Gheorghe

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 He had been replaced by Ray Drummond, who also was a very fine and versatile bass player, later working much with Johnny Griffin, but I would have liked to hear Sam Jones.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....

Oh I see, I think it has another order of the songs than the original LP. But I must admit I never bought again music I already knew. The tunes on that album were standard repertory in groups I worked with. I understand others re-buy music, first on regular LP, then on CD, then on another edition of the CD, and then on those modern post CD vinyls, just to hear another recording quality and recorded sound. I´m happy if I know the tunes, and sorry to say, after decades of active playing my hearing volume is not the best one. You loose it on high frequences, anyway have to turn up the treble to hear the cymbals of the drums and hear it loud, that´s a fact.

I must admit I never understood the purpose of the metronome. But maybe the reason is that I didn´t get formal lessons, but I don´t think it helps somebody to get a sense of rhythmical inspiration for becoming a good musician. And that "tic tac" sound would get on my nerves. If a drummer is just a beginner and has a too metronomic sound it can get on your nerves. And the metronome brings some very very sad memories back: As one of my first inspirations in jazz was no one less than Charles Mingus and I was born early enough to not only hear him on records, those last months were he couldn move even his hands and had to compose by singing accopanied by a metronome and so record his ideas, brought me to tears and maybe still does. I mean to have created some of the deepest, the most fascinating music of this century, accopanied by genius drummer Danny Richmond and no more being able to play or even to tap your feet or snip your fingers...

Joris Dudli is a wonderful drummer. I heard Ponomarev only one time in the late 70´s when he was with the Jazz Messengers. I was a big Wes Montgomery fan in the 70´s and tried to find all records that were not the later more commercially records with arrangements and strings and God knows what. This one I loved very much, especially the long swinging blues track and the wonderful Dameron ballad "If You Could See Me Now"....

Yes, the tunes with Monk I think "Epistrophy" "I Mean You", Evidence", and two vocals with Kenny Hagood "All the Things You Are" and a strange "I Should Care" not in the usual key Ab but in D, really strange to listen to it. I remember the sound quality is not good at all, which is strange for BN recording. Interesting that it has Shadow Wilson on drums, who later became a member of Monk´s quartet. In my case I had already known those tracks , since they were on the two LP set of Monk on those strange BN LA-Series with those ugly covers like a paper bag colour. I bought the Milt Jackson CD later, maybe in the earlier days of CDs, it was not RVG, nor Conn, it was just a CD with a photo of Bags . And the second half of the album was practically Lou Donaldson with the MJQ, very nice too.

Thank you, so I think this must have been earlier. I never saw a record or a video from that World Tour 1978, which featured Dave Liebman. He himself referres to that tour in his autobiography "What it is".

One of my key inspirations in the early years. Actually , once I saw Jackie McLean with 3 quarters of that original quartet. Instead of Walter Davis was no one less than Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, so it was a kind of Blue Note All Stars formation. "Freedom" and "One Step Beyond" where some of the most important Jackie McLean albums for me in my youth.

I have it on a compilation of all that early 60´s stuff , my wife bought it for me for Chrismas. Great stuff since I sometimes play with a 2 tenor tandem and they´s work on some stuff from that repertory. Well, Epistrophy is very fine.

I only know from the original LPs back then. Usually "Amazing Bud Powell" was Vol I with the Fats Navarro Sonny Rollins stuff, and I think the 1951 trio stuff, and Vol II I think was the 1953 stuff with Glass Enclosure . But there were 3 others: The Vol. III with Curtis Fuller, and I think the 4th and 5th was not subtitled "Amazing B.P." , it was "Time Waits" with Philly J.J., and the quite strange "Scene Changes". That´s all I remember.

referring to my question from Saturday: Is this the live concert with Dave Liebman added to RTF ?

Thank you for those interesting infos !

