Gheorghe

Fantastic. Such energy, such great playing mood. I saw Steve Grossman live also, and was very very much impressed.

Again with some of my very special favourites. Didn´t know about it, the only thing I have is "Red Clay", as it seems this must be something similar. Well, I´m not really a great guitar fan or George Benson fan, but sure, and with Henderson, Hancock, Ron, Jack DeJohnette, what could be wrong ? Oh, must be a good thing. "On a Misty Night" has a special meaning to me. First I had heard it on the Tadd Dameron-John Coltrane album, then I heard it live done by Pharoah Sanders, and this year when we did "Porgy" , Allan who is famous for spontanously calling tunes, called it just before the second set. I had to check the chords from the bridge in my mind, but yeah, it was beautiful and sometimes I look and listen to the stream they had made, and say yes, often the best tunes the best solos are on stuff you hadn´t played yet. I have not listened to it for decades, but we often play one or the other tune from it, I think "Mayreeh" (based on All God´s Chillun got Rhythm" and that other tune based on "Lover Come Back to me" I forgot the title. And Quicksilver based on "There will never be another you". It seems that at that early stage of Horace ´s career he still was a typical be bop composer, who composed on chords from standard tunes.....

Last night I listened to this one. Well, I l o v e it . First I was reluctant to spin it since I h a d heard and seen Dexter exactly the same period, early 1983, actually the last time I saw him live and it was almost a desaster , so weak it was. It´s astonishing that in an interval of maybe 2 or 3 days Dexter sounded so splendid in Copenhaga, Danemarca. He´s just in top form and the band is superb. It makes you understand why so many Americans in Europe after some nice and healthy years in fancy European towns had to leave Europe since they missed that competition and the power of N.Y. rhythm sections. Dexter was always great in the 60´s and early 70´s and had great pianists like Tete Montoliu or Kenny Drew, but bassists and drummer just were not up to what you hear in N.Y. for example. Young Dave Eubanks is fantastic, listen how he pushes the thing on "Hanky Pranky", a tune I never had heard before, it´s pure Messenger´s sound. And some of the best "More than you know" I ever heard. In Vienna, it was really weak, it was painful to listen to and to look at Dex there. I think it was similar to other booze or drug addicted musicians in their last years, there performances were not persistent, you might catch a night were it was a stellar performance, and then on other nights you might leave with embarrassement and disapointment.....

Sounds like a dream team. Though I have some VSOP records, I mean with Hubbard and Shorter, I didn´t know about this one.

Tried some on you tube.....sure it must have something for a lotta people.....well I prefer other stuff.

Well, "All the Things You Are" I think is standard material that Mingus would play as all musicians I know sometimes do it, mostly when somebody is invited to sit in. Actually, Mingus did it on that sets of Mingus at Bohemia if I remember, it was titled "All the Things You Are in C sharp" though it´s not p l a y e d in C sharp, it´s only the intro, where they use the thing that Rahmaninov composed for a piano concert.

Fantastic ! Such a great group. And such great music. That´s really a dream team playin´ a dream set. That´s the kind of albums I like most.

I have not listened to it for decades, but as much as I remember, those are some of Bud´s best trio performances, especially because it´s Roy Haynes on drums. I think my favourite solos were on Salt Peanuts and Woodyn You, Conception and Little Willie Leaps. I think I remember there are great drum solos also. Recently I heard another track from that date, that was made with a local Big Band and has a long solo of Bud on a Blues in G, I think it´s a line that Allen Eager wrote. I think 1953 was some of Bud´s best recordings, all them Birdland sessions, the Massey Hall concert and I think at least 2 studio albums...... It´s strange that only one year later Bud was almost off the scene. Two very weak Verve records, and nothing else.

Yes, those last years were really sad, there was also a long interview that German writer Gudrun Endress made with Woody Herman for Jazz Podium. But he was really a showman. On stage he gave it all and always smiled to his audience.

