Gheorghe

Well, interesting you had the same encounter with Kind of Blue. My very first LP was "Steamin´" but I would consider "Round Midnite" in the same range, same period, same personnel, same style, so this is practically identic. Silent Way, I love it but I think I bought it after Bitches or On the Corner. About "digestible" well my second LP (3 LPs in one album) was "The Great Concert of Charles Mingus" (with Dolphy, Byard, Cliff Jordan, Danny Richmond) and this was my most semnificative entry in jazz, because I must have had that thing in me about more so called "difficult" jazz (I don´t see nothing difficult in it) . I mean that Mingus thing with Dolphy opended the way to the more free forms of 60´s avantgarde, and .... damn, I got to Bird thru Dolphy and Mingus ! Bird with Diz or Fats and Bud, Monk absolutly...... What I didn´t really like was more "easy listening comfortable" music like an Oscar Peterson trio, mainstream swing, westcoast stuff and so on, it always had to "burn" .......😉

turkish coffee as I do always in the morning, in the afternoon or even after dinner if I know it will be a long night of playing or just partying.......

He will be missed, really a tragedy to die that way. But I would have died much earlier since I can´t stand the smell of cheese, I mean especially them wheels of hard cheese . The only cheese I enjoy and eat very often is the "feta" from sheps which we call "telemea" , I like it together with black olives, with slices of capia (those long mild peppers) and Transilvanian salam, or as a "greek salad". Dying at work. I remember Mingus told that during his Monterey concert while cocluding his Ellington-Medley with "A Train" he felt something like a pain in his chest and was afraid of dying from a heart attack. I hope I´ll not die on stage, because I fear this would be embarrasing for the other musicians and the audience. But with 64 I still have a lotta plans and future I´m sure.

You might kill me for the sacrilege I say now but by all consciousness that this is one of the all time most important albums in jazz history, I had a wrong start here 50 years ago. There were not so many jazz records in the regular record stores, many went OOP in the 70´s but I was a stone Miles Davis fan and tried to find what I could. But after hearing the three albums I had (Steamin´ , "Carnegie Hall 64" and "Bitches Brew" ) I was a bit disappointed. For the old stuff, I had preferred Philly J.J on drums and Garland on piano to Jimmy Cobb and Bill Evans, though I liked Kelly on "Freddie Freeloader" . I preferred Coltrane only and though I admitted that Cannoball is great, I thought as so much music Trane creates, he cannot be topped, and Cannonball had another sound than what I am used to on alto (more the McLean Thing). After hearing "So What" and "All Blues" first as the Carnegie Hall versions, the original versions sounded a bit too tame for an early teenie. As a newbie just at the beginning, maybe I was not ripe enough for the more quiet, more subdued stuff. About really slow stuff like "Blue in Green" , I did like ballads, but more with a bit a more sharper thing in it like the "Round Midnight" with the stuff borrowed from the old arrangements of the Gillespie Big Band like you hear it on the first CBS album Miles made, or .....still more......the "Funny Valentine" from Carnegie Hall........ I also dare to say that I was a too difficult and restless kid and even grown up to really get into the more introverted and meditative way Bill Evans plays...... another sacrilege.....

I have that record but I think I have not listened to it for decades. Somehow it didn´t really get to me, I considered it more third stream or how you call it. I think it was a bit over-produced. Maybe I was and still am too much into Mingus happening on stage. There were at least two albums that disappointed me or didn´t really reach me. This one, and also on CBS the "Mingus at Carnegie Hall", where I often asked myself "where is THE Charles Mingus?". Also some early 70s albums seem "lame duck" to me like most of the 1970 "America" Sessions, allthough they have some beautiful McPherson on it, but it is a very subdued Mingus, barely audible and even the presence of Byard and Richmond do not help to make things "happen"....

Yes, I heard that when I was in the States and dudes told me about it. Well I was never on the West Coast. My main McPherson impressions were with Mingus after Dolphy´s death, on "Mingus at Monterey" and "My Favourite Quintet" and on some of the 70´s albums, I think he was on the "Carnegie 1974" on those to jam tunes, and maybe on "Me Myself and I" or "Something like a Bird". I think I had an album where he was the leader, it could have been around 1972 and I think it had the standard "While we were young" on it, very fine 1970´s "third generation bop" . But I fear I never saw him live.

