Gheorghe

It was my very very first jazz LP. That´s when everything started for me. It had another cover then.

Oh interesting. I had forgotten about the fact that once in Germany were stationed US soldiers. As much as I remember (as I said I was more a record listener than a radio listener because I wanted to hear albums not tracks), when I was a boy and had that old radio that existed then (with that wooden frame and those white yellowish buttons it was only the O3 that I "listened" to. Seeking for music by chance on MW, LW or KW was stessing, because those always had them "parazites" in them to avoid proper listening. It always cracked or beeped (but not bopped😄)

Wow, I fear I have to admit I had to run your statement thru google translate to fully understand it. I think I was listening to radio only until I bought more LPs myself or stopped completly when I was 17,18 and went alone to the clubs or started to perform myself. I fear I never really was "in tune" with radio listening because I want to decide, when and what music I hear. There were some jazz hours on Ö3, and I listened only to one: "Jazz Shop by Herwig Wurzer". This was only jazz LPs (spinning one or two tracks from an LP so folks might buy it. There was also "Jazz by Erich Kleinschuster" but this was mostly his own music. And "Fatty George" was not my music. Music is such a thing I can´t listen to it just coincidally or while washing dishes or reading a book, so I fear I never really was the tipical radio listener. Since many decades I don´t even own a radio. I have a turntable, a CD-player. Is AFM what we called "UKW" when I listened to radio. We had UKW, KW, MW and UKW had Ö1 classic, Ö2 "volkmusic" and oom pah pah, and Ö3 was mostly pop and a few hours jazz. Ahmad Jamal I fear was not so much on the direct focus when I got my education. I think that mentors mentioned him as a stylistic influence for Miles and Garland thru Miles, but I fear they didn´t make efforts to pull our coats directly to Ahmad.

Allan Praskin is booked here in Vienna next week at Jazzland. We work as a quintet format, and it´s me on piano. Freddie Hubbard was THE trumpet player everybody talked about during my boyhood and youth. He had left a big impression here since his first appearance in Graz with the Max Roach Group, where he is recorded including his cursing the audience as "jive assed muthaf+++++s" but he was damn right because they laughed during a solo cadenza of him. But we knew this kind: The more the artist "hated" the audience, the more the audience loved him, same with Miles here in Austria during those years. It´s strange that Diz was not mentioned much in the early 70´s by us hipsters, well yeah in context with Bird, but I doubt many had his albums of the 50´s, 60´s or early 70´s. But Hubbard, well mostly when VSOP started and we were crazy about VSOP after years of late free jazz and electric jazz.

I have read so much about Ahmad Jamal and never heard him. From the first Davis LP I had, and from the first Jazz Book I had, is is mentioned as one of the few musicians Miles Davis admired or said he was influenced by. I am not sure, for what labels he recorded since I fear that the labels that were available during the time I bought records, had featured him. I read that stuff like "Gal in Calico", "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" , those light hearted medium swingers with them light touch piano solos alterated by block chords (Garlands trademark) was influenced by Jamal. And that Miles said that he liked Garland because he had some influence from Jamal. Is it possible that on one of those Davis records there is a tune "Ahmad´s Blues". But I think that though it was on a Davis album it was only a trio feature and how it was as a young boy: no Davis, no Trane, lesser attention, same thing with the trio track "Billy Boy" on "Milestones". So I only had read about Jamal. It is possible that in those years when was busy to learn to play Ahmad Jamal was lesser active. It was more the years of the beginning of electric jazz, and those who played acoustic, were the heavy weighters like MCoy Tyner with his various Milestone recordings, and Herbie with VSOP.

We all had this ! It was shortly after the similar former band. It´s only that Dave Liebman was replaced by Sonny Fortune. The Aghartha was easy to purchase but somehow I managed to get also the more difficult to find "Pangheea" where the first tune was the same as the first tune we had heard live here in Vienna before. The fact that I was the guy who also had "Pangheea" and "Dark Magus" somehow upgraded me in our community 🙂

I heard her once in 1985 at Hollabrunn Jazz Festival. The remarkable thing was, that the first musician scheduled was Miles Davis, and after that was Astrud, and the musicians of Davis´ group all were in the audience listening to Astrud. I don´t know if Miles also listened from a more hidden place. I know that Miles once praised the Getz-Gilberto album and one of his themes from the electric period "Maisha" also was a pure bossa nova with that light bossa feeling.

