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Chick´s tune on that Blue Mitchell record. Would like to hear other versions of it also.

That´s it ! In my case mostly "Blues Train" and "Soul Station". I can´t say I´m an audiophile since my hearing is not so good any more and the most important thing for me is to hear the full drum set. On records I sometimes have difficulties to hear the cybals properly, it can be may ears which don´t get higher frequencies as good as it might have been, and very good it never was. That´s why I like the cymbals really loud (I think this was also the reason why Blakey played them really lound in later years). It also may be the fault of the recording engineers who sometimes drown the cymbals (maybe other listeners who are not drum addicts like I am). So if I hear Philly Joe Jones drum set as clear as possible, it will be okay for me. And "Soul-Station" for a fully captured tenor sound. And oh yeah, I think the piano is also very very fine recorded on this.

Thank´s again. That tune is so great and it´s a typical thing where it is NOT ENOUGH just to know it´s based on "You stepped out of a dream" since the theme is so strong, so hip. You just miss out the essence of it if you just get up on stage and say ok I know the chords. You really must get inside that melody to make good music with it.

I had mentioned the tune "Bean" and forgot to state that of course it´s based on the changes of "Stompin´at the Savoy", so it´s a fast line based on that changes, so this is also a nice fast swinging easy tune to blow hot stuff on it.

Somehow Mingus and Max are not always "Hand in Glove" like I had expected. And as much as I love Ellington´s compositions, I fear I like it more if it´s played by other pianists. I had similar problems when listening to the "Duke and Trane" thing. But music is something so great that I like to state that it could be my own fault if it didn´t get as much to me as it should be supposed.

Well I´ll do ! thank you ! But it must be a certain mood and a certain amount of time when I´m not listening to figure out, but just listening. One thing is sure, it swings. But my first choice if I felt like listening to Ella always was the "Ella and Basie".

Well, now as I had listened to all the 4 CDs and as you write about it, I had to have a short look at the cover though it´s so little print it´s almost impossible to read: It has 45 tracks , some are played twice als "live version" or "studio version". Though I know and play almost all the tunes they recorded (with the exception of "Bean" which I must do since it is what I like, a fast tune in Db, and "Hey Lock" which I´m sure I´ll play very soon, with two tenors or if not both available, at least with one of them) . Anyway, it´s easy stuff but ideal for club performances where the audience likes to hear hot stuff with groovy solos. About alternative tracks. I rarely listen to them, if they are at the end of a CD I normally stop the player before the alternate takes start. Maybe a red "Tuch" to read for collectors, but if you just want to run thru the tunes it´s that way.... About how many original albums the 4 CD set covers, on the right side of the back cover there is some miniature photos which seem to be original covers, I think it is even 8 albums, I didn´t know there was so many, considering the fact that their colaboration was for short time. I had only seen a "Griffin and Davis" double album in the early 70´s and I think I had thought that it is Griffin with Miles, and later I saw "Looking at Monk" maybe in this forum. Maybe the otheres where not available during the time I bought more records and CD had maybe 10 or 15 or more years yet to be invented.

A very interesting record, but I think that in this combination each of those three giants comes a bit too short.

I must have this . As much as I remember, it has Tommy Flanagan on piano, nice rhythm section and if I remember right they do "Mack the Knife" and Flanagan´s solo is particulary interesting as he plays each chorus in a different key, wonderful idea. And is there also a ballad, I think "Talk of the Town" . It must have been a very late album of Hawk as it seems his rhythm section is more active like he himself. He kinda had slowed down already.....

