Gheorghe

In my own context, Benny Golson is one of the best composers. All my live long I played at least some of his compositions in various settings or they were called in jam sessions. At least "I Remember Clifford" and "Stablemates" I think were played 1000´s of times. As a tenor player he is okay but not among those I listen to very often. I think I can learn more from other tenorists. He somehow capured the sound of Don Byas but is not as flexible as Don. And live I often heard him do "Stablemates" as a feature for the drummer and a fix gimmick in his shows was somewhere in the course of the tune a tenor-drums duet, but I had the impression that Benny Golson just doesn´t get it on that point. Stuff where the bass and piano lay out and the saxophonist does a duet with the drummer is something great, a highlight, but not with Benny. Gimme Dave Liebman for that and it is the greatest.

I bought the Jimmy Smith album sometimes but I´m not sure if it got a lot of spinning. As much as I remember, I had liked his earlier albums more. Especially the 1956-57 period, something like "The Incredible Jimmy Smith" and "Date with Jimmy Smith" which has much more fire. My impression was, that Jimmy Smith somehow sounds more smooth as the years went on. His early records had that "cutting edge" and in some of his early up tempo things, where the guitar player get´s in with some interesting parallel lines has almost the same energy as my beloved " Prime Time" .

I saw the cover many times when it came out but I was reluctant to buy it. I didn´t know that Max Roach is on drums, so if I had knewn that Max is on drums it would have been easier for me to decide to buy it. Typical west coast jazz somehow didn´t get into my heart even after 50 years of listening and playing. I tried to listen to some, but missed the tension that I´m looking for. Especially from the rhythm sections. I think I had heard the thing where Chet Baker played with Bird, but I wouldn´t say it was exceptional, it was good playing for a shy kid in aw of the encounter with Bird, and he manages to get thru, which is quite a good job... Rolf Ericson was a very very good trumpet player.

one of my alltime favourites. Dream team with Herbie, Henderson and Tony Williams !!! There was an earlier BN album of Kenny with Mobley and I think Kenny Drew, but somehow I don´t listen to it often. It is too much a routine hardbop sessions like those that were hunderts of it in the 50´s , but "Una Mas" belongs to the 60´s when it was recorded. And if some stuff has Tony Williams on drums, how could I do else than buy it ?

Herunterladen (2).jfif I don´t know what happend in the 2 weeks I was off ? I can´t post pics anymore. I always chose the file (the pic) and saw it. Now as you see the photo does not appear, only if you click again on the "download symbol you see here.

Herunterladen (1).jfif Nora Roberts: "Păcatele Inocenților". The original title I think is "Carnal Innocence" . It´s really a thrilling book. Somewhere I have heard that they even made a film out of it, but probably only in English. I will have to read more slowly and only before sleeping since I read to fast and need some unread books for my 14 days vacance in the first two september weeks.

Wonderful photo. It is quite seldom to see jazz musicians enjoying daytime. With the exception of Ben Sidran, about whom I´m not sure if I have heard, I have seen the others very very often, Jimmy Woode was one of the most used bassists over here in Europe. Of course I saw him with Griffin, I think it was in spring 1978 before he left Europe. Griff had those funny round sunglasses all the time.

I kept this one because Dave Liebman signed it for me with a dedication !

Thank you for your help !

Maybe @Michael Weiss can tell us more about it ? I never saw a picture of the older Hank Mobley.

Oh, the Belgrade live set I must have, also for the Dizzy quintet stuff. I had seen the green album "Tour de Force" in a record shop but didn´t buy it since I had some doubts about it: First, in 1969, that George Wein All Star "Giants of Jazz" did not exist, it was a band from the early 70s. And Al Gafa belongs more into another context, he is a leading voice on let´s say "Bahia", Dizzy´s Latin album from the 70´s . The Title "Kush" is a later Diz composition and I don´t think that it was on the "Giants of Jazz" set list. I have this also, it was in the record store somewhere in the late 70´s or so, or early 80´s . I have it also on USB for listening in the car and I love it. All those tunes are great and it´s wonderfully recorded (I really play it loud to hear Blakey´s drums). But nobody knows when it was recorded. One of my very favourite BN albums of the 60´s . I like all those really powerful modern stuff albums they did in that decade, let´s say Wayne Shorter´s "All Seeing Eye", Don Cherry´s "Complete Communion", McCoy Tyner´s album with Joe Henderson, and so on. I never listen to the more easy listening albums they also made, and all those different more obscure organ players that followed after Jimmy Smith´s leaving the label. The only organ I can stand is Larry Young´s , he does not play that typical "Hammond Sound", he plays modal jazz and plays with the guys, the heavy guys like Sam Rivers, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson and above all Elvin Jones.

