Gheorghe

Well this is true mostly for amateur guitarists, if they appear at jam sessions. It may happen that no horn player is in the houses and you get two or even three guitarist on stage who just take over the things. I´ll never again "work" in a club where after your own set you have to deal with some of those. But I have the highest praise for guitarists with whom I jammed in the last month, that´s a good place to play, no non-musician would dare to get up on stage, it is only advanced jazz students and professional musicians, so the quality of the music is safe. And a wonderful guitarist is like a wonderful horn player and I if it´s a quartet with him and a rhythm section I love to let him play the themes and first solos and do four´s with him and the drummer, just wonderful. I think I learned much by listening to Wynton Kelly working with guitar players, with Kenny Burrell and with Wes Montgomery, with Grant Green and so on, that´s how you learn to play with guitarists and enjoy it, it´s just wonderful......

That photos of Mingus on the White House lawn being greet by the President , where Mingus bursted out in tears.....everytime I see that it brings tears into my eyes, serious ! Yes, I also have read this. Sure, records should not be bootleg and I always try to buy legit albums if I buy an album, but sometimes you just don´t know it´s a bootleg. Maybe that´s the reason why two important live albums who might have documented his huge world tour in 1977 can´t be found anymore: The Mingus at Spain, and the Mingus at Buenos Aires both from summer 1977. I mean those quinted live versions of his last huge suites "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion", "Three or Four Shades" were much more exiting that the quite overproduced studio sessions where producers interfered with Mingus´ own choices of players, at least that´s what I supose. At least some of those concerts from 1976 (with Danny Mixon on piano) and 77 (with Bob Neloms on piano) should be released now. We have tons of "new discoveries" from the band with Dolphy (which anyway is one of the greatest things I ever heard on record), but at least for those of my generation who attended live performances of Mingus in the second half of the 70´s in the post Adams/Pullen Period, some good concerts should be made available for the public......

I must have seen this side some years ago , because I remember I read the article about "Fats Navarro Day" which is beautiful. I would have liked to know if some from the photo were close relatives of Fats who had traveled to the event, maybe his daughter Linda and his grandson, maybe others from Key West ? About the discography , well I´m not that kind of collector in a way that "session index" helps me much to buy and album. One thing is sure: The first Fats (and the first Bud) that I heard in my live was on that wonderful double LP "One Night at Birdland" 1950, and Fats´ solos on all that great tunes, his own feature on "Night in Tunisia" and that long solos on "Streat Beat" (where someone shout´s "play Fats !" so he plays one more chorus, and those incredible fast "Dizzy Atmosphere" and "Little Willie Leaps" ......... well more verbally emphatic persons would write "changed my life"....., at least to learn to be able to play stuff like this and build up on that knowledge...... Others was one italian album with most of the Savoy sessions, one from Musidisc with Tadd Dameron at the Royal Roost 1948, and of course the 1949 BN session with Rollins and Bud, which is my idea of a perfect bop recording. Oh yeah, and that strange 1947 all star jam with "High on an Open Mike" and "Sweet Georgia Brown". So I think I have enough to know and love his trumpet and his music.

Well your Osby looks nice, like the young players now, who again are dressed like the old masters Bird or Bean etc. That "Ozzy" ....if he would not have hair on the chest I would have bet that this is a "little bit crazy woman". As I said, a great part of the 80´s due to different circumstances was a big hole for me. But that does not mean that it remained that way. Now I´m quite aware of young players who sound great, but due to the fact that I mostly use them for actual playing and live listening , I´m more aware of the "young lions" here in my town....

Thanks ! It seems to be those series of Jazz in France. Well I didn´t know a Trad Band would do Dizzy Tunes, might give it a taste if it´s on youtube or so.....

Yes, this thread !

