Gheorghe

It´s strange but I have never been in the Blue Tomato, though this was not far from my place. It was in the 15th district. I´m not sure if it was a jazz-only club, but maybe they didn´t have a piano so I might not have been there. There was another club called "Miles Smiles" where I never was, I think it was maximal for duo, or anyway they didn´t have a piano or you couldn´t play drums or so. Besides the now existing venues , in the 80´s there was also "Jazz Gitti" in the 1th district, Jazz Freddie in the 6th district, "Opus One" in the 1st district, that´s joints where I played until they closed. Now somebody had told me there is another jazz club in the "Gürtel" Area (Stadtbahnbögen) which is called 1019 or so. But as I saw there is not only jazz and I didn´t see a piano on the stage photos, and it seems it is only "door money" so it might be hard to get professional musicians who would play for that. But nice you have been in my hometown.

It´s a wonderful album, I love it. Like all great tenor saxophonists, Pharoah was a great ballad player. When I heard him for the first time live in the early 80´s he also featured a ballad. If I remember right, on this one is also "I want to talk about you", the Billy Eckstine tune that Trane also recorded . Much later my wife bought me the Max Bollemann-Book (the sound engeneer form Timeless records) and I was surprised what horrible story was about the surroundings when this record was made......

I think I would have read that kind of books when I was young and tragical stories of self destructive fascinated me. All that "stories" about Bird, all those details about Bud as written by Francis Paudras with all the funky side of it. The last one I read was Laurie Peppers book, but I can´t say I enjoyed it. Tragic story, I scrolled up, and this thing of destroyed brain cells due to alcoolism that´s a drama. About the difficulties of players from the older generation if they try to play modal stuff, this was very often: As for Al Haig, you can hear it on that not very good album of Dex somewhere in Paris, where they play a modal tune I think...., anyway on that album Al Haig really sounds great only on the trio track "Round Midnite". Maybe because due to his destroyed brain cells he just played better what was part of his musical past. But as "wife" .......from all what I "hear" I doubt Al Haig was made for family live.

Thank you @AllenLowe for sharing this one. If I remember right, this was the first tune, where Don Byas plays the first solo (possibly because Bird was late on the band stand). Okay, yeah, I don´t doubt that Al had a brilliant touch and technique, but I like his solos more on the 1948 broadcasts with Bird from the Royal Roost. In those two years he learned more about bebop phrasing, at least that´s my impression. In the earlier examples from Town Hall and Billy Berg´s , he plays fine, but has to many "stops" from one A section to the other or from the second A to the bridge. It´s what you play there, that makes the thing into a natural "flow", like Bird always did, like Diz and Fats did and Bud Powell did. I just try to say that it is fascinating to hear how Haig at the beginning still had a bit of classical approach and obviously learned naturally played bebop playing every night with the bop leaders, so after maybe 2 years he got it. I´ll never say else, that the Al Haig of 1948/49 was fully developed. I have not heard much Haig after that. I regret he never came to Austria during his lifetime, I have heard that he had played in Hamburg, and in Londra and at some bop reunions with Diz and on one occasion with Dex in the late 70´s (not the best record, but a wonderful Haig solo on Round Midnight). Another piano player who really could play bop very fine was Lou Levy, he was underrated I think. P.S.: I love to play the tune "Be Bop". Usually we choose one up tempo number for each set, it may be "Be bop" "Salt Peanuts", "Dizzy Atmosphere" "52nd Street Theme" or a standard tune like "Get Happy" "Cherokee" , that kind of stuff.....

20 years ago.....time flies, but I hope that I´ll not feel old for the next decades , that´s what I hope. I have met only one member , it is @bichos, who did post very much but rarely posts now. He came to visit Vienna with his familily, got some hours off and I invited him for coffee in my place. Since at that time gigs were scarce I didn´t have the opportunity to offer him an evening at a club, so I just played some tunes just for him on piano. Now, maybe I´ll meet the one or other member in person, if they live in or near Viena or visit the town, when we play a gig at one of the about 3 jazz venues here in town.

Hello friends. I heard that tune live and re-listened to it on Blue Mitchell´s album with Chick. Well, the chords is easy cheesy for me, it´s just "You stepped out of a dream", but I´d like to see the lead sheet to check all them breaks and that pedal point section. I had googled and found only transcriptions of the solos which is not helpful for me. In Realbook or Sheetmusic it seems I couldn´t find it.

