Gheorghe

I have all those Hank Mobley albums from 55-57 from BN as mini LP cardboard sleeve CDs. They are very fine, but my really favourit Mobley stuff is from the early 60´s for the much better sound of Mobley. I listended to all the BNs, but as older I get, I always get back spinning only some of them, my all time favourites.....

You are right, it really is strange. Of course I also have the CD with the Geneva concert. And yes, Bud´s ups and down were during his whole career. At the end, like after his comeback to Birdland 1964 he could still play great , and in the next set he would play without inspiration. But one strange thing about the Swiss recordings is that sometimes it seems that Bud tends to give space for a bass solo, but after a few bars he forgets about it and plays solo himself again. On other occasions Bud really gives space for the fellow musicians, so it is more a group performance. And one thing that I regret: In the 50´s Bud composed at least three great latin pieces "Un Poco Loco", "Buster Rides Again" and "Comin´ Up", but he never would perform them again. So this sets sometimes get monotonous, since it´s only swing, some medium tempo, some up tempo, and usually two ballads Round Midnight (always great !) and "I remember Clifford". It´s a pity that there never was something with latin touch also. Bud could have played very fine Dizzy´s "Manteca", "Tin Tin Deo" and "Con Alma". Actually, he played once "Tin Tin Deo" with Diz in Paris (with the Double Six).

Hello Friends ! For some weeks I have listened more to 70´s jazz, like VSOP and some electric jazz, but yesterday I was in the mood to go all the way back to listen to that much praised recording of Bud in Switzerland. Bud is really in top form. It´s interesting to compare those tracks with the tracks from Golden Circle only 2 months or so later on which Bud seems to have slowed down a bit. What may have been the reason ? The Rhythm section ? In Lausanne especially the bass player seems to have studied Bud´s Repertoire. He plays a more old fashioned style of bass of the 40´s like Tommy Potter or Curley Russell. The only weaker thing is "Evidence" since Bud doesn´t seem to know the rhythmic conception of that theme.

Oh yes, those Verve double albums were around 1978. I also had the Bud Powell double album from this series

I haven´t heard about that TV show, but when I saw the photo I thought it is Chet Baker. By the way: West Coast is not really present in my collection. I started listening to Chet when he had his comeback, and love what he did in those years from the 70´s until his death, which is really deep and moving. The strange thing is that the first Mulligan-Baker I heard was on the Carnegie Hall 1974 set, which I heard at a club and had no idea who is playing, but recognized the great bass of one of my favourites Ron Carter. Bob Brookmeyer on the other hand......., my only listening experience was that disappointing Mel Lewis Big Band where he had composed and arranged after Thad Jones had left. I had heard the original Thad Jones - Mel Lewis BB and loved it, but Brookmeyers contribution ......well maybe I´m too dumb to dig it, but I just didn´t like it, and there were a lot of guys who were at that festival and all who I knew said the same thing, maybe we all were into another direction....

I have the Pablo album Lockjaw with OP-Trio. Well I bought it because I wanted to hear Jaws. OP is quite ok, though I like another Pablo album Jaws with the Tommy Flanagan trio more, since Flanagan is one of the best pianists of his time. He doesn´t exagerate his tehnical abilities like OP and nevertheless has a fantastic tehnique, and really tells a story when he is soloing and also is great in comping other soloists. My favourite OP album is "In Tune" with the Singers Unlimited, not because I´m such a big fan of Unlimited, and my discography of vocals is quite scarce, but because it was en vogue in my youth and OP does not cover everything, he is more subdued here so I can enjoy the sound more . But as I have mentioned in my VSOP thread, there were different "fan-groups" during my teenage years and early twen years, when I was most involved in the scene: One minority was the 100% OP fans, but they were not so much present in the joints were jazz was played. There was a Jazz LP-lovers circle who met once the month and one evening someone had invited me and there they had also gentleman around 50, named "Hans" and every phrase he spoke started and ended with Oscar Peterson. He would not have tolerated other opinios. But one thing is interesting: Most OP-Fans were just fans, not musicians.

Big deal at the time.....I don´t know. It was more a musician´s kind of favourite. You must know, the small after hours clubs was very much musicians or budding musicians listening and discussing the music maybe not from the way non playing music lovers might listen to it. That´s the way I was brought up: Listen and Learn. I heard it at the mentioned club and no one less than the wonderful alto saxophonist Allen Praskin, who had settled in Europe pulled my coat to it. One day we both were at my place and before the regular rehearsal for a gig startet, he wanted to run through some Monk tunes with me , I remember one of "Four in One", and the other was a particulary difficult tune from the 1952BN session. And Mr. Praskin said to me I should listen to the Bennie Wallace version, the more open approach to the Monk compositions..... like if Mr. Praskin played old bop standards but with the knowledge that there was Jackie McLean, Dolphy, and Ornette after that......, just wonderful. So I´d say it was especially interesting for musicians who studied Monk´s music.....

