Gheorghe

Yeah, the Electric Period was what was goin´on when I got acquainted to jazz. Though the first listening experience on record when I was a kid was acoustic Miles with Trane, Garland, Paul and Philly J.J., soon everybody was talking about the electric period. It became so popular that groopies at school would buy huge sunglasses and so on. It was just the times, it was to be a nasty kid in that period, interested in other stuff than disco. Nasty boys, raunchy girls.....that was our bunch of teenies😄. About how it was THEN, in the 60´s and not from point of today or from point of my youth or prime, I only know what older guys told me, those kind of "bigger brothas" who was let´s say 10-15 years older than me. Those who told me what the attended in the 60´s, many of them who went to Graz, then and now an important center of jazz in Austria, where they told me what they saw live, what I only heard later on record , like Rollins in Graz, the Max Roach Quintet with Hubbard and Spaulding and so on.....and of course Miles in bigger venues like Koncerthaus. My first Miles was 1973, and one friend who was 5 years older saw Miles in 1971 with that group with Steve Grossman and Keith Jarrett, he also saw the "Giants of Jazz" in 1972 in Viena. I was 14 only in 1973 so that´s were it started for me to go out and see concerts....

Yes, the i at the end, as "Goicovici" is the romanian phonetic way to spell slavonic names. Hungarian names usually were not romanianized as much, but for the majority the hungarian ö and ü was not easy to pronounce, and it is from case to case pronounced as "o" and "u" , or als "io" and "iu" for example in the case of German cities. So romanian people if they can´t pronounce the ö or the ü they say "Chioln" for "Köln", and "Niuremberg" for "Nürnberg", or "Düsseldorf" sounds like somewhat like "Diusedov"😄 In the 50´s there was a stronger nationalism when it comes to Hungarian surnames. My brother in law would have been "Jozsef" but this was not allowed in the Birth Certificate so in his passport it is "Iosif". And my mother in law´s name , born Ilona was changed into Ileana in her bulletin (romanian common word for "Personalausweis"). That would also explain the thing with Nadia Comaneci. About the phonetic spelling of "Jazz" in Eastern Europe.....in România even if it is written als "Jazz" it usually is pronounced with the european a, like in Russia. Jazz also had a big following, there were and still are international jazz festivals in Sibiu, concerts în Brașov and of course București, and there was the legendary festival at the Black Sea, in the holiday resort of Costinești but I fear on the litoral (Black Sea) there remained only things like șlagăr festival but I have not been at the Black Sea for decades, in the youth it was annual.

Yes, those days were wonderful. Though I´m strictly music and don´t care very much for the rest, let me remark one thing about the writing of his name. There was a phenomen down there in Eastern/South Eastern Europe, that each country writes certain names in different ways. I have heard that the original writing of his name in Yugoslavia was else than the way he had adopted it in the States and in Western Europe. Many of the slavonic names were written in kyrrilic letters and the countries that had roman letters like in my case wrote the name in a completly different manner. It was in this case „Dușco Goicovici” , but I think the common way to write it in all the world became Goykovich.

Nice to read a story about the first impressions of a certain record. My youth was similar to yours. And in my case I think it was Coltranes "Live at the Village Vanguard Again", the one with Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane , Rashied Ali. And I had similar feelings with all my first 60´s avantgarde albums: Sun Ra´s "Nothing Is", Pharoah Sanders "Live at the East", Ornette Coleman´s "Empty Foxhole). It is strange that my main preferences were 40´s bebop and 60´s free jazz. I think I have that, with those long tracks . It´s great horn playing, but somehow something from the rhythm section (bass and drums) is missing for me. It sounds incredible straight and metronomelike from the rhythm. Dex and Gray are extraordinary, Howard McGhee is one of my favourites, maybe I´m not a big fan of Sonny Criss in comparation to them.

I dont know what "biggest" in jazz terms should mean. I have heard that let´s say Stan Getz with his Bossa Nova stuff , and Dave Brubeck were more common names in the avarage households, but I doubt that they left such a legacy like Miles. There are some bossa things I like if they have tricky changes (the best bossa I ever heard was Hank Mobley´s "Boss Bossa" with Jackie McLean), but much of it is more background music, good for a late afternoon drink at the pool that´s how it sounds to me often..... fine and smooth, but nothing that might get me into extasis like some Miles Second Quintet, some Trane, some Mingus, Ornette Coleman from the same period. I don´t want to say that this is "better music" but God knows why those mentioned musicians appeals to me and makes me feel good, and other stuff doesn´t move me that much, they sound good and you can enjoy it with a fine lady and have a dance, but if it´s strictly about music, I´m more the lowner guy....

