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I love it though my very very first impression of Sam Rivers was the later recorded "Dimensions and Extensions".

So great. Though my main interest always has been acoustic jazz, this was the music of my youth too. It was brand new when I was a young fan and naturally I dug not only 50´s and 60´s Miles and 60´s Hancock, but also this one. We loved it , as we loved let´s say "Bitches Brew", "On the Corner"...., it was just the music of that time and it was still that kind of 10 years intervals of styles, as was swing in the 30´s, bop in the 40´s, hardbop in the 50´s, Free and Modal in the 60´s and Electrick Jazz in the 70´s .

Jack, you said it. I´d like to find one good baritone singer. You find a lot of female singers but it´s hard with male singers. But anyway I think working with vocalists is my weakest point. I even caught advice here some years ago when I had to do a gig with a female singer, I was a bit afraid of doing it, since I always have been the guy around them hot and fast players in the neo bop, post bop styles, playing strong instrumental music, and singers was quite an unusual thing for me and I was afraid that I wouldn´t please them if my comping is used to soloists on trumpet, trombone, saxophone. Very often when after the gig there was a jam and different players got up on stage, if I spotted a singer I´d get up to take a break....

Well, Byas left the States in the 40´s and stayed there for the rest of his live. He tried a comeback in the States in the early 70´s and actually played there with the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra and with Blakeys Jazz Messengers and I think he also did a Japan tour with the Jazz Messengers. But the difficulty must have been that acoustic jazz was no market in those years, even stars like Art Blakey had to struggle for gigs then. I think Verve was founded after Don Byas left the States in 1946/47. Sure, Verve would have payed him good money, but for me as a listener I´m just glad he did NOT record for Verve. All the Verve albums Bird did for Norman Granz, they are good but don´t have the same fire and imagination like the so called "small labels" , and Dizzy the same. So there was no time when Byas COULD have become a Verve artist . I was quite astonished why that Byas - Bud Powell collaboration was not released when those musicians were alive since it was a studio record. Byas also recorded with Bud in Germany for the Impulse album "Americans in Europe" but it´s strange there is almost only ballads, which is even more strange since it was a live event. One ballad is fine, but they should have cooked more on faster stuff, since they both were fast guns in jazz. I think there is also an unofficial recording of Byas with Bud in Denmark, I think it also has Brew Moore. I have heard that Byas was quite a difficult person and it was very very hard to please him as a European player. I think the short lived Ronny Scott book with memories about those musicians stated that Byas and Brew Moore where very difficult to handle and often cursed european fellow musicians on stage "if you must play crap play it low" or something like that.... Interesting, it was the same thing with me. Those Concord Young Lions of the time , those young guys who played pre bop stuff in the 70´s and 80´s never was my thing. Now that you say it it seems on that Woody Herman All Star it was also Varren Vaché on trumpet. I didn´t play much attention to him. About the Galaxy albums, I really would have liked to hear some of those live albums from Japan, but I think Galaxy was a very short lived label. I don´t know if it re-appeard on all those "original jazz classic" series...

I would have liked to be there. Just a few days before or after that, Miles also played in Viena and it´s a shame I was not there, but I was giggin´ in other towns. The last time I had seen Miles was one year before and it was magic, compared to the somehow silly shit of "Human Nature" and "Time after Time" from all those years between 84-88. Well I know more about the musical thing, but at some point, even if it is not associated with my thread here, I can share some of your opinions about Miles´ styling in the late 80´s. I liked the way Miles looked just in the first weeks after his comeback in 1981, it was honest, he looked like an aged Miles after 5 or 6 years of abuse of substances and all those illnesses like hip operations, bursitis and whatever...., but he was "Miles" , and then he just slicked his hair back or wore a cap. And he had his trousers tight to the legs, so it looks handsome and slim. I don´t know which japanese style icone he had consulted later, but he began to look like a sad parody of his old self. The exagerated afro (a hair wave) made him look like a poodle and make his head too big, while those wide trousers made him look even shorter than he actually was. About the release of that CD I think maybe it was difficult to release as an official album since there was so many musicians on it who where under contract by other labels. Same thing about a Dizzy All Stars think also done in Paris about the same time that also had Stan Getz and others, I couldn´t even find it on discogs....

