Gheorghe

It was the first Griff I heard on record. I wanted to buy a Griffin record after I had seen him live the first time, but back them there was not much available, you know it was the seventies and you cound buy tons of electric jazz which is also fine for me, but many acoustic albums were OOP or the labels did not exist any more. The Blowing Session was on a two-fer album and had as the second disc the "Blowin in from Chicago" with Cliff Jordan and John Gilmore which was also cool for me since I had known Clifford Jordan from my early Mingus albums. Try to play "The Way You Look Tonight" at that tempo !!!! I did and somehow managed to get thru , it was the star of the evening who called it, right on stage and there we went....., I tried it later solo at home and it didn´t run as easily as it did on the spontanous thing on the gig..... I didn´t have sheet but knew the tune anyway from THIS RECORD.

I don´t know too many records or live tapes from Ronnie Scott´s . Once I did read a book, I think it was Ronnie Scotts autobiography or something like that. I mean, all those greats who performed there: Mostly tenor saxophonists if I think about it. I friend of mine, who was 5 years older, was in London when I still couldn´t travel and saw Dizzy there, he told me it was with the band with Al Gafa and all that stuff, that I think I have on a Pablo record from the mid seventies. Johnny Griffin was so great, and he traveled so much in Europe. So I had the opportunity to see him in different venues. Actually, Griff was the first US Jazzman I saw life, not in a concert but in a small club, with the Fritz Pauer Trio. Stan Tracey......sure he was one of the most important figures of jazz in UK. But somehow he sounds quite too individual if he comps for a more mainstream tenorist like let´s say Ben Webster. I also did read that some US musicians were not so pleased with his comping.....(Byas, Thompson)..... Anyway, I must admit that from all European pianists I heard over here, I liked Fritz Pauer most, and Tete Montoliu. IMHO they were the greatest European jazz pianists ready to play with US Greats.....

What a wonderful record. I bought it in the 70´s, but it has another cover, a colour photo of Max. It is on the America Label, which published most of Mingus´ albums. Since this album also has Cliff Joran and Mal Waldron, who had played many times with Mingus, at that time I really associated it with Mingus´ music, and actually it has some of that message. I love it, it´s one of my favourite records and about the same time I saw Roach live, one of the best musical experiences I ever had. I wonderful little album !

I have read it in the Romanian media, really sad news. I hope he can make it next year. But good that we have the best doctors down there.

I agree totally. That Night at Birdland was the first Fats Navarro I ever heard. Then I didn´t even know his name and had to try to read the liner notes when my English still was very poor. Those solos from about the last time Fats was on stage, shortly before he died are so good. I think on this double LP is more Fats than on the few studio albums he made, where due to the short tracks there are only short solos. On Street Beat, even when Fats thinks he´s done, a fellow musician shouts "Play Fats !" and he plays another chorus. There are some tunes where Fats is layin out (Midnight, April I think), but who can play "Dizzy Atmosphere" at that speed ?!. This was pretty 45 or more years ago I bought that and the next day I went back to the record store and bought the Savoy Sessions album and the Blue Note Sessions album which I still have of course. And the book about Fats Navarro is one of the very best jazz books I ever read, since it´s especially for someone like me. Written mostly for musicians, with transcriptions, and very good analysis of his soloes, his quotes from other songs etc ......

That´s true ! And the first vibe player I really was impressed of was our Tom Henkes. He is also a great drummer and yeah I played with him but as drummer.

Thank you ! As you probably know anyway, I am not really an audiophile. So I didn´t make that move. Most of my albums are quite old, at least those that was recorded decades ago like those Miles albums, those Trane albums, so the ones I bought then still have a special meaning for me. They sound good musically and each of them has it´s own story for me, in any case what it meant for my musical developement, so I fear I must say I never did re-buy albums I already have. And my collection seems to be large for non jazz folks, but as I learned from this forum, it is very small in comparation with others, who really collect the records. As musically active with the gigs I have to play I seldom find the time to listen to a record, but if, it is always a special event where memories come back, and gettin a new CD, mostly made by fellow musicians, is also something I can´t wait to find to time to hear it.

