Gheorghe

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"

