Gheorghe

I think I´m more an outsider if it comes about more easy listenable jazz. So much stuff that was celebrated by different fans all over the decades (Mulligan, Brubeck, mainstream swing, soul jazz like maybe Ramsey Lewis and Adderly stuff in the style of "Mercy Mercy" just didn´t enter in my collections. I´m glad for everybody who likes one or the other style of jazz, that´s true. Just, that to my ears or to my maybe more complex personality the more "easy listening" kind of it doesn´t appeal. I want Bop´n Bird/Diz, Mingus, Trane, Ornette, Jackie McLean or from the seventies mostly the electric Miles from 73-75, and most of all , all them fantastic drummers who would thrill me, Max. Elvin, Roy Haynes, Al Foster, Tony Williams and so on..... That´s not a good example for comfortable evenings, but that´s my musical personality. I did some years of listening to easier stuff like fifties hardbop, those BN´s of the Messengers, Horace, Hank, Lee Morgan, but have not listened much to them for some years...., and maybe the only organ I love is Larry Young.

Johnny Griffin was the first US-musician I heard when I was around 15 and the story repeated itself when my younger son also heard him when he was 15, so it´s almost a family affair ... I love to listen to Griffin, but he is not my absolute favourite on tenor. Very much showcase, that´s true. Very very nice those two albums at Five Spot, really ! But for star saxophonists who had short tenures with Monk, I like Trane better. And for strictly Monk, which is my main purpose I love Charlie Rouse most, for his sound and for his phrasings because he really seems to be Monk´s alter ego on stage. For really getting inside Monk I prefer Charlie Rouse. Paul Jeffrey not as much. After Rouse he seems to be a disappointment for me. I heard extended live sets of Jeffrey with Monk from 1972 and 75 but Jeffrey seems to have a complete different style. I was not familiar with Jeffrey´s playing until then, had heard about him only from the years when he arranged for Mingus and sometimes was added on tenor in the studio, but I think without soloing....

No, it´s another album or another cover. It doesn´t have Monk

That´s why I said it will be a sacrilege what I will write.

This is my favourite Don Byas album. It´s a fantastic experience to hear this vintage bebop set with the sound of Don Byas. And he doesn´t just play the bop themes, he creates his own brand of bop solos with his very individual sound and phrasings. On "Antrophology" he even quotes Bud´s "Wail". The rhythm section is also very fine.

From the music it is quite similar to another live recording from Newport, also with Trane and Cannonball. I think I remember that Miles is barely audible on one track, maybe it was "If I Were A Bell". Maybe this is a sacrilege what I say now but from the saxophone I always have been listening mostly to Trane. Somehow Cannonball in that context didn´t get to me the same way Trane does. I don´t know what it is what I don´t like so much about Cannonballs alto style, he is a topnotch player and all, but....... (?). I think in my case I would have liked to hear that sextet with Jackie McLean on alto.

Yes, I also saw that video and had thought it is the same material as the Copenhagen Coda . Well, I can compare directly. Compared to what I heard and saw in the same weeks this is very good and I think plays much better and looks better. When I saw that embarrassing performance from the same period, Dexter was shabbily dressed, no suit, no ties, and an extremly short performance, and it was a big venue, it was the Viennese Concerthaus, the audience really remained embarrassed and disappointed.

Oh that sounds great !

I just ordered both albums of Hubbard´s Keystone bop. Keystone must have been a fantastic venue. I think I have a few albums that were recorded there , one might be an Art Blakey thing "In this Korner", one is a fantastic Pharoah Sanders, I think for a short time there was also a Dexter Gordon album from Korner, and I read somewhere that Mingus also performed there, but I don´t think there is an album.

I finally ordered it from Discogs. I´m curious how it might sound since I had seen Dexter in early 1983 and it was not a good night. It was difficult to look at and listen to Dexter on that occasion. I later purchased on from Vanguard also from 1983 that is a bit better than my own experience , so it remains to be seen if this one is a better night.

Great ! I must get that Steeple Chase album. I didn´t see the Mingus Epitaph, but saw Mingus live twice, but heard Ronny Cuber only on Mingus last album "Me Myself and I" and "Something like Bird", but this is more blowing session .