I got it some years ago from my wife, it was two CDs, the other is "Misterioso" and has a very strange cover art. My wife said it looks "like Hamlet". The music is great and sounds very modern. I´m glad there is some players here in Viena who play with similar power, all them great tunes "Evidence" "In Walked Bud" and so on. I saw Buddy Tate in a Woody Herman All Stars combo. It was the only time I saw Woody Herman without his "Herd", I think it was Al Cohn, Scott Hamilton, Buddy Tate, maybe a trumpet player I don´t remember. I think they all were Concord label artists. Woody played a lot of clarinet and even sang a number "I´ve got the world on a string". The only sad thing was that George Duvivier was scheduled to be on bass but died exactly on that day. It must have been in July 1985. Jimmy Woode during my earlier times in the 70´s was a regular bassist on many nights I saw. I remember he played a lot with the great Austrian piano star Fritz Pauer, Tony Inzalaco was on drums, and I saw them also together with Johnny Griffin in spring 1978. Jimmy Woode was announced as "James Woody the Second". That´s how Griff announced musicians during those, he himself announced him as "Johnny Griffin III".

Any more love for that great date ? Anyone....

Great treatment of "You Stepped Out" here ! It´s such a nice tune to improvise on it. That Anthony Braxton version really sound great. It´s interesting that some of his phrasing (not his sound) reminds me of Lee Konitz. For me it would be a 100 stars record if there had been a drummer added. You know, a really good drummer, but it really swings. @Jack Pine: Yes that´s a fine thing that jazz is such a huge field that one can enjoy so many different styles. About "Cool Jazz" I think the most I heard besides "Birth of the Cool" was some Lennie Tristano stuff, if it was not too cerebral and not with those annoying gimmicks of overdubbing his piano lines. But especially those units with Billie Bauer on guitar and Lee Konitz on as are very nice. Maybe that the later 50´s records, I think they call them the "Pacific Jazz" was not so much available here in Austria during "my time". At least I fear this kind of music was not very much taught at the jazz institutes then. I fear I had "slept" when there was a "swing revival". I had thought this was the time of the "young lions" in jazz, who now are established masters. I fear I must admit that at some point in the 90s I became tired of all that touring, all that driving home in the small hours, all them terrible bean soups and coffees at Gas - Stations on highways...., all that carrying around them amps and tubs , that I decided to do leave it there and concentrate more on my anyway demanding day job. But you are right. Easy swing dancing was there and in the "non musical" period of my live I enjoyed very much dancing with my wife. Billy Eckstine is also a favourite of mine. I would like to find such a singer of that kind of stuff and play a gig, I mean to add such a guy to a good jazz combo, but there is much more female singers those days....

If I remember right, there were two volumes. Same photo, but one cover in yellow, and one in black. You might laugh at me, but this was about the first album of so called "Cool Jazz" I ever had. (with the exception of "Birth of the Cool". And the circumstances how I purchased it are also funny. I was at a jazz club and in the after hours after the gig the owner spinned his records as usually, he was famous for his records. And suddely I heard a male vocal "There will never be another you" but was completly fascinated by the strong bass sound (no wonder, it´s Ron Carter), and so I went to the record store and bought it (for Ron Carter´s bass ). But it has some nice playing on it. I think Bernie´s Tune even reached Charlie Parker and Wardell Gray who played it. Other songs like "Unfinished Woman" sound a bit boring, but okay, nice albums....

Those years were good years. We were very exited that J.J. Johnson recorded again. His last record, very much listened by us was his 1977 Yokohama Concert. So it was great to have him touring again and playing here in 1981 which anyway was a good year. Dexter had his "Gotham City" out and visited Austria every year for playing festivals, Miles Davis was back with "The Man with the Horn" with much more "jazz" than one might have expected, good old times....

