Gheorghe

Yes, this is perfect way to hear all Savoy and Dial tracks, just his most important studio work in his most creative period. And to hear them chronologically all master takes, not all those alternate takes and stuff. Before that I had the double LP "Savoy Mastertakes" but didn´t have all the Dial tracks since those "Spotlite" LPs were well meant but those many alternate tracks got on my nerves.....

oh that´s great !

Well as a frequent concert goer mostly in the forming years Mingus live was some of the most fascinating things for me. From post mortem Mingus I only saw the George Adams - Don Pullen quartet shortly after Mingus´ death playing some of the stuff they had recorded with Mingus, but in general it was too painful for me to learn about Mingus´ death . And now even me had a look on internet in this context and saw and remembered, that "Sweet Sucker´s" Dance" was on the Joni Mitchell album "Mingus". I have it but again it was too painful for me to listen much to it as I was so depressed by Mingus death and the surroundings how that album was made..... The last compositions of Mingus which still was written for the touring band and recorded and seen live was those large suites "Cumbia" and "Three or Four Shades of the Blues"........, and........Danny Richmond......oh yeah !!!!!!

I´ve been listening a lot to Woody Shaw´s live recordings in the recent weeks. I liked the saxophone of Carter Jefferson. I hadn´t known him before, since he was not anymore in the group when I saw Woody for the first time. And I mostly heard him with Tony Reedus on drums, who was fantastic. From the group with Carter Jefferson I think I have on from live in Basel

I have the CD. Well intended, but with all my love for ballads, I never did understand, why the vintage bop group plays here only ballads with the exception of a medium tempo "All the Things You Are". The things played by the white boys is quite nice, but a clarinet just sounds funny to me. I hadn´t really known who is Bill Smith or Bob Carter.......

When was it recorded ? Or is Mingus Big Band one of those bands that was after Mingus´ death ? Sorry for the question but I don´t know very much about post Mingus works on his music, since I still caught him live and he was my idol.

This was the second Mingus LP I had, it had the same photo but a silver cover. I love it very much.

Of course everything of Art Tatum. I have one special I like very much, it was done somewhere in LA in 1956, but as I said, I love every solo record of Tatum. And I love solo Monk, especially those tunes done in stride. There is also a rare Bud Powell solo recording on Black Lion titled "Strictly Confidential" where Bud plays a lot of stride....

It´s wonderful, just wonderful. One of my few vocal albums. I mostly listen to male vocals and like very much Johnny Hartman, Earl Coleman and of course Billy Eckstine.

I have "Natural Soul" , it´s a nice easy listening album but I have not spinned it for decades. Some of my favourite Lou Donaldson is where he is a sideman, like the Art Blakey Quintet at Birdland with Clifford Brown, and some other earlier BN albums led by Horace Silver or Jimmy Smith (A Date with Jimmy Smith Vol. 1 and 2 with Donald Bird, Hank Mobley, Lou Donaldson and Art Blakey). Then very much the album "Lou Takes Off" . In general I like most those kind of albums. Okay, "Blues Walk" is very nice, it´s more easy listening like "Natural Soul". I also have "Midnight Creeper" which is also quite nice, but that´s about the last LD I listen to. I threw a 1974 album in the garbage can, so weak it was. After his comeback I heard him often in a quartet with his former pianist Herman Foster, than the last time a few years ago with a japanes girl on organ....

oh, that´s bad news. I´m not sure but I had noticed that he had difficulties to walk as early as in the 80´s . I saw him many times from the late 70´s to the early 2000´s . The very best and most exiting gig I saw was with a stellar quartet with Siegfried Kessler, Bob Cunningham and Clifford Jarvis. Also very good was a concert with Ken Werner, Santi Debriano and John Betsch.... The last time I saw him, he played a lot of piano also. He did a version of "Ask me Now" that sounded so near to the original that if you closed your eyes you might believe it´s Monk himself who plays.

I think it is one of the best trio albums Bud made. It has much more of the percussive touch I like so much, than the sometimes listless albums he made for Verve or Victor in the earlier decade. He must have been in very good form in Europe. Alas I was only 5 years old when he left Europe for good. So I didn´t have no chance to hear him.

It´s interesting that you also have the Miles Davis "Blue Haze". I think I also bought this in my first period of jazz listening, since I loved Miles Davis (starting with his rough bebop sides of the late fourties early fifties, which was available on several Italian bootlegs - to the then contemporanous electric style with the wah wah like on "In Concert" or "Dark Magus"...) . I think I got "Blue Haze" after some of the classic "First Quintet" stuff like "Round Midnite" or "Steaming", but found it outright tame for Miles or other featured artists like Max Roach or even Charles Mingus on one track on piano. It´s an interesting compilation, but I think it was more a period of transition for Miles, where he did not know if to play so called "Cool Jazz" or more the hard driving straight ahead stuff he did with Trane). I think I also have the Jackie McLean album but don´t remember what title it had. Is this the one with "Bean ´n the Boys" ? Yeah, the Jazz Messengers also was very important for me, I got the "Bohemia" later, but I think it would have been top for me as a kid.

I love it !

