Gheorghe

The potato salad I like most is boiled and sliced potatoes, young onion with the green long leaves that grow out of them, also cut in small pieces, boiled eggs in slices, and then a house made maioneză hand mixed with the yellow from the egg and sunflower oil, then all the stuff mixed and served together with Wiener Schnizel I have eaten some to fu at some chinez restaurant, I think it was from the dinner bufet, nice. But I never heard that it is combined with German or European dishes....

I have that album, but due to lack of time or for the purpose I just listened to "These Foolish Things" from the ballad session on Side 2. The reason was I´m gonna play a gig with a great alto saxophonist who´s sound is also "sugar free" so I wanted to get a bit inside it, though of course I know the ballad anyway. Nice how Jackie plays it, but Mal Waldrons piano in the intro and solo seems to be a bit too .....how do you say "dry" for what I want to add to the tune. I want to get the piano intro and solo a bit more "heart-felt", fitting to the lyrics of the song. I remember long time ago I spinned that album (I had a batch of japanese mini lp covered CD´s ) and this one was one of them. Well, for one time listening was enough: A long jam blues where Jackie also plays a second solo on tenor (with a bit of "hollow" sound, some fine Curtis Fuller, quite that´s it. I think I have another one that´s titled "4,5 +6" which is not very inspired, a quite indifferent interpretation of "Sentimental Journey" or some kind of this....., They are "nice" , but I like the BN´s better.....

From the personnel I only know Junior Cook, who I am sure was a very fine choice. He "cooked". But 1970 must have been a very rough period for Art Blakey. It seems he didn´t have a recording contract and booking of acoustic bands was scarce. This might have been also the reason why he accepted to do world tours with the "Giants of Jazz". The real comeback of Art Blakey started from the late 70´s on, that band with Valery Ponomarev, Dave Schnitter, Bobby Watson, Dennis Irving and James Williams brought him back to top booking..... I have heard that the "Jazz Workshop" in San Francisco was quite a loud place, but good music was recorded there in the 60´s (Roach "Speak Brother Speak" and Mingus "Right Now-Live at the JazzWorkshop" ....by the way some of my favourite live recordings of both of them).

100% agree to that. I had the luck to hear him live on many occasions from the second half of the 70´s into the early 80´s and it was amazing. Before that I already had a chance to hear a bit of his style on the sides he made with Fats Navarro for Savoy and the two tunes on Side B of the "Red Miles Davis Album" as we called it (an italian bootleg of Miles at Birdland 1951). I even have one of his Pablo records "Straight Ahead" (with the Tommy Flanagan Trio) signed by him with a dedication for me. Recently I got that complet Griff-Jaws CD set . AND: His composition "Hey Lock" is much played here in Viena by tenor players. It´s a tricky composition with the chords of the A sections of "Body and Soul" and "Lover" in the Bridge. I love to play it and I´m always glad if a leader on tenor call´s the tune on stage..... good choice !

There is one. I just read it again recently. But I must admit I was only interested in the time with the legendary Big Band. Later, the more commercial outputs on MGM or how that label was named, didn´t interest me as much. Well it seems that this sheet (I can read only the melody line ) is very very much basic, I mean it´s supposed to be not as straight and simple rhytmically , listen to the original vocal version of Mr.B and the Band, and of course to the Coltrane version. Though I can´t read that lower line with the written out chords, it seems it was written more for beginners. But you have to "live" that tune, of course like on all ballads, at least have an idea of how the lyrics go, and get your own very individual way of playing it . Ballads that´s the thing, you have to get inside the meaning, the mood of that ballad. I wanted to suggest it when a set-list was made before a gig, but the leader said "we allready have an E-flat ballad (These Foolish Things), so maybe the next time. But we don´t worry, there is so many ballads to play.

I have not known anything about his non-musical live, and from music I think the only listening examples I have is from the "Moose the Mooche" session of Bird. But I didn´t pay so much attention to the piano on those tracks, they were "learning examples" for me to write down the tunes of "Moose The Mooche, Confirmation and so on, and listen to Bird´s solo on Night in Tunisia. I don´t remember if there were any ballads played on that Dial session. It was good learning stuff, better executed than the early Savoy stuff.

Yes, using hot dog cut into small pieces might be a typical German food combination. The potatoes with onion and maybe a bit of bacon as my wife and me know it, also can be slightly influenced by the former german-speaking minority in Transsilvania. Only that there is no hot dog pieces in it.

See my posting 4 hours earlier. Best regards . Gh.

wow, that must be interesting. Is it live recorded ?

