Gheorghe

I got that Verve album Wynton with Wes in the late 70´s and since I loved Wes´s guitar I tried to buy what I could find. This one and the one with Miles´ "Rhythm Section + Johnny Griffin" (Full House or so ?) were my favourites and still are. The Bud Powell on Verve I had as a double LP with a brown cover and painting on it I think.

Such a great pianist and a model of pianology for many many budding jazz pianists. He was a great influence for players I have heard or am friend with. Love to hear it. He is still THERE if you listen to them guys who know their instrument. I think he just had bad luck or was in the wrong place in the wrong time, since he could have become a big star as all others who worked with Miles for a longer period. But it seems that his style slowly got out of fashion as the 60´s went on, so I think he was quite poor in his last years. He had to tour a lot outside N.Y.

Very nice and Lou looks happy and healthy !

On The Corner came out shortly after I began to listen to so called "jazz", and that must have been about one year later. "On the Concert" was issued and in the record shops and I liked it, though it still had another element in it that the current late 1973 band. In 1972 there was still that kind of "indian element" in it with electric sitar and Badal Roy on tablas, and one year later it got more the concept that remained until late 1975. So I got "On the Corner" later than "In Concert" and "Concert" is a kind of live performance of "Corner", but listening to "Corner" AFTER "Concert" I didn´t get that much out of "Corner", but if I would have heard "On the Corner" before, maybe it would have been else. I rarely listen to records nowadays, first because I got to play myself and don´t have the time to sit down and listen to records, and second because I have it in my head anyway. I remember in 1973 the audience still was very splitted. One half of the audience loved it , others would leave disappointed. We kids, well I must admit the first jazz I fell in love with was the stuff like "Milestones" or "Walking", but I was born to become a musician and even if I couldn´t form it into the right words then, I felt that an artist has to develope and you have to respect this. So, we really listened to it and dumb kids we were we categorized people in "hip" and "square" if you know what I mean.....

I really enjoyed it. Not only Mobley, though I liked his sound in the 50´s and early 60´s more. It was the legendary "round sound", and I think from the mid 60´s something changed, There came another ingredient to it. Sorry he seems to have been taken granted, there´s only "luke-warm" applause here. And he has that fantastic rhythm section, Kenny Drew is great as ever, Nils Henning really plays the bass, this was before bass players got the strings more down. And I love Albert Heath.

Yeah, that was his trademark. And very very significant his chord-voicings when he plays those fantastic chord solos. I must admit that I never listened to Baker oder Pepper in the 50´s , I think I heard a live date of Pepper from 1952 which is not bad. But I heard much Baker and Pepper live in the late 70´s and 80´s. Sounds much more interesting to me than the old Westcoasts, which sure had a big following, but somehow I can´t get the feeling I want to get. And them horrible album covers. Well, that was the life style then , I suppose.

There are two photos of it in the Biography, and I´m sure I read somewhere that it was in Philly and that Brown stated, that he got a lot of help and inspiration from Fats. And though Ira Gitler describes the playing of Fats in Birdland 1950 in February as weak and that he coughed a lot, he still played fantastic only few weeks or even days before he died. His long extended solos with Bird and Bud demonstrate it. Obviously the gig in Philly was not recorded or not as a source that may have survived. In NY it was another situation, enthusiasts like Fred Hersch or Boris Rose documented a lot of broadcasts and they still are essential documents of bebop live.

I love it. I think it also has that incredible tune "Jodo" on it, which I first heard on "Night of the Cookers" . Great record as I remember it.

You are definitly right ! So you have been listening very very closely to Fats Navarro. I can read how much you understand and enjoy it ! Well those catchy little meodies here and there are referenzes to other songs, or quotations. That´s one of the humorous aspects of jazz, but only if a musician knows how and where to interpolate them. Bird did it, Fats did it, almost everybody from that generation did it and you still hear it. Some had trademark quotations like Dexter with "Let´s Fall in Love" or "Mona Lisa" and so on, others did it spontaniously really as little surprises. And yeah, Tadd Dameron somehow made some of the bop music a bit more smooth, with a very rich broad sound. You hear it in his arrangements for Diz and Mr. B, everywhere. P.S. "Bouncing with Bud" is one of my favourite tunes of bop or compositions of Bud, especially for group performances....

This was the first Wes Montgomery I ever heard. I still love it very much.

I wrote you a pn some days ago, didn´t you receive it ?

