Gheorghe

Wonderful ! I have loved Pharoah Sanders since I was still amost a kid. One of my first jazz LPs was Tranes "At Village Vanguard Again" (with Pharoah, Alice, Garrison, Rashied Ali) and then I got my first Sanders LP (Live at the East). I like all those great albums he made, those from the 60´s and 70´s as well as the later straight ahead dates with a typical ts.p.,b,dr - quartet...... everything !

okay yes, the period shortly before the birth of the 2nd Quinted was not his most fruitful period. Maybe this made him somehow bitter.

I don´t know the cover, but is this the original BN, the one with Milt Jackson, John Simmons, Shadow Wilson and on two tracks Kenny Hagood ? I mentioned it earlier as an example of terrible weak recording quality, where you almost don´t hear the drums, I mean it seemed to be very very rudimentary recorded, you don´t hear Shadow Wilson´s specific cymbal sound and snare sound, some very essential trademarks of his playing.

The strange thing is, that usually if you have played for a time with a big jazz legend, you made it, you got your own band, your own record contract and everything, like all of the Ex-Miles-Men, and the Ex Blakey Men, and of course dozens of ex Mingus-Men, but it was not the case for the men who played with Mingus when I saw Mingus: Neither Walrath, neither Ford, nor Bob Neloms became big names in jazz, well Muse was a hard to find label in most European contries I must admit..... but my impression was that it concentrated on lesser well paid acoustic jazz men in the 70´s, maybe I´m wrong but that´s how I thought about it back then...... what etnic background was Walrath ? He looks a bit like a south of the border kind of type..... they said he is white and that black militants got on Mingus´ case why he booked a white player in an all black band, but he looks like he might have had another etnic background....

That´s one side about Miles I don´t like. When I first saw him more than 50 years ago, I had thought and read, that this is a more angry, but very silent guy who just doesn´t like to talk, and it is expressed thru the sound of loneliness in his trumpet, which was very evident not only in the old days but also when I heard it, with all them electric echipments...., So later when I heard some things he said I was quite shocked, and since I know that he loved Dizzy all his live, he just should have SHUT UP instead of tellin stupid lies and untrue things. I mean it is a no go to talk bad things about fellow musicians.

Oh this is a nice cover foto of those little animals we called „ștrumfii” in our childhood. From the instruments I guess it is trumpet, piano, fender-bass and drums, is it ? As little as I understood Mr. Corea´s affinity to that kind of sectă where they take your money and so, as much I dug his music. During the first half of the 70´s of course there was RTF, but as early then I must admit that from the two Ex-Miles-Keaboardists electric groups I preferred the Herbie Hancock "Headhunters" which I found more "black" and more "funky" . But Chick Corea was a helluva musician, as much electric as acoustic.....

Of course I have this one. It was a must for me, I mean from the legendary collaboration between Monk and Trane there is not much recorded, I think I heard a tape once of Monk Quartet feat. Trane, but very very bad sound quality, but great music. So I was glad I found this record some years ago, actually during a time where I did not buy any more stuff from the past

I seldom know birth dates, but the Sun Ra birthday is interesting. It was in Alabama. It must have been great influences of early jazz that made him become such a great artist, one of my favourites in my early beginnings of loving jazz. I even might say that I "learned" about traditional jazz thru Sun Ra when they sometimes at the end of a set would play just for fun some late 20´s, 30´s stuff and it really sounded great....., he was an important figure for me, as was Mingus, both having come up in the old jazz tradition and become leading figures to talk jazz beyond the boundaries, exploring new areas. That meant jazz for me in my very beginnings with that music.....

I also think I never heard him, but is it possible that somewhere I read that he was deeply influenced by Thelonious Monk ? That might be great.....

oh, never saw that thread. Well for me it is only the music that counts, so the cover is less important for me. If I have an original LP and it still works and don´t have scratches I try to record them on an USB, or at least I started once, but I don´t have the time to spin stuff that I don´t need to listen to right now. Let´s say I have all the electric Miles double albums they made in the 70´s because I lived then and bought what came out, but if I´m not in the mood for that kind of music right now in the moment, I wouldn´t spin it, as much as I love it in general. So, if the LP still sounds ok, I spin it, and I don´t think I have bought CDs of the same album, if I already KNOW the music. For me it would be a waist of money and time. I buy CDs if I don´t have the original LP or if they were recorded when the LP era was over. I know that it´s other way round for other folks, for who the cover art or the different issues of recordings are a kind of hobby in their hobby of listening to music, and that´s mighty fine. It´s just that music is my passion and I just didn´t find the space for something else.......