Roman Schwaller, one of my favourites and such a great musician. I have jammed with him on some occasions, just a few weeks ago he sat in on a wonderful "Lover Man" in the original version in Db. So many stories. He was part of the Viena Art Orchestra, and around 1980 I saw him after a concert of Sonny Stitt when they tried to build up a Three Tenors Jam at a famous nightclub here in town. Roman and Harry (Sokal) were great but a very drunk Sonny Stitt fooled around. I love the album, the repertory and the fellow musicians. That drummer Freddie Waits is great !

This must be great ! That´s the quartet with Dewey Redman ? Who was the others ? Haden and Ornette jr ? The Ornette Coleman of the late sixties is very interesting. While his late 50´s /early 60´s records for me don´t sound like "free jazz" since they still have much swing rhythm, is style in the late 60´s became more "rubato" playing and maybe that´s what I understood more as being "free jazz". Well, on the two BN´s "NY is Now" and "Love Call" their is still much swing, but this may have been ordered by Lion and Wolff (it must "schwing"). I prefer the two Impluse! albums from that time. Maybe Roma-Italia is similar to that ? I bought that under very strange circumstances, it was a little bus that sold records, near the festival cort of "Velden Jazztage 1979" , where there was a lotta records of more advanced players, but from very very strange small labels. That´s where I got this double album. It is somehow the first one, that got Shepp back to more conservative forms like the straight ahead blues "for Donald Duck".

sounds like a great evening. About lyrics in German, I can´t say much. There was an aged amateur singer and jazz sessions sit-inner here, who wrote lyrics in German to American standards. "Our Love is here to stay" became "Unsere Liebe bleibt bestehn" . Reading your event I´m sure that your german friend does a better job singing in German.

Yes, Herbie-Chick...that was a big deal in the late 70´s. Their album sold very well. Maybe it was not the players who mostly bought it, it was more the audiences. But it was part of our collections. Most of us were big fans of VSOP, some of the not strictly jazz bound folks were more into RTF, but I remember that each new record on the marked was discussed and spinned in company. We all had typical well selling records of that time, mostly from the Milestone or CBS label. VSOP, McCoy´s "Supertrios", "Milestone Stars in Concert", and sure the Hancock-Corea duo album, though in my case it got lesser spinning . But I still like to listen to it, mostly for recreating the "mood" of those days......

Some young jazz students today seem to re discover "Serpent´s Tooth". It´s interesting how some of Miles´ compositions from those early fifties are mostly bop lines but they have that little "Miles Davis" touch in them, somehow capturing the one or other sound from "Birth of the Cool".

All of Miles´ Prestige albums are great. I can´t say about different sound quality from different editions since I only bought my LPs or CDs once. Actually, one of the four classic first quintet Prestige albums was the first jazz I ever heard when I was a kid. It´s strange that "Steamin´" was the only album available then. I learned later about "Cookin´" "Relaxin´" and "Workin´". Is this the one with a version of Dizzy´s "Woody´n You" ? I love that tune and I love the arrangement of the out chorus, which I think was originally written by John Lewis for the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band. I have not listened to those albums for a long time. The only thing I can say about good sound quality is, that I think all Prestige records have a good sound quality. One of those albums I think has a blues "Trane´s Blues" and I remember that Philly J.J.´s fantastic cymbal sound is well recorded, and that´s what is very important to me. When I first heard it shortly after it came out, I didn´t understand the lyrics or only a few fragments of it and surely not the other implications. And anyway Dexter´s speaking voice in those later days was not easy to understand, or almost un-understandable for "auslanders" 😉 with only some self taught english from dictionaries and liner notes. I remember I "understood" : "Baby I just called you w o n d e r f u l " (instead of "on the phone") and the ending of "so bye bye now" ..... Most lyrics of any kind sounded like "rhabarber" to me. But the thing I quickly remembered on that track was that really relaxed easy listening blues in F. The singing voice of Dexter here is wonderful, he could have done more of it. I heard him "try" it again in 1983 when he "closed" a miserable and extremly short set with this. Then I still didn´t understand the lyrics (I only read them in the Billy Eckstine book". Usually I don´t listen to very loud music in the car, but on that early morning I was in such an exuberant mood that I really turned the volume up, while standing in a little "stau".