Must be nice. First I had thought this is the Dex-Griff Encounter from my old LP "Great Encounters" which also has Blues Up and Down", but it is not. The rhythm section must be really great. I have read so much about Hampton Hawes´ time in Europe in his autobio "Raise Up Off Me" and I think I have read that he had played with Griff in Italy, but didn´t read about an encounter with Dex and Griff together too. I only have one Dex-Hawes collaboration where it is also Kenny Clark on drums, but Hawes plays the Fender Rhodes, which also sounds nice. I saw Jimmy Woode very often during his stay in Europe, but to my shame I never saw "Klook" live. I had hoped he will be there with the "Paris Reunion Band" but he was not. I didn´t have the money to go to Paris during the time Klook worked there.

I have Konitz with Tristano, and one side of Konitz with Miles and Bird´s rhythm section (but that´s bop tunes, only the cool sound of Konitz is in contrast to it and it´s very very fine), and maybe the Lee Konitz-Miles Davis early Prestige date with "Ezzthetics" and some Konitz tracks without Miles, that sound very abstract + some Teddy Charles). From Stan Getz I have an early Prestige Date I think, it´s with Bird´s rhythm section or so, with Al Haig, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes. That´s a bop rhythm section in contrast with the very cool Getz sound, mostly his "Long Island Sound" if I remember right. From the "Capitol" label I think the only thing I have is "Birth of the Cool".....

I love that record and I think I purchased it more than 45 years ago. This is some of the very best Bud Powell I ever heard, as I always liked mostly what he did with horns. The J.J. Johnson sides sounded very strange to me then, since I had expected a similar bebop power run, but it sounds more in the vein of "Cool Jazz". Afternoon In Paris is a wonderful tune, I have played it often, as I did the fast tunes from the Sonny Stitt sides "Fine and Dandy" "All Got´s Chillun got Rhythm", "I want to be happy " and what is more on that. Since you mention the Rollins biography that I still have not read, I remember once I heard a Rollins version of "Afternoon" in Paris which I think was with some musicians from Miles Davis´ 2nd Quintet which really burns. P.S.: I think my discography of so called "Cool Jazz" is very very small. I have some Lennie Tristano from the late 40´s , of course "Birth of the Cool" but I think that´s it. I love them very much but I think I have to be in a certain non playing mood when I listen to it.

I have this one and from the same author one about Hank Mobley. Maybe my expectations were too great, but it´s a bit "dusty" written, it´s only facts that I already know. So it´s not much more than a chronology thru his recordings. I have read better bio´s like the one about Paul Chambers for example, or about Lee Morgan.

I think I had listened thru all the tunes of that album (Misterious Traveller) and couldn´t identify what I had in my mind that was spinned then in the late 70´s . The thing is that I´m not really a Weather Report fan and was not. Once I heard that Miles said in an interview in 1975 that Weather Report sound´s "foggy". Well sometimes it sounds like a musical fog and my first choice on electric jazz of the 70´s from the beginning when I was in the middle of the wave was and still is the Miles Davis until 1975 or so, mostly the band with Al Foster, Mtume, Dave Liebman, and second choice might have been Hancock´s "Headhunters" and third choice might have been RTF. With your help I could identify "Mr Gone" that kind of space age "swing tune", which was spinned together with the tune I´m seekin. So I suggest it might have been from an earlier album. Usually Herwig Wurzer spinned something which is new on the market since his "sendung" was called "Jazz Shop". But he often spinned a second tune by the same artist as a comparation. So I remember when he once spinned the then brand new Dușco Goicovici album "After Hours" , he spinned as a second tune "Saga Secorame" from "Swinging Macedonia" . And once he spinned the brand new "Ecclusiastics" from the then latest Mingus Album "Mingus and Friends at Carnegie Hall" and after that the old "Better get it in ya soul" from the late 50´s ..... I think this was his style of spinnin records...., oh boy he had that sonor voice, the voice of jazz, the voice of the night, like "your" Symphony Sid from Birdland .....

I remember I bought it since I love Kenny Burrell and seeing that Paul Chambers and my favourite Danny Richmond are on that album I bought it without knowing who is John Jenkins. Very very nice little album, I think John Jenkins sounds a bit like Jackie McLean, but I haven´t listened to it for at least 20 years. Well, typical nice hard bop, without taking too many risks, easy listening. My copy is one of those Japanese "Toshiba" I think, but before they made the Mini LP cover formats.

I remember his arrangements on the Chet Baker album "You Can´t Go Home", which is nice, especially because it brought Chet Baker to a larger audience. He was very proud of that album and played "Love for Sale" always with that arrangement, in all his small groups over here in Europe.