I love it, it´s one of my favourite Joe Henderson albums. Around that time in 1979 I saw him live with a quartet that featured Mal Waldron. In late 1978 I had seen him with another quartet featuring Joanne Brackeen on piano. He always has remained one of my favourite tenor saxophonists, and he has two fantastic quartets here.

I saw Sonny Rollins only one time live and it was in the late 70´s with his then current band with Mark Soskin, Jerry Harris and Al Foster. I think that those quartet surrindings with topnotch sidemen was most enjoyable. And there was also enough solo space for the wonderful pianist Mark Soskin, and Al Foster is one of my special favourites on drums. I think when he called his nephew trombone player in the band, this one mostly stood aside, only fillin in here and there. That was quite strange. And in later years he played over long tracks and most of the time was exchanging fours with the drummer, which is very exiting and we all love that, but not for dozens of chorusses. I remember one time in Miami/FL where we missed Sonny because we just arrived that evening, but soon heard James Moody and during intermission we discussed the music with a Swiss cetatean who had settled in Miami and when we came about Sonny Rollins whom we missed, he made such a face and said "I don´t like what Sonny has done since 1975'". Now my wife, who just listens to jazz from time to time and doesn´t think historically about it, answered " well, this is 1999 and if you don´t like what he had done since 1975, what is left ???? " 😀

you are right.

Some of them: Miles Davis "Steamin´" as my first LP, and "The Great Concert of Mingus" as my second LP (3 LPs!) changed my live and made me want to become a jazz musician. And when I already did play a little, the stuff "One Night at Birdland" (Bird/Fats/Bud 1950 ) completly determined me to be able to play on that level. It was the first time I heard about Bud and remained my high mark. To become able to play more demanding stuff than the usual amateur bandbooks with "Stella By Starlight", "Tenor Madness" "Misty" and so on, to develope my own tehnique, tricky changes, song forms other than 12 oder 32 bars , and if needed, at a speed like some of the tracks on "One Night at Birdland" at least when I am in good form ... which is important).

Well, I´m not very familiar with Discogs but with your help I think I found the album. The friend who had bought it, was with me at a festival where after the festival he bought records from each artist who performed on those three days (with the exception of those who didn´t impress him). So he bought that one Chet, one Dexter album, one Max Roach album, Sun Ra of course, Sam Rivers and yeah, the Chet Baker album he had bought had "Star Eyes" and "Well You Needn´t" and so on , that means mostly jazz standards, with the exception of "Balatta" which he laughed off with something "even the title sounds more classic than jazzy...". And now I see that there was another Italian pianist on it, who actually had composed that track.

Interesting. I had the same impression, but must admit that I saw the DVD only one time. Looks like Chet tries to act super cool. I love Chet´s late work in the last 10 years of his live where he really played with a lot of soul and fantastic ideas, but for the 50´s I prefer Miles, he could do that ballad/standard playing much better .....

I had read somewhere that there was a 50 years aniversary of Massey Hall in 2003 with some of the hottest players who where active on the scene. Was that recorded ? I think, the last surviving member of the original Quintet, Max Roach also played some drum solo. Herbie Hancock was on piano, that´s what I remember. But why was that not out on CD, it would have made some top music. I never buy other versions of albums I already have and know each phrase of it. My most albums with Mingus as a leader or Mingus as a sideman were on the French "America" label, that´s from where I have "Massey Hall" "Bud Powell Trio" (from the same concert) , and all those other Mingus albums from Jazzworkshop 1955 to the then brandnew 2 LPs "Blue Bird" and "Piticantropus Erectus" from the early 70´s .... So to re-listen to those tunes I would prefer to hear them done by some hot young trumpetists and saxists, modern sounding piano, bass and a super hot drummer......, did they sleep on it, it would have sold well I think......

I love it. Those kind of albums from the BN 60´s period I love most.

oh, this I think I have on video, but the video is two parts, one of it is this one, and the other is from 1987 which I liked more. So, I had thought it is another album. I think it was an album from the early 60´s , maybe on RCA or such a label, it had a double cover I think, and this "Ballatta in Forma de Blues" . It had a colour foto of Chet....., I don´t remember the personnel.

The Green album "Carryin On" is not bad, though I have not listened to it for more than 20 years. I think after I had seen the BN documentary film with some sound tracks I heard that Kenny Burrell "Midnight Blue" but didn´t know what it is, and thought it might be a Grant Green thing maybe from the late 60´s so I purchased "Carryin on" just thru an error. But nevertheless, I liked it well enough, even if it is not really my kind of stuff......, a bit too smooth, I like more radical playing....., same with Midnight Blue, I think all this was in a period where I tried to have some more easy stuff to spin if somebody came to visit.......

I don´t have so many Chet Baker albums, the few I have is from the period I saw him live (1978-88), but in my youth a friend had an album which I think had Mussolini on piano, maybe it was titled "Chet is Back" ???? It was in the early 60´s and had a tune with the title "Balatta în forma de Blues", maybe this was Mussolini´s composition, who knows..... It was a nice album, indeed, but I´m not really a collector, so I just listened to it at my former friend´s place.....