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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.

I don´t know the book, but it sounds interesting though "from the Beginning" would scare me as I´m to young to got back that far ("Beginnings" as old time or "trad" jazz) , but interesting he judges Miles for his fingering. Even in his early days I heard Miles playing almost like Diz or Fats, as his "Paris 1949" or his Birdland 1951 live stuff prooves. But one interesting thing about Miles: Many scholars here play Monk tunes with the wrong chords, like "Well You Needn´t" with the wrong bridge like on "Steamin"" instead of the correct bridge. Same with "Round Midnight". I always take a sheet of the correct chords with me, so fellow musicians would not play them wrong chords from the Real Book. Well, Dolphy also impressed me from the first listening on the Mingus concert in Paris.

I think I remember I saw this in a record store about the same time when Archie Shepp was in town (I had heard him with Siegfried Kessler, Bob Cunningham and Clifford Jarvis). Too bad that I didn´t have the money to buy this record, since it was very very expensive, it costed more than the price for 2 usual LPs. Same was with Max Roach in Tokyo, all those were very very expensive.

I have not heard about those labels. But Dameron tunes were always nice. "The Scene is Clean" I first heard on a Max Roach-Clifford Brown LP, the original Tadd Dameron sides were hard to find. I heard Pharoah Sanders play some music from the Dameron-Coltrane-date, also around 1982-85 I think. In general I love his compositions until the 50´s but found that later he had smoothed out, the stuff he composed when he himself couldn´t play anymore with his own band didn´t have the "bite" that had "Our Delight" or "Hot House" etc.

I think the first time I heard Jimmy Heath on record was the then available Red Garland LP "Quota". Many guys in the early 70´s had that. And I think those who had not heard him at least did know his name from his composition "Gingerbread Boy" which was often played. And later when BN was re-born I was astonished to hear many recording dates with him on tenor, but strange to say it was more in the early days of BN, I think with early Miles and early J.J. Johnson, but less from the late fifties on, when the label became more famous.

Oh I was not aware of this. The reason might be I didn´t listen to the Gerry Mulligan pianoless Quartet. Somehow that kind of music was not very much listened to among musicians of my generation. I was already playing myself in jazz clubs when I became "friendly'" with an older loyal visitor, and between sets having a cigarette he told me about guys like "Shorty Rogers" and so on, that he listens much too and I had to admit I never had heard that name. Even about Chet Baker I heard for the first time in 1978 when there was an article about him in Jazz Podium. But needless I became a fan of Chet, as soon as I heard him first, but it was another Chet Baker than the one who got famous in the 50´s . Well, but I don´t remember to have seen Art ever without a pianoless rhythm section. So this one with musicians I really love (Ron Carter, Tony Williams) must be a gas When I was young I had those 5 Steeple Chase albums at the Golden Circle, but I have not listened to them recently. What disappointed me on them was that the drummer and bassist were not as good as let´s say Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clark about the same time in Paris, and 5 trio albums with too long blues tunes (Blues in the Closet, Straight No Chaser, Swedish Pastry running between 15 and 20 minutes) can become quite tedious. Bud played much better in Switzerland or Denmark about the same time. And maybe that playing only trio all time and in every town with other bassists and drummers also was disappointing for Bud who sometimes sounds a bit bored (mostly on that over long Straight No Chaser). I think someone gave me a tape with the Oslo tunes many years ago, it´s about the same like the Golden Circle gig.

I had to google what is "dungarees" but know I know. Oh yes, that was that terrible fashion of the 70´s when musicians dressed too much in casual looks on stage. And I always hated dungarees. Mostly if women wore them, it´s a love killer. Now in the present, in the few jazz clubs left, most musicians who play a very fine dressed, the audience usually casual, some girls better dressed, and the musicians on stage maybe got another awareness of how to look for a performance. But enough about non musical stuff......., that´s a question of taste. About Herbie Lewis: He was a wonderful bassist, I saw him with Jackie McLean, the others were Booby Hutcherson and Billy Higgins (all dressed with dark sacou, white shirt and ties, even if it was a hot day in July, and they really burned. Herbie Lewis did a particular interesting solo on a fast "Blue´n Boogie" which was something else. Some folks from the audience said it sounded like an "african solo" and he got frenetic applause. I have heard that Sam Jones died too early, but didn´t know that if he made the record just a month before, that he would have been too ill to perform on the live dates of the "Amsterdam stuff". Maybe he had other commitments, he was always very very much in demand.