I think I´m listening more to RTF know than back in those days. Though my main love was the music just before the 70´s , I had the logical link to electric jazz of the 70´s , mostly electric Miles, but also Hancock´s Headhunters and to a lesser amount RTF. I think one of my buddies was an almost fanatic fan of RTF and pulled my coat to some of his stuff, "Where have I known You before" and "Romantic Warrior". But I still regret I missed a Chick Corea tour somewhere around 77 or 78, but I think it was RTF somehow augmented with other great musicians, above all my favourite Dave Liebman. Is this RTF live from the late 70´s featuring Dave Liebman ?

I must admit his name was not really familiar to me. I think if guys around me talked about bassists, have not mentioned him. But to my surprise, when I had a short look at a Bud Powell bio it was mentioned, that he played with Bud in early 1954, when Bud had a some weeks to play on the West Coast. But strange, if there was such a long tenure to on club, that there is no airshots or broadcasts. Not that I would be a completist, but I have not even known that Bud played otherwhere than in NY, and at Massey Hall in Canada....

I have listened to it once and one think I remember, that my wife liked the first tune. She said it sounds like a movie score for some nostalgic "film polițist"........in black white or so......

R.I.P. Like @sidewindersaid, the Black Lion LP´s were a main thing for jazz listeners in my youth. We had the Don Byas at Montmatre, the Dexter Gordon "Montmatre Collection", "Hawk in Germany" (with Bud !), Philly Joe Jones "Mo Jo" with some fantastic british musicians, "Illinois Jacquet" with Milt Buckner and the great Tony Crobie from UK, Monk´s "Nice Work in London" , and at least three Bud Powell albums (Invisible Cage, Strictly Confidential" and "Hot House". That´s what I had bought then. It seems that Alan Bates was eager to record Bud Powell and even visited him in N.Y. in late 1965 at some hospital, hoping to bring Bud back to Europe and to further recordings....

I was already a big Miles Davis fan, when Aghartha came out. It sold very well and we all listened to it. I had the record and others would come and make cassette tapes of it. That´s how it went then. First encounter with electric Miles late 1973. I have the impression that not all of his albums were so well advertised as this one. The "Get Up with It" was lesser known. I think the most common album just then in 1973/74 was "Big Fun" albeit it didn´t really represent the Miles of 1973-75 which was really a great, steady working unit. After Agharta, and I think it was when Miles was into his 5 years of hiatus from recording and performing, the hardcore fans said something about "Pangheea" and it was very very expensive, but I got a copy but I think this was 2 years after Aghartha, though it was from the same day .

Oh this is the 3 LP set that came out shortly after Mingus had died. A young fan had bought it, but I had most of the material anyway as full albums, at least from 1975 on I bought all the new albums that came out on Atlantic. It was that wonderful feeling that every year there would be a new record of your favourites that you saw live: Every year a new Mingus album on Atlantic , a new Miles Davis album, a new Dexter Gordon album on CBS, new albums of all them Milestone Artists Rolliins, Tyner, Henderson etc etc...... Is this another album than the Montreux 1969 with Eddie Harris ?

In jazz circles Max´s Quartet really DID make a big splash at my time. At least we, the modern-jazz oriented community, with fans born mostly in the 40´s and 50´s, and there were many many in the 70´s , well Max Roach was almost a God for us, and yes he WAS acknowledged as a bebop pioneer. All drummers, and all modern players of post bop, modal, avantgarde had that range of musical preferences from Bird to post Trane, post Ornette (with "holes" like most West Coast Jazz, Third Stream, Easy Listening Jazz), and I´ll never forget the exitement and enthuasm in town when it was announced that Roach will play. The day before, Art Farmer was booked and his drummer, a drum professor from the Graz-University of course idolized Max Roach. And during intermission before the second set started, Max Roach came in to listen and holding "court" and we hoped he might sit in with Art, but it´s sure, that for contractual reasons this was not possible. But the next night, when Max Roach played his wonderful concert, Art was in the Audience and was announced and greeted by Max Roach. See, for us, and we were a lot of guys, established musicians, budding musicians and most of all a big audience, this was a dream coming true. I mean, our musical tastes spread from the "Massey Hall Concert" to "Clifford Brown-Max Roach" to Miles, Rollins, Trane, Ornette and again electric Miles, so Max was "one of our fathers". During a time a bemoaned the death of Bird ... and Bud who had died only few years before, we all heard 3 out of 5 of the masters from "Massey": Diz, Mingus, Max....". And about the records. There were not as many as let´s say Mingus, but I could find "Speak Brother Speak" and "Clifford Brown-Max Roach on Basin Street". What I did not know then was that there was a special record shop in Viena that had all them Japan Imports, they had the Denon albums of Archie Shepp, of Max Roach and all, but terrible expensive for a teenager. But what I can say for sure: Almost every week there was a big US-Star of Jazz visiting our town and the houses (mostly Audimax of Universities) were PACKED with fans !!!! That´s the surroundings I grew up..... oh I´m jealous, how much would I like to hear and see Michael Weiss again. Such a wonderful musician, my idea of a perfect pianist.

