Cole, because one day before Jackie McLean had played on the same stage with Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis and Billy Higgins, and you know Jackie McLean is about all I want to hear on alto, it´s the non plus ultra for me. Leningrad, how much would I like to see it, people who had been there described it as something magic. We had a neighbour lady who went on holiday only to visit the URSS during those years.

I think it is one of the essential Bud Powell albums for all who study his music, mostly for pianists. I heard it at a very early age and knew that if I listen much and learn about that musical conception of bop, I´ll eventually master it. But since the very very first Bud Powell I had heard was a session from the same time with Parker, Fats Navarro, Curley Russell and Art Blakey, I remember I noticed that the Verve session is on the same piano level, but for my tastes it missed that hearing of the drums. I mean you have Max Roach on that and can´t hear him, and you can hear Blakey so well on the Bird-Fats thing...... There was another Verve album with Bud playing solo, and another trio record with strangly Buddy Rich on drums but again you don´t hear him much. Also on Verve I think I have "The Lonely One" which is a very fine album with some vintage bop tunes with some better rhythm section with Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke, and I think there is a very good Art Taylor playing on "Conception", also a tune from a Verve recording. I only find that the liner Notes of this album are quite dumb, it was not written by someone who really KNOWS Bud´s music......

Well I don´t really remember. I started listening to jazz at an early age and it is possible that nothing before did hit me as much as jazz. I remember there was one pop tune that I liked that was shortly before I got to hear jazz like Miles or Mingus or who was alive, and it was somethin´ called "Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree" and I still like it. My piano colleage that great Oliver Kent once performed it and memories came back. I must have been 13 or so and it was the age when you began to look at girlies....,

From what decade was this ? 40´s, 50´s ? Brew Moore had a crew cut. And Al Haig hat something like that in the lowest row right, the "Professional Contour", that´s how Al Haig had it if I look at it. "College Contour" looks a bit like Nazi look in my opinion...... Scary, is that from Cernobîl ?

oh, that´s bad, I knew he eventually died but didn´t know when, It would have been a chance to see him live and anyway I thought as more the kind of mainstream bassist he would have sounded great with Woody Herman. He is mentioned in a book of contemporanous musicians who remember Bird, I think it is a compilation published by Robert Reisner, nothing musical interesting, but nice to read and there is also o photo of Bird with Duvivier, so they played and maybe recorded together...... I musts admit, when I first read his name as the bassist on "Amazing Bud Powell Vol. II" that he is French, since I thought that "Duvivier" is pronounced in french and since I had heard that Bud lived in France before I got to know his music, I had thought that that´s the reason, Bud in France, logical: French Bass Player "Duvivier". Living with his mother ? Strange, Didn´t he have his own family ?

Well that "Ramblin´" is not so bad, but if I want to hear Ornette Coleman with "electric instruments" I rather prefer the original, I mean "Primetime". I love electric jazz but it outa be more the rough thing, like 1970´s Miles and Coleman. I must admit I never really heard much about David Sandborn otherwise than a lotta folks mentioning his name in those 1980´s or 1990´. I think it´s the kind of jazz that people like, who otherwise do not like jazz, people who dig the more polished versions. As what I hear from the saxophone sound, he sure can play, but never ever could it touch me as much as Jackie McLean, or living altoists like Donald Harrison or Vincent Herring to give an example.

hah, Allan hasn´t changed much ! I have played with him for decades and I think if I only would have met him in 1976 and the second time right now, I still would have recognized him: Now he´s 75 and still looks ultra hip, still long hair and so, and so great playin´. The 3 gigs I had with him about 3 weeks ago, it was heaven on earth, especially the 3rd day. My own compositon "Blues for Allan" ( Alessa Records, ALR 1131) is dedicated to his very personal style of playing, I´d recommend it to all who love Allan.

