Gheorghe

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,

From what year is this? I got acquainted with the music of Sun Ra very early, let´s say even before I knew much about earlier jazz stiles like bop. It was there, it was happenin, and my first Sun Ra album was the ESP "Nothing Is" that I got second hand from a girl who emegrated to Brazilia. Sun Ra and a lotta other stuff that´s hot, like early electric Miles, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and so on, that was my start for jazz. I heard Sun Ra live in the late 70´s until around 80 with Gilmore and Allen in the band and June Tyson singin´. That´s where I first heard older jazz forms like Fletcher Henderson´s "Yeah Man" or similar stuff, as well as the more usual space age free jazz and space chants.....

It´s always important that there were idealists who had an important role in settin´the pace for good jazz clubs or organizations that promote jazz, so this is very important for us musicians. Most of all, if those idealists and jazz enthusiasts have "bürgerliche intellektuelle Berufe" so they have money and connections to authorities to fix things, to get the organisation settled, to get autorizație for opening a joint that serves alcool and where you can perform.... In Vienna there were also such kind of music lovers, who are very very apreciated by the musicians, and they are doctors, lawyers and all that stuff, so you can get help from them if you are in trouble with health or other shit that happens...... Göttingen sure has a lively jazz scene, I first heard about that localitate when I got in touch with Mr. Allan Praskin in the late 70´s. He had lived there before he moved first to Salisburg in Austria. So R.I.P. for dr. Jacobi. He lookes like a very nice man and sure must have been a cool doctor. Too bad that he didn´t live more. 75 years is not much, especially for a doctor.....

This was a dream band. I saw them in the same year but with Steve Turré who is missing for don´t know what reason. They were so strong, so fresh, Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James and the great drummer Tony Reedus. This CD is wonderful and those from Elemental Music seem to really have treasures. This was a dream band. I saw them in the same year but with Steve Turré who is missing for don´t know what reason. They were so strong, so fresh, Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James and the great drummer Tony Reedus. This CD is wonderful and those from Elemental Music seem to really have treasures. This was a dream band. I saw them in the same year but with Steve Turré who is missing for don´t know what reason. They were so strong, so fresh, Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James and the great drummer Tony Reedus. This CD is wonderful and those from Elemental Music seem to really have treasures.

Great !

Oh I love it ! Those classic free jazz LPs were the thing that was around when I was a kid and became interested in that music. All those great artists, and this is one of the most beautiful examples. I love the sound of Jimmy Lyons, he is one of my favourite sounds on alto ! I think I have that, but with another cover with George Coleman on it. The only thing is that it has to much treble and you hear only the cymbals of the drum set and not very much more traps work. I think it has or had two long tracks, one might have been "On the Trail" which was quite en vogue at that time as a tune that can be played with more modal feeling...

Somewhere I read that Gary Mapp was a policeman. About Addison Farmer: Once I heard a bassist "Julius Farmer" who was Art´s nephew. He even looked a bit like Art. Maybe this Julius Farmer was the son of Addison ? I heard Julius only once at a Jazzfestival, but he played with Larry Coryell Trio as well as with Alphonse Mouzon electric group, so he did 2 features at one festival, which happens rarely. He was also the bassist of the after hour jam session. Arthur Phipps also a good choice: I think he was an insider´s musician in the Brooklyn jazz community. - How about John Simmons who played with Monk as well as with Tadd Dameron ? It seems that later he disappeared completly. - Who was that misterious Ebenezer Paul ? He played on those 1941 Minton sessions but otherwise I never heard about him. - Jimmy Rowser ? Isn´t he on one of the Coltrane LP´s on Prestige. He sounds interesting, because he doesn´t have that long tone, he has that boppish short and more percussive tone, it sounds very fine on a fast version of "Woody´n You".

I have always bought books and will always buy books. But nothing philosophical or too deep, just for relaxing. I mean if it is something non musical, I don´t want to have to figure out heavy stuff, that´s it.

This was my very very first Charlie Parker album, a double LP. I didn´t know nothing about Parker until I heard that "Parkeriana" on a Mingus Album featuring Dolphy. I thought, if Parker is so great, he must be the next artist I have to get to know. I love this album still, because it does not have all those alternative tracks, just the masters..... so you can just spin it and hear all the tunes..... It´s interesting that on one side of the album is also a quintet that has Bud Powell playing but I remember that at that time I didn´t notice the piano solos and maybe Bud is also quite subdued and weakly recorded on that. I remember in my first "Parker-Year" I had four Parker albums: This Savoy Mastertakes, than a brown LP called "Jazz Tracks" that has the Carnegie Hall Concert and some of the Dial Session", then two live LPs from CBS: "One Night at Birdland" (where I first heard Bud Powell and never have heard better Bud), and a similar album "Summit Meeting at Birdland".