I must say I was not very aware of the French BYG Label. As for French labels, I remember Vogue and America (mostly Mingus). I was just a "consumer" and bought what I could find. Especially in the case of Fats Navarro, listening to his solos I learned very very much about phrasing and producing "flowing lines" in playing bebop. With all due respect to Dizzy and his main contributions in creating the style, for a starter it was more easy to follow Fats. So weird his personal live might have been so organized was his music. Even if he played ultra rapid things like "Dizzy Atmosphere" or what it might be, there was that very organized element in his solos, and not to forget his quotes of other songs, like in the mentioned "Dizzy Atmosphere" where he quotes "All of Me"....you must not be a musician to hear it clearly, it´s very very clear. All stuff he played had such a balance. And he brought some more lyrical element into that usually fast played music, "Bebop in Pastel" as they called one tune if I my memory is right.

I think I heard him first on those 1978 Mingus sessions especially on "Something Like a Bird" where he plays solos and than shares chorusses with Pepper Adams. That´s really some great "bari" there.

Yeah, they are fantastic. Disc one is the so called "Onyx Band" from 1947, which recorded also for Savoy, and Vol. II is the "Royal Roost" band on Side 1, and Side two has Bud´s Modernists (IMHO one of the best bop sessions ever ) and that fascinating Fats Navarro-McGhee "Double Talk" and so on. I think McGhee also became a BN artist then.

This is the band I saw live in the late 70´s . Just wonderful.

Totally agreed. Leviev maybe is not the first rate swinger and I heard that Al Foster refused to work with him, saying that the way he plays is not his (Al´s ) music. I like his solos mostly on two tracks he did with Pepper: On the long "Make a Wish" or how it is called, and on "Your´s my Heart Only". Otherwise I love the things with George Cables. I must admit in the time I "learned" jazz, Art Pepper was not very much mentioned. I saw him only one time in the year before he died. I was not very happy when I read the book of "Stuck to a Junkey". Somehow it´s mostly about a musician who still has something to say, but away from stage is quite a dumb junkey and alcoolic. It seems that his brain was so blown away with coke that he couldnt even remember a set list or when together with let´s say Zoot, he didn´t understand when they play both, when he plays without Zoot and when Zoot plays without Art....... Really sad. It seems that looking for drugs and booze really destroyed his intelectual capacity and sometimes his improvisations are quite repetive, maybe it even impaired his creativity . I can enjoy a lot of those widow taste albums but I must not look at photos with him.

Oh I didn´t know that, so I bless the technology to help you to create more stuff. With admiration: Gh.

Ah that´s it, I remember ! It was a blonde actress if I remember right and yeah she sang. But I didn´t even know it was about Loretta about whom I hadn´t heard until now....

I saw Gary Smulyan with the Woody Herman Thundering Herd in the late 70´s I think. Such a great bari player. Fast company here also ! My trumpet player did play with Gary Smulyan !!!

Well, the music is really what could be played in a let´s say Pharoah Sanders memorial concert, I mean with regular instruments and of course a saxophonist who might continue with the message of that master. About composing, I couldn´t do it with all them modern equipments. I had to play some electronic keyboards when I played in a jazz-rock/funk band, but my love is natural instruments. I didn compose the one or other tune, two of them even got radio playing during the time they were recorded, but for composing I never composed or compose from the piano, it just comes, it be that I dream it and remember it when I get up, it can be if I´m just walkin´ around, anything. Than it´s in my mind, with the chords and the way I want to have it played with a group. If I think it´s fit for being presented, I ask a fellow musician who can write, to write it down, since I only can read some sheet music (if I know the tune by ear), but writing is not possible with my rudimentary knowledge of written music.....

I´m not really familiar, but wasn´t "coalminers daughter" a film ? About a girl who wanted to become a singer ? I saw that film many many many years ago in România on TV, the romanian title is "Fiica Minerului" and it was shown with subtitles. I remember though I don´t really like country music, there was some very fine stuff, somehow else than the usual country, there was something that sounded like if it had some jazz or blues also in it ..... very fine. That´s how it was, you could see subtitled films, mostly older films.....

It´s possible that I was at that perfomance, but maybe you should have stayed longer, it became better and better in the course of the evening.

Hi, did you see Pharoah at Porgy & Bess several years ago ? I think it was the last time he was in Viena. Also in Austria, he played at that Festival somewhere in Upper Austria, where that Farmer and Jazzlover Paul Zauner always organizes Jazz Events.....

Great schedule, have wonderful gigs. Who´s playin´ with you ? What kind of repertory ?

That´s it ! I even HAD couples from the audience dance to let´s say "Polka Dots and Moonday" etc......, it´s not usually for jazz nowadays but nice, you see that the music reaches people in different manners....... and wasn´t one Hank´s Mobley original titled "My Groove - Your Move"......?