Yes, in my youth, of course I didn´t have many records then, it was Miles Davis "Steamin", "Miles Davis in Europe 1963", "The Great Concert of Charles Mingus (with Dolphy), Charles Mingus "Blues and Roots", Charlie Parker "Savoy Master Takes", Dizzy Gillespie "Groovin High", Bud Powell "The Amazing Vol. 1 and 2", Fats Navarro Memorial (Savoy) , John Coltrane Good Bait, Sonny Rollins Prestige Sessions. I listened to them over and over again. Now I don´t listen very much anymore due to lack of time and because I´m playing myself....

Monk always has been a big inspiration for me as a musician. Somehow I adopted some of his musical language if I treat a song that maybe not even is a "jazz standard" and it would turn into some of the chord voicings that I got as inspiration for Monk. Once my wife asked me to play some "classic piece" and the only one I "know" is a little Chopin Waltz. It has some nice chords and I leave some notes out and anyway my phrasing is as far removed from classical piano as it could be, at least that´s what I assume. Well so maybe it looks and sounds somehow "funny" for people with classical trained ears....

Hi Jack ! I never had heard vocal versions of it, but I must admit that this doesnt mean much in my case. My wife likes Nat Cole´s voice very much and has an album of him where he sings in Spanish, well that´s music SHE likes. Well about Chick Corea and about Fusion in general: The fusion bag could be also a generation thing: When I became interested in jazz, the actual style was fusion. Though I loved those 50´s, 60´s Miles, Trane, Mingus etc. , you got to be accquainted with the actual jazz style of my time. And don´t forget it was the time of Electric Miles, Bitches Brew and On the Corner was just out, Herbie Hancocks Headhunters and Chick Coreas RTF were touring. Some in my high school were Electric Miles and Headhunters fans, and some where RTF fans. I must say that the Chick Corea /RTF fans were more the quiet and more philosophical guys, we had those who wanted to "create an ideal world" and stated that RTF had "changed their lives". Though "ideal worlds" and "changing my live" never was my bag I had to admit that it is very good music. One thing I must say so that you can understand me better: Fusion never thrilled me the same way like let´s say Bird or Miles or Trane or Ornette and all of ´em , but it was THERE . Now aged 63 I can say I´m lucky I didn´t have to play fusion for more then a few years since it was harder to get back to acoustic, but you still learned something from it. And though I don´t think I would like to go back to that stuff, it was good years with international jazz festival gigs, studio recording and composing and I was proud when some compositon of mine got "radio play"....tell me one young guy who wouldn´t be proud of that..... About Chick Corea´s acoustic piano style: You say it, if it does not move you there is enough other artists that you like. I also have music styles that don´t move me. For example, most of the typical West Coast stuff of the 50´s just doesn´t reach me, so it´s more than natural that each musician or music lover has his own tastes. P.S. I had sent you a message a few days ago....

Oh I didn´t know that, and I had thought that Miles had stopped hard drugs much earlier and had stopped smoking also soon after his comeback. There were reports that he only drinks mineral water and eats fish and salads, or maybe this was just "promotion" to create a model citizen ? But anyway, what remains is his music, and I hope for others I wrote enough interesting stuff about it in my little review.....

I think it seldom happens that the son listens or plays the same kind of music like his dad did. My dad listened only to classical music, mostly them long operas of Wagner, while I discovered jazz on my own (but soon making older friends who would teach me) . And though both my sons play instruments (electric guitar, electric bass) they are into metal and that´s okay for me too, maybe more okay for me than it was in my case for my father, who would have wished that I learn classical music which just was not my kind of music. So each generation in my family had it´s own groove in music.

