Gheorghe

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.....

agreed !

me to ! this was the best rhythm section. But also Shadow Wilson was a wonderful drummer. I listen first of all to drummers, so I have heard them all. And in Monk´s last active years from 1970-76 his son was a very very good drummer. And a highlight of drumming with Monk was when Philly Joe Jones sat in for an obscure and weak drummer in Paris 1969.

I think I have one Green album from about 1969 from the style of clothes and the hairdo on the cover photo, and it sounds like some very early jazz rock. But once again: I´m sure he was not mentioned here in Viena in jazz rock fan circles. We all heard and studied what was around, but as for electric jazz our men were Miles, Herbie, RTF, Tony´s Lifetime and so on. Our listening habits were splitted between late Free Jazz or Post Coltrane and early electric/funk jazz. So I´m sure that a lot of those attempts of BN in the early 70´s to record a lot of electric stuff with all those many instruments, like they also did with Lou Donaldson, was not noticed here. It did not sell here, while all the albums of Miles from Bitches Brew on, and all the Headhunters and RTF stuff and Lifetime stuff sold extremly well.......

In my case, during the times before Blue Note closed, I mean when I used to learn about all those great musicians, Blue Note was for me mainly the label where I found the music I was lookin for at that time: Wayne, Freddie, Herbie, Sam Rivers, Joe Henderson, McCoy, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and my favourite Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry and Cecil Taylor records. So I was not at all aware about the many mainstream dates or the dates with organ, since I just was not listening to that kind of music when I was so young. I discovered Green as late as the CD reissue boom of the 90´s. That was the first time I heard him and I think it was "Solid" with that version of "Ezzthetics" and so on.

I have one LP with that same strange and somehow a bit cheap looking cover design. Junior Cook is great and I have seen him together with Bill Hardman, or also with Louis Hayes as I think. I don´t have that, I think with a few exceptions I have a big hole in my Dexter discography. I have the early Savoys and Dials, some of the Steeple Chase and later the CBS LPs after his return to the States. It may be that the reason was that Dexter in the late 60´s and early 70´s was not my main focus, it was a time when his playing might not have been so much in fashion in the USA. But I think I remember I heard a Dexter Gordon at Montreux from that same time at someone´s place and it was more interesting for that time, since it had Fender Rhodes and electric bass, so it might have been more "modern" at the time I heard it......., but really: I became a fan of Dexter only after I had learned that there were men before Mingus, who´s names were Bird, Diz, Fats, Bud, .......and naturally: Dexter !

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......