Well maybe this is one of the reasons why I didn´t go there, First of all during that time I never heard a mentor tellin me about Dorothy Donegan, they might tell me to listen to Tatum, Bud, Monk, Garland, Wynton Kelly, McCoy, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Hancock etc. , but I think Donegan was not mentioned much among musicians or even music lovers of the scene then or now. And.....as it was told to me it was over-pianistic, while I want to hear if a piano player connects well with the bass player and the drummer, each of the instruments very important to me. It also may explain, why Mr. Axel Melhard (boss of Jazzland) later complained, that there was not enough audience for Dorothy Donegan. Some one told me that when she banged the final chord of a tune, she lost her "peruca" (don´t know how you say for artificial hair), it was a tragic-comic thing with a woman too "overdressed" for a small cellar club.

Oh man, Dolphy ! My first alto I heard as a kid. Damn, I heard and fell in love with Dolphy before I had heard a note of Bird !!!

I have two Alamacs I think. Bird with the Herd and Bird 1949 . I bought them in the 70´s and was a bit astonished they were so expensive and had quite modest cover design, no liner notes . The Bird with the Herd is quite funny though the more heavy swing style rhythm of the drums doesn´t fit to Bird, but it is a fun record. I saw Jay McShann at Jazzland and it was great. Dorothy Donegan also played once ore twice at Jazzland but I must admit I hadn´t ever heard her name. I learned that she was a very tehnical pianist and brought up as a wunderkind, could play licks of Errol Garner and others but seem´s to have been quite absent in the active jazzscene were you play and record in different groups . The boss of Jazzland, Mr. Melhard once told me it was quite stressy with her, since she thought she must have hundreds of evening robes to play and didn´t understand that this is just a smaller but outrite fine cellar club. She travelled with much luggage with robes and stuff and seemed to be lost away from the piano. Brought up as a wunderkind and kept that way..... Dick Wellstood´s photo is also on the walls of Jazzland, but this must have been before my time or a style earlier than what we heard and studied.

If I´m in the mood for some good old hard bop it´s very possible that I spin "Sonny´s Crib" (for the participation of Trane) or "Cool Struttin". Maybe I couldn´t listen to more in about the same kind of style, but they are great, especially since they have some of my favourite horn players on it. One thing that always was in my mind is that the Bud on "Scene Changes" sounds so close to Sonny Clark that at first listening I couldn´t believe it´s Bud. I think I got that from the widow of a late friend. I remember it´s very very hot playing, Griff in top form and going a bit into new areas on "Tunisia".....right ? But it seems to be a very very obscure label.

It was bumped by me since I always wanted to post a photo of me on stage but it took me months to have time to manage to make photos smaller, so this and the Peter Pullman-Photo in the "Jazz in Newspapers etc." had to be posted much later, just yesterday. Glad you are successfull with stretches. In my case it would hurt my hands, but I think I can reach 10th because of more than 60 years playing piano (I started to lay my fingers on piano when I still was in (how you say, "pampers" didn´t exist in the early 60´s ). My dad could "play" a handful of pieces, one was some sonata in Db by Beethoven or so with very deep notes, and one was I think a funeral march written by Chopin and to the surprise of my fatha I jumped on his lap and played the line with my little hands. At 4,5 I was pissed off that my hands are so small I can´t reach what I have in my head. So I think 60 years of playing, 45 years of active playing on stage, and somehow the hands get adapted, especially the left hand for decimes if you play a solo ballad or so.

Glad you like it ! The photo was shot by the club management. I´ll play there next week, a fine unit with tp, as, p, b, dr.....always nice to be there, so many young jazz students there, that´s really good audience......

Well I reach a 10th but I still think that my hands are small if I look at this photo with me on stage

Hello Friends ! You all know the famous photo "A Great Day in Harlem". In one of our 3 important jazz clubs in Vienna, the "ZWE" which is run by the wonderful Mr. Christoph Klein, there is a large copy of that legendary photo near the bandstand. But let me start my story : This spring in April I got a message from N.Y. from the author of the famous book about Bud Powell "Wail", Mr. Peter Pullman. He wrote me that he will come to Vienna for vacation, together with his wife and will bring a signed copy of his book for me. I suggested that we spend an evening at ZWE, were my favourite Austrian pianist and composer Oliver Kent was scheduled with his wonderful quintet "Worry Later" featuring the creme de la creme of Austrian Jazzmusicians. It´s the Wendesday Jam Session "Let´s Groove" so I was sure that Mr. Pullman will here some great music. I had told Oliver and the Clubmanager about our visiting guest and asked Mr. Pullman to bring also a book for Oliver Kent. Mr. Pullman arrived at the club with his wonderful wife, was greated by Christopher Klein, the club boss, and imediatly told us that he likes the club, it reminds him of "Small´s " in N.Y. and he was very pleased to see the "Great Day in Harlem" picture on the wall. He told us some insider anecdotes about the making of that famous picture. Finally the music started and was great as ever. I knew that I had not promised Mr. Pullman too much, he really was fascinated by the playing of Oliver Kent p, Daniel Nösig tp, Thomas Kugi ts, Uli Langthaler b, and Dusan Novakov dr (the name of the group is "Worry Later" ). During intermission (the core band plays the first set, after intermission the second set is jam session) Mr. Pullman was asked on stage to give me and Oliver the signed copies of the book, and Christoph Klein made a photo of us three (from left to right: Oliver, me and Peter Pullmann). At the beginning of second set I got on stage to sit in on two numbers( in honour of Mr. Pullman it was Bud-related numbers like Ornothology and April if I remember right). Some days later I got a mail from Mr. Pullman who announced me that he is back in N.Y. and how much had enjoyed that evening. He wrote that he had traveled much all around the world but never before had seen such a fine club so far away from NY. I also got a hell of a compliment as Mr. Pullman wrote about my own playing that "be bop flows so easily from my veins into my fingers". I´ll never forget that fine spontanous event.