I´m a big fan of Billy Eckstine and my listening concentrates on the Savoy Double Album "Mr. B and the Band" and the Spotlite live album "Together". His voice , just wonderful, but as an instrument player I also need interesting arrangements and the legendary Band in the 40´s with all them incredible players and the fantastic arrangements by Tadd Dameron and others, that´s what I need as much as I need to hear Billy singing. Later, someone borrowed me some around 1960 albums also with Big Band, it´s still the magic voice, but the band does not sound as interesting as the 40´s bands, it sounds more like just for the session booked studio bands......, and that´s not really what I can enjoy. I´d wish to find a male singer who sings in that style. You have tons of female singers, but to find a good male singer who thinks like a musician, not only about his own voice, is difficult.

Thank you for sharing this. Very interesting to read. And very understandable, why he did not have a breakthrough like Monk had. And yeah, to record only as a leader with no horns added must be quite daring and might not attract many listeners. To a lesser amount I have similar experiences here where I live and play: A saxophonist/composer who plays only his own music and demands a lot of rehearsals and then it´s little money, complains he doesn´t have enough work. And maybe in 1955 it was the same. To compare him with Monk, well some said that Monk´s music is "hard to play" but you just hear it and can sing along with it and make dance steps, I hear Monk and feel that I must do those Monkish dance steps trough the room, and spin around, it´s just that he transmittes his personality thru his music in a manner that you can understand and dig it very easily. Many otherwise non jazz listeners found it nice and smiled when they heard it or saw it in action. And to get gigs, I don´t know how to formulate it correctly, you must have a bit of that hustler quality, you might "brag" a little and in the same time "charm" those who would book you......., or somehow to get folks to love you even if you are late for the gig or have drunk a bit too much or don´t take a bow in front of the audience (beeing late: Monk, Chet Baker, having drunk too much: Dexter, beeing rude towards the audience : Miles Davis). But people loved them and they were booked constantly.....

@Teasing the Korean Why not prepare it yourself, it´s the most simple dish I have heard about ever. Never ever would I buy "alimente semipreparate" . Just cook potatoes, cut them to smaller pieces, frie onions and ham together with the potato pieces We call this "cartofi țărănești” (potatoes farmer´s style, Kartoffeln nach Bauern Art). But if I eat it as a garnitura for meals with meat, I leave the ham (" "slănină” "Șpeck”) out. And otherwise too on many occasions since the "șpeck" somehow predominates the aroma of the cartofi. I think the Germans use more "șpeck". But they have other tastes. For example, once when I traveled thru Germania I saw to my surprise that they serve the famous „șnițel vienez” with some mushroom sos . But I also heard that the younger generation of Germans mostly eat "Doner kebab" or "curryvurst" where doner kebab is originally from Turkey and Curry must be from India......

The first time I saw Eddie Lockjaw Davis live was together with "Sweets". In that spezial period (mid 70´s) I had known who is "Jaws" from the Savoy Sides with Fats Navarro, and from the Birdland live set with Miles Davis as a leader, while the name of "Sweets" was unknown to me. From the concert I had the impression that though rooted in swing jazz, Eddie Davis sounds a bit more "modern". I also purchased a "Pablo Record" of Jaws and Sweets , it had Dolo Coker on piano, but I have not seen it anymore, which is astonishing since all that Pablo material always was easy to purchase. But something I didn´t like on that Pablo record, I think on some tunes they did it with Fender Rhodes, which I liked but NOT for that older music. Is this from the late 70´s. I have a Pablo JJ-Nat Adderly with the same rythm section "Billy Childs, Tony Dumas and JJ´s son Kevin" . Is this the same concert with augmented stars ? If so, I might purchase it.

I just saw the version of the tune played by Wayne Shorter in 1986. Wonderful ! And it´s wonderful that young people now do it with different surroundings. I haven´t heard about that duo until now. I read a bit about them and they sure outa sight. Honestly, when I saw the photo of the drummer I had thought it´s a girl too, at least he looks like a girl. The young lady on keyboard is very good, and has also a very high level of musicianship and skill, and a nice face😀