Sure, but if I would reduce the stuff to wiki search there would not remain anything for me to discuss the music. And no wiki and no discogs can replace my personal history in jazz, where I didn´t read about Ricky Ford but saw him with my biggest idol, or my first idol in Jazz, no one less than Mr. Charles Mingus himself, and really study Ricky´s input in the band. So I might say sorry that I asked instead of having a look on wiki, but that´s me..... Interesting question: Maybe he was more a "Musician´s musician" and this can be very very important, because it´s the horn players who must feel comfortable with a pianist. If I would have been a trumpet player or a saxophone player during that time, I sure would have preferred to have Ray Bryant on piano to a so called "star pianist". He is very nice, has a nice touch and wonderful chords and he can support a player. I´m no record collector so I don´t have records of him under his own name, but my first hearing experience was on "Miles Davis with Milt Jackson and Jackie McLean", a nice little album from the 50´s or so. Ray is compin´so great and his little piano solos are treasures. Years later I saw him live with a good local band formed by vibes, guitar, bass, drums and perc ("Together" was the name of that band), and it was wonderful. So again, I don´t have wiki experiences about him, but have listened a bit to what he did and what I saw him doin.....

This must be great, I am a big fan of Ed Blackwell. Under his own leadership I only heard the stuff that is on Strata East which I like much more than the thing led by Wilbur Ware. I can listen for hours to good drumming..... When was it recorded ? I saw Ricky Ford only twice in my live, it was with Mingus twice.....Ford, Walrath, Neloms, Richmond..... If I only would have noticed the name of that guy from the states, whom I heard once. I led a jam session at Zwe in Viena and a very very heavy guy came down into the club, having an alto with him. He was so heavy that Mingus or Fats Navarro would have been lightweight compared to him. I saw him with the alto and from the piano I waved him on stage and believe it or not.......: It was like if Jackie McLean would have been again among us. THAT ALTO SOUND, it was like if it was him, well there was also a bit of Dolphy and sure a lot of that unknown guy himself in it, but it was INCREDIBLE how great it was. I talked a litte to him later, but he was only "a tourist" as he stated and I never saw him again...... I would have liked to play with him very very very much.

About the two Rettenbach brothers. Hans is the one who recorded much. He was the oldest of the three Rettenbachers (Hans born 1939, Irmela born 1945 and Harry born 1947) . I knew the whole family, the three kids and their mother. Irmela was a singer and had sung with the first edition of the Vienna Art Orchestra. Later she was serving drinks at "Uzzi´s Einhorn" , a place where there was not live music but a meeting point for musicians. Irmela was like a big sister for me. We were all close then..... Aladár Pege: I heard him many times here in Viena. Well Viena and Budapesta anyway are something like twin cities, thinking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is also my background. I mean I live in Viena and feel at home, and I can go to Budapesta and feel like home, it´s in ya blood. I remember Aladár Pege best for a gig with Sonny Stitt in 1980 at Porrhaus here in Viena.

oh, I personally have not heard about them, but sharp players are all around the world, great !

Didn´t he play with a Chick Corea acoustic quartet ? I remember I was in Italy once in the mid 80´s with a gal and there was a beach bar and the boys who worked there listened to a then brand new album and when I asked them what it is they said it´s Chick Corea with Rand Brecker, I don´t remember the bass and the drums but it was topnotch players and I just stayed with them boys to listen to it and "forgot" about the girl who went back to our place on the beach until I finally came back to her 😀 And: Highly recommended: The two last Mingus albums on which he himself didn´t play bass "Me Myself and I" and "Somethin´ like a Bird". Great Randy Brecker on those two !!!!!

I don´t usually listen to that kind of jazz but "Stompin´at the Savoy" is a tune I always did like, you really can do still a lotta things with that fine tune in that beautiful key of D flat. If Oscar doesn´t overdo this one I mean if he plays at least a bit more sparce (like he would on some records like "Night Train" or on that Pablo think with Lockjaw Davis, I think it could sound nice....... I seems there is not many bari players around here since I must admit I never played with one. But who is the players here ? There was really a good conclave of bari on Mingus´ "Something like a Bird" where you have them great players Pepper Adams, Ronny Cuber, and who knows else, and the really flippin´ on there chorusses and taking 16´s , 8´s , 4´s , there is no better bari battle I have ever heard. But who is on this one ?