This is a quartet of some of the very best musicians of that time early 80´s her in Europe. Allan Praskin (as) lives in Europe. John Thomas (g) stayed in Europe for a shorter period, Adelhard Roiding (b) is one of our best bass players, and Lala Kovatchev was a fantastic drummer from Yugoslavia. All tunes are originals by the band members. The title tune is a wonderful bop line based on the chords of "Cheek to Cheek". "Love Song" from the drummer is deeply influenced by old Serbian folk music, The last tune "It´s No One" of course is based on "It´s You or No One" and they really cook, but I would have wished it lasted longer, it´s only 2 minutes.

Great !

Oh, David Williams on bass ? I didn´t know he played with Pepper too, I mostly associated him with Cedar Walton (did you see Cedar Walton at "Reigen" . Reigen was cool for us, only 3 stations with linia 60. You really have the names of sideman from the festivals of that period ?

James Moody, one of the most significant tenor players with Diz in the bebop-years, occasionally returned to his former boss on several occasions, mostly in the 80´s. I remember a reunion of Diz with Moody and Milt Jackson in 1981. And I think on his 70 year´s birthday-big band of All Stars it was also Moody on sax and flute. He even had a solo spot doing his vocal on "Moody´s Mood for Love"....

Only the pianist ? Maybe, I don´t remember who was on bass and drums. But George Cables ? I believe the scheduled pianist would have been Milcho Leviev, and I had heard that there was a big verbal fight between Art and him and it is very possible that Leviev decided to quit and did let Art "stranded" without a pianist. George Cables leads me to Dexter, who also played in Velden in 1981. Cables had been a long time pianist for Dex, but during that time was replaced by Kirk Leightsey. That´s the two quartets I saw then: Art Pepper with Lou Levy, and Dex with Kirk Leightsey...... About Art Pepper: I´m always astonished how articulated he was on stage, greeting the audience, thanking for applause, announcing the tunes etc, and I think backstage he was really nasty.....

You are right, an "Albany Memorial" will not bring in the crowds, they might think it´s a funeral or some of that stuff 😄 I did only two memorials in my live: In 1990 a "Charlie Parker Memorial" and in 2017 a "Dizzy Gillespie Memorial" (100 Years Dizzy). But I must admit I´m lucky that in Viena you have audience, there are at least three schools that teach jazz so you have young budding artists and among the audience you may have jazz students.... Maybe around here some jazz buffs at least might know who Joe Albany was.

Yeah, "Functional" is nice and to play it "stride" is very nice. But what I like most from solo Monk playing is other songs, especially to hear how he re-harmonizes the song. You know, there is a special inner logic in the way Monk voices a chord, and there is a special thing that let´s a very old song even sound like if it´s played on an old slightly out of tune piano. Take "I love you Sweethearts of my Dreams". Sometimes if I play a little "private solo set" for my wife I close that "set" with this tune. Never saw that: those four musicians......seems to be a "dream team" . I like each of them very much.

Maybe I´m oldfashioned I prefer to buy CDs. Just saw the hp with a lot of photos of Art Pepper, some nice, some not, but I also saw the "Stuttgart 1981" which I have, and there is nice liner notes by Laurie , and it´s about the same time when there was the only time I heard him live in Austria. Ask Laurie if she remembers Austria - Velden 1981 where Art´s rhythm section didn´t arrive and he had to play with Stan Getz´ rhythm section (Lou Levy was on piano). That´s were Art played "You´s my heart only" and since I was curios if some recording evidence of it exists, someone her pulled my coat to the Stuttgart album.

Yeah that is true. And with Wolfgang he did a nice little record "Just Friends-Just Jazz" recorded live. The drummer was Ernst Bier, don´t remember the trumpetist and the bassist. Shortly after that (1978), I was barely 19 I had the luck to get the possibility to play with Allan. He is such a wonderful musician and a great composer !

Jeanne Lee was singing with the Gunther Hampel Galaxy of Dreams band, I think she went to Europe with him. Another great musician who came to Europe with Gunther, is Allan Praskin (alto sax), whom I admire very much and love everything he does and I have played with him and have gigs with him fixed for next year......