Oh I didn´t really realize that. Most of my live was in the 20th century, but I was not aware that the vibes was the typical 20th century instrument. I think, the vibe hype here in Europe startet with the Hamp-hype, when the Generation before me went nuts when Hamp did his thing in his concerts. The first thing I heard a vibe I think was Hamp´s version of "Stardust". Well I dug it, even or because the instrument sounded funny to me. But as I said, the vibe players I really listened to or bought the one or other record of them was Bags , Bobby Hutcherson, oh yeah and I dug Teddy Charles with his interesting stuff on that Miles-Mingus collaboration or on some Prestige dates. But as a player......I really got to ask my fellow musicians, who are professors at the famous MUK here in Viena , if there is any student who chose vibes as his instrument. On the other hand it must be a hard job to carry that instrument around. I remember that in the 70´s with that "world music voque" some guys took Marimba, but I don´t like the Marimba as much as I like a good vibe solo. A friend of mine who is a good drummer had switched mostly to "marimba" for a group that says that it is "Ethno Jazz".....

I don´t really know what that SACD really is , but anyway, musically speaking I love that record. I like male vocal much more than female vocal, though I love Billie Holiday. Those ballad singers from the bop era, Billy Eckstine, Earl Coleman, Johnny Hartman, Kenny "Pancho" Haggod, they all great and this is a wonderful record if I just want to close my eyes and relax.

Well yes, but Fats Navarro is always in the mind of those, who play "modern" trumpet style. As much as I love Diz, I think many following trumpet player until today could not be where they are if there had not been Fats Navarro. I love his music and know it very very well and have learned from his style (and I am a piano player). He was on one of my first LPs when I learned that there is somebody like Charlie Parker. It was this stuff Bird, Bud and Fats at Birdland, and it was some of the best stuff I heard, even if the sound quality was lousy. So, if I don´t think about that anniversary in a special manner , nevertheless I think I learned much from him and am so glad that he WAS there !

Yeah, I said to me some days ago that I might listen to it again. It was while I was listening to the newer RTF live stuff with Jean Luc Ponty where they do "Spain" and play "Aranjuez" in the intro, that made me want to spin "Sketches" again, but ya know that´s a thing I have to play when I am a certain mood into. Like ....listen to something that I don´t listen for "study", but only for a certain mood, which happens more in winter time. When I became a Miles Fan from the very start on and started to get a few Miles albums from pocket money, it was one or two Prestige, it was Miles Round Midnite, it was above all Miles in the 60´s with Herbie and Tony, and of course the than brand new "Bitches Brew". Sketches was always around, but I was not marture enough for it. For me then, it was too little action, I was not cultivated enough to enjoy something where I don´t hear them ringin cymbals and that strong traps work.... Now, as I said there are moments I spin stuff like that.....

I must admit I never worked with a vibe player. The most popular group featuring fantastic vibes here in Viena was "Together" with the great vibist and drummer Tom Henkes. They played pianoless, they had vibes, guitar, acoustic bass, drums, percussion. So this was pianoless. Otherwise I don´t have very much vibe stuff. I have Bags, Hutch a lot of. With Bags I think about Monk, John Lewis. Since Monk is nearer to my musical conception, I´d play more "Monkish" comping which I do anyway. Or, less chords, more "voicings", and stay more outta way...., well I think I couldn´t plan it. Since I mostly play "on call" I´d go up on stage and feel from what´s happenin´ what might be the best I can do to give support, inspiration and not get into their way. That´s hard to give a constructive answer, huh ? I might hear the stuff or hear what the boys tell me what kinda conception they want and try to fit in as good as I could. Anyway, if they chose me, they might have a plan what they want me to do and why they want exactly me......

I´m a big fan of Pharoah and saw him live on some occasions. About one of my first 10 own Jazz LPs back in my early teens was "Live at the East", which I still have ! That´s pretty 50 years ago ! Such a great musician ! One of my all time favourites.

For all jazz buffs in NY: Come by and listen to this great Austrian drummer. By the way: I´ve played some concerts together with him as "Allan Praskin Quintet" this year. If you can make it to Small´s please say hello from Gerhard from Vienna.

Such a great trombonist. I didn´t know much about him otherwise than from record, did not know that he stays in Seattle, which is quite far away from NY.

Ron Carter is one of my favourite bassists from the first moment on (I am a kid of the times of VSOP Quintet) and Ron´s unique bass sound on all those 70´s acoustic mostly when people became interested again in acoustic instruments.... I think he had a very unique bass style, not "hornlike phrasings" like Chambers and Co had, but more a bass-bound solo play. I must admit I have not the slightest idea who the sidemen are. The time when I heard Ron Carter frequently was mostly the CBS and Milestone "Family" of Artists....., mostly All Star contexts..... Even his own group was only stars: Ron with Kenny Barron, Ben Riley, Buster Williams......