Crazy, last night I had a dream that I got a call to play with that Mingus Ghost Band !!!!! Maybe because it was related to a thought I had those days to arrange Mingus´ piece "Three Worlds of Drums" for being played by my group. It would be natural, because Mingus rote this originally to be played by his own band which would have happened if Mingus would not have been struck by that disease that killed him. I also heard that his band (Walrath, Ford, Neloms, Richmond and maybe Eddy Gomez replacing Mingus on bass) continued to perform at Vanguard, when Mingus couldlnt handle the bass anymore. And that they played "Three Worlds of Drums", but it was never recorded. So I thought this might be interesting. I hear Elvis Costello is or was a great number in UK in another kind of music genre. I don´t really know I only saw him once in a video sittin´ in with Chet Baker´s band, but don´t remember much about it, since I was concentrated only on the thinks the Baker band played without guests. I think there was also a "Send in the Clowns" done by another great British singer, but while Elvis could do some American ballad singing astonishly well, that "Send in the Clowns" was just zero, really a mess........but it looked like the interpretist was very very drunk...... Oh I remember that and had it, but kinda sold it when money was scarce, ya know musicians, you posess some record for short time. I think I remember "Chair in the Sky" was one of the things Joni Mitchell sang on that album "Mingus". It is possible it was composed by Mingus, one of those legendary very last compositions where he could not play even piano anymore and had to sing into a tape recorder. I think there was some contracts he had fulfilled composing that way. Incredible ! He was dead sick and still composed for the N.Y. Ballett "Pilobolus" and for an Argentian String Orchestra plus Jazz Quintet".......... incredible ! I have so many connections to Mingus´ music since he was my idol at a very early age, I even bought a bass because of him, I saw him live, he was there when it all started for me ! I think when I started to "study" jazz, Tina Brooks still was alive but probably a "Forgotten Man". So I heard his name only when during a time I was inactive I heard about all those BN reissues and this one I purchased. Very very nice hard bop album in the way some others was like "Soul Station" by Hank, and so on.....

Now a bassist who was very much in action in the late 70´s here in Viena: His name is Bert Thompson and he was great. He played with Fritz Pauer, with Art Farmer, and with virtually all US stars who visited Viena. I have heard that he originally was a US Soldier based in Germany and later moved to Olanda, where he also took a non musical job as translator or something like that. Another great, Austrian bassist from the time of my youth was J.A. Rettenbacher, who even had played with Monk in Berlin. I think he lived in Germany and came back to Viena in the early 80s, but beside a short lived project that was named "So Near So Far" (like a tune from a Miles album) there was not much happening anymore. He was a regular at "Jazz-Spelunke", a joint in Viena where you met musicians, and could perform, but only until 10:00 pm since it was a house were other people lived in. Another regular was his little brother Harry Rettenbacher, also a great bass player sometimes, but a tragedy since he had had a bad accident, lived in poverty and didn´t even have a bass anymore. He would come to my house I mean I took him to my house so he could play on my bass fiddle and to talk and drink. But he was too uneven or unrelieable for substantial gigs so eventually I lost contact. I only remember in his last years he was a kinda "story teller" in the bars, cadging drinks from regulars...... . For german reading folks: His greeting for me was "Gerhard, host aan zwanz´ga ? (Gehard, hast Du 20 Schilling für mich) and I would give him 20 Shillings. But once I came in and before he would ask me I would say "Rettenbacher, host aan zwanzga für mi´? And belive it ore not, he GAVE me 20 schillings !!!!!

I think I know him mostly from his bass parts on Bud Powell Volume 2 and maybe on some Verve or Victor also from the 50´s. He was a very good bassist. I saw him also on video on a thing that was called Dizzy Gillespie Dream Band from the 80´s with an All Star Big Band and an All Star Quintet. My hope to see him live was not fulfilled: He was scheduled to be with Woody Herman in an All Star small group also in the mid 80´s, but in the last minute he had been replaced by an unkown young bassist, who was very good, but he was not George Duvivier. I remember that concert very well because it had Al Cohn AND Buddy Tate on tenor and Woody himself played some fine clarinet and even some vocal...... the last time I saw Woody Herman...... I don´t remember to have seen Duvivier´s name on later jazz albums from the 60´s or 70´s . Maybe it was the times changing. Like the way Paul Chambers slowly disappeared from being the most recorded bassist, when other bass greats like Ron Carter, Richard Davis and Jimmy Garrison took that role.......