I also had purchased this for the personnel, since - like Our Man in Paris some years earlier - this would be a vintage bop band since Al Haig after Bud Powell sure was one of the key pianists of the bop era. But something on this turned out to determinate me to give it just one spin. I don´t know what had happened, but though I love loud and powerful drummers, Kenny Clarke somehow sounds very rough here and maybe he had had a few cups or something else. And somehow on that tune "A La Modal" , it´s not Al Haig´s music. He always was a stone bebopper and it reminds me a bit of the occasions where Sonny Stitt was with Miles and sounds funny on "So What" since he just didn´t have the style of modal jazz on his focus. More strange is the fact that as late as 1977 Dexter already had formed his own quartet in N.Y and in his last active years he seldom worked with other surroundings than his own quartet. Like on "Our Man in Paris" the album ends with a trio piece. While Bud does "Like Someone in Love" (which he played too often and became a cliché in his later years), Haig does a very fine version of "Midnight" where he is much more in his element than on the quartet pieces. So I have some mixed feelings about this record and didn´t spin it more often..... When was this recorded ? The cover photo seems to be more from the 1964 Europe tour with Dolphy. I´m not sure but it is possible that some Mingus music I have could have been from those Candid sessions. My wife bought me last year a Mingus CD that is called the "New Port Rebels" with old masters like Roy Eldrige and Jo Jones, and to my big surprise there was at least two or three other sessions with Mingus´ own group with pieces like "Love X" "Ora decubitus" (or somehow like this) , and a long title name "All the Things ......and something with Sigmund Freud" , and so on. I think it was mentioned that those were Candid Sessions.

A very interesting record. I listen very much to Woody Shaw since I saw him live on several occasions. From the releases that came out after his death, I like "Live in Bremen 1983" more than this one, maybe because I like the piano of Mulgrew Miller very much and above all the drummer Tony Reedus. The "Round Midnight" on Disc 2 is a bit too slow for my taste. From the Changes it seems to be the Davis-Changes, not the Monk changes. It´s paradox but the last track, recorded at an other venue but with Mulgrew Miller on piano, though it´s not well recorded and seems to be off mike, impressed me more than the whole album. This one sounds almost like a prayer, it must have been an encore, that´s how it sounded. It would be nice to hear the whole concert.

Well yeah of course, Brecker Brothers was part of my time, but more late 70´s than early 70´s. But they both were very versatile and could play all kinds of styles, I mean straight ahead acoustic stuff and electric stuff. And Randy Brecker´s trumpet is very fine on Mingus´last album "Me Myself and I" especially on "Devil Woman" as I remember. I don´t know why the good American musicians like him are not represented well enough on European Jazz Festivals during the last years. They are bookin a lot of crap, but they should book the hottest players of the NY scene, the old masters like Randy, and the young masters from the Smoke Jazz label circuit....

This must be very interesting ! I was there and already a big jazz fan, when the original "Spanish Heart" came out. I remember so many of now classic jazz rock (later called "fusion" ) albums that were brandnew and later became classics. "Headhunters", "Romantic Warrior", "My Spanish Heart", Stanley Clark´s "Modern Man" "Billy Cobham-George Duke", that was common ground then and the stuff you dealed with every day. In the more recent past, my wife discovered an album she thought I must like, and it was also a recent new edition of "RTF" but with Jean Luc Ponty added and I love it. I think, your new album of Spanish Heart could bring similar delight to me. Anyway it´s sometimes funny to hear original 70´s electric jazz NOW, since the then modern electric instruments look and sound so archaic. Like the Wah Wah Pedal Miles used, like the early synthies they had then, the old amps and stuff.

I have not seen many fotos of Hampton Hawes and it seems that his discography is not as rich as that of other contemporanous pianists like let´s say Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Drew or Sonny Clark, and became even less frequently recorded in the 60´s or 70´s. It seems that later he switched to electric piano, since the last evedences of him on live records were with Dexter and Gene Ammons at Montreux, where he plays Fender Rhodes piano. Seeing this cover photo I´m really astonished of his resemblance to the very very fine Israel born and Vienna based pianist Elias Meiri, who has impressed me here. Just look here: One of the early records I had. I must admit at from the first moment I had heard it, it impressed me even more than the record of the 1st Quinted that I had. Though a record with the 50´s first quintet was my first record ever, this one really got me. The treatment of My Funny Valentine amazed me, and the faster version of "All Blues" fascinated me much more than the most famous slower first version. I think the twin album "Four and More" was not so much around than "My Funny Valentine".

I think this was the first Grant Green album I had heard, but as I remember in the cover text it was mentioned that it was released only after his death. But though I have listened to Grant Green Albums that were published during his life, this one remained the best for me. Great personnell and great tunes. Is it possible it has that strange 50´s tune "Ezz-thetik" on it ? Though "Idle Moments" also has the great Joe Henderson, I think I remember I liked "Solid" much much more. And it has Elvin Jones on drums.