Well I didn´t know from which "market" it is. I purchased it mostly for listening to some two tenor stuff, since here in Viena you find two tenor units quite often since we have very very very good tenorsaxophonists and I love to play with them. I had several ocasions to work in such units and the tenorits often called tunes like "In Walked Bud", "Rhythm´a Ning", "Rifftide aka Hackensack" etc. And once when I was not playing I heard two tenorists do "Hey Lock". I didn´t know the tune and asked them what it is so they told me and I wanted to check the arrangement and play it myself. So this was my main reason. So I couldn´t say in my case that I would have looked for the separate albums or the original covers, it was just to get some collection to hear how they do it. And I have the "Onkel Po´s Carnegie Hall" also, but there is less tunes were they play together, but it´s hot stuff, no question. The things with Shirley Scott I don´t have. I´m not really into organ units. I also had the Dizzy Gillespie Big 7 or what it is, as soon as it came out in the 70´s. By the way: "I Remember April" and fast versions of "Lover Come Back to Me" is also really a gym for me. I love to play tunes like that......

Thank you Pim for your very thoughtful and interesting statements ! So you still a very very young guy. I noticed that you see it much more like and drug habit which sure is the case with most smokers. In that case it seems to be like the "horse" than run addict musicians like Bird, Fats, Chet and many others. I don´t have that panic feeling where my body "needs" a cigarrete, it´s like the need for a big cup of coffee in the morning and in the afternoon, like the appetite when a good dinner waits for me at home, like the first taste of my cold (non-alcoolic) beer when I´m thirsty, like to urge to make love, so I´m happy not to see the negative point of it. About companies making big money with my smoking "habit" I have a more laconic point of view, even if you might like it. I just say let ´em make money, they sell it legally, it´s not like drug trafic. I make a good living with a demanding and good paid job, so let ´em make their money, it´s their business.... About politicians making it harder for smokers, well if they think so , let ´ em do it, they get paid for it. On the other hand, they don´t make nothing with drugs. Kids can buy drugs in front of school and drugs are sold in subway stations, in parks, everywhere. And them kids drinkin vodca at parties until they have to be rushed to the hospital...... , if I see or read that, I think that restrictions for cigarettes is like "shooting little birds with cannons" in comparation to the inactivity in context with hard drugs and alcool. But they don´t dare to forbid alcool, and alcool causes much more victims. I wouldn´t say I´m such a sporty guy. I´m tall and thin, so I don´t have to get rid of too many pounds. I did jogging in the morning on weekend or on holyday, or before dinner when I was working. But then came the pandemie and I was afraid to go out or maybe catch a cold and then not know if it´s just a mild cold or covid. I started to do my jogging in my garden, but it´s all grass in my garden so it feels funny if you are running, and barefoot isn´t a solution due to bees and vesps. I found out that walking fast, taking two stairways at once, avoiding lifts and if it doesn´t rain, I prefer to walk the distance from my house to my office (2 km) rather than take the "tramvai".

I never could find the Concord CD, I´ve heard it might be interesting since it features more Monk compositions as usual. About Roy Eldridge and Clark Terry jumpin in for Diz I think there was a similar incident here in Viena. They had to play without Diz to the big disappointment of the Vienese audience, who was replaced by Cat Anderson and maybe Clark Terry. To bad I was 1 year too young to have seen it, my first goin´out to concerts was in 1973. Otherwise I could have said I have seen Monk. Since most of my friends were a bit elder (né 1955) they told me about the event which they saw. Too bad that the live recordings were not released officially I think a lot of people would have purchased it. About the London sessions, mostly the solo pieces it was kinda of a guide to me to play solo pieces. It´s just incredible , so good.

I have thought the last recordings were later. I think I have somewhere a maybe not really legit recording of two different live sessions. One from late 1972 at the Village Vanguard with Paul Jeffrey, Dave Holland and Tootie , which is very very fine . And one is from Newport 1975 I think, with Larry Ridley on bass I think. Both suffer a bit of bad sound quality, and maybe at least in my personal opinion Paul Jeffrey didn´t fit as well in the Monk context like others before. Too bad there is no recording evidence of the time when Pat Patrick (from Sun Ra) played with Monk. Anyway, even this 1975 performance was not Monk´s last. He performed their one year later again, and also did another concert with Lonny Hillyer on trumpet added, if I remember right.

