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Gheorghe

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Everything posted by Gheorghe

  1. At first hearing and still an unexperienced listener it was hard for me to tell who actually plays a solo. I have Miles and Horns, which has both of them added, mostly Al Cohn compositions. And I have something like a Tenor Conclave on Prestige, with Trane, Mobley and them both. I think at some point it was easier to identify each of them by close listening. In my opinion Al Cohn has more the tendence to bend notes and play in a more "singing" mode, while Zoot Sims sounds a little more "boppish", it seems that he had some more Bird also in his playing. They all sound fine to me, As much as Brew Moore or Allen Eager, and Stan Getz maybe was the most individual, most constant and most flexible and most famous of them. I would have liked to hear some more Lester Young with so called "modern" rhythm sections like one on Musidisc I think from the Roost which has Roy Haynes on it. I wonder how he would have sounded in the 50´s with some rhythm section like Red Garland, Paul Chambers , Philly J.J. or Art Taylor. Lester might have sounded good also with a 40´s rhythm section like Al Haig or John Lewis, Tommy Potter and Max Roach I think.....
  2. You welcome: In the case of Woody Shaw, he was THE trumpet voice of my late teens to the mid twens. He was on the cover photo of DB and featured with a long interview and I swear I didn´t know about his drug problems. From the music, his very very intellectual side and the cover photos of him with his father and his baby son he looked like a healthy, successful man at the peak of his power. I didn´t even now about his problems about loosing sight. So I was quite astonished, when in 1987 he was booked into a local club and not a concert hall, as single artist with a local picked up rhythm section. I was early and he sat at the bar and drunk numerous little bottles of "Jaegermeister", a digestive alcoolic drink. I couldn´t count them. When the set started, he was led on stage, where he threw his cigarette end on the stage which he did during the whole set. The playing was mediocre and quite uninspired compared with what I had heard live or on records a few years earlier. It was an embarrassing evening and hard to listen to or to look at Woody. I think he died shortly after that, and like in case of Chet Baker, it was under most tragic and misterious circumstances. Shortly before he left Europe and went back to the States, there was an announce in the german Jazzmagazine "Jazzpodium" that a bank account in Elvetia was opened for donations for the seriously sick Woody Shaw, who was unable to play......This was only a short time after that sad gig in 1987 in Viena.
  3. I saw them live, it must have been early 1983. In Vienna it was the complete quintet with Steve Turree. That band with Turré , Miller, James, Reedus was one of the best steady working bands of the early 80s. I think it lasted quite long but I don´t know when it disbanded. In my case it was only one set, since it was a Summit Concert titled "Bebop Supernight" and the first set was Johnny Griffin, the second Woody Shaw and the third a very disappointing Dexter Gordon, who let the trio play some numbers and came in late, it was embarrassing, even more since it was advertised that Griffin-Woody-Dexter would continue as an All Star Bonus.....didn´t happen... @sidewinder : Yes it must have been the same schedule, Early 1983. Strange that in Bremen Steve Turré was not present....
  4. great joke
  5. Mulligan was a very flexible guy. I must admit I don´t really have the stuff that had made him famous, I mean those things from Westcoast Jazz, but to hear Mulligan with others was always fantastic, this one with Monk, the dates when he sat in with Mingus (it seems they were quite close in Mingus´ later years), and one special event with Dizzy (Dream Band in the early 80´s I think") where he plays the quintet numbers in an all star setting (Diz, Mulligan, John Lewis, Max Roach or so). On the Monk date I especially love "Midnight", "I Mean You" and that fantastic "Sweet and Lovely " . And LISTEN to Shadow Wilson !!! He was a master, underrated, but he swings like a whole Basie Orchestra !!!! I love it. I bought it among my first batch of LPs when I got some money from my father for good high school when I was a teenager. I was mostly lookin for the few musicians I knew (Miles, Trane, Mingus) and since it had also Philly J.J on drums, I bought it. I had heard some Dameron with Miles before. In my case it was a red album cover with a large black white photo of Dameron at the piano, and it was titled "Tadd Dameron with John Coltrane". "On a Misty Night" is a very nice tune, I heard Pharoah Sanders doing it live.
  6. Yes I remember that he had played with that orchestra.
  7. I also have those two on a CD, but I think there is not the Fats-McGhee Encounter on it, The Navarro-McGhee if I remember is on the Fats Navarro album under his own name. But that Allstar bop session led by Maggie is vintage bebop at it´s best. There was also a McGhee Vol. II, but it sounds else, it doesn´t have that power though Horace Silver is on it. And I think on the side B is a guitar duo, that plays super fast, but doesn´t really move me in the same manner like let´s say a Kenny Burrell or a Grant Green......
