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I haven´t heard it but I remember well that I picked up a similar album also with Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins with Clifford Jordan added, I remember some really fine versions of "Old Devil Moon" and "St. Thomas" and a medium tempo version of "I Should Care". It was very fine. I heard some Bob Berg somewhere, he was fine, I think he was somehow the post Trane generation like Dave Liebman. But otherwise than "Lieb" , he somehow didn´t find his place in the Miles Davis Group, but maybe this was not his fault, it was just, that otherwise than the Miles from 73 to 75 was exiting, the late 80´s band just sucked, no good tunes, too much synthies and drum machines.....

I´m no completist of any musician but saw Billy Harper with Max Roach and also have an LP "Live in Amsterdam" . This group which had Billy Harper and Reggie Workman was the best . I didn´t like Odean Pope so much at first hearing for his almost bassoon like sound, and found Calvin Hill´s too amplified plastic sounding bass sound not so fine. The music had more "heart" with Billy Harper and Reggie Workman.

Well I think the Sound of Shorter is a bit strange compared to other great tenorists, but I think I was made for the sounds that didn´t appeal to everybody, I mean Jackie McLean......as soon as I heard him I was "hooked" . It must have to do with the times I lived in and the jazz community I was surrounded by ......and my own personality which can be a bit difficult at sometimes. I practically started with Mingus-Dolphy collaboration, Dolphy was my first hero on alto and I think this has much to do with my preference of saxophone sound and approach of the notes......

The early Griffin album is very fine with Max Roach. But who is the other LP, is this Albert Ayler ?

It´s a very good album but the best stuff was still to come. My favourite albums of him are from 1965-1967, his most creative period. If I should choose only two of them it might be "All Seeing Eye" and "Schizophrenia". The next Shorter I have is only from my favourite group "VSOP" . I saw him live in 2005 but it was a more subtile music, it didn´t have that power that I love.

For me the rhythm thing in piano playing is very important. Monk would have been a natural drummer so good he sounds on piano. I try to keep at least something of that spirit and feeling in my own playing. But I can´t do it on a percussion instrument. Everybody who don´t know me things I´m a drummer so much do I love the drums or drums together with percussion, may it be bongo or conga. But what´s happening here ? So few musicians online the last 2 months ?

This is a nice little record and done about the time I heard Chet live for the first time (1979). Though I was already an active player and had been a jazz fan since my early teens, the name Chet Baker was completly unknown to me until there was a title story about him in Jazz Podium around 1978. Though this was too much about his former drug affairs, I couldn´t believe it. The man on the cover photo looks like a happy middle aged guy in casual look, enjoying a beautiful late afternoon in the park. I had thought than that drug users are more hippie style and lookin´ weird. The music is great, and I think trio settings like this one were ideal for him. Though first I was pissed of that there is no drummer, I soon understood that this music can be enjoyed even without drums. Later, Baker used a flute player but I somehow don´t have much affection for flute sound, especially when that guy Nicola Stilo got too much in the high register which hearts my ears. I have seen Chet Baker so many times in my live. The last time it was only a half year before he died and he played wonderful. I don´t have this but Lous Hayes is such a great drummer. I once saw him with Dizzy Gillespie and it was magic.....

John Coltrane was a fantastic ballad player all the time. It was only with Miles Davis that Trane usually laid out on them. When Trane died, Pharoah Sanders kept on with the great ballad tradition. "Welcome to Love" is an album that proves it. One of my favourite ballads played by Trane always was "I wanna talk about you". I´ve never bought an album more than just one time. I wouldn´t know what to do with them. Those I had on LP I didn´t re-buy on CD only with the exeption if the original album was destroyed or lost somewhere which seldom happens. I have heard those expressions "SACD" but don´t really know what it is.

I saw him many times live, mostly as a single with local players, or once with Curtis Fuller.

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".