This year I have heard several 2-tenor units here in Viena and some tunes were originally recorded by the Griffin-Davis-tandem. It´s strange but I didn´t have no record with that formation and was glad to find this 4 CD collection with all the sessions. I think the original label was "jazzland" . There is also the live at Minton´s included, and the "Lookin´ at Monk". Now I have listened to the first 3 CDs and the first 2 tracks of CD 4 and can share some of my impressions: I´ve always been fascinated by those two. Johnny Griffin, when he lived in Europe, was the first great American star musician I heard. And at the beautiful club "Jazzland" here in Viena I attended many many nights when Eddie Lockjaw Davis was playing. I even have "closed" circles somehow when I saw Johnny Griffin the last time shorthly before he died. This last time was also the first and only time, that my wife and my son saw and heard him. I love their collection of tunes and their unique sound and phrasing, even for not so experienced jazz listeners I think they are among those you might recognize most easily in a blindfold test. Personal favourites on those collections would be the wonderful "Hey Lock" based on Body and Soul in the A-sections and an 8 bar B section with descending chords similar to "Lover". And two versions of "In Walked Bud" ! The rhythm section is Junior Mance, Larry Gales and Ben Riley who later became long time members of Monk´s quartet. Maybe on some occasions the recording quality is not very good. The horns are captured very well, but the bass sounds weak in the mix, and from the drums you don´t hear the cymbals well. The piano sounds a bit tinny even on the studio records. Even if recording tehnologies in the 60´s were not up to now, but BN or Impulse had better recording sounds. One word about Junior Mance . I don´t think I have much from him, I think he is on an early Lester Young thing where he sounds almost like Bud. He has a lot of tehnique, almost like an Oscar Peterson, but at least for my taste he sometimes get´s too "funky" especially on Monk tunes like Epistrophy, were it´s a bit exagerated. But he is a helluva pianist, period.

Rainbow trouts from late autumn in the Austrian Mountains.

Though I´m not really into west coast jazz (maybe I was too young for it or it was not much discussed in Austrian and Eastern European jazz circles of my generation), this is really an allstar summit. As I said in another thread, it seems that they had great music there at Aurex, but it never appeared here, or I never saw it in record shops. Quite a surprise that west coast musicians play Bud´s "Un Poco Loco" if it is that tune, and I had to laugh reading the title "Popo" for the first track. We say "popo" for ass , with the accent on the last "o".

For ten years and kicked 5 years ago ? So you are very young or did you start smoking later than usual. In my case, I´ve smoked for 50 years (with 13 the first cigarette in the men´s room of the high school....all "bad" guys did that back in 1972,73). I was a heavier smoker in my late teens and early 20´s but reduced it considerably. I love to smoke a cigarette after hard negotiations, after a gig, after breakfast, lunch, dinner, and after makin love. Don´t see no reason to quit this, and no doctor told me I might. Having coffee without a cigarette might be like a gulasch without paprika for me.

Wonderful. I think I bought it then since it is one of the few occasions where Trane recorded for BN, I don´t remember well but besides "Blue Train" I think he was on "Blowin´Session" with Hank and Griff, on "Whims of Chambers" and on this one. I think there is a very long tune, maybe it is a Blues in Bb with an 8 bar bridge on which Trane is fantastic, and if I remember right there was also a ballad on it..... Somehow I think it was not as popular as "Cool Struttin´" but very very fine. There could be more from Aurex, I always had heard about that festival and the big names who all played there, mostly all star surroundings. But somehow I fear it never appeared here in Europe. The Blakey All Star Frontline with Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, and if you want to include Wynton Marsalis (at least THEN we had great hopes that he will become the next generation, after Hub, after Woody) . In the same year 1983 I saw the Blakey Jazz Messengers (without the allstar frontline), but with Blanchard-Harrison-Toussaint as the front line, and the same John O´Neal and Lonnie Plaxico on p and b. It was a very good performance and they even played some "free" passages, and John O´Neal was a very good piano player, he was only for a short time and I never heard what he did after it. One highlight on that performance also happened. Dizzy Gillespie (who was scheduled for the next day) came on stage, looking like a "tourist" with a foto-aparat hanging from his neck, and he sat in for some topnotch scat on "Wee". It is possible that due to contractual reasons he was not allowed to play the trumpet also, but Dizzy scattin fast bop , backed by the Messengers also is something you´ll never forget.....