Listen to "Time for Tyner" from the late 60´s with Bobby Hutherson, it´s one of my favourite vibes-piano combination. And listen to the "4x4" also Tyner with Hutcherson on Milestone label (four quartets, double LP or CD with 4 sides, each side another added soloist (Hubbard, John Abercrombie, Bobby Hutcherson and Arthur Blyth ) And also recommended: The Timless album "Four Seasons": Hutcherson-George Cables-Herbie Lewis-Philly J.J. from 1983 or so....

I know about that phenomen. I haven´t read the topic before, but I think the hot versus cool I saw in the book about Diz from that Orios Jazz Press series, but it is not a very informative book. Those Bop versus Dixie were very well presented by Barry Ulanov too, with the radio broadcasts of the two shows on some european label, maybe musidisc or spotlite, I remember somehow they did "Tiger Rag" and since the solos are in Ab, they play the solos based on Dizzy Atmoshpere and the ending also is the shout chorus of the outing of Dizzy Athmosphere, I think they also did "Sunny Side of the Street with the outing of 52´nd street theme. It´s really fine how they made that friendy combination of bop and oldtime jazz. Others , mostly amateur Dixilanders are not as smart and get mad if a modernist does that gimmick.....

Yeah, they are from the austrian federal land Upper Austria (Oberösterreich), the capital is Linz where the famous Bruckner-Conservatory also has jazz classes and where my main mentor and leader Allan Praskin taught for many years. The Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra has a very flexible repertory ´, they played with international stars like Johnny Griffin, but also worked on crossover projects combining austrian folk songs,( which maybe is not exactly my alley) , but they are great, and there wonderful trumpet player Simon Plötzeneder also performed here in Viena . A former member was the late great Bumi Fian, a first class trumpetist I also played with, who ended so tragically as a total victim of booze and beer.

Yes, I remember when it came out and it was about the time when Sanders again started to play in a traditional tenor-piano-bass-drums formation doin also things from the past, similar to Archie Shepp, but of course into another direction. This tour de force "Dr. Pitt" or how it´s called was on most live shows I saw myself. I saw Pharoah about that time here in Austria and they also played some bop tune like "On a Misty Night" and some standard ballad with the trademark Pharoah Sanders outing..... Wonderful. Well, we must admit this was the time when some former pioneers of Free Jazz returned to straight ahead acoustic jazz. I´m sure if Trane would have survived, after world jazz into electric jazz trademarks he also would have done something with quartet again during a time when there was a comeback for acoustic jazz ..... I have to look out for a tune composed by Jaws that must be on some of those Griffin-Davis albums, I think if I remember well it is Db combined with Bb minor (which is similar with the same black keys) and I heard it on some two tenor stuff and might listen to it a few times to check the form of the song for my own purpose , I mean I had played with a two tenor thing this year but would have asked for that Lockjaw tune if I knew exactly how it goes. I don´t even remember the name of the tune....

This sure was a great experience. I would have liked to see Michael Weiss and also talk to him..... Great ! Glad you went out to see a live gig again after this corvid pandemic. I remember how it started in early march 2020 and Dave Liebman-Richie Beirach was chancelled in the last minute, it would have been a concert I would have attended together with my wife to show here and maybe meet the guys who were among my first jazz inspirations in the mid seventies. Hope you will see more live performances, I´ll go out tomorrow to see the 40 years anniversary of my favorite Austrian Drummer Mario Gonzi (please read about him on wikipedia, he will play with me also in the next months. .....

Burton Green was also on some ESP things right ? He really was something and had a lot of eastern european roots which I like. And the highlight here was when he performed with first rate austrian avantgarde musicians like the late great Fritz Novotny (Reform Art Unit) and Fritz showed him his then latest composition "Pannonian Flower" which Mr. Green liked and performed with them, and later at Green´s suggestion they concluded the concert with some Monk tunes, I remember "Crepuscule with Nellie" was on the set !!!!! Green loved Monk.

