Gheorghe

Happy Birthday to you, dear Mike and thanks for being here with us. "Alles Gute !" "La Mulți Ani !" "Boldog születesnapot" , ......in all languages..... About Nina Simone . I understand everything, but why is this in the Musician´s Forum ? Or do you want to discuss singers in general and how to work with them ?

It´s a rarity anywhere in Europe and to my annoyment sometimes you find only bread that´s already cut , even in good old Eastern Europe. But in my childhood and in general being kids and being sent to buy the bread for the family around the corner, on the way back we would break the crocant upper crust and eat it so the bread was not complete anymore when we came home , very annoying for the adults, sometimes leading to a little "spankin´" 😄 Well, modern factory bread, yeah, but I don´t even have the time to take the tramvai - ride to Mariahilfer Strasse to buy the bread at the "Balkan-Bakery" or to the Turkish "Süpermarket". But "Der Mann" has very good big white bread, it´s not cheap anymore, it is € 3,35 and we need one daily. But it comes at least a bit near to our tastes.

Well, that´s why I never work without an acoustic bass or during the time when I played jazz rock, an electric bass, but the rare occasion where I listen to let´s say "A Date with Jimmy Smith" or "The Sermon" I enjoy the organ bass line.

I remember when I was a Down Beat subscriber for many years, in spring 1983 it was advertised that at "Rick´s Café" in Chicago two giants of bop were on schedule to perform. It was one or two weeks Dexter Gordon, and after him it was Billy Eckstine. I mean, Gordon was one of Mr. B´s most important soloists and his solo on let´s say "Blowin´ the Blues Away" became a trademark "blow Mr. Gene, blow Mr. Dexter too....´cause maybe you can help me blowin´the blues away...." I mean, what a schedule, I would have liked to be there. And Dexter always talked with delight about those years. It´s possible, that during the time of that engagement at Rick´s Café Billy Eckstine was less known to public than Dexter, that´s true.

Bobby Durham....... is it possible he was in one of them Oscar Peterson Trios. I think a not musician youth friend had one album that was titled Tristeza, and I think it was Sam Jones and one Bobby Durham. But I do not know enough to have an opinion how he sounds on drums (drummers mostly the first musician I listen to and look at.....) I´m not an organ fan at all, but have one or two of Jimmy Smith with famous hornplayers like Mobley, Lou Donaldson or Donald Byrd or Lee Morgan. But George Coleman sure sounds nice with anybody. As @felser said, I heard too many Left Bank live sessions with really weak recording sound. Yes, if in general I´m not a big organ fan, at least I like it if a good organist plays the bass lines (I don´t know ..... are they doing it with the foot pedals ? ) . But to combine a hammond organ with a regular bass is strange. I think I heard it once on an Ike Quebec album with something with Blue and Sentimental and nice ballads, but I couldn´t become friend with the organ-acoustic bass combination.

I had quite a collection of the LPs from the French "America" Label, since they were cheap over here (cheaper than let´s say a CBS LP or Atlantic or so on). And since I was a big Mingus fan from the start, "America" having most of the Mingus albums , I almost thought that it´s a label mostly dedicated to the music of Mingus, since even on others where he was not the leader, he still was on it (like Massey Hall, Bud Powell Trio, Four Trombones etc. ) . The 1970 edition was 2 albums: "Pythicantropus Erectus" and "Blue Bird". It has some great music on it, it has Jakie Byard and Danny Richmond back, and Bobby Jones who was quite obscure, sounds great. McPherson too. But I must admit at first listening then when it came out, I was a bit disappointed, since I had expected that after the wild and open things with Eric Dolphy and so on the Mingus of 1970 might be even more into "free" which he wasn´t. The next time where I had the feeling that Mingus is back to his act was in the mid 70´s with George Adams and Don Pullen, this was again some Mingus with all them tensions, them changes of time, with taking the music more outside and all of that......

I must admit I wouldn´t have recognized Art Blakey on this. I always saw him with a first greyish, than almost white "afro" and this spreads from a very long period from the 70´s until his death.

That´s some good bread, and this one is bread with potatoes. That kind of round bread often is called "house bread" . The worst is bread that´s already cut and sold in celofan. The slices are too thin for really hand cut bread, but sometimes it´s the only solution "out of necessity".

Sometimes I like to listen to this one. I think I like the quartet tracks most, but also the All-Star Jam with Dex and Cannonball is very fine. It´s a very fine, boppish session. On the other hand, I think I have a Miles Davis-Stan Getz album from Birdland in the early fifties, where on Side B there is unlisted some Gene Ammons-Sonny Stitt with Tadd Dameron´s rhythm section, which is very very fine and I didn´t find it mentioned in the 2 books about Tadd Dameron.

Ok, personal invention sounds good. I also don´t cook exactly like my grandma did, but I had to make investigations to learn what an organic shop is. I agree with you that too much people eat too much meat. This is not necessary and can destroy sharp looking (șnițel-belly or cementry of șnițel) and especially in summer there can be weeks when I don´t eat meat or only seldom very little of it (gastgarten mit grill) But I couldn´t definite my reduced meat consumption as "rarely" since let´s say if I cook gulaș I dont make it only for one day, you can eat it 3 days and it get´s even better, or the famous "sarmale" (kraut-rulade) you make a big pot of it and if you only 2 persons you have 3 days food. That´s "winter dish" , or a self made bean soup, it has to have onions and it has to have some little pieces of smoked pork in it to have that good taste. At least that´s how I grew up. But all that stuff , if you eat just one portion and not 2 or 3 until you can´t move anymore, it doesn´t do no harm , you remain in good shape and look handsome. Well I don´t know if there is those organic shops over here. I have enough problems with gettin good white bread , many bakers have tons of black bread, and no sendviș and those french baquettes, it gets hard too soon and can not be compared with a good, big, white bread........, especially the good round one. We have one bakery called "The Mann" in our quarter (very nice outer district not far from the park and castle Schonbrunn, but if they close for renovation like they did last summer, I have to get in the not so quiet areas near Vestbahnhof, where there are some "balcan bakeries"......

Fine, but at leat for me the "Lonesome Lover Blues" from the 40´s sounds better, or more interesting, how you´d say it....

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😀