Hi Peter, but I was referring to both acoustic and electric jazz in my posting from yesterday (as I said we dug both acoustic and electric. We heard old acoustic Miles LPs like "Steamin´" with the same enthusiasm as we listened to "Headhunters".... And not to forget what was before, Bop, Hardbop, Free. And pre bop pioneers like Roy, Hawk, Lester, Art Tatum, Billie Holyday etc. we also "studied".... You mentioned jazz "from the 1920´s". Well I must admit we were listening mostly to what was played live and what WE could play with others, which ranged from acoustic (then so called "modern jazz" to the contemporanous electric jazz. There was a club in Vienna, that presented also some "oldtime" jazz., but in general those bands were mostly amateur bands of older music lovers, and there was also another audience like we youngsters were. They were from aonther generation and didn´t like youngsters like we were, with long hair and all that..... Yes, I also must admit I had very very little Pablo and Concord and more Muse and Timeless, but I think Timeless came even a bit later than the mid seventies. The first Timless I remember was two Blakey albums from 1977, and then very very much, a lot of great US-Stars.... ECM I listened only very very little, the only things I really loved was the two Dave Liebman albums "Lookout Farm" and "Drum Ode". Oh yes, and probably you will also post your point of view about it.

Just have listened to the first VSOP. Just wonderful besides the acoustic set is the sextet with Eddie Henderson, Julian Priester, Bennie Maupin, Buster Williams and Billy Hart. And of course the electric band with Wah Wah Watson and Bennie Maupin. The presence of all that music at that time sure made us musicians and fans flexible, that we dug acoustic AND electric. To hear let´s say old Miles LPs like "Steamin´" with the same enthusiasm like "Headhunters". I think there was two groups of fans, those who listend more to "Headhunters" and those who listend more to "RTF". In my case, though RTF has some great music, I preferred Hancock´s bands, it´s more earth-bound and I think or at least knew people who were crazy about RTF were mostly the kind of more philosophical young persons who asked themselfs who they are and what can they do to make the world better and so on.... In the later 80´s I heard a fantastic re-make of "Headhunters" that was called "Headhunters II" with still Wah Wah Watson, and Mike Brecker on sax.

The Bennie Wallace album must have been around 1980. It was very much discussed here in Vienna, it´s top musicians, and it was spinned very often in that fancy old jazzclub "Spelunke" which we had. When there was not live music (anyway, you could play live only from 19.00 - 22.00 because it was an old building and other families had their appartments there), they spinned all those fine records, and we the regulars sittin at the bar discussed the music , just wonderful.

Capurange and Tangerine are my favourite Prestige albums of Gordon from that period in the early 70´s. It was somehow a strange time, acoustic jazz like that was disappearing for quite some years, I always thought the great era of Prestige was the 50´s.

I think, that besides the fact, that BN was on top of Hardbop in the 50´s Lee Morgan, Horace Silver, Blakey Messengers etc. ) , Modal and a bit into "free" by Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Sam Rivers and so on, and besides that those " boogaloo hits" like Sidewinder and Midnight Creeper and so, but also kept in a kind of tradition, which is not necessarly typical hardbop, it´s somehow "swingin´ mainstream" . I must admit that the "mainstream corner" from BN is the lest interesting for me personally. Things like "The Three Sounds", the Turrentine albums, the Ike Quebec albums and so on .... let´s say I have some of them and can enjoy them, but it is not necessarly what I want to hear to really pay attention to what is happening. It´s great music and great players, no question, but if I have to choose between a Turrentine album and a Jackie McLean album what do you think I would prefer ?

oh yeah, I have that. So I have the Parker set in two editions

Very fine bop session. I think it was always quite hard to find. Bird also played a complete set on that date I think. It was issued on another label. The strange thing is I first had it on a Musidisc album, something called "Bird-Broadcasts"....

When was it recorded ? I heard "Jumpin´Blues" by Dexter only in later years. It is on "American Classic" from 1982 and on the 60´s Birthday from Vanguard 1983.