I somewhere told that I missed a lot of the late 80´s developement of jazz for different reasons, or I just listened to other music mostly more funk based things like Ornette Colemans "Prime Time" or the several electric Miles, but I think I remember Gary Thomas. Wasn´t he with Miles at some point ? I remember there was lot fans of Osby but must admit I never heard him. I had heard the name and had heard a name Ozzy Osborn and didn´t know which is which and haven´t heard any of them. So some people in a german jazz forum said that he is the future of jazz and I didn´t know it.....crazy......

I also did read it, but it made me so sad to read that almost from day to day description of Mingus´ terrible terminal desease. I mean not only be confined to a wheelchair but not even able to move your hands and have difficulties to speak, I think it´s inhuman, such a terrible thing , I almost had to cry , I loved Mingus soo much and he was my first great inspiration of jazz. Sue was a wonderful woman, there sure were some bad times in their marriage too as maybe both were difficult personalities, that sometimes clashed but she was also a stunning tall lady , a pleasure to look at her.

I love it. Charlie Rouse at his best. Some people like other tenor saxophonists with Monk more, but Charlie Rouse is wonderful and my favourite tenor player with Monk or in other surroundings. And Monk is so great here, I learned a lot of things for my own musical understanding from this double CD. And it´s wonderful to hear such extended versions of my favourite Monk live pieces "Bemsha Swing" and "Evidence". If I remember right, they play both "Just You Just Me" and "Evidence" , same chords as you might know. And that rare thing "Bright Missisippi" is very useful, you can do such things spontanously if you want to give something on the changes of "Sweet Georgia Brown". I think I once heard another unissued and incomplete version of "Honeysuckle Rose" also from that gig. Oh yeah and I forgot to mention "I´m gettin´ Sentimental on You" the Tommy Dorsey trademark tune, incredible how Monk does the theme as a solo intro......

Wonderful ! I love it and so great fellow musicians. I heard Sherman Ferguson first with Eddie Harris, he is a great drummer, and Fambrough with Art Blakey, and of course William Henderson on many occasions with Pharoah since he replaced the late John Hicks on the piano chair.

Yes i guessed that since I read with much pleasure some of your impressions of him, you really know his stuff.

I want to say, that his "Life at the East" was one of the handful of records I had in my still very small collection right at the beginning of my jazz career. I told you on more than one occasions that the second so called "jazz" I heard at maybe 14,15 years was the Mingus Thing with Dolphy in Paris 64, and that opened me up for more of the so called avantgarde stuff, starting with Ornette and Trane and maybe my 4th or 5th own record was the mentioned "Live at the Village Vanguard Again". So I think among my first 10 jazz albums was that Pharoah Sanders "Live at the East", because I saw it at my record dealer. So you can imagine what meaning it has to me since about 50 years. Even my mother (born 1921) heard it and LOVED it ! The last time I saw Mr. Sanders live was a few years ago, in 2016,17 or so. He still had some power left for a wonderful performance but I was in sorrow seeing that he obviously had difficulties to walk and after soloing he often hold his hand to his chest, obviously in pain and discomfort. One thing I really regret is that on that last occasion I had my old album with me and made up my mind to try to meet him for telling him how young I was when I started to love and admire him. But imagine, at the 57,58 years I was old I was too shy to ask to meet him, I was sure he would not be approachable....later dudes from here told me that it wouldn´t have been that way and he would have been nice and would have appreciated my praise and admiration for him. Does anybody know more about his physical condition and the cause of death ?

Fats Navarro was born on 24.09.1923 in Key West, FL. Imagine, around 2000 I even visited Key West to walk on the earth where this genius trumpet player was born. When I first heard him on record on "A Night at Birdland" (with Bird and Bud and Art Blakey) and read that he was only 26 years old when he died, I was shocked and thought right now he would be in his early 50s. Though I´m a piano player I learned very very much from the lines he played, so great ! I had heard that tragedy struck also some of his family members, his wife died quite early and his daughter who was a lawyer also died early. Maybe some surviving family members coincidally would read this .