I don´t remember, yeah it must have been around 1977, so I was a bit older, 18. It had a colour photo of Miles, but obviously from much later, from the Bitches Brew time, and I liked the first LP, ok on the 2´nd LP I liked what Mobley and Trane do on "Someday...", and maybe there was a standard blues in F, but in general I liked the groups with Philly J.J and then with Tony Williams much more than the more polished Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb thing. Somehow for me something was missing . I had bought before the Miles at Antibes 1963 and it was the greatest for me.

Thank you so much, @david weiss: Great performance, I hope I´ll see you at some time if you do Vienna (I missed the 2018 gig at Porgy@Bess) but I still hope it will happen some day. Thank you also very much for the rhythmic advice of the tune. Yes, that´s also what I thought: not a typically 9, but more a 4-5. When I heard it the first time in 1978 I couldn´t figure it out. But knew it is something great, special.

Interesting story about your wife 😄 Well, I am a maniac only when playing with damn good musicians. My "collection" habits are very very loose. I listen only for the music and the sources come from anywhere they come from, old LPs, CD´s bought in the early 2000´s and some new ones, but without "washing" them, I never heard about it, but I´m very very loose about things like that and don´t care very much. I usually listen to one certain record at some point, maybe each late afternoon in the cold anotimp after coffee, and the only thing is she askes me to not spin it too loud. But somehow I learned to hear quite well even if it is not as loud as on stage, I only have to close my eyes and don´t let anything disturb my concentration.... My wife sometimes gets dissappointed if I play too much, and then still want to go out to listen to other boys or jam with them....., she often comes with me but if it´s freezing or raining and makes it hard time for the cigarette in front of the club door during intermission..... That Art Pepper thing of Vanguard: Well fantastic trio with some of the best musicians in NY during that time. But I wasn´t really happy with the sound of Art Pepper. It´s too piercing, I mean I LOVE let´s say Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Arthur Blythe , but this somehow causes pain in my ear and sometimes sounds orientationless. I think there was also an original titled "My Friend Stan". But sometimes Art Pepper´s compositions are just too long, too many bars. You get a hard time to improvise on a tune if it has "felt 320 bars" . I get easy along even with longer tunes like the changes of "cheek to cheek" which has 72 bars and don´t have to look at the music , but this is just too long and I don´t think Art Pepper was the very best composer. It sounds more "written on paper just to be written"....sorry....

I think I bought this almost 50 years ago, but it was a Doublealbum with actually 2 Records: "Round Midnite" from 1956 or so, and "Someday My Prince will come" as the second record. In any case. Then I didn´t really like the "Someday My Prince will come" album, didn´t like the tune, that I found to "kitschy" and the general lack of energy. See, I was more that kind of "angry kid" and dug the hard stuff, the pushing the music forward and get more further "out". So, for a boy of 14-16 years this was not really the stuff I dug. The music of my youth. Boy, how much did we dig this, all them players were our heroes, it was what happened then. And since I was somehow in the middle of the position of still acoustic jazz and the beginning of electric jazz. We all hummed that "Red Clay" , hummed the tricky bass line..... And later, all of us great VSOP fans hearing the live version of "Clay" on the "Colloseum" album....with Wayne, Freddie, Herbie, Ron and our hero Tony !

I love that album so much. All those great tunes. And that fantastic line up, really an allstar thing. This is really a good afro-cuban - bop ("cu-bop") record, much better than the half hearted attempt they made with Charlie Parker on the LP "Siesta". But I like also the remaining straight ahead tunes. "La Villa" is a thing I love to play live. So fine to play, really fast. Very interesting remarks: I was lucky I really tried to buy every new Sonny Rollins record in my youth, when I heard him live. All those great Milestone albums "Cuttin´ Edge", "Easy Living" "Don´t Stop the Carnaval", "No Question" or how the 1979 album was titled, but somewhere in the 80´s I lost the trace. Just when I got the "Road Trips" from my wife I learned more about the late styled Rollins.