Quite a strange record indeed. My copy is titled "Bud Powell 1957" . There are some tunes that Bud rarely played. "That Black Old Magic" returned to his set lists one decade later after he had returned to New York, as well as "Though Swell" and "Someone to watch over me". It´s interesting to compare this slightly stride version with the ballad version he did 10 years later on "The Return of Bud Powell", which is my favourite version. I love Pharoah Sanders and have loved his music as early as the 70´s when he put out all those great records for Impulse I think. When I was in my early teens I got his first record "Live at the East". What personnel is on this one ? I think this one is from the same time like "Soul Station" and is another great record. I think Soul Station and this one are my favourite Mobley records.

Andi Steirer "Trance of Noiz" : This is a first class album of Austria´s greatest percussionist Andi Steirer. I am very proud that I got him for my own album "Waltz for Serena". Though he is very very much in demand, I´ll have him also in future on some of our gigs, most possible the larger ones. He is so fantastic and this album is so great. It has also some of Andi´s own compositions like "Hongkong Tavern" "Do Da Doo" as well as stuff with great guitarist Rens Newland , co-compositions between them both, like the title tune "Trance of Noiz". The album also features the wonderful saxophinist Thomas Kugi on soprano and tenor.

Well that´s some of the hottest players around ! Wow!

I think I must listen once to that original album of the tune. My discography of early Mingus is very scarce, I must admit. During my record buying years the "Pithecanthzropus Erectus" was a 1970 recorded album for the French America Label, and it was about the newest Mingus out than. Anyway strange, Until Mingus got his contract at Atlantic, all my Mingus albums was those "America" LP´s. Then of cours each year the new Atlantic album.

Sure I remember him ! Before I got acquainted to jazz, I listened to stuff like Ö3 Hitparade or DiscÖ3, that was kid´s music than. we all listened to such stuff, but it all changed after I heard Miles an Mingus

Thanks Jim for sharing it with us. I remember them so well, they were a huge success and I think I even remember having seen that on TV back then. The moderator is our great TV multi talent the great Peter Rapp, who still is doing very well. Those were the days ! And of course I had heard the LP with Peterson "In Tune". Those TV shows were just wonderful, we had much jazz there. I think it was a wonderful time, I´m a product of that time with all that music around..... Brings a lotta memories back.....

I remember it was out when all them wonderful Miles albums of the 70´s were out (On the Corner, In Concert, Live Evil, and so on and I was expecting a new Miles Davis album, and to my astonishment this was a thing of older stuff from the 60´s, but I was not disappointed at all, since I love Miles from 1948, 58, 68 same like Miles from 1978 or 1988..... Strange, they took the cover photo from a later Bud Powell album (Return of Bud Powll). There was a series of photos hot during that 1964 studio album and I like those photos most from Bud Powell, they are wonderful. But Sure Thing must have been around the early 50´s I think it was broadcasted quite often. The piece as some classical approach with fugue like lines, not exactly my alley, but it´s wonderful, how Mingus does all those bass figures. Okay, I like the piece, but never to the same amount like if he played let´s say "Woodyn You", "Salt Peanuts", I wanna be Happy or all them ballads......

Sure ! I have it ! Great stuff.

The best Murray I ever heard was that fantastic trio , He, Henry Grimes and Hamid Drake, one of the greatest concerts I heard in the 2000´s . Yeah, in the 80´s he was so much around. Here in Austria he almost had a "Meldezettel" and Nickelsdorf Jazz Gallery and many many locals knew him personally. He was such a nice gentleman, not only the great musician he is.

You are right ! When I saw the schedule I also wondered how this would be. The whole thing was titled "Trumpet Super Night" and had three acts: First set Dizzy Gillespie All Star Quintet (featuring Harold Land, George Cables, Herbie Lewis and Louis Hayes.... indeed an Allstar Formation) , then would have been Chet with Joe Farrell but turned out to be without Chet. And the last act was Wynton Marsalis (then still doing good contemporary jazz with that good working group he had then). About Chet: It would have been better if they would have booked him with his trio, he played wonderful concerts here in Viena and in other towns where I heard him, but don´t forget shortly before this chancelled gig happend, he had done that tour in Sweden with Stan Getz, and they couldn´t together, two heavy junkeys in one band, same with Farrell....., Chet was a heavy junkey, but he was a quiet loner, he couldn´t stand tensions and hassles, that´s it.

I have a 4 CD collection of Jaws-Griff that includes that album, and I think also some live versions of Monk´s tunes.

Interesting ! I didn´t know about it, but both were doing Europe a lot in 1983. I saw them separatly. Woody Shaw still had his great quintet with Steve Turré, Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James and Tony Reedus, and the Joe Farrell Quartet I saw also, but it was scheduled to be Chet Baker-Joe Farrell, I think it had Joanne Brackeen on piano....but Chet didn´t appear, so it was only Joe Farrell.