That´s a great statement. I have that album under the title "Dig". "Conception" is a tune I love, but usually I perform it in the original AABA form (12 bars A section, 8 bars the bridge) in Db. The Miles Davis version is a quite assymetric form, and there are different opinions how many bars it has. I heard so many live version of Miles doing it and I think there are more than one occasions where the musicians busted the form a little. "Out of Blue" is very nice, based on "Get Happy" and we love to perform this. And yeah, those old records we bought when we was young always have a certain place in our hearts. Pharoah Sanders has a special importance for me. One of my first LP´s almost 5 decades ago was "Live at the East". I saw Pharoah on more occasions maybe similar to this one (I don´t know that album), and it was similar to Archie Shepp, that during the late 70´s they switched from free to classic quartet, featuring standard material. I love Pharoah´s version of "On A Misty Night".

Besides the wonderful gig with Joe Henderson, I saw her some years later with Joe Farrell (nothing special remembered about this) and in course of that set I think to remember she also did a duo without drums and the saxophone. Well, this must have been a trademark of her. I don´t remember really. But for me it´s not the mere happiness without a drummer.

Today early in the morning after a fishing trip for Pikeperch, drivin´ home with my USP and listening to my old and favourite bop album of Dameron with Fats Navarro at Royal Roost. Vintage bop with first class solos, and two very fine ballad vocal features by Kenny Haggood, a very slow version of "Pennis from Heaven" and the short "The Kitchenette Across the Hall" , which maybe was composed by Tadd with lyrics also by Tadd. When it was over, the next album was Dexter´s Swiss Nights with the rare vocal by Dexter on "Jelly Jelly Jelly". Very fine, very swinging, and both Dex and Kenny Drew wonderful.

I heard Joanne Brackeen with Joe Henderson in the late 70´s, maybe 1978 and she was fantastic and the audience loved here. I heard her later with what was called a Joe Farrell Quartet (strange it would have been with Chet Baker added as the star of the group, but Chet was great in disappearing) and it was fair, but never close to here playing for Henderson. There was also one or two duos with the bass player whose name I don´t recall (is there a bassist Clint Houston ?). But piano-bass duo is not so much my thing. I have a very hard time listening to something where there´s no drums.

I love to see that you spin Fritz Pauer, really astonishing for a young guy from the states to even know about him ! So I like to tell you that he was my mentor, there were times we met every night, when not playing then just hangin´out and I wouldn´t know about music what I know now, without his help and kind support. And I wouldn´t have had bookings at age of 18+ if he would not had let me sit in. How´s Herbie Hancock-Ron Carter-Tony Williams ? As a freak of VSOP when it happened I had all of it, but I was not aware of a trio record. How does Williams sound on it ? If it´s not a record where the drums is only in the background as happens with many studio albums, I would dare to buy it. P.S.: Thanks for the advice with Hubbard at Keystone, you right, this is MY music. Got it shipped yesterday ! I love it. All those arrangements, the band, the fantastic choice of ballads, that fantastic voice. It´s a pity there are so few male singers around there, you find ton´s of female singers, but to add a good balladeer to a good instrumental group would be a very interesting thing. This is one of the few albums I listen to quite often. And you play those ballads much better if you have heard it sung with the lyrics. You just get what you need to know to play that ballad properly....