I´m glad I´m not the only lousy reader, but as a piano player I didn´t really have occasions where I might read. I never wrote an arrangement, usually I play with two horns and maybe suggest some voicings here and there, but very rare since they know their stuff. I have a tune in mind, an original, not typical for me it´s a simple slow waltz I want to dedicate to a person, and I have the voicings in mind, but for writing I´ll ask my trumpet player who is a trumpet teacher on some jazz conservatory, he knows it better than me.

I think the sections featuring Bird are also on one of Bird´s Verve records "Fiesta" if I remember right. And "Mambo" and Tanga" is very fine on a "Spotlite" LP with some live Bird with Machito and very fine Howard McGhee-Brew More also, all of it from about the same time .

I love it, especially those quartet sides with Al Haig who is incredible strong on the two ballads. The only annoying thing on my copy is that there are numerous alternate takes of the tunes. But the best Wardell Gray I ever heard is on a Xanadu album I think with Hampton Hawes live in a club, and maybe the very very first choice if I want to hear fantastic Wardell Gray is that Charlie Parker live album "The Happy Bird" . It´s so good that sometimes I must say confidentially that there are times I listen more to Gray´s solos especially on "Scrapple" and on "Lullaby in Rhythm" if I remember well....... There was an incredible memory I had with it in the early 90´s when I still had to make "naveta" (Pendeln ?) between AT and RO and would drive all night long (no highway then after the last town in Eastern Austria !!!!) and around 2 o clock in the night I was really tired when I reached the last town in Hungary before the Borderline and it was still those cassete decks in the car and coincidally it was that "Happy Bird" record with Wardell Gray on it and immdediatly I was "hell wach" Una Mas is one of my favourite KD´s and sure my favourite on his 60´s BN. There was a time when I always did Una Mas live if it was a joint that otherwise was not strictly jazz, and catchy as this tune is, the audience , among them very much youngsters loved it.

I never saw him, and my only record evidences is in the first half of the seventies, like you say with MCoy and than he is added to Miles´ working group in 1974 on "Dark Magus", Imho the best Miles recorded in the 70´s.

I also think it´s normal. But I´m often forced to play a tune and think oh shit I never played that and I´m not sure I know the changes, especially in the bridge but recover quickly by listening very intense to what´s happening and pick it up. Sometimes you hear the melody and anyway can imagine how the chords go. But sometimes I´ll sit down at home and try to play let´s say a ballad and start and I´m pleased what I hear in the A sections and the first four bars of the bridge and then.......don´t remember the following 4 bars . It just happens. It´s much easier on stage, you pick it up and that´s it. Strange.....but sometimes I get the best out of a tune I never had played before. It´s much harder if I have to play trio in a jam session on a day like Wendsday this week when the bass player suggests a tune I never had played and remember only the first bars. But it´s the same vice versa. To my astonishment he didn´t know the changes of Round Midnight, and suggested "Beautiful Love" ..... uh uh. If it would have been a hornplayer leading the stuff, I could have to follow and pick it up, but trio, nope. But shit like this happens...... About writing myself......If I compose a thing I have to asked somebody else to write it down, writing is not my strongest point. I read chords and can read a lead sheet if I somehow know how the song goes, but I can´t read completly written piano scores with all the chords written out and with bass clef and stuff. Even when I played bass fiddle in my youth I couldn´t read a bass clef, but playing piano anyway helped me to have the changes in my mind just to walk or to play solo......

Oh, that means it was the same thing when I first saw a picture of Pepper Adams. From the way of playing and the surroundings on gigs and recording sessions I had thought both must be black. Anyway, that´s not the point and both played their ass off. Teddy Charles was very advanced for his time I think. He could play regular mainstream but also got a bit beyond. That strange version of Night in Tunisia from that Lee Konitz-Miles Davis album ! It´s almost atonal and really has some daring voicings.