Sometimes between more intelectual books I just read some easier stuff as "bedtime stories" . Like almost all books I read, they have been translated in Romanian language. I think the original title is "The last time I saw Paris" (reminds me of the tune)

Good album ! I didn´t have Kenton until my wife bought this a few years ago as a Chrismas present. Until then I had seen him only on TV when I was a teenager. Good stuff, or let´s say "Somethin´ Else" than what I usually hear.....

Valerie Vilmer´s Jazz People. Great book, the best interview with Thelonious Monk I ever read. He is really he himself. Don´t worry, or better said in his own words or music "Worry Later". Great interviews. Only the one with Jaws is too much about booking, nothing about his music....

I think the collection of 8 LPs I have was Japanese Verve, I´m not sure. It´s interesting that they are not chronological, I think the first one is some a bit too bombastic big band stuff. That "Temptation" sounds a bit too much like an old movie score. Some of them are very fine: Especially the one which has "Chi Chi" on it, that is a good session where Granz didn´t interfere with the music or the personnel, it´s vintage Charlie Parker quartet with top players. I have not spinned it for decades, I still prefer the Savoy and Dial recordings....., and the early 50´s Birdland recordings....

Anyway, though his kind of jazz may not be my very first choice, I always enjoyed to see him live. Sure, this was the later period of the 70´s and 80´s , but the band sounded modern, they played then modern tunes like a lot of Chick Corea. Even the last time when he didn´t have much left to live and had a mainstream combo, he was astonishing strong on clarinet, even if the clarinet is not my very favourite instrument. But he had it, and he even sang a song, really nice.

A very fine CD set of Jaws and Griff. Especially the Monk tunes. Each of them was such an individual player , I never heard them TOGETHER, but of course each of them many many times. Ben Riley is a fantastic drummer, he must have been very young than. Larry Gales is solid as ever but could have been recorded better. I was quite astonished that in the early 60´s a bass is recorded that weak. Years before the strong basses of Chambers and Watkins were recorded much better. Junior Mance, I´m sure a lot of pianists would like to have his skill and tehnique on piano, really great, but in general he sometimes "overplays" it in a manner that is similar to Oscar Peterson.

yes, that is possible, but the interesting thing is, that Woody Shaw always looked "classy" and spoke in a very very articulate manner, as long as he was living I never would have thought he is a user. Same with Joe Henderson. User or not, one thing must be said about them both: At least as much as I saw them on stage, they never ever lost their dignity or passion for the music. And I don´t know how they managed it, but as I said they looked dapper, looked classy , not like the cliché junkey/drunkard, hollow faced and teethless and shabbily dressed......

Great as it is, with the best John McLaughlin I ever heard, and the great bass of Michale Henderson, this is a fantastic record. But it is stranged that Columbia had not promoted it properly, at least that´s what I heard and noticed since I got it somehow coincidentally in 1979, long after I had become a fan of Miles. It´s wonderful and that one fast bass riff became standard Miles, it appears on "Agharta" as "Theme from Jack Johnson", and it appeared again on "One Phone Call" on the controversial album "You Are Under Arrest", which I liked when it came out, but when Miles started almost each show with that theme, it became less interesting, as all shows as the 80´s went on...... (one exception was the show when Kei Akagi was on keyboards", it became a bit more "jazzy" again.....

Well it´s nice, I think I remember there is a nice waltz on it. But yeah, I have not spinned it for decades. If I want to hear early Rollins, it´s always the "Saxophone Collossus" or maybe the BN with Thelonious Monk and J.J. Johnson, and above all the trio at the Vanguard. Woody Shaw is one of my very favourites and I loved to hear him live, that´s why I´m so happy about the many live rrecordings that came out in the last few years. Normally I´m not interested in any non-musical relations, but I was astonished, that Woody looks much heftier on that picture than when I heard him, he was very very slim and dapper.....