somehow I never could find this. It was for a short time on a mainstream label called Concorde or so, but I never saw it again. I would like to have it since I heard that they play more Monk tunes here. Strange that on the cover photos all musicians seem to be photographed during that time 1972, but the monk photo seems to be much older. As much as I remember, Monk with the Giants didn´t wear a hat anymore. But he still plays in a very creative manner and seemed to respond enthusiastically to Diz composition "Tour de Force" and "Woody´n You".

I am from the generation where jazz rock just started and still there was that air of NY avantgarde. Trane was just dead for 4 years but there was Pharoah Sanders, there were Ornette Colman, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor , Sun Ra and all of them whom I loved. Some of the Free Jazz got smoothed a little like "Karma" "Live at the East" and there was a lot of hippie style audience, who loved this and loved early 70´s Miles. I got acquainted to Jimmy Giuffree only as late as 3 years ago when my wife picked a fine live album from Graz (I think a Hat Hut release) and it was a birthday present. She just had seen "live" on the cover and bought it. I must admit, that it´s a very very fine album. Maybe I must be in a certain mood and have time, mostly on long winter evenings, than I love to listen to it very attent on what happens. I would not buy much more from that stuff, but it has a good place in my collection.

One of my favourite McLean albums. From LD´s BN records I think I like this one most, since it is more the kind of "jazz" that I like. I like his first album, this one, the omnipresent "Blues Walk" (for easy listening) and his sideman playing with Cliff Brown and Art Blakey and the Jimmy Smith date with also Blakey, Mobley, Donald Bird. Many others seem to be outright smooth to me with lesser interesting drummers, or tons of albums with organ...

I don´t hear no banging in Monk´s music. He is rhythm, and what some call banging is sounds. Do you think a snare or a ride cymbal or whatever is "banging". It´s jazz, man. And Monk always has a little story in his compositions, he has a lot of musical humour and also really deep stuff. And even my wife, who is not really a jazz listener likes Monk, she says it´s so natural to hear and watch him on videos (which are the faster acces to music for not so really fans). I heard Twardzik only on some old records, I got to dig Baker only from 1978 on. Twardzik sounds very academically to me, something like twelftone or so. It didn´t give me the happiness I get when listening to Monk. Sure that´s a question of taste but I think nobody who becomes alive when he hears Monk thinks about his playing as "banging".

Great statements ! I have not been reading jazz books lately, but I can say I bought Art Taylor´s book as soon as it came out. I think the interviews were done during a time that was quite a bitter times for most of the interviewed musicians (late 60´s early 70´s ) . I was quite astonished about the angry Johnny Griffin, whom I always knew as a very optimistic man. I had seen both Griffin and Lockjaw so many times in my live . The answers of Jaws seem to be an insult on the mentality of a sensitive and creative musician. It reads much more the points of view of a clerk with an 8 ours job. But I love Jaws for his specific style, from all mainstream musicians he might be a favourite of mine, especially if I want to hear some easy listening relaxing music just to have a good time and fun listening. Gordon ? I don´t remember that Dexter Gordon was interviewed for that book ? I don´t have "Swing to Bop" but I have "Jazz Masters of the 40´s" since I was a bop-newbie and it was my source of informations. During my youth I had the chance to do a trip with the "Orient Expres" to Elvetia (Bazel near the French Borderline) and that´s where I found that book in a bookstore, and also found some of the rarest things that otherwise wouldn´t have been available for me (the Xanadu album "Bud in Paris" and the "Mingus Changes 1 + 2). I like the way Gitler writes. He must have been almost a kid when he was a regular of the 52nd Street venues and knew all those musicians personally. From his book I also learned more about Bud Powell, who then was a secret spirit to me who practically changed my live regarding to piano though he was a completly misterious person, one about elders rumored that he was a "difficult and abusive artist".