  8. It´s a wonderful album. I think I love Jackie McLean´s sound most, from all alto saxophonists, maybe there are other listeners who like other altoists more, those who have a more mellow sound, but for me McLean is the ultimative sound for my tastes. Sure I´m listening more to things like "Let Freedom Ring" or "One Step Beyond" , but this little standard record is so fine and has such a good rhythm section. And I think there are not many musicians who play "Let´s Face the Music and Dance". If I remember right, it has Walter Bishop on piano. I think I listened to it mostly together with Dizzy Reece´s "Sounding Off" which is another very fine record of standards also with Walter Bishop. I must look where I have them, maybe when the evenings will be longer or I got some time off, I´d spin it again, but I fear the list of records I´d like to re-listen is dozens of times longer than what really will materialize.....
  9. The Dexter box must be good, I heard the CBS-All-Stars in Montreux and it was great to hear Dexter or other acoustic aera giants combined with first hand masters of electric jazz like Bob James and George Duke, Billy Cobham and so on and it was nice to hear fusion-associated musicians playing straight ahead and on the other hand hear a Stan Getz doing Night Crawler with Bob James.... I remember those times very well, the slow resurection of acoustic jazz just at that beginning opended space for such "marriages of acoustic and electric", you also can hear it on stuff of J.J. Johnson-Nat Adderly combined with people like Billy Childs......just wonderful, and quite overlooked now.....
  10. I have a Turntable for the some LPs I still have and it has USB so I save them on an USP stick and play it while driving longer distances. My Turntabele is a DENON like all my stuff, my CD-Player and Tuner. I saw that my Yamaha pianola also as an USP, but never tried it, maybe I could record something I play.....
  11. I love it. I bought it among my first batch of LPs when I got some money from my father for good high school when I was a teenager. I was mostly lookin for the few musicians I knew (Miles, Trane, Mingus) and since it had also Philly J.J on drums, I bought it. I had heard some Dameron with Miles before. In my case it was a red album cover with a large black white photo of Dameron at the piano, and it was titled "Tadd Dameron with John Coltrane". "On a Misty Night" is a very nice tune, I heard Pharoah Sanders doing it live. I think this was my first album under his name, but after having heard him for the first time on the "Night At Birdland" with Blakey, Fats, Bird etc. I was a bit disappointed since the solos on the live sides with Bird and Co seemed to be more exiting to me. When I saw the cover and that Ray Brown and Max Roach are on it, I was a bit disappointed that you almost can´t hear them. But Norman Granz seemed to have his own ideas how a trio setting must sound.....
  12. The Coltrane with Milt Jackson.
  13. A very nice record. I got it from my wife last year for birthday or chrismas as she had picked it up from the Saturn store where maybe she bought something else but was a place where CDs were offered, and so she guessed that´s my taste and she was right. It´s a nice easy to listen album.
  14. I´m not such a fan of the many organists that came after Jimmy Smith, or those quite similar BN albums from the 60´s with focus on "boogaloo", but THIS one I like, mostly for the strange frontline of guitar and vibes, and the tunes. Especially "Turnaround" is very very catchy.....
  15. In my case the first "jazz" I ever had heard was the "Steamin´" LP It had another cover than the original Prestige, and was available in the early 70´s. Before that I had heard an Oscar Peterson at some other peoples place but when I heard Red Garland soloing especially on those medium tunes "Surrey with the Fring on top" and "Diane" or the ballad "When I Fall in Love", my impression was that this is real music, so for me as a starter he was the perfect pianist and I could hum all his soloes along with the LP. On the other hand, I didn´t have the same feeling when it was only a trio album. My favourite Garlands always have been the sideman recordings or those recordings, where he is the leader but has other hornplayers too like let´s say Trane and Donald Byrd or so on.....
  16. I don´t know the lists and the numbers of the volumes, but in a form discussion many years ago I remembered that I had heard Art in 1981 at Wiesen and that he played "Your´s my Heart Only" . @soulpope pulled my coat to those two albums "Croydon" and "Stuttgart" since they have that tune on it. Austrian Press and Radio/TV and audience didn´t know then, that this was in Pepper´s playlist of the 1981 European Tour and had thought that it was his reference especially for the Austrian audience, since the tune was composed by Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehar. So even in the german Jazz Magazine, the review of the festival stated that Pepper played that Lehar Tune "for Austria".
  17. Stormy Weather ! It´s not exactly my repertory on gigs but once I thought if there would be a request in that direction I might at least try to play it at home and I did. I didn´t even know that Red Garland recorded it and on the other hand I love to LISTEN to Red Garland, but only to enjoy it, not to try to copy him. But the really STRANGE thing is that without even knowing that Garland played or recorded it, when I played it (no sheet, just knowing the tune as common knowledge) I found that automatically it got into a thing that reminds me of Garland, I mean with them chords and light touch in the higher register.....
