Gheorghe

Oh, I didn´t know he had brought Alfred and Rudy together. Maybe, this is the reason why he got a record date on their label, though he was not up to the standard of other BN-recording saxophonists ? On the BN-Film he looks like a really rich man. I suppose, he made his money from other sources than playin music ?

I just read it. I always did like his bass-playing, he was really strong and is great even on the ultra-rapid speeds of Dizzy Atmosphere and Little Willie Leaps on that Night at Birdland 1950 with Bird-Fats-Bud-Blakey, or on the Blakey´s "A Night at Birdland" where he is very fine. Though he was not known for soloing much, his short solo-spots on Night in Tunisia, or on a minor blues on maybe his last recording 1957 with Cliff Jordan-John Gilmore are very nice and making the point. In Ira Gitler´s "Jazz Masters of the 40´s" Gitler writes, that in the sixties he played with hotel bands in those resorts of the borș-district in Upstate NY. Why had he stopped playing in jazz surroundings, was it the maybe better paid and safe jobs in hotel-bands ? Did he play until the end of his life, or what was his life about in later years ? I had heard that he was from the Bronx.....

It is "Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz" from 1997, that´s about the time I saw it and recorded it on VHS.

As I posted earlier, I saw him on the famous Blue Note Documentary film. I think to remember he was an older man, obviously quite rich, with a big cigar and in a fancy house. But then I hadn´t even heard his name, since he might not have been exactly on my main focus associated with BN (the classic hard-boppers and the modal into avantgarde stuff from the 60´s , and from the old times the classic bop sessions of Monk, Bud, Navarro....) So I was quite astonished to read about an album under his own name on that great Label, but I don´t know what Lion and Wolff had heard in him, since it doesn´t seem to fit to the music they recorded usually, it doesn´t have the "BN-magic" . So why was he chosen to be featured on that documentary film , since they got some really important artists like Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard or to a lesser amount Lou Donaldson talked about their time with BN. Well, others I seem were chosen because the more important figures were allready dead or not available for interviews. I remember a really old and dead-sick Tommy Turrentine was seen, I would have liked to see more music and less talking....

Maybe the Brew Moore thing might be interesting. I have a Brew Moore Steeplechase live from Montmatre from the mid 60´s, but I forgot the title, it is nice playing, maybe the piano-player was not exactly my taste as much as I remember, now again I have no idea who the piano player is on this, hope he swings better. Not that Brew Moore was such a giant, but he could hold his own even with fast company like Miles, Bird, Bud, Howard McGhee. He is cool.

Blakey if I wanted to have something "safe" that just grooves. Roach if I wanted to listen more closely and figure out things.....

I only have that one Blue Note album which is from the 1500 series. I had not ever heard his name, but he spoke some stuff on the BN documentary film. Maybe that was the reason I bought the album (japanese cardboard edition). Well, it sounds somehow a bit "cold", and seemed to bore me. I think the solos was somehow weak, too many repeating phrases and somehow unsure to get a good groove. This, and maybe the Montrose album. Well on the Montrose album things were better with a rhythm section with Horace and Philly J.J., but the horn doesn´t have the thing that I usually want to hear. Anyway it seems that they were exotics in the BN catalogue....

It´s too bad there are so few people over here, who know the changes of "Woody´n You". I love the tune and in general love bop tunes other than the rhythm changes or 12 bar stuff, okay, if rhythm changes, than in other keys, Ab, Eb, Db, but there is not a lot of jammers who got that.....I mean bop is not only "Anthropology" and "Billie´s Bounce", it´s those tunes based on other standards, like on "Lover Come Back to me" or what it is.....

If you want to hear or even see Monk playing Ellington on another occasion you might like his solo set from 1969 in Berlin. I think it´s on a DVD I think I have it but my DVD player got "kaputt" some years ago and every few month I decide to buy another one but am too lazy and say maybe in autumn.....

Maybe it´s due to my generation or the bunch of guys I was around, that THIS one and let´s say stuff like Mingus´ "Ellington Medly" and of course Ellington himseslf with Mingus and Roach was the first "Ellington" I heard. If I play an Ellington ballad like "I got it Bad" or something like that I think I´ll never get rid of the monkish voicings and touch of it since that´s the way I hear it in my head...