I can only say that this album was a key element of the jazz movements when I became interested in that music. It´s interesting that it´s still not all electric, it´s like an extension of "Filles de Kilimanjaro" . The long tracks each of them a treasure. But I think on the reissue CD I have (I had spun the LP to death) there is a bonus track composed by Wayne Shorter , something like "Feia" or "Feio" and with all due respect for Wayne, that one tune doesn´t say anything to me and bored me from the first bar on. I also can´t do very much with the "John McLaughlin" titled tune where Miles doesn´t play. Those two tunes I cut out, but the title tune, Spanish Key, Miles Runs the Voodoo down, and even Sanctuary thrills me. But it was still 2 years until I heard Miles live and than it was the all electric band with Miles on wah wah all thru. But still great. I lost my interest in Miles after 1983, his first two years 81,82 was very good and "jazzy" , but then it turned out to almost "smooth jazz"......

Kenny Burrell ! But I´m unable to recognize the following birthday people. Some seem to be not from the jazz music business so I can´t know them, but who is the bearded man on the art picture ? A classical composer ? Looks like that.....

My only social media is THIS FORUM , and on an austrian Forum about my hobby when not playing jazz: fishing. I never knew or tried something else. I don´t have no FB, no Insta, no WhatsApp, no TikTok or what you call ´em. I don´t let such things bug me.

I´m not a collector just a listener when I´m not playing , so I´m not really conscious about the provenience of the stuff I own. I have BN-LP´s that I bought while I was a youngster, so I have both Ornette Coleman "Golden Circle Vol 1 and 2", I have Coltrane´s "Blue Train" and I have the Bud Powell´s Vol. 1,2, 4 and 5 all as old BN LP´s but never thought about it as something special. They just there. But BN was slowly disappearing then. I had heard that at some point Horace Silver remained the only active recording musician for BN and each year dozens of classic albums went OOP. There were sometimes those hidous big instrumentation crap that BN made after 1972 or so, but it didn´t sell well and who wanted to hear electric jazz had better artists and labels for that style. I love a lot of classic BN albums but one thing I might say is that there were too many records of certain styles that are quite similar , I mean hundreds of typical hard bop albums in the 50´s and early 60´s , and of the typical 60´s trademark with Boogaloo and Organ, too many Grant Green albums, but in any case really important albums of the modernists of the 60´s , young Freddie, Wayne, Herbie, Tony, McCoy and so, and all the "Free Jazz" albums of Ornette, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor..... and Sam Rivers of course....., that´s what I want to hear from BN. Yeah, those first two are BN albums I can enjoy (no Alligator Boogaloo type stuff 😉 ) , and I´m also angry I could not see the Cookers. Teddy Charles was really fascinating for me from a very early age on. I thought he is black like the players he played with (the Wardell Gray album, the Miles Davis/Lee Konitz album, and above all a stuff I had on a strange Davis Sampler when I was a kid, which had the Collector´s Items session and the Debut Session "Blue Moods". I loved that Blue Moods allthough it is more a dark, brooding sound record, but with three of my SUPER-HEROES of my early youth: MILES, MINGUS, ELVIN,,, Is Word from Bird something dedicated to Bird, is it Charles´ compositions or is it Bird tunes. Teddy Charles I think had a very very short active recording career, I think all I know from his was in the first half of the fifties. His vibe solos in the double time part of "The Man I Love" and his solo on "Tunisia" on Side B of the "Miles Davis/Lee Konitz" are genial........incredible !

Well, about audio I can´t say much, for me it is important to hear the drums, especially if it is a topnotch-drummer like Ben Riley. I never had an MP3 and don´t know about sonic/musical details. 50 years of playing music take their toll but I´m glad I still can hear a record without turning up the volume to the highest volume and still can enojy what I hear without causing noise pain for my wife. I´m only pissed of if a studio record is done in a way where you don´t hear the full range of the sound of the ride cymbal etc. Stellar musicians here. Though I must admit I´m a bit surprised about Milt Hinton. I don´t know much about him, he seems to be from a much older generation than Byard, who played with Mingus, and Riley who played with Monk. I have not seen or heard Ricky Ford since the time he was in Mingus´ Band, where he followed George Adams. I didn´t catch the Adams-Pullen-Band, but caught the band with Ricky Ford twice, it was the greatest. Jack Walrath and Ricky Ford the frontline......

Sorry I never saw "The Cookers". Must be a gas to see them. My best memory of Billy Harper is is composition "Pieceful Heart". What rhythm, what time is that ? Must be hard to play.....