I listend to this one yesterday since I wanted to hear a recorded version of "Daahoud" which is a fine tune to play, I love the key and the changes. This is wonderful stuff, that version of "What´s New" and "Lover Man" . "April" is played at a very very fast tempo, IMHO a bit too fast. But it´s sad that the piano is barely audible. It´s clear it is just an amateur recording, but others even from earlier years, even those early Minton´s jams have better recording quality and you hear the piano and the bass. From those fragments I could hear from the piano it seems that Bud´s little brother sometimes got his ideas from his big brother, but doesn´t seem to have that unique "touch" that Bud has. And sometimes he sounds more like Elmo Hope. Sonny Rollins sometimes is a bit subdued on that album, there are fine examples of good drumming of Max Roach, the drums is quite well recorded . But some stuff is just too fast played for comfortable listening and playing. 52´nd street theme IS a fast tune, and I think the way Bird or Bud did it up tempo is very enjoyable, but here it is over fast, so the bassist just cannot play a walking line at that tempo. I think George Morrow was a very good bebop bassist. His solo on "Lover Man" is wonderful. After Clifford Brown´s death I think he had settled in the L.A. area and became the mentor of a musician, who himself is my mentor.....

I didn´t buy this when it came out because I was afraid this is a sampler and I bought only individual records, but now I think I would have liked to hear that last Tadd Dameron session with Sam Rivers on it.

Too bad I didn´t buy this when it came out. I hate reading when all pages fall apart. I think about two books I would have liked to read. One of them is this one, and the other is the book Teddy Reig wrote about his time as a "Jazz Hustler".

I started smoking like many of my buddies from that generation quite early. The first cigarettes at 13, and regular smoking at 15,16. That was the times. I quit in my early 20´s for 2 years, during a very very short marriage, when she was pregnant and stopped smoking so I also stopped. But that gaining weight was really bad. And it was also during that time that I caught colds even during spring or summer, and I was not a very well person. I wouldn´t say necessarly that this was due to non smoking but anyway. My first affair with a wild girl after that marriage was over.....I remember the shared cigarrete "after" , and I was on it again. One thing I have done: From 2 packs the day in my youth I reduced to the cigarette after meal, between sets, and of course after makin love. I stopped any kind of alcoolic beverage more than 10 years ago but I never was a strong drinker (with the exception of the usual drinking contests as the dumb teenies and twens we were) . And by the way: You read daily in newspapers about violence due to alcool, brawlings, beatings, abuse of women and all that. I never heard that someone got violent after smoking a cigarette.....

I love it so much and it was a key record for me. Max Roach, together with Philly J.J. and Danny Richmond were my drum heroes when I was a young boy. I was so exited when I finally saw Roach live, an event I´ll never forget. It was shortly after I had seen Mingus, had seen Dizzy so I could say then that I had seen at least 3 members of the "Massey Hall Concert" in my early years. Roach did a 3/4 version of "Round Midnite", he did "It´s Time" and "Peaceful Heart" and solo "The Drum Waltzes" and "Mr. Hi Hat". The next day I bought the record. Mine has another cover than yours. Most stuff sold here in Europe was on that French Label "America"....most of the Mingus albums for example.... For me it was like "Mingus Family" since this Roach album has Cliff Jordan AND Mal Waldron, two musicians I had associated with Mingus since I had them on record with Mingus.

Well yes. I also have the "Relaxin´at Camarillo" recordings, the BN session with both tenor players, the "Stealin´Apples" with Goodman and Fats. And of course not to forget the live recordings with much longer solos. There is the Dex-Wardell horn battles on those "Bopland" Sessions, very fine tenor playing, but the drums and bass is not up to the leader´s standards, I think there is another one with Dexter and Gray and Clark Terry playing "Move" live. Dig the Xanadu session I mentioned. The one with Art Farmer on trumpet. "Donna Lee" etc. . Very fine, with exception of the too metronomic drumming. There should be more patterns on drums. Nice legs ! I like the cover, for the legs , but also that kind of music might be nice.

I think Wardell Gray´s discography is quite thin, I have under his own name two Prestige albums. The only annoying thing is all those alternate takes on the earliest session. I further have what I think is a Xanadu live session with Art Farmer and Hampton Hawes, that´s fantastic playing, only I would have liked to hear another drummer than Shelly Manne.... The very very best Wardell Gray I ever heard is as a sideman on the Charlie Parker album "The Happy Bird". He plays very long and fantastic solos there on I think "Scrapple", on "Lullaby in Rhythm" and "April".

Monday afternoon blues ? So bad ? Maybe I´m one of the few persons who love Mondays. I love my job though it´s demanding, but can´t await to see on Monday what´s new, what kinda channenge will be, strange but it´s exactly that way in my case.

Born in Viena, but family line from România, Cluj-District, half Romanian, half Hungarian since in that area is also a minority of Hungarian. It seems that beneath a lot of Jewish blood this was my strongest descendance, since I had practically lived down there for a long time and a part of my day job needs Romanian language, family the same, so it happens I speak and read and write more in Romanian than in German, crazy but true.