Hi Emil: Da BIN ich durch. Waisting time was that, but okay I was sick, but such situations didn´t help much😃

Well I don´t really buy much records, I think I didn´t buy those you mentioned because I was afraid it will be too much NHOP, I think I picked up the "Bitin the Apple" because it had other players, and Shepp playing Bird tunes I have one that is made in France in the late 70´s with one piano player I love very much: Siegfried Kessler, plus Bob Cunningham and Clifford Jarvis, I think I bought it then because it has the same personnel like the date Shepp played at "Kongresshaus", it was also them four. I love the way he plays "Parker´s Mood" and "Au Privave", that´s first rate modern bop...... About buying records I concentrate now on fellow musicians, I wanna here what they do on ther own albums, and I wanna give em support buying them their records....thats some hot stuff they do.

Is "Ain´t no sunshine" such a simple stuff with chord vamps in e minor and some "lyrics" that always goes "I know I know I know......." ? I have terrible memories about that. It was in my "un years" where due to some issues I was largly unable to play in public and when I finally decided to lead a jam session in a 2nd or 3rd class joint with a shit box of a piano we tried to settle an evening program and had a fair 1 set with some good jazz standards but the jam after intermission was a mess, a weak hornplayer, a good but too overwhelming guitarist and then there was a male vocalist and he called something with "Sunshine", but not "You´re my sunshine" or "You are the sunshine of my live" where you still could manage to play some stuff out of it, so it was that quite monotonous e-minor thing with that "I know I know I know" and the guitar player turned on the heat and played them one chord two chord vamps and the only right thing is that I stood up, left the stage and went out into the night to lit a cigarrette until they would be done ......

I don´t have this one, but I have some Steeplechase of Dex, some with Tete Montoliu, and my favourite is those two albums with Jackie McLean (The Meeting, The Source). But tastes are different and especially on those later Steeplechases I just can´t stand him anymore. Too many solos, and quite a lot of clichés , all them double grips with glissando, well and all those years with Oscar Peterson, well I prefer other European Bass players, Pierre Michelot, Günther Lenz from Germany is great, Peter Trunk when he was alive, or the legendary John Heart or so from UK . I think I have one more Steeplechase of Dex but exactly because NHOP is NOT on it. It´s one that has Sam Jones on bass and Al Foster on drums, so that´s the musicians I really like.....

I like Wilbur Ware as a group player, but on one 5 CD set of Clifford Jordan Strata East recordings (which I actually bought for the "Rhythm X" which was one of my favourite in my early youth, I had it on cassette then), well the Wilbur Ware solo CD on it, that´s a bit too much for me. And I think in 1968 Wilbur Ware was already towards the end of his career. My favourite underrated bass players when I had discovered bop (AFTER "free" I must admit), was Tommy Potter and Curley Russell. They the unsung heros of all those murder sessions with up tempo stuff, when there still was no amps and pickups for the bass fiddle. And it´s interesting that they could also play solo very well, only there was no space for much solo then. But Potter could play wonderful bass solos, and Russell the same, both were very very good bassists. In my youth there was a great bass player around, who played with Joe Henderson. His name was Ratso Harris I think, a helluva player.

I also have this, I had bought it after I had heard about Tatum thru Jakey Byard and Don Pullen, the only pianists I knew then. It´s wonderful, maybe then at first listening it was a bit hard for me (bad piano, unusual for me a solo piano no bassist, no drummer no horns), but it HAD something. I remember that version of "Begin the Beguine". Then I didn´t like that tune in general, I associated it with old people, but that intro with a light spanish tinge in it was really sharp, and how he goes into stride in the course of the tune. It´s so great that Woody´s son publishes so many live dates of his father. I don´t have this one , but I have Bremen or so, maybe on other from Elveția, but with another pianist....

Not obscure but underrated : Herbie Lewis ! I love him, he appears on many live dates and recordings sessions but seems to be more a musician´s musician. But I say it was love from first hearing: Saw him with an ultimate Dream Band of Jackie McLean, Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis, Billy Higgins and his solo on the first tune "Blue´n Boogie" was a highlight of special quality. I love his sound and his touch of the strings, to hear him pluggin´the bass.....

could not edit the foto, not related to my answer: Sun Ra 1976-77 sounds good, that´s when I also heard him first,