Must be very interesting. Once I heard the movie score Miles recorded with the same personnel, also in Paris. But never heard live sets of this strange combination of Miles with Paris based musicians. I always had thought that Miles at that stage of his career would play only with his own quintet, until I had read somewhere that Miles also played with those musicians on something called "Birdland Tour" which toured all the world in the 50´s . I have heard about Marcel Romano. He is also on a photo in NY with Bud Powell and Paul Chambers. I think he was the one who brought Bud to Paris....

I love it. Vintage be bop. I loved to see Kai Winding live performing, he was great ! I also like his contributions to the Tadd Dameron band at Royal Roost, great bop trombone. A wonderful musician. I would like to work with a trombone player too, but have not seen good trombonists here on the scene.

I didn´t know about the existence of that album earlier. I love the sound of the Giants of Jazz. Here Dizzy is missing, and instead you have Clark Terry and Roy Eldrige , who play some very very fine stuff. Anyway, Roy was much ahead of his time and has some highlights, as well as Clark Terry and all of them. Monk is really in a playing mood here and does some fantastic solos. It´s interesting to hear Roy with Monk doing "The Man I Love", to be compared with the famous Miles-Monk session on "Modern Jazz Giants" where they play that tune. When the Giants of Jazz did Vienna, it was the same. Dizzy hadn´t made it, and was replaced again by Clark Terry, and Cat Anderson. During that time I didn´t even know who is Cat Anderson. I knew Clark Terry and all the others, but had not heard the name of Cat Anderson.

You retired from playing ?

The funny thing is, that when I started to try to play "our music", I mean when I was in my early teens, I sounded the same without knowing who Sadik Hakim is. That´s if you try to sound "hip" like a bopper but don´t have the means to express it. I just heard Bud and Thelonious and wanted to get into that direction, but without really being inside that musical language it sounds stiff and without melody in it. I thought I got it but when we recorded a repetition with the tape recorder, the tape recorder doesn´t have mercy, it plays back all the square stiff crap I played: Chromatic but not in the sense of using it to play "your story" , sycopated not like "bouncin´" or "flowing" in a natural manner, but in a stiff non musical manner. When I finally heard that Savoy sides of Bird from 1945 where Sadik plays piano even if he didn´t have a Union Card, I was astonished how similar it sounds to what I sounded then. I said to myself (knowing that I don´t like my own playing): "If this guy sounds that way AND is recorded with Bird, it can´t be that bad. But after some nights of good sleep again I was unhappy with what I did. I got help from a name US musician who told me "You play Bouncin with Bud but DO YOU REALLY KNOW what "Bouncin´" means ? So this one question meant tons of help. It has to have that natural feeling in it, that makes this tune so beautiful. You can´t play that with a "haba daba haba daba" aproach. Never..... The best example of one who played stiff and un-boppish when he started but became tops after a few years is Al Haig: Listen to his playing on the Town Hall 1945 with Bird´n Diz and it sounds stiff, it is some studied figures but now natural flow. And then listen to Al Haig in 1949 with Bird or Wardell Gray and you have a topnotch pianist.....

Yes, I got those to CDs of Monk with Griff some years ago by my wife , for X-Mas. She was amused about the cover art of that Misterioso album and said it looks somehow "Hamletean" (rumänisch für "Hamlet-mäßig").

That´s you ?

Very fine record like all Freddie Hubbard records of the mid sixties. Mine is a japanese pressing with mini LP cover and one strange thing is that they somehow doubled up the sound of the bass, so it sounds much more like a space age electric bass. This strange sound is also on my copy of Dizzy Reece´s "Sounding Off".

Yeah, that´s it. Based on All God´s Chillun, but in Eb. Most other bop lines based on that song is in F (Little Willie Leaps, Reets and I, and so on). On those early Monk albums on BN there is another tune where we are not sure, if it was actually written by Monk: "Eronel". It´s said that it was written by Sadik Hakim. Well, I once played it with a great tenor player in quartet, he had called the tune and announced it as Monk´s tune. Whatever, I have not heard other "Sadik Hakim" tunes. I hear him on several Savoy sessions as pianist, but he plays a quite edgy stiff syncopated style, strictly cromatic, which sounds more as if a classical player tries to "play" what he think´s is bop.....