I love it and as much as I love Monks quartet and quintet performances , sometimes I like to listen to a bit of solo Monk also. I don´t want to BE a Monk copycat but somehow it happens, if I play a solo piece it might have some of Monk´s style, I mean the voicings. There is such a musical logical thing in it that you just fell you can´t do otherwise. My wife sometimes makes a little joke and want´s I do some personal "mini concerto" for her at home and she starts calling things I never had played or that are not my music. So once she said "do some classical stuff". I said "what ? I don´t know any classical music" but she insisted and somehow I had a little Chopin waltz in Ab in my head that I once heard and liked. And there I went, it sounded like if Monk plays Chopin. But since my wife also is no classic music conoisseur (she is primary a dancer) she dug it and said "you should get a tuxedo and play in such a concert hall only you" and didn´t understand that this is not my stuff. Then she asked me to play a Hildegard Knef waltz, and I did, since I like it, and again it sounded like Monk playing Knef 😄

During the late 70´s I think I remember that a local club had booked Eddie Chamblee for a one nighter with local rhythm section. I didn´t know his name then and don´t think I have heard anything after that, but during that time it was that club owner´s "gimmick" to hire some more unknown players from the states and would "sell" them as big stars to get the house full. Another one was Earle Warren, on alto I think, quite drunk as I remember...... Sure they sounded solid, mainstream swing easy to listen to, but nothing "exiting" . Another one, really an unpleasant person was Joe Newman, nobody wanted to play with him anymore since he lectured the other musicians how to do this, how to do that, in front of the audience..... So there was a whole string of sure good enough musicians from that mainstream swing section, sure they could play if they didn´t fool around because they thought that Viena is not a good enough audience, but I must admit the the only from that generation (late swing into shades of bop) was Jaws, who always amazed me. You can learn a lot from him. There was also "Jaws and Sweets" but I think I liked it most when Jaws came alone......

Sure we shouldn´t try to write Joe Albany off for his weak and unsure playing at the Finale with Bird and Miles. He was not alone. With the exception of Bud and sure Hank Jones and some others, many many piano players at the beginning may have been fascinated with bop and what they heard Bird ´n Diz play but couldn´t transpond it to piano, that´s why they sounded "stiff" . Al Haig at Town Hall and at Billy Berg´s in 1945 is no exception , Sadik Hakim or his original name Argonne Thornton sounds strange on the Savoy sides with Bird, melodically and rhytmically "stiff", Duke Jordan also had his problems in the early days. Lou Levy was good ! I wish you succes for what you want to get from some of Joe Albany´s style, and if you know records from him from the 60´s where he swings hard, this will be the best way to get into his stuff. And hope you got guys to play with who also dig that stuff. Maybe after some repetitions you can do a gig of a kind of "Albany Memorial" or so, if you find an audience who has heard about him, I wish you luck since I assume you a musician, as this is the musician´s forum . I didn´t know the record you mention and must apologize: In my case there is so little time to listen to records, I got to play and the few times I listen to records it´s mostly to check out a tune if I don´t know it exactly so I have the line and the chords in my memory . That´s why I listened to a Blue Mitchell album 2 days ago which has "Chick´s tune". It´s based on the chords of "You Stepped out of a dream" . Anyway I know the chords, it´s easy cheesy , but you got to know Chick´s line on it, that pedal point section and so..... , so you have to know the stuff to support the horns properly and be "hand in glove" with the drummer and bassist..... I hesitated to buy the book since I´m quite thru with books about musician tragedies. I saw too many fellow musicians die to bear that kind of stuff. Musicians, great musicians I played with and whom I miss. But eventually I bought that DVD, since my wife once watched with me "Round Midnite" for several times, and Eastwood´s "Bird" (not as good), and I thought the story daughter and difficult father might go, but first I looked at it alone to be sure how it is, and for me it was bull....., maybe that´s why I also didn´t buy the film about the life of Miles, since I heard it´s also more about the drug stuff........, I´m not a moralist and if someone does that stuff it´s his business, but I don´t want to read about a musician for anything else than his music .......

I became aware of Chet Baker as late as 1978 when there was a long interview with him at "Jazz Podium". It seems that his name was not quite mentioned until then by the kind of gang or fellow musicians I had, or the a bit older mentors. It is possible, that his early stuff was better known by listeners of a kind of softer way of jazz. The strange thing he stated in that interview was that "he came to Europe with Methadone and took it , then less and less until he didn´t need it anymore". But this cannot be true, because Chet was a bad junkie until the end. But one thing: He started to appear at festivals and us, who hadn´t heard about him before, liked it very much. Anyway what he did in his last 10 years was what we wanted to hear and it had very little in common with what was recorded in the 50´s . I like it very much. And Charlie Rouse here, fantastic, and it could be anything, it still sounded "Monkish", wonderful. Once I spinned it and a young girl said she likes it very much, which was astonishing since otherwise she didn´t dig jazz. Yeah, it has something, but it seemed it didn´t sell well when it came out, since I didn´t see another BN record with Rouse as a leader.