Since I fell in love with be bop after hearing Mingus´ "Parkeriana" in the 70´s and wanting to know who is "this Charlie Parker", I heard and liked everything from the classic stuff, The BN Fats Navarro Vol. 1 and the Savoy Stuff both from 1947, as well as the "Fats-McGhee" from 1948 have very fine contributions of him. The ´47 band was called the "Onyx-Band" and the 1948 band was called the "Roost-Band". And even more: His tenure with the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band. He even did scat together with Diz on stuff like "Ool-ya-Koo" if I remember right. And yeah, the 1956 Monk stuff. About his sound. It´s else than Jackie McLean though I didn´t hear only once that there are people who don´t like Jackie McLean or even Ernie Henry but I LOVE that sound so much. To my greatest pleasure, just recently I had the possiblity to meet a fantastic alto player those days during the course of a jam session. He just came into the club and had an alto with him. He was very heavy, at least like Fats Navarro in his best days. And he played !!!!! That´s it. It was only three tunes, a Parker-Blues, some "It Could Happen to you" and "Rhythm á Ning" and that Sound, that Phrasing , that gettin "A Step Beyond" , all that beauty , that stuff I like most , he was fantastic. Maybe a bit shy.... we asked him where he´s from and he was from the States. He still hold his alto in his hands when a female singer and a guitar player took over the stage proceedings. I don´t know his name I don´t know if he will stay in town, I don´t know nothin´else than that I really loved what he did, it was like if I would have played with an alter ego of McLean.....

Interesting topic. I can´t tell much in context with discography because this never was a punct forte for me, but I can understand your question. Guitar players, at least a great part of them are not always my favourite instrumentists at jam session, because they take over the whole proceedings as if there was no one else than them. But there are exceptions: Let´s say, I played with a so called "fusion group" in the 80´s that had no guitar player. But at some point I got bored by all them long saxophone soloes on two chord vamps and so.... and decided to write a bit more and at my beggings we added a guitar player who was really nice. He didn´t play that run of the mill stuff , he had ears and could also play in a way that you might write down stuff especially for him, for the sound he added to the group, he also had that kind of lyrical side of him, without much influences from other sources.....never saw him again, he was an interesting musician but maybe stopped playin.... But in post 80´s gigs with opening band and after that jam session .....I even witnessed evenings where you hardly could find a horn player and three (!) guitar players shared the stage, what´s left to play there for a piano player ? And let´s say they usually call "Footprints" or "All Blues" and those tunes are meant to be played in a more soft and sparse manner, no half our solos that sound like exercices in playing loud and distorted.......

oh yeah , that medium fast "Like Someone in Love" in Ab !!! Great solo. And I love to hear the cymbals of Albert Heath ringin´ ..... This was my first Dexter Gordon record, just before all those Steeple Chase releases came out and Dexter had his comeback. Thos "Black Lion" albums were an easy way for us Europeans to hear some US stars playin, like the "Hawk in Germany" with Hawk AND Bud in Essen, "The Invisible Cage" of Bud, the "Anthropology" of Don Byas, I think those were the one I had or still have....

Thanks for sharing. Time flies: When I started to listen to jazz, McPherson was best known for his tenure with Mingus from the mid 60´s to the first half of the 70´s and he always popped up for some special occasion like on those "C-Jam-Blues" and "Perdido" at Carnegie Hall 1974. When I first saw his name on cover he was a young man in his 30´s. It´s interesting to hear him play Birdlike-Phrases, he has a much softer sound than Bird had. Maybe McPherson´s sound is more orientated on the more mellow alto sound of Bird from 1953-55 when he used softer reeds than the famous Rico Nr. 5 from the mid forties..... I remember when I bought "Mingus at Monterey" some months after "The Great Concert", I was a bit disappointed since my main interest of the "Great Concert" was Eric Dolphy and "Monterey" sounded somehow "tame" in comparation with "Great Concert", but beautiful that Ellington Medley...., Meditations doesn´t sound as great as the versions with Dolphy...., By the way, at that age I had thought "Monterey" is the english name for "Montreux" , like "Vienna" is for "Wien" I must admit that I have not heard very very much McPherson in other context than Mingus, maybe he was not on contract with the mostly bought jazz labels of that time "BN, Impulse", "Prestige", "CBS" , let´s say I had heard ton´s of Jackie McLean and Dolphy in other contexts like Mingus, as sidemen and of course as leaders, but less of McPherson....