Really ? ? I don´t know if the "chicks" I would have liked to date would have listened to Keith Jarrett´s Koln Concert. And I would not have had this kind of style. My only ECM was Dave Liebman´s "Drum Ode". When I started to listen to Jazz the only thing from Keith that I knew was his damn good keyboard-organ stuff in some early electric Miles feature. I think it was the album "Live Evil". But chicks and jazz. Yeah back then in the 70´s there were also women who went to the clubs, but as much as I remember they didn´t look like what I would have looked at. I think it would have happened very rare to see a long haired, long legs chick with some "dangerous heels" and "shiny stockings" in a jazz joint then. So this was strictly music business for me. To learn to play, to meet the musicians. Back to Mosaic ! I didn´t know about Mosaic before I became a forum member. I have two Mosaic sets, which it seems I bought only for one album on each of it. 1) Mingus Jazzworkshop: I bought it because somehow I never had the "My Favourite Quintet" from Minneapolis 1965, because I wanted to hear that ballad medley and that long version of "So Long Eric". I think I knew the rest: One CD is what was "Mingus at Town Hall" or something like that. One is what was "Music written for Monterey", and one or two was a concert in Netherlands with very much of the material of the "Great Concert" in Paris 1964, but not as good as the Paris material and not as well recorded. So if I listen to that Mosaic box, I only listen to the 1965 Minneapolis material. 2) That Clifford Jordan box: The strange thing is I only bought it for the one disc that is not Cliff Jordan: That "Rhythm X" or how it is called, with Charles Brackeen-Don Cherry-Charlie Haden-Ed Blackwell, since this was a very very rare record in my youth that I only had on cassette from an elder avantgarde-freak. I love Cliff Jordan, but more his 50´s BNs, his participation on "Speak Brother Speak" and with Mingus , and then again after the mid seventies with the magic triangle live, or what followed. But on that Mosaic much of the music seemed to be a quite worn out attempt of playing straight ahead jazz in years like 1968, when there was hard times even for free jazz. And somehow the Glasspearl Game never really got me. A sacrilege sure , but I can´t help. Otherwise I think I´m not the ideal Mosaic Listener. I don´t have the patience to listen to 5 consecutive albums of one and the same artist or the same period. As a playing musician time for extended record listening is scarce and the listening mostly has a purpose if the leader who get´s me to play with him want´s certain themes where I maybe do some research before, to listen who it sounds on the original..... When I was younger once I tried to listen to all albums of a certain musicain for let´s say a week. Let´s say I wanna listen to all Mingus I have. But could I ? Who knows what mood I´m in the next day ? How the vibrations are, what my feelings are next day, next couple of hours ? I can´t predict what I will listen to tomorrow or next day ?

really, late 1969 ? And for your thought: I´m sure you are right, that Miles may not have been directly influenced by Indian music, and that it came through rock incorporation of indian instrumentations. I know that there were tons of unissued studio material from around 1970 but I must admit I never collected that. I had the Miles Davis albums subsequently from 1972-75, and retrospective the released LPs from the older "Filles de Kilimangiaro" "Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" and the almost forgotten "Jack Johnson", that was what I found in the stores, and rare during that time you might have found a "Steamin´" with another LP cover (which coincidentially was my first Miles LP). It must have been issued in 1971 or so). And about the Indian influence. I think mostly Alice Coltrane had that thing. There were still a lot of hippies who loved India when I was in that period. The only association I had is that there were those shops for hip clothing for youngsters where I bought some "indian shirts" .... I think real indian influence if people/artists had that, it included much more than just music, it might have been some religion or philosophy, and what I had heard about Miles I doubt he would have been receptive for that stuff.

Same here when I was 16, with the exception that I listened only to Jazz. At that age mostly to Miles and Mingus, I still had to learn about the rest. And, I was only THINKING about sex because women that would have appealed to me were unaproachable for me. They were for men who have more power and money, not for a smoking and drinking and jazzlistening shy kid....

I don´t have the Basie version but I think I heard a version with Thad Jones starting his solo a semitone up (Db) quoting "Pops goes the Weasel" , quite a trademark. I think I heard it on a Thad Jones small group album with the same gimmick that seemed to be a trademark.

I´ve thought that a bit of India influence in Miles´ music was a bit later that the late 60´s ? Shortly before I got acquainted to the music of Miles, there was that album "Miles in Concert" 1972 where they have Badal Roy, and a guy who´s name is Balakrishna or somethin like that. The 1973 Miles I heard didn´t have the indian touch anymore, but was very fine. But the actual album in the record stores was "In Concert".

Oh, I never saw this. Sounds like a dream combination. Did they record Burrage properly, I mean is it recorded in a way you HEAR the drums ? I would like to hear it and will look after it.

Oh, first I thought this is the Austrian painter Prof. Hermann Nitsch. He was one of my favourite trumpet players from the young lions or what they were called back than in the 80´s and early 90´s. But then he was not so fat. What was the cause of his death, he must have been younger than me.