Yes, written in the original language is always the best. I´m really moved by the writing style of Mr. Lewien, but must admit I don´t know much about him. I googled him, and obviously he died a few years ago. Another book, somehow similar in the way it was written, was the original "Dance of the Infidels" in French, written by Francis Paudras. I never had the english translation, I had the french book as soon as it came out. Same like Lewien, Paudras had that sensible side and idolized Bud from a very early age on. The only thing that I observed is that Paudras obviously was very naive about the really purposes of Bud´s comback in NY. I think he really thought that Oscar Goodstein is just a "Gutmensch" who want´s to help Bud, but the truth was so obvious. How could a businessman think other than wanting to make money out of it. For him, sending a check to cover Bud´s hospital and sanatorium stay was just an invest thing, to get him healthy and than get the money back from the earns and make a profite. Francis was "lost" in N.Y. An thinking that he could change an erratic alcoolic but genius piano player to live a model citizen life without booze also was illusory. Francis somehow was a commercial artist with very bourgois background, he might have been a precedessor of what nowadays is called the "Bobos" we have here in Viena in the 7th and 8th district (called "Bobostan").

Very interesting link ! Thank you ! This is possible. I remember I have read in Lothar Lewien´s book about Chet Baker, that there was a scheduled concert pairing Teddy Edwards with Chet Baker, in Germany, but Chet didn´t appear so Teddy Edwards had to play as the only hornplayer. But sure I would have loved to hear him.

What a dream team. And when I think that Frank Morgan who has top billing here was completlly unknown to me during a time, when Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Mulgrew Miller, Ron Carter and Al Foster were some of my top favourites whom I had seen live in various surroundings. I´ll have to ask Allan more about Frank Morgan.....

I had purchased this some decades ago, I think it was shortly after Chet´s death. Mr. Lothar Lewien is a remarkable writer and his stories about the concerts he saw are great ! You almost can imagine those days in the best jazzclub of Berlin, with greats like Tete Montoliu, Peter Trunk and Joe Nay, Chet´s performances after his comeback in the late 70´s and 80´s . Mr. Lewien has a wonderful way to express his feelings as a young boy who just felt in love the the sound of Chet´s trumpet, and that this music was his best friend. He must have been a very very sensible guy too, with soft feelings. I recognized myself in the boy who fell in love with Jazz, in my case it was Miles, Mingus, Trane, Ornette Coleman and back to the bop stars. I also had an inner contemplative side, but outside I think I was not as soft as Mr. Lewien, more with a rauncious side of a hot blooded youngster. But this personality of Mr. Lewien is the stuff that makes good books. So, it´s a wonderful book and I enjoy reading it again.

Is it possible that Teddy Edwards was not playing in Europe, respectiv in Austria ? I don´t remember I would have seen him. But I heard him on some sides on Spotlite with Dexter I think, maybe it was original Dial sessions.....

This is one of my absolute top favourites. Billy Eckstine is my idea of a perfect singer. And this is the perfect band, never ever it happened again. Those incredible arrangements by Dameron and others, the approach of the songs, the ocasionally vintege bop like "Second Balcony Jump" or "Oo Bop Sh Bam" and all that . When I play a ballad, I THINK Billy Eckstine with Band, them great chord progressions, all that hip stuff. Maybe the last side doesn´t appeal to me as much as sides A-C , because it starts to get "Hollywood" with them strings and so on, but the songs still very fine, though the legendary band slowly disappears. All Stars you can give for that Double LP !

I have not seen him, maybe he had not toured Austria. I also was astonished when I read that thing that fellow musicians complained about him. Until then I also had thought he is articulate and grateful for the fact that he can play. So I also was quite astonished to read about him quite shitty on more than one occasion. Maybe it was like Sonny Stitt. Stitt could be ok on several performances but could be really shitty on other occasions. I saw him only once and it was almost a desaster...., the way he lectured the rhythm section on the bandstand.....