Sounds like a lot of former sidemen I saw in varous groups: Gary Smulyan I think I saw as a leading bari-soloist in Woody Herman´s Thundering Herd. I saw Dennis Irwin with Art Blakey´s Messengers, Kenny Washington many times with Johnny Griffin, Dick Oatts with the still real "Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band" (1978 shortly before Thad Jones left for good). Now that I see him on the pic, he looked the same then 45 years ago !!! Since Bird was one of my earliest musical influences, I should have some of his LPs (Savoy, Dial, Verve, the Massey Hall Concert and 3 Columbia albums of live broadcasts from Birdland) , but this one seems unknown to me. The photo seems to be the same like the painted picture of Bird on the cover of the Columbia release "One Night at Birdland 1950). I´m not a collector of remainders or false starts or studio talk, but if it is some live set with a good group (not a moment´s pick up with players unfamiliar with Bird´s music), I might buy it.

Yes, it´s strange there was such a long gap after "Changes". During those years I was buying all new albums of musicians I saw live, and there was two years of no new Mingus album. And then came 2 in one year. At first hearing I was also a bit puzzled about the use of fusion guitarists like Larry Coryell and most of all, I didn´t understand why they used a second bass on some tracks (with all due respect to Ron Carter, but his interfering with Mingus´ fast walking bass on "Nobody Knows" is just disturbing. I still remember the live performances of both "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" and "Cumbia". But I think I remember "Cumbia" was releast a bit later so I wondered what that tune is, which Mingus announced as "something from a Movie Score we just recorded". The live versions were more exiting than the studio versions !!!

How is it ? I only have Richard Cook´s Blue Note book.

I´ve seen Ed Cherry on so many occasions with Diz, or great records he made with Diz. The last time I saw him live was a few years ago, it was a Dizzy Gillespie Memorial band lead by Diz´s bassist John Lee , it had Candy Finch on drums, the son of Mario Bauza on percussion (or was it the son of Machito ?) , and trumpet and alto sax. Such a great concert.....

I have a black Miles Davis sweater from the early 80´s and I still wear it. And I have a black long-arm shirt SUN RA which I often wear, but not on gigs, where I prefer casual business, but when I go to a club just to listen....

It´s written in Mr. Peter Pullman´s book "Wail-The Life of Bud Powell". As @T.D. said it, it refers to substance abuse. It´s documented in many letters that Bud´s mother Pearl wrote to Oscar Goodstein. The very last meeting between them two happened when Bud during his 1964 schedule at Birdland missed a show and went out on his own to search Elmo Hope, were he went to Elmo´s old adress in the Bronx, where he was told the new adress in Harlem and Bud managed to get there in very bad shape and was brought back to his hotel. That´s what I have read.

ESP covers somehow the zeitgeist of my youth. Sun Ra´s "Nothing Is" was one of my first LPs , like the "Ornette Coleman Townhall". And though they were on the forefront of avantgarde, they had a deep respect for Bird, Bud, Lady Day, since besides the avantgarde albums they had rare live stuff of Bop Artists. Somehow for all modernists of the late 60´s and 70´s Bird was a hero. But I might admit I´m not a real collector. Some of the stuff here I might have, interviews are not so interesting for me, and I listened to this music more for learning the tunes and how to play in that style, so I limited it to more essential commercial Savoys and Dials or some of them....

I really admire Elmo Hope, he was not only a great pianist, he was a great composer ! But maybe his live was one of the tragedies of post war jazz. And people who were near to Bud Powell said that Hope was "Bud´s worst friend" . there are also reports of an occasion where Bud wanted to visit Hope very late in both´s lives.

indeed ! Same here. I bought the DVD-documentary since my wife was interested in seeing his live, but she also stated without any statement from me "not your kind of music or piano style". Are they doing a fast version of Conception in Db ? I love that tune. Early this year a Spanish trumpet player was visiting Viena and sat in in the second set and called "Conception" and counted it of in a quite fast tempo. I was delighted to do it with him. First I was afraid of him because he had such a mad look and very strange stage behaviour, he was loaded with some harmful stuff and that scared me, but the playing was tops and he loved what I did too. This spring I had a very interesting discussion with Mr. Peter Pullman about the tune "Conception". He is sure that it was not George Shearing who composed it, but Bud Powell. Bud loved that tune too, and Mr. Pullman says that Al McKibbon who was working with him or/and Shearing at Birdland had told him that. He said that Shearing had stolen the idea from Bud. I can´t confirm it, but it´s so fitting for Bop musicians with those fine changes and you got some knowledge about improvising to master it.