Gheorghe

I have not heard this, but Lucky Thompson sounded good, his sound reminded me a bit of Don Byas, I heard him in several bop surroundings with Bird, Diz, Bud, Monk and so on. As much as I know he also spent some time in Paris, but I don´t have no idea what happened later to him. It seems that from that generation of bop tenorists, Dexter, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Charlie Rouse he somehow didn´t have as much luck for a constant career....

That means the last time I saw him was in 2013 at Porgy&Bess. Same playlist: Blues Walk, Alligator Boogaloo, Over The Rainbow, Wee, Fine and Dandy, Whiskey Drinkin´ Woman......, And the rap "not recommended to fusion or confusion musicians" was there, it was always since the first time I saw him in 1985. Then he had Herman Foster on piano, huge block chords. On the last occasion it was a japanese girl on organ that was great. The guitar player was the same who was always. The drummer was also japanese. Lou was 87 then.

Maybe my favourite from the "pre-quintet" period of the early Prestige albums Miles did in the first half of the 50´s . It´s strange that for "Bag´s Groove" you had to buy the other album with that title. I´m not into discography and details and for me it´s only the music that counts, but the way how they splitted sessions on different albums was a bit annoying . The best tune in my opinion, I mean the best of Miles and Monk colaborating is "Bemsha Swing". All that crap that was written about that session, but you hear "Bemsha" and you hear that musical love and respect between Miles and Monk. Listen how Miles really get´s INTO that tune. I love it, I love the whole session.

He must have been in his late 80´s when I saw him the last time. He still looked and played like a man at least 20-25years younger, really astonishing and the only sign of age was the set list which was almost identical in later years. But to play "Wee" and "Fine and Dandy" at that speed...... amazing. It was late enough that I heard him live for the first time. It must have been in the mid 80´s and he must have been in his late 50´s or around 60 years old. I remember he played an ultra fast version of "Cheek to Cheek".....a tune that I love to play, or play a bop line based on that standard. 72 bars, AABCA form, easy cheesy

Well, the question if Powell´s Verve stuff ist hold in lower regard thant the stuff on BlueNote........ I think it´s from the listener´s point of view or a question of taste. I really think there are many who like the Verve more and maybe would say if I could keep only one Bud Powell Album it might be "Jazz Giant". The difference is that the Verve albums is more focused on the piano. There is no solo space for the drums and the bass and having Ray Brown and Max Roach one could have done more with it, not only a supporting role. That´s a question of taste or a question what you prefer. Many music lovers and also students who want to learn or transcribe Bud´s solos are interested only in HIM, and don´t even remark that it is or should be a trio record. In my case, or from my point of view or my aproach to listening, it´s a loss if you have THE Max Roach and don´t really HEAR him, or have a Ray Brown who was the greatest soloist on bass (having "One Bass Hit" in mind, Brown with Gillespie´s Big Band !!!!) and you don´t hear him better, and I will miss something. In my case the first Bud I heard was with Bird and Fats and Art Blakey and you hear the whole thing, you hear when Bud starts a solo he might pick up some phrase or idea from the fellow soloists and build up on that. That´s why I like the BN albums more, it´s more the guys playing together. About Sonny Stitt´s album: Yes his MUSE albums are very nice. He is one of my favourites from the first minute on, my first album was that blue Prestige album from 1949 with those strange angry birds on the cover, and by the way it also had Bud and Max Roach, so this is an album I enjoy more than the Verve trio albums. Sad story with Stitt, with Dexter, same thing. In the 70´s or early 80´s when I saw them live, you still could hear their greatness and they were living legends, but both destroyed and dumb in their heads due to alcool....just a tragedy....

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.....