I have only the date with Max Roach, J.J. Johnson and Brew Moore which is nice. And some 1953 date with Tal Farlow that sounds a bit melancolic...somehow very dark....., but the best 1949 Maggie is on the Afro-Cubop dates with Brew Moore and Machito Orchestra, that´s incredible trumpet, maybe he even tops Diz on that occasion

I´m afraid I am not too familiar with what came out in the later 80s, you know how it goe´s ... first marriage, kids, then trouble, divorce and during and after that not much time or money for buyin records or not much energy to hear music or even play... bad times for me......, but that Sonny Fortune all star group must sound great, all of them great players of the 70´s , and......oh....my beloved Dave Liebman playin Trane.... must sound great. My first Liebman-Trane experience was his version of Coltrane´s "Your Lady"....

oh shit, I saw this crew when they all were so young, those "Children of Agharta" how the named themself later. Great period and for me the reason to have my ears open for both styles, for the acoustic and the electric. Yeah, 1973 Stadthalle...... Now who is left from that crew: Al of course. Lieb of course, how about M´tume? The guitar players I didn´t pay so much attention to their solos then, but one of them Reggie Lucas or Pete Cosey had died I think......

Liebman was fantastic and one of the first great saxophonists I saw live and bought his DrumOder and Lookout-Farm, by the way the only ECM albums I purchased in my live. I think that was the tour of autumn 1973, when they did also Stadthalle Vienna . Keyboard........well Miles played just fine chords on Organ, it can be witnessed on "Dark Magus". In general I´m not a keyboard (synthi) freak, for example I liked the comeback band in 1981 when they still had no keyboard, well I saw Miles doin some chords on organ all the time. The only keyboard player I finally liked was Japanese Kei Akagi, since he seemed to be a pianist and think as a pianist even on those 80´s keyboards. He played fantastic solos in that last band or so.

This was also my first Diz album, after I had bought my Parker "Savoy Mastertakes". I love them both. the only thing I didn´t like sooo much then and now is , that some tracks have old style drummers and Slam Steward´s singin and bowin. Like the old fashioned beat on the first side of the Parker Mastertakes, from the 1944 Tiny Grimes session. I love most the early Big Band tracks on the "Groovin High album" and the 1946 sextet with Sonny Stitt with I think Klook on drums. I like Bop if it´s played with a bop drummer. One of the basics of bop is the new role of the drums, Klook, Max, Roy Haynes and so on....

Is this the live album with Tommy Flanagan trio. I think I have it somewhere. Is´t there "Mack the Knife" and "Talk of the Town" on it, with Hawk announcing it as an old ballad you don´t hear often any more ?

for me the very best album of Miles after his comeback. It´s fresh, it´s originals and not pop tunes, it is a playing band and no synthies and it is jazz musicians like Al Foster. It has fire and is not that kind of "show" where Miles was more a parody of himself...., and it is exiting, never gets boring....

Woody Shaw was uncooperativ from the first moment on. First he had an argument with studio owner and producer Max Bolleman, calling him a racist without any reason. Then he played for several times into dead mikes, not the mike placed in front of him. He threw his cigarette ends on the floor or damped them out on the studio ceiling, he was with a completly stoned junkey woman who threw all the toalet paper into the toalet "out of fun" and soon the studio room was flooded...... Bolleman stated that it was almost a miracle that they could produce music under those circumstances. Two years later I saw Woody live under similar circumstances. He drank dozens of those small bottles of Underberg, threw his cigarette endes on the stage so we were afraid that he might set it on fire with all those cables for the mikes and amps around...., I was shocked since I saw Woody earlier in the 80s and he was not only one of the greatest trumpetists ever but also a very articulate person, takin care of business, kind to the audience etc.....

yeah, wonderful record, but the most terrible and erratic circumstances when it was done at Max Bolleman´s studio in Netherlands...

Yeah, Three Generations of Tenor: Next time I´ll suggest "Bean and the Boys" which they played on that record, a tune I love. I love to improvise on the chords of "Lover come Back to Me".... A-flat nice key... Salt Peanuts......other than trio I only played it with Allen Praskin and a trumpet player who also studied at the conservatory where Praskin teached, others until now where reluctant to play it though it´s easy cheesy rhythm changes in F, I´ll ask Roman....

Wonderful pic, they so cute ! I also love cats and maybe I can make a photo of our "motan or Kater" (how you say to a "man" cat ? But he is a very stubborn guy, anyway he choose our garden and it took 2 years to touch him and give him food. So it´s a completly wild animal who marks his area on certain places. He decides when he want´s to get his meal and he decides when my wife and me can give him our love, and when it´s over since he is "busy" again. He is black-white, very large and heavy and we named him "Grasu" which means "Fats" . It´s HIS garden, HIS hunting area and we are just his "staff"