  18. Yes , the "Blowin´ in from Chicago" is wonderful. I had it on the BN brown paperback double LP series under the name of Griffin "Blowing Sessions" and the second LP was the "Blowin´ in". Maybe in those days I paid more attention to the first LP because of Griff-Trane-Hank-Lee Morgan) but the "Jordan-Gilmore" is really a treasure. I think Gilmore also recorded later for BN, maybe with Andrew Hill. Sun Ra his major boss had a humour side on Gilmore´s playing outside the Arkestra and it´s reported that once he said to Gilmore "A little Bird told me that you did Birdland last night".....
  19. It was two tunes with Griff: "Blues Up and Down" and "Cheesecake". But I have it on the CBS album "Great Encounters" . The "Our Man in Paris" is one of my favourite regathering of Bop Veterans, with first generation boppers Dex, Bud and Klook. The really cook, I like the louder drumming of Klook and Bud has one of his greatest moments from his time in Paris (always if he could play with fellow Americans , the others could be "Hawk in Germany" , "Blakey in Paris".....)
  20. The first Red Garland I had in the 70´s was a Prestige 2-fer titled "Rediscoverd Masters". I think it had a quintet on the last side, but I don´t remember who was on it. I think the trumpet player didn´t sound so great, but maybe my memory is not right.
  21. Well my hearing is not what it was when I was 20 (and even then I couldn´t understand "whisper"), so I´m not really an audiophil, but to hear the cymbals loud that´s what I love. I don´t like records where the drummer can´t be heard the way you hear him live. So if one version of Out to Lunch sounds better because you hear Tony Williams better, I´m with you. I don´t know what my copy is, I don´t think it´s a RVG, it´s a BN CD, but much older than the RVG Series.
  22. I think I have this, but there were so many Sonny Rollins on Prestige in his early period......, I don´t know which is which. I hear Rollins on a Monk Prestige album under Monk´s Name and I hear Monk as a sideman on a Rollins album. Was it the same session. It was always strange with Prestige since many albums had complete different sessions on them, like a sampler. I think one track was there that I always will have in mind and it was "More than you know". It´s strange I don´t think Monk recorded that tune often, and I have read in a Monk bio that Monk shortly before his death when he had been inactive for almost a whole decade he wanted to play "More than you know" together with Barry Harris. It´s interesting that he chose that tune. I don´t even know if it´s true. I think I played it many many years ago when a friend was visting and that there was a medium tempo blues in Bb which really grooves and the friend shouted out with enthusiasm "yeah, that´s it, that´s it " .....anyway when I was a starter I would buy anything that had Paul Chambers and Philly J.J on it, I think I have this, but there were so many Sonny Rollins on Prestige in his early period......, I don´t know which is which. I hear Rollins on a Monk Prestige album under Monk´s Name and I hear Monk as a sideman on a Rollins album. Was it the same session. It was always strange with Prestige since many albums had complete different sessions on them, like a sampler. I think one track was there that I always will have in mind and it was "More than you know". It´s strange I don´t think Monk recorded that tune often, and I have read in a Monk bio that Monk shortly before his death when he had been inactive for almost a whole decade he wanted to play "More than you know" together with Barry Harris. It´s interesting that he chose that tune. I don´t even know if it´s true.
  23. Didn´t know that Ira Gitler had a saxophone himself. In context with Prestige Records I heard about the instrument named "Buescher" on an other occasion. But it was a trumpet. On the liner notes of one Miles Davis album the producer writes that Miles arrived in the studio without his horn, and then one guy in the studio said "I have an old Buesher in the trunk of my car" and Miles told him to bring it in, and indeed Miles played the whole session on that Buescher. I don´t remember which album it might have been but it sounded great. About Trane playing an alto I have never heard. On the other hand, this kind of "swappin´ horns" seemed to be in common on Prestige. Isn´t there a Jackie McLean album on which he plays a tenor ? It sounds a bit funny, it´s got a kind of hollow sound. You hear the ideas of McLean , and a strange sounding tenor. Same with Bird. He also recorded for Prestige and used a tenor on it.
  24. I think I have some Uptown albums, maybe one is a Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie thing from the mid forties ? And maybe one of Hank Mobley live ?
  25. "Jimmy Smith At The Organ" I think was one of those many many on BN from the mid fifties on. I really lost the trace. I never was a "organ freak" but I loved some of those Jimmy Smith albums, I think they were subtitled "The Incredible Jimmy Smith", like they had "The Amazing Bud Powell" or "The Eminent J.J.Johnson" ..... The Jimmy Smith I like most and still listen to is that session with Donald Bird, Lou Donaldson, Hank Mobley and Art Blakey. That´s the surrounding I like most. Or the "Sermon" though it doesn´t have a drummer as good as Blakey. From the trio dates, there is quite much of it, I have one which has a very fast "The Way You Look Tonight" on it. It sound´s a bit funny to me but is fine and grooves.....
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