I must have this. I have looked for it for 45 years !!! Because I heard THIS Band and THEIR version of Round Midnight, as much as I remember it starts in 3/4 time and then gets into a very fast and powerful proceeding. Since it was 45 years ago I don´t remember on which bar it changed from 3/4 to fast 4/4. But it was the highlight of the evening and that first live experience with Roach remained one of my most impressive moments of listening to live jazz, and of Max Roach anyway (everything that came after that, didn´t give me the same fascination like the Bridgewater-Harper-Workman band.... It was mentioned in the liner notes of one of his early Verve LPs, which was strange because almost never an other label is mentioned in liner notes for one certain label. But I think I remember he cited "Xanadu". During that time I never had heard the word "Xanadu" and had thought that it means "Canada" in another to me unknown language 🤣 I finally got that album in Basel (then in the 70´s the Orient-Express went Bucharest-Paris and stopped in Basel. I got the Bud Powell Xanadu at a record shop in the fancy historic center of Basel, AND in a book store the book "Ira Gitler-Jazz Masters of the 40´s ". It was like heaven on earth to have those to treasures as a young boy. The Xanadu LP is a sampler of different recordings. I think it started with Johnny Griffin -Bud Powell as a duet without bass or drums, but later I discovered, that the recorrding date is completly wrong, because Griff never had been in Paris in 1960. The other sides , I like especially those with Barney Wilen since Bud always sounded greatest when he played with a topnotch horn player. Especially "Autumn in Paris" really moved me. On Side B I think there is a set that features "Crossin the Channel" (from "The Scene Changes"), and a fantastic "Sweet and Lovely" and the best "Johns Abbey I ever heard. This is the best I remember from that "Xanadu" (in my case aka "Canada") album😀

I think I also saw an "Atlantic Years" compilation, but I think it was after Mingus´ death. My next entrance into Mingus-Atlantic was the one with the brown cover and a lot of Mingus Alumnis, I think from Carnegie Hall and then the contemporanious "Changes One/Two". But I didn´t have the chance to hear him with Adams/Pullen, I heard the next band after Adams/Pullen, but they also did "Sue´s Changes" and stuff. Yeah, the "That´s Jazz Series". But I must admit I don´t know who is Fat Albert Rotonda ...... The Hancock Album "The Prisoner" was the one that fascinated me most from all BN - Hancock albums. I was a big fan of Joe Henderson and his solos on that album are some of his best. This, and his contributions on "The Real McCoy". I had quite advanced musical tastes in my transition from boy to man, so albums like Mingus with Dolphy, Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, Trane with Cherry and the more advanced "Prisoner" in comparation to "Water Melon Man" were my favourites, stuff like "WaterMelon" sounded more boring to me then. But that was the times then......., anyway I head Water Melon first on "Headhunters" which didn´t exite me the same like contemporanous electric Miles from 73-75, but was "ok" for me.......

Blues and Roots actually was the second Mingus album I owned, after the America label 3 LP set "The Great Concert of Charles Mingus". That was those silver cover Atlantic series, I also had others from them, Ornette Coleman´s "Free Jazz", John Coltrane - Don Cherry "The Avantgarde" and for easy listening "Les McCann-Eddie Harris "Montreux 1969", and "Art Blakey-Thelonious Monk".