That´s also a wonderful memory.

I was not aware of that album. I think "Elektra Musician" was a very short lived label, I think I had some of them, the Dexter Gordon album that I consider quite mediocre and first of all I´m not really a fan of organ, and a whole side is with organ, then I think I have that Woody Shaw which is fine, and maybe an old Cliff Brown - Max Roach. This one of Ron Carter must be very interesting as a pianoless thing. And I´m a big fan of Tony Williams. Bill Evans was from the only 80´s Miles band that sounded interesting to me, but the biggest surprise for me is the participation of Art Farmer. I saw Art Farmer so many times I can´t count them, but always did believe that he is the kind of trumpetist who needs a piano player. It must be interesting to hear him in a pianoless context. And Ron Carter was an idol of all of us in the 70´s and early 80´s. His big sound. I think I might start a topic about his sound and his playing style ......, it´s something I grew up with

Oh, how much would I have liked to see this group. I heard them on record only (3 live albums on Steeple Chase), but it seems they didn´t tour Austria. Later I saw the George Coleman Quartet shortly after they had recorded "Amsterdam after Dark" playing the music from that then brandnew album, and they had Hilton Ruiz and Billy Higgins, but NOT Sam Jones ! He had been replaced by Ray Drummond, who also was a very fine and versatile bass player, later working much with Johnny Griffin, but I would have liked to hear Sam Jones. And I think he was the best bassist who ever worked with Bud Powell, his contributions on "Time Waits" are fantastic ! I think too many jazz students play his "Del Sasser" without even knowing who was Sam Jones.....

oh, "April in Paris" 😀 You are lucky ! There must be something about Paris in the month of April. And that ballad expresses the feelings so well. And related to music and live in general. Sorry to say not have been in Paris yet, but my two hometowns are also fancy towns and there is something in the air in that month that´s very special. You have musical inspirations, And it was April when I had my first date with the girl I married....and the atmosphere had something very similar to "April in Paris" , those wonderful smelling blossoms in the old city park, a gentle glimpse of a spring rain, and the most beautiful girl in town with me....

I didn´t know RTF recorded for ECM ? Or is "RTF" only the title, not the group ? I remember a youth friend of me who just disappeared, was a big RTF and Chick Corea fan and I liked that powerful Stanley Clark-Lenny White combination. Later, he also had an "ECM" record called "Cristal Silence", but in my case, it was not really my thing then, (too silent for me without drums and bass)

I enjoy some of the fine altosaxophone of Charles McPherson. I always had the impression that he borrowed some of Bird´s licks, only with a softer sound, maybe a softer reed and more relaxed, like a mellow side of Bird. But I think most what I have is Mingus-related. At first listening, and my first Mingus listening experience of course was with Dolphy, McPherson was a bit disappointing to me as a step back, but I enjoyed his ballad contributions on "Mingus at Monterey" and on "My Favourite Quinted". I think I remember he was back with Mingus in the earlier 70´s too . I don´t think he visited Europe very often after his tenure with Mingus. But one thing I can tell: It must be very enjoyable to play with him. I remember once when I was in the State, some musicians mentioned that "Charles McPherson was in town the week before" and that I thought too bad, I would have liked to meet him.

it seems I have read another bass book one about Paul Chambers but don´t remember the title, I had thought it´s "Bassline", so maybe it had another title, by the way a good book where all the much stuff he recorded is very very well documentated and described . I think I remember a very very long time ago there was in Jazz Podium an article from Güther Boas, who did a trip to NY and met a lot of the old masters, among them also Milt Hinton. I think I don´t have many recordings where he is on bass....