Reading in English is great for me as long as it is album cover text or musical biography. For other materia my vocabulary is too limited, so most books from anglo-american authors I read in translated version. Here "Jocuri de putere" which means "Power Plays" written by Danielle Steel. We have ton´s of translated books on romanian books-online stores they are my favourite non jazz lectura. This is about a female director executiv and a male director executiv, and their different characters. The male is always braggin´ about his position and is a womanizer, the woman doesn´t want to share her success with the public....., very good insight into the business world.

Interesting choices on that collection. It seems that the first two tracks on CD 1 are from Verve, the rest of CD 1 and 2 is mostly Savoy tracks. But else than others I couldn´t enjoy so many alternative tracks and only short excerps. My "mother milk" was the "Savoy Mastertakes" double Album with all the Savoy recordings, but only the takes that were on record. The rest must be those Savoys titled "Bird Live at the Roost". I have a compilation of all the Roost tracks from 1948/49. I´m sure you agree that this is some of the very very best Bird, since it is live and not as short as the studio tracks and you hear Miles or KD on trumpet and Al Haig on piano, so it´s not like those Benedetti recordings where all the fellow musicians were cut out. The Metronome Stars I think that was for the Victor label, strange I have it on a Dizzy Gillespie compilation and again on a CD called "Bird and Lennie Tristano" . I must have this ! I have a Freddie Hubbard live at "Onkel Pö" in Hamburg from about the same time, I think it also has Billy Childs on piano, who is a fantastic keyboarder of the post Hancock period. I first heard him on J.J. Johnson - Nat Adderly from Yokohama 1977, and on other records from the late 70´s early 80´s. And Joe Henderson , Bobby Hutcherson, so this is a dream team, like one of those huge BN-revivals they did in Japonia , were they reunited leading stars from the BN-Era. I never heard about the bass player and the drummer, so I hope the drummer is tops, since that´s were things start for me.

okay, sure ! I didn´t think about the terminus "mid-century modernism". So......maybe I´m just too young, since I was barely born when the mid-century-modernism ended. So ..... being a product of the post 1968 generation maybe I take it "too serious" for people of the pre 1968 generation. Thank you so so much for opening me the eyes on that. I didn´t think about that aspect. My main-sources and personal encouragements in musical developement when I was just starting to become a musician were a handful of jazzmusicians like Fritz Pauer (p, born 1943), Allan Praskin (as, born 1948) and Karl Ratzer (g, born 1950), all of them can be found in wikipedia. So maybe there were exactly in the post "mid-century-modernism".

Those four Davis records with the first quintet: I also grew up with this, but the only available record here in the ear ly 70´s was "Steaming" (with another cover photo than the original). I think I spinned "Steaming" almost every day until I got "The Great Concert of Charles Mingus", which let me listen less to "Steaming". But that Quintet Style on Steaming was my very very basic of "jazz". I would have liked the other three , like "Workin´" as much as STeaming but didn´t know about there existence. Working has "Woody´n You" on it, right ? I dig the shout chorus at the end, it was inspired from Dizzy´s big band arrangement and sounds astonishing fine on that small group setting. I always close "Woody´n You" with that line. Wes Montgomery. I think I have two of them "Incredible " and "So Much Guitar", but as usual I don´t know from what country a pressing is. It´s Wes at it´s best and he was the first jazz guitarist I loved.

From what period is this ? I think I remember I saw Stan Getz in a quartet with Lou Levy on piano. I must have that somewhere. If I remember well and look at the personnel, it must be a Pablo recording. But all those Pablo records at that time had quite the same cover designs with some blue and some red, and rarely a photo. The encounter Diz , Milt and Ray is three key figures of the early bop days. But if I remember right from that record and other Pablo records Ray Brown´s bass often is much too loud in the mix. Monty Alexander was very much in demand in the 70´s, he was a favourite of Norman Granz and later on the Concord label I think. As a drum-lover I just might say I would have preferred a drummer more fitting to Diz, let´s say Mikey Roker or Albert Heath..... Is this the original recording of "Con Alma" ? I never heard that, I think they played it else than Diz played it later in the 60´s-80´s- Yes, on that short lived Electra Musician label from Bruce Lundvall there were some hiddn treasures where you wondered where that music had been so long time undiscovered. Bird with a fine orchestra, and I think exactly from the same period there was also a Bud trio set and Bud with the same orchestra, and they had a rare Cliff Brown-Max Roach doin "Daahoud" ....