I got this from my wife as a birthday present. I never had heard about it and it´s a great live event, much better than the posthum issued "Miles Around The World" on Warner, which IMHO is just a sampler, since it´s different recordings, each from another venue, rather than a full concert. Besides the fact that a lot of former Davis Alumni are sharing the stage with him, I´d like to mention his own band too. I think that the last bands, starting with the 1989 band with Kei Akagi on keyboards, and this much thinner instrumentation, just a sextet is much more "jazz" and band playing than former formations with a lot of keyboard sounds and programming and sometimes quite boring tunes. Here we have a good keyboarder who plays good solos and not just pushing buttons. I think the better music , I mean more interesting for jazz listeners started with "Amandla". I would say I enjoyed the band he had early after his comeback on "We Want Miles" and this one. And Miles is playing much more trumpet and his legendary harmon mute sound is great as ever. I heard he died shortly after this, but there is no evidence of weakness on that event, which goes for 2 hours, with Miles playing much trumpet on all tunes. Maybe Kenny Garrett is not what I like most, I liked the saxophone player Bill Evans from "We Want Miles" much more. Garrett´s sound and his solos on simple one chord, two chord vamps sounds much more like a nameless studio musician playing over a recorded track, than real jazz. Okay, he has trememdous power, but something´s with his sound and approach than doesn´t really move me. Especially on the eternal "Human Nature".... it´s always the same game, with those shouts in the highest register towards the end of that A minor vamp, quite boring, and I don´t really know why Miles kept it so long in his repertory, the tune just don´t say anything to me. Much better musically is "Perfect Way", and the wonderful Blues in Bb. Something very interesting happens on the short Zawinul-Shorter duet of "In a Silent Way". Here it is played with very interesting chords, obviously as Zawinul had composed it, and I remember I had read someone that Miles kept the melody but cut out all them chords, to keep it only on E natural, very simple. "It´s About Time" also from "In a Silent Way" is fantastic, and to have Steve Grossman and Al Foster is wonderful and Miles plays so great ! The biggest surprise is the really old bop numbers with Jackie McLean. On the track list only "Dig" is mentioned, but actually they first play "Out of Blue" (that´s based on "Get Happy" ) and after that "Dig" , that´s Jackey McLeans bop line on "Sweet Georgia Brown". Those are really strong with Jackie Mac and Grossman and that fantastic rhythm section Chick Corea, Dave Holland , Al Foster, they really cook and the big surprise is that Miles who never looked back and was rumoured that he couldn´t have had the chops for the bop tunes even if he would have played them again, really plays short but beautiful solo trumpet on them. It´s really an enigma for me why he died so shortly after that, if he could play that strong just a few weeks before. He must have enjoyed that event very very much. "Water Melon Man" I think had never before been recorded by Miles, on "Footprints" again he is beautiful, with Wayne Shorter, and the last tune, the wonderful "Jean Pierre" from the 1981 concert bills is here again, with all the musicians all together , all the saxophonists, keyboardists, guitarists, bassists and drummers..... a dream event.

Really sad. I remember I always hoped he would come back, like Miles who came back after 5 years. And later Henry Grimes after decades.......

Well, "You Stepped Out of a Dream" is a very common standard I thought. And there are many famous records done by famous musicians who played it. "Sonny Rollins Vo. II" on Blue Note is only one example. By the way it is great with a dream team J.J. Johnson, Horace Silver, Paul Chambers, Art Blakey. The renewed interest of the "Stepped Out" - based "Chick´s Tune" might have a certain context with jazz academy studies, since so many advanced jazz students and pro´s play it here and obviously in other countries too, as some you tube videos proove. Maybe it is as a study for the way Chick Corea plays certain lines . Anyway, a lot of Chick Corea´s way of playing and improvising is very interesting. On early Miles Davis records where he replaced Herbie Hancock, it sounds like he is a further developement of Hancock´s style, I mean Hancock´s basics, and a more advanced way to play chords and lines, takin the music further out, exploring more of it. In my youth Chick Corea just was "RTF" , but listening closer to his solo inputs there, you can learn much. Indifferent if I choose to play the original standard "You Stepped Out..." or the Chick Corea line, I may have two different ways of approaching the tune: One more "boppish" and one more "post bop/modal" ...