If you like the Reprise date, I mean that date from february 1963, you might also like the Mythic Sound album "Writin´ for Duke" with the material for that session, that was not issued on the original LP. Originally it was planned, that Bud would write new material for that session, among others one title "Tune for Duke". But as it was said, "for commercial reasons" they kept more the standard tunes which are on the Reprise album". What is really great on the "Writin´for Duke" is Bud´s version of Ellington´s "I got it bad" , which really should be heard. "Tune for Duke" is nice and swinging, but some other compositions would have needed more repetions or they was written to quickly. "Free" is nothing else than a fast C-minor blues, but not really great. If you ask me for my opinion, the main reason why I listen less to all the material from this session is the drumming of Kansas Fields, who may be a good old time drummer, but is not the best choice for a Bud Powell trio.

In later years, but also in earlier years, Bud sounded most inspired when he played with great fellow musicians. The "Tribute to Cannonball" with Don Byas and Idrees Sulieman from 1961 , The Dexter Gordon Date from 1963 The rare Bud at Birdland 1957 with Donald Byrd and Phil Woods. And maybe you would like the 1964 Trio album that originally had the title "The Invisible Cage" , but later it was reissued as " Blues for Bouffémont", with new compositions and some great Art Taylor on drums.

I didn´t know there would be so much Lou Donaldson discussion on that thread, since I must admit as much as I like to listen to LD nothing really changed, I heard him twice in 1986 with Herman Foster, and later with organ players, but the music was quite the same like in the 50´s and 60´s. But a few years ago I was mislead and bought a LD CD which I thought that might be something new, and it was a 1974 BN, just boring, nothing else than boring and it was the only time that after one listenig I threw it into the garbage can.

Yeah, that´s true.

Erroll Garner was quite popular during my youth (70´s) by people who otherwise didn´t listen to jazz. Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner. They didn´t have Bird or Miles or Trane or Mingus etc in their collections, but listened to Garner or Peterson when they felt that they might listen to some "jazz". It was especially upper middleclass people. They always had piano trio jazz, no horns. But sometimes I like a little Garner. Sounds happy and makes you smile, especially the medium tempos with that special Garner Beat. Actually I have only one Garner in my huge collection, it was a present from my wife and it´s "Up in Erroll´s Room", with some brass added. On that one, Garner even plays Dizzy´s "Groovin´ High" .....

But the sound of the Rhodes inspired me to get more into the sound of the 70´s. You can´t play the same chords and stuff like acoustic bop or hard bop. The Rhodes just leads you into another direction. Not like the later Yamaha master keyboards where you can play exactly like an acoustic piano, or the Yamaha pianola I have now for 3 years. Well as you say about carrying that "boy that weights more than a lot of guys who play it" and "those were the days".... I also still must laugh about the next thing, or the next step of electric jazz, when I played those DX7 keyboards, I put it on top of the Fender, and it had those funny catriges, I think 24 sounds on each of them, and had to memorize which one you need for which tune, and quickly because it was live gigs.

I love it. It was one of the favourite of us during those times in the 70´s. It still sounds so fantastic, I never get tired of it. And really a dream team, Freddie, Joe Henderson, Herbie, Ron, Lenny White.

Sun Ra´s "Nothing Is" is from 1966, ESP label. It´s live from a series of concerts. More recently it was reissued with the complete material.

Well, I witnessed a one night gig at a smaller cellar club as late as 1987, were I could see some things. I was early at the club and Woody Shaw was allready there, sitting alone at a table and having a meal (some kind of mixture of potatoes, onion and ham) and a Beer. Nothing wrong about that. But then I saw that the waiter had to bring him a lot of those small bottles of Underberg. He drank them one after the other, I was sittin at the bar, and saw how the waiter told the barman again and again "an Underberg for Woody"..... When the gig finally started, I wondered how he might play after all that Underberg (by the way, Underberg is a digestif bitter, I understand that some might drink one after a heavy meal, but so many of them ??????) . Obviously because of his failing eyesight, Woody had to be led on stage, smoking a cigarette while being led on stage (anyway he was chain smoking all the time). They started a medium tempo "Tea for Two", on which Woody sounded somewhat shaky, and anyway I wondered why the genius I saw in the early 80s with the fantastic group of Steve Turré, Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James, Tony Reedus, played such old standards instead of his own music ..... Then they played "Star Eyes" and I remember Woody announced it as "famous because Charlie Parker played it......I don´t know if you remember him"....some people laughed as this might have been a weak joke or something. But otherwise Woody didn´t seem to be arrogant, well he smoked always and played with the cigarette in his hand while playing the trumpet (like you see on some old Miles Davis and Fats Navarro Fotos) , throwing the cigarette ends carelessly on stage in spite of the fact that there was all those electric cables for the mikes and so..... I think I was not the only one who was quite embarrassed to see Woody like that, because we all had remembered him as a top star. His playing in general was ok, not more than that, in any case not as exiting as he used to be.....