I had not seen fotos of Clark Terry when he was young. I remember him "only" as that kind of elder statesman, who usually sat on a chair while playing but still played very fine. But here on that photo he looks like a twin brother of Bud Powell. I didn´t know there can be such an astonishing similarity.... How could you describe Clark Terry´s trumpet style. Miles Davis praised him highly as a major influence back then in Saint Louis, but even if he was in the age between Diz and Miles there is not much recording evidence of him from the bebop days, and also later you always read about Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd in the 50´s and Hubbard and Woody Shaw later. One thing that I had heard had given him a small commercial succes was what he called "Mumbles", I think once I heard an album from 1975 where there is something of that, but mostly I remember him as the elder sir, the old master who would share the stage mostly with younger musicians.....great !

Yes, it was in the 70´s when we paid in șiling, not in euro, and the usual price for an Lp was 160 ATS, but the Archie Shepp Denon was over 300 ATS and on the small ticket with the price there was handwritten "leider !" which means something like "sorry !".

This one, I don´t know the label, it was cheap and on a batch of "new records" that arrived at the record store where I was a regular. The sound is not enjoyable, and somehow you don´t hear the deeper parts of the drum set. It seems you only hear the cymbals and the snare, but this can also be Jimmy Cobb´s style. I heard a similar thing on a live album of Davis, where Cobb plays the drums instead of Philly J.J. . But on the other hand, somehow it´s not really exiting music, I think it was recorded in the late 60´s when that kind of super straight ahead was already out-played. I enjoy Wynton Kelly´s piano on those BN records with let´s say Hank Mobley with a good sound, but that way it´s hard to enjoy. I think I heard that Jackie McLean from Baltimore too, with Billy Higgins on drums, it´s also a weak sound, but the music is so challenging you almost forget the weak sound.

I don´t exactly know what means "on the fly conversions" but if it means that an originally wrong hit note or chord can turn out to be something that sounds great is quite usual in jazz. And by the way, Miles was the first jazz I heard (it was that old LP "Steaming", and I didn´t hear no wrong notes. The stuff on that little album was the ground for what became my life in music. Same with the next Miles album I had, which was the "second quintet with Herbie and Tony Williams etc. ) . Yeah I heard a few fluffs on one early fifties studio thing I think it was on Blue Room from a quite strange record sessions then, but I never judged a musician for a fluff here or there. Like the last album of Bud "Return of Bud Powell". There is some little fluff on "I know that you know" but who cares ? It reminds me of those two ladies who took me to an opera and during intermission dissed the singers for not hittin´ a high note correctly, and my replic was that first of all I didn´t noticed it and if it happened, if they, them two ladies could sing it better". I don´t let such unimportant things disturb me. Yes you got me on that. But I think during the times I grew up, Bird still was considered something like a myth, a guy who lived fast but laid the basics to what contemporanous players developed further. You hear Bird in Jackie McLean and in Jimmy Lyons and that´s what seemed to count. Bird records were hard to find but were exchanged among fans like treasures. And out of curiosity I bought that "Miles 1949 in Paris" since it seemed to be the same music like Charlie Parker to me. So sure I was "too young" to have been there when Bird lived, but among the musical mentors I had, and I had some of the greatest I could wish to have, Bird really was recommended to listen too and learn some of his stuff. But about 20´s jazz, yeah of course: When I heard Jakie Byards stride solo on a Mingus LP it was the first time I heard that kind of music style and yeah it sounded good and years later it let me listen to some Art Tatum and Fats Waller.

I love a lot of things Bishop played. He must have been influenced by Bud Powell but never did copy him. He had his own style from the very early days. You hear it on his playing with Bird on "Happy Bird" in Boston, and I slightly remember I once heard a tape of some very very weak Bird where the only player worth listening to is Bishop. He plays so great solos on that set where Bird was unable to breath or to play, it´s just incredible. And than those magic moments where he plays them great ballad solos on a Dizzy Reece album. In the mid sixties I think he toured with a Bird memorial band and some video tapes were made that I saw, but Bishop had lost some of his own unique style on that. About the Baltimore Left Bank records. It must have been a great club with great music, but I think I have somewhere in my batch of LPs a George Coleman + Wynton Kelly LP and the sound is terrible. The sound of the tenor is ugly, the bass is almost unheard and from the drum you hear only the cymbals, not the full drum set. I think there were also some Jackie McLean albums from that club, strange enough on the danish Steeplechase label which usually only recorded at Montmatre in Copenhaga.