Though I have not idea what the title means or who is that group, my attention was taken to that lure with three triple hooks. As it seems that you are a fisherman too, this kind of setting of three triple hooks is really a downer. Not only that it hurts the fish unnessesarly and you might have also all them free hooks in the landing net and it takes time to get them out, as more hooks you have as more fish you loose. That lure is to small so many hooks, I can understand it for big fish with XXL lures on lower waters, but not on an upper section of a River where there might be trouts. Here in Austria, for trout rivers we have "Fly Only" with barbless single hook.....

I remember that around that time this music still was quite controversial. My first jazz book was Bill Cole´s bio about Miles Davis, who just wrote off Miles´ post "Kilimanjaro" material, he even acclaimed that "On the Corner" is an insult on the intellect of the people. Incredible. We youngsters of course had that record, in my case I had "In Concert" (live version of much material from "On the Corner") and I think I listened more to "In Concert" because it has longer solos by Miles. But Miles never stopped, one year after "On the Corner" was when I got into Miles and those more exotic instruments like electric sitar and the tablas of Badal Roy where gone and it was the music that you can hear on "Dark Magus". So in my case, hearing more the "Dark Magus" "Agharta" and "Pangheea" stuff, the "On the Corner" style was already from the past.

One of my favourites , I don´t have so much Wes Montgomery, but I have the Incredible Guitar, So Much Guitar, a Montgomery Trio (I think those are Riverside), and most of all I love the live dates here like this, and "Full House" with Griff and Miles Davis´ Rhythm Section......

One of the best BN albums of the 60´s, with the best playing of all of them and incredible fantastic tunes. I never was a fan of the organ, but Larry Young really is exiting on that. Strange to say I don´t get the same feeling from his other BN albums. Well the one with Sam Rivers is also tops, but this one is the best. I had another "Of Love and Peace" but can listen only to "Seven Steps to Heaven". The first long tune just is not mine.

I remember this was the last thing that came out, after Mingus had died. I remember that as a complete Mingus fan I was waiting every year for the Year´s output of a new Mingus LP on Atlantic. First it was "Changes 1+2" then "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" and then "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion". That was during the time Mingus was alive and touring all around the world and I also could see him live. The "Me Myself and I" I think was recorded, when he still was alive but couldn´t play anymore. I always wondered how those long tracks "Three Worlds of Drums" and "Something like a Bird" would have sounded live with Mingus playing the bass in the band. I think the ideas came during his 1977 tour where he also played in Tunis where he got some inspirations for the "3 Worlds of Drums". And the "Something like a Bird" might have been a follower of "Three or Four Shades of the Blues", that means : One suite , and one straight ahead tune. Enough for one show. "Something like a Bird" as you sure know is based on "Idaho" . "Farwell Farwell" is a wonderful ballad in D - flat, with wonderful solos by Coryell and by Ricky Ford. This ballad was also recorded when Mingus still had his health and played the band, I think it is on that Lionel Hampton session, but the paradox thing is as though Mingus plays bass on that version of Farwell, the arrangement is no good and the Hampton styled vibe just doesn´t fit in. So this one is the really power piece, to bad that Mingus couldn´t play on it anymore....

Strange thing, just a few days ago I heard my only stuff I have with Harry Belafonte, it is "Lean on Me" with the Machito Orchestra on the Spotlite LP "Afro Cubop" where it is the last piece. Very very fine number. I had not heard that vocal number in other context.

Red Clay was on of the MUST HAVE albums in our teenage jazz "gang" . Such a wonderful album ! This one, some VSOP Quintet, some Milestone album like new Rollins albums, McCoy Tyner albums, and of course the electric jazz albums like all of Miles in the 70´s, Herbie´s Headhunters and RTF. We especially liked the live version of Red Clay on one of the VSOP albums. I would have been sure that this is something very very similar like "Aghartha". Almost same cover art. I´m not famililar with Keith Tippett´s work, but always was a freak of electric Miles. Wasn´t Ligeti a modern classic composer from Hungary ? I´m not so familiar with classical music, but I think I heard some once and dug it and thought it might fit to Miles Davis (I think on "Get Up with it" is something similar to Ligeti, that has Miles on organ). What is that "In Concert" up there ? From the musicians, is it something similar to VSOP ? I never had heard about that record

The best George Cables work I heard on a tape that a guy made at Vanguard during that period. That solo on "Moment´s Notice" great, with shouts of enthusiasm from the audience. And Cable´s original "I told you so" , which is bossa all thru on the record, is swing in solos on the live tape. And Rufus Reid plays a great bowed solo. Sorry to say I didn´t know that I had to reel back the cassette after hearing, and after decades, when I wanted to listen to it again, especially the ballads have terrible wovers in the middle. That´s the thing, got the cassette when I was 18,19, placed it somewhere and then in the 2000´s it´s not good anymore . Same with some Mingus cassettes I had......