What a wonderful story about how it was. I also remember when it came out. I had seen Miles Davis for the first time in 1973 and those Corky McCoy covers were legendary, the covers of Bitches Brew, Live Evil, On the Corner, Live in Concert and so. But 1976, 77 and so on was also a time of sadness and sorrow for us kids, since we had heard that Miles doesn´t play or record anymore, and the fact, that the then brand new "Water Babies" album in spite of the "Electric Miles related cover art" had "old" music from the pre Bitches Brew era, betraied that fact. But of course the music is ideal for those who have "Filles" and "Silent Way"..... I think I have it on a Prestige 2 LP album which I bought in the 70´s. As much as I remember the strongest tune was that "There´s no business like show business". That´s really a long theme, just try to keep the song form in mind and play on it, really a challenge. All those things that was my most substantial "learning phase". Though, I think there are two ultra fast tunes at the end, and with "ultra fast" I mean faster than Bird´s "Cherokee" or Dizzys "Salt Peanuts" or "Dizzy Atmoshpere", and honestly speakin´ though it is super artistic saxophone playing, just from the musical impression it is hardly enjoyable. Anyway I think it´s no written line but is based on other fast songs , if I remember right one basesd on Cherokee and one based on "The Way you look tonight" but I´m not sure, I have not heard it for many decades..... On which album was the two vocals with Earl Coleman ? (Two Different Worlds" and "My Ideal" I think I remember).

It´s so long time ago, they are 37 and 35... Well one thing is sure: I have two " boys" and there age difference is 1,5 years, my former wife and me wanted to have ´em with not much age difference so we might don´t have get back to that sleepless hours much later. So it was quite slick. When that marriage broke up after just 2,5 or 3 years, it was my then wife who started to wander around and I stayed quite much with the kids, which was cool enough allthough I ´m not sure if I was the most ideal father if it comes to "education". Anyway I love them and they give me the feeling that they love me just because I was the "dad" I was....... But honestly, I never had the urge to get back into that routine again. If another woman would have wanted a kid with me, I might have quitted. I have two , and that´s it.

Yes. that´s also my opinion. Well from his contemporaries I also like Buster Williams very much. He also has that strong sound, but another kind of solo playing. So, in the times I began to see live jazz those two bassists were mostly in demand. And Carter with VSOP is some of the best things I ever heard.......,

As much as I remember, they played some Mingus stuff also on that gig, since it was shortly after Mingus´death. But I think I have that Earth Beams also. Maybe on that is that Dannie Richmond composition...... I´m not a good collector, just pickin´ up some here and some there......, nowadays I purchase more stuff from the musicians I play with, them their albums and it´s good stuff.

Just a thought: As the title of the topic is "Woody in the LP Era". Did he really live long enough to get much involved in the CD Era ? I think the last time I saw him on stage (strangly enough not with the Herd, but with an all star combo of I think 8 players, among them Buddy Tate, Scott Hamilton, Al Cohn, Jimmy Bunch I think was on piano......, Woody played a lotta fine clarinet), and I think this was at the very end of his career. I´m not sure if I saw many CD´s then, it might have been around 1985/86......., at least the later Woody Herman albums I had purchased all was LPs.........

Is this the one that has Don Pullen´s Double Arc Jake on it ? I´m not sure which is which, I have heard them live in 1980 at TU and have some of their albums, one is that of that black dressed misterious lady on the cover, the other might be Earthbeams, and I´m sure on one of them is that Don Pullen tune, one of my favourites. I think on some of them there is also a Danny Richmond composition that sounds like some Carribian Islands holiday music, really a beautiful thing...., they are so strong and Danny Richmond is among my very favourite drummers. He had an increasingly strong role in the later 70´s Mingus bands. One of his trademarks was that china cymbal, oh I love every aspect of his drumming.

So, would you have preferred that another bass player would have taken the bass chair after Chambers, in Miles´ Second Quintet ? Who would it have been ?