Wasn´t Ben Webster seen and heard on "Quiet Days in Clichy" ? I remember well when that film was in cinema here, and an elder couple were watching it and she always had to ask him, what´s happenin which he explained. At one point she asked him "what´s that now ?" And he answerd "She pissed into the bathtub" and she just said "oh yes.... I see" 😄

I can´t offer educational resources since I´m mostly self taught , but what I observed from the few listening experiences is that at the session with Bird , Joe Albany still couldn´t swing and tried somehow to copy what he thought is bebop, Later he got a more chromatic or "atonal" or "12 tone" thing into it. Maybe like Dick Twardzik from Boston did, at least from the few stuff I heard from him. So the best thing would be to listen to some of his works and if it is what you like, get a bit "into that thing" and with those impressions you got from it, to bring it into your own playing. Big Ears is always the best start to get into a style, and most of all, find fellow musicians who would dig that thing also.....

I almost "grew up listening to him" since he was a Viena-Resident and lived here (or better said: stopped here for rest between tours all over the world) . Naturally, at least 2 , 3 times each year he played some days of gig at Jazzland. The first time I heard him, long long ago the first tune he played was Parker´s "Red Cross", that rhythm changes tune in Bb. I remember two "stories" in context with Farmer: Since he was famous, fellow musicians from the States, who did a concert in Viena, would like to meet him, and so Max Roach came into the club to see Art Farmer playing, it was in 1978. We all hoped that Roach would sit in, but he did not (maybe contractual reasons). The next day Roach played a big concert and Art was there and Roach greated him from the stage. Shortly before Art died, I don´t know if he still could play, he came to see James Moody who was sheduled. I think this was 20 years later. Art was happy and they talked very much together, but Art looked very old and sick, though James Moody who was even some years older, looked much younger, Art Farmer died a few weeks after that I think. And one year later my wife and me met James Moody in Miami and we talked about Art Farmer.....

It didn´t happen often this year that I posted what I listened to, since the most listening was live, but since some of my best music colleages and I dare to say almost friends played "Chick´s Tune" I must say I loved that line and anyway the song structure and form is easy since it´s based on "You Stepped Out of a Dream". I had asked them during intermission what it was and they told me the name of the tune, so I googled and found it on that Blue Mitchell album. I somehow reminded I had bought this once with some batch of RVG´s without paying much attention, so I revisited it and oh yeah, wonderful: The first tune is some party mood, very danceable stuff on rhythm changes in F . There also is a slow blues composed by Joe Henderson, who didn´t play on that session. The musicians just great. I don´t remember I had heard Blue Mitchell else than in the context with Horace Silver. Junior Cook sure was underrated, he really can play and never disappointed me. The bass player is a bit subdued..... Chick Corea is superb here. Sometimes he got shades of Monk in his solos, sometimes you hear a bit of Bud, but you also hear lines that later developed to what he started with Miles . Such a great musician. And my all time favourite Al Foster, I love him, I love everything he did. A fanstastic drummer. And then "Chick´s Tune" the reason why I listened to this record. I have it in my head all the time, anyway I love to improvise on "You Stepped out of a Dream" it´s tricky changes but it flows so easily....

Peter King was a great player and I´m sure I would have preferred to listen to him than to a Tony Scott leaping on stage and damaging the show to make his own show..... About not recognising him: I first read his name and saw his picture in a book of interviews "Jazz Podium" , interviews with let´s say Rollins, Dexter, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Ornette Coleman and so on and one "Tony Scott" I never had heard about before. He had a bald head and an enormous beard, I don´t remember what he said or what he was asked. See, my knowledge of jazz and jazzmusicians mostly came from fellow musicians who were a bit older than me and pulled my coat to the artists I should listen to and learn from, let´s say Rollins , Roach, Mingus, Bird of course, Ornette, Herbie Hancock etc. ..... just to become a good musician, and I doubt someone said "get some Tony Scott records to learn about jazz...." so I didn´t have records with him, and of course not from the 50´s . I may have had one clarinet record and this maybe was the Goodman Carnegie Hall since they said "look, that´s the swing style, dig some stuff from that, it´s the style before bebop started.....". That´s how I collected records....