There would be much to do to release later Monk. First of all, I never found the Giants of Jazz from Switzerland, which would be interesting since I read that they play much more Monk tunes than on the London release. Then I have read that Monk played with a larger orchestra at Carnegie Hall about the same time. And besides the two Newport Festival gigs I think I read something about a concert with more than just one horn. As good as Monk sounded even in later years it is hard for me to understand why he stopped playing. I think it must be hard to just retire after decades of playing music, and 50odd years is not quite the age of retirement for a pianist. Especially when during the late 70s there was a new interest in acoustic jazz, there would have been huge success and money for someone like Monk. It´s significant that Dexter had so much success starting from the late 70´s.....

I have heard Ralph Burns only on that "Saturday Night Jazz Session" on the America Label, that group with Fats Navarro (the reason I bought it then in the 70´s ) , Allen Eager, Charlie Ventura, Buddy Rich and I think that first number "High on an Open Mike" started with Ralph Burns on piano. I remember it was a quite unusual style, mostly with very heavy block chords on that descending chords in the bridge (I think I remember the song is based on "If I had You" in the A section with a bridge of descending chords). That´s really a good group. That rhythm section, George Cables incredible solo on that long Art Pepper composition something with "Make a Wish" or so. I must admit I like the rhythm section more than the star himself, though sure he´s great.

I heard that pre 1944 there was a recording "ban" whatever that means. That must have been a desaster for the record industry and for the musicians. Maybe it had to do with that scheiss-krieg and now we can´t hear much of the real story of the transition from swing to bop. Well there is "Early Bird" with the Jay McShann Orchestra that gives us a glimpse of how music was then, but I heard that Diz and Bird and Oscar Pettiford were on the street as early as 1943,44 ....

I did it of course ! Some years ago. In the left ear 70% is missing, in the right ear 50%. But I don´t have any problems when playing live or listening to live music. I would have problems if there was instruments like piccolo or high notes of let´s say a vibe or a celeste, or very high notes from the piano. Headphones would be a solution for listening records, but I feel so isolated if I use headphones. No headphones, and I never do what others do while riding the bus or the subway, listening to music with hadphones. What I do is "cut out" what´s around me and "hear music in my head". Well, sometimes it is to the astonishment of peoples around me, since I seem to be "off" because I figure out musical things in my head, memorizing tunes, comping or soloin imaginationed solo lines and stuff. But there are enough modern recorded albums especially live albums where I hear my beloved cymbals very well. I´m just a drums addict and my favourite drummer here in Viena, sometimes if I´m off I just go and listen to him when he plays with other personnel and seat next to the drums to hear and feel it. But it´s interesting there are old studio recordings where you hear the drums right. Take "Tranes Blues" on one of those Prestige Albums Miles did, you really hear the wonderful cymbal sound of Philly J.J., and BN also did a good job with it. It seems that some recording engeneers think "jazz" and think drums, and others think non jazz and don´t understand the drums. That´s a big point. And I heard that even among jazz listeners there are some who don´t want to hear too much drums.....

Must spin that again. I think I bought it mostly because it´s one of the few ocasions where Trane recorded for BN. That long first tune, I think I remember it´s a AABA form with the A sections 12 bar blues, and an 8 bar bridge. Very strong Trane on it. And I think it also has a slow version of some standard, maybe "How Deep´s the Ocean" ? In general I think it didn´t sell as well as "Cool Struttin´" which maybe is even better, though it doesn´t have Trane on it, but Jackie McLean is also top for me like Trane...... Sonny Clark I think has a very hard touch with his right hand. He doesn´t play many runs, but is the ultimate hard bop pianist. It seems that his playing and his love for minor key tunes had influenced that somehow "strange and untypical" Bud Powell album "The Scene Changes". Same touch, similar ideas. But for that kind of style (minor key hardbop at medium tempo) I prefer Sonny Clark.

Too bad there is no recordings of the Earl Hines Band that had so much young talent in it. I think it was also Budd Johnson, and some who later became bop stars, including Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughn also.....

Good schedule indeed !