This was around the time after I had finished hi school, there were two "brandnew" Dexter records in the record shops, this one and "Great Encounters" (similar covers). I is so long from that time, but it still sounds "modern" and is almost my idea of a perfect acoustic jazz quartet album. Usually I am 100/100 into the music only, but in this case I also must admit, that the cover photo, the design and the liner notes is perfect. I music colleage of mine was in NY during the time this was recorded and heard them play that material live at Vanguard !!! I think, Dexter still had a few very good years in the late 70´s until maybe the early 80´s, when I still heard some very very fine concerts. It was only the last occasion that was a disappointment for me and others and was painfully reminding of of the infamous "Lover Man Session" of Bird in the 40´s .

It´s possible that it is lesser known than "Black Saint" but also a wonderful album. I think that beautiful ballad on it, it´s titled somehow like "Love X" or so, I first heard it on the "Town Hall Concert" where it is also one of my favourites. Though my favourite Mingus period is the time with Dolphy, Cliff Jordan and Jakie Byard with all those live recordings from the States and from Europe, I like those earlier albums starting with "Blues and Roots" very very much. I heard them before I saw Mingus live (but this was after his famous "second group" with Adams-Pullen). So I might say his most exiting groups were the one with Dolphy and 10 years later the one with Adams-Pullen. (Tough I liked the one with Ricky Ford and Jack Walrath also very very much).

I´m almost an addict of the alto sound of Jackie McLean. On all kinds of music, whether he plays stuff with one step into avantgarde, modal, or on more traditional material like here. "What´s New" was a favourite of him, I saw him play it live with a dream formation: He, Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis and Billy Higgins, that was one of my favourite live performances. "Stable Mates": This is my most preferred version of that great tune.

I had those two versions of "Wedding March" when I bought the CD version of "Cumbia" since my LP was so much spinned when it came out (Me and my friends had listened to it so much as it was played live by the Mingus band. We loved it so much that we played it in the group I was in then . But when I heard those "Wedding March" tracks I had or still have doubts that it´s Mingus who plays that. It sounds too "pianistic" for what I had heard Mingus checkin´ out on piano. It sounds like a pianist with a very delicate light touch. It´s nothing else than the short "caucasian" piano interlude on "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" which is played by Jimmy Rowles. See, that studio version of "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" is grossly overproduced. I heard it live from the quintet with Jack Walrath and Ricky Ford and with Bob Neloms on piano. I mean nothing wrong with Jimmy Rowles, but to get him in the studio ONLY to play a short piano passage ? Any pianist could play that simple maybe one minute gimmick which starts with Wedding March and that little waltz that seems to be an English Waltz. And it was recorded at Atlantic Studio AFTER the "Three or Four Shades" recording session. So maybe it was done afterwards just as one of the versions suggested for dubbin in the piano solo waltz section. I think that "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" is not Mingus´ best composition, I was much more impressed with "Cumbia" and with "Sue´s Changes" from what I heard them play on stage. Until I didn´t hear it on record I had thought it was just a gimmick to makin fun of a "square audience" or so. They had some "gimmicks" in the stage routine then, like in the fade out of "Cumbia" Mingus would continue to play straight ahead walking while the others already had stopped, he plucked the strings and tapped his foot to it, and it went higher and higher up until you couldn´t here more than just his foot tappin ´. I a Brian Priestley discography I think I saw another studio session described as "late 1977" with a track titled "Way Down Blues". But I never heard that. It was between that strange Hampton session and "Me Myself and I"......

Well, in 1970 it is possible that Bud Powell was quite forgotten. The missing of Mingus is also quite strange, but Mingus in 1970 was coming back after many many years of semi retirement and his comeback in 1970 was much less glamourous than Miles´comeback in the early 80´s . I´m quite astonished that "Bitches Brew" is not present. Well he has listed "Silent Way" so maybe "Bitches" still was not in the record stores. The Wayne Shorter BN albums and the inclusion of "Real McCoy" proves good taste. George Russell I "know" only as composer of "Ezzthetics" (played by Lee Konitz-Miles Davis, and on a Grant Green record for BN), and from some more strange and abstract tunes in some Gillespie Big Band records from the 40´s, but they are the tracks I seldom listen to.