Great music indeed. I saw the same group in 1983 in Austria. Electra Musician was Bruce Lundvalls try to record all the artists who where dropped by CBS after Lundvall left the company, It must have been terrible frustrating for men like Woody Shaw and Dexter Gordon to be dropt by a major label and forced to record for a small label and maybe this led to there abuses with harmful stuff in the following years, that´s my opinion. I saw both Woody and Dexter after the loss of the CBS contract each one on stage and from successful artists on the top of the field they turned to frustrated men, loaded with all kinds of harmful stuff and their was an air of death during their gigs, it was a tragedy back then, as the 80´s went on......

oh yeah, I have that CD with the complete RCA recordings. "Hey Pete let´s eat mo´meat" I already heard in my teens since there was a black cover RCA album "When Bebop met the Big Band" or so, but you know when you are a teenager you are so deadly serious, not much humour, so at first hearing I found it "silly", but I still listen to it 😄

Okay yeah, it´s possible that the early 50´s dates have better drum sound, but the late 40´s sessions have a terrible weak sound. The only one on which Shadow Wilson replaces Blakey, with Bags and even the great vocalist Kenny Hagood has such a weak and miserable sound that it´s barely enjoyable. The other one with Roach on drums is a bit better and the Prestige sessions have better drum sound, you are right !

was my first Wayne Shorter album, still one of my favourites...

I love his big tone, almost like Fats Navarro on the albums he made with Mingus, mostly "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" , "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" and "Me Myself and I". I heard him to much extent with the Mingus Band. Especially on that wonderful 1977 tour his solos on the live versions of the title tunes of those albums was so great. That long latin solo (actually the first solo) on Cumbia .....incredible ! I think once there was an unofficial recording of at least one of those dates where I remembered everything I had heard and seen back then...... Walrath did the most writing and arranging for "Me Myself and I". Too bad that the "Mingus Fake Book" only has old compositions in it, I would have liked to see a sheet of Cumbia or Three Worlds of Drums, I know the tunes but for band members.......

Must be great. Dave Liebman was one of my favourites as soon as I had seen him live in the mid 70´s. And if Al Foster is on a record there can´t be nothing wrong......

No question that Blakey was Monk´s favorite drummer on the early Blue Note sessions but I think those early BN still had very very rudimentary studio technics. I´m not an audiophile (how could I be with my hearing quite impaired aftef 50 years of playing and hearing loud music ? ) but you really don´t hear Blakey´s drums recorded properly on those sides. It sounds like those early demo tapes we kids made in the 70´s, putting a cassette recorder with one mike into the rehearsal room...... Ironically the first time I had heard Blakey recorded was the 1950 broadcasts with Bird, Fats and Bud, and ironically for such weak recording sound you really HEAR the wnole drum set very very well. But on the records of the Giant of Jazz and on the video of them, you really HEAR Blakey and it´s wonderful ! I´m still feeling sorry that I was not at their concert in Vienna, but in 1972 I was only 13 and it took me some more months to get in touch with jazz......., one year later hearing Miles live I was ready.....

Very very interesting thoughts indeed ! Thank you for writing them down ! There was always some contraversy about what Miles SAID and what he DID. The quintet he had in the late 60´s and the early "electric stuff" (it still was more acoustic indeed, only replacing the bass fiddle with a Fender bass and the concert piano with a Fender Rhodes) was very free and open, and there WAS many notes and Chick Corea was almost as "abstract" as Cecil Taylor, so I keep to what the man DID rather than what he said. The story you tell about Brookmeyer....I had to laugh because I dig Ornette and Cherry so much (I´m white but I don´t scream over stuff I don´t understand only to be "hip") since my earliest days of listening to "jazz". But I sure DID NOT like Brookmeyer. When he began to travel with the Mel Lewis Big Band and composed and arranged for them, I had to leave it just didn´t say anything to me. About John Lewis and his liking or disliking of bop I´d say: He was very important to bop, his contributions to the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra were enormous and as Tadd Dameron he was responsible for certain voicing that enriched that style of music, especially if it´s about tunes and ensemble playing. Fantastic. And as Dameron he didn´t care for all those who started to try to copy Bud Powell, he had his own thing. But I must admit I only have his early MJQ albums (one half of the Milt Jackson "Whizzard of the Vibes") and I think 2 or three on Prestige. I also think that "The Last Concert" would appeal to me. About Third Stream I doubt I know anything. It never was a topic among my friends and music colleages......

Was also there. I knew Fritz Pauer very very well and he was my mentor. Maybe I have seen you somewhere sometime without knowing it´s you.

have you also been there ?

Red Octopus and Jazz by Freddie, those where the places where I could be spotted then..... But I am glad the there is still a lot of stuff goin around. Now you mostly can spot me at ZWE´s .

Yeah those were the times. That´s the fantastic club where I spent my youth. Saw Johnny Griffin also there, and to hear as often as possible the fantastic rhythm section Pauer-Woode-Inzalaco , or just as own unit (They recorded Blues Inside Out at that time), That was my homebase. I stayed there into the small hours when I was still underage........

Very interesting inputs. First, reading the title I had thought it´s "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" which is a Mingus opus I saw him live playin it . Didn´t know there is also a book about that earlier time with KOB, Ornette, Trane and so on. Well I don´t really have much about Red Mitchell, I think I have a lot of other bassists from Ray Brown, Oscar Pettiford, Chambers, Ron, Buster Williams and so on, but evidently no Red Mitchell. I have read that when Mingus got a new bass delivered to the hospital where Mingus was at the end of 77, Red Mitchell came by and tried it, but he tuned it to 5th, which I don´t understand, since I have a bass fiddle my self and it´s tuned in 4th as any bass instrument. I was astonished that Klook said that John Lewis hated jazz. Well I tell you what, maybe John Lewis is not my first choice as a pianist, but his little spare solos are jewelries and I love it. Just had listend to a set live with Parker he did, and he is wonderful on "Swedish Schnapps", and I love his MJQ albums for Prestige. Ornette has always been a favourite of mine, but the very early albums still sound very much boppish to me. I listen more to the things he did from the Mid Sixties on, from Golden Circle to Primetime everything..... And I don´t think Miles hated Ornette, at least not on alto and as a composer, but yeah he hated that Ornette played trumpet since he is not a trumpet player.

Well yeah, it was "gewoehnungsbeduerftig" for me even when it came out, but let´s say since "Three or Four Shades of Blues" I had enough time to get used to it. It was the Atlantic Label that wanted to combine Mingus with fusion guitarists. There would have been even another project from Atlantic to get Mingus AND Stanley Clark, both Atlantic Artists together.

As much as I remember from those happy years when I saw Mingus live, that long track "Three Worlds of Drums" was planned while Mingus had toured North Africa during his fantastic world tour in Spring/Summer 1977 (also in Europe as witnessed by myself). Though his label Atlantic wanted to press him into a certain direction of short tracks to get radio play, which he fulfilled with shorter tunes, but he always managed to get larger works recorded, like the wonderful opus "Music for Todo Modo", "Three or Four Shades of the Blues", "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" and finally this "Three Worlds of Drums". It was planned to be performed live, like "Cumbia" but it never happened. After Mingus could not play the bass fiddle anymore I heard that the band with Mingus on bass replaced by Eddy Gomez or Jiri Mraz under the direction of Danny Richmond continued to perform at Vanguard and it´s there where they also played the live version for quinted of "Three Worlds of Drums". When this album came out, I first didn´t buy it because I didn´t want to hear a Mingus record without Mingus himself on bass (I don´t like some of the early 60´s albums where he played piano only). But later I changed my mind and love that "Three World of Drums" since I love drummers and percussion, and this became a favourite of mine. On side B there is a fantastic version of "Devil Woman" , much better than the original (on which Mingus also didn´t play bass). So finally, in spite of the fact that nobody could play the bass as great as Mingus did, this is a fine album where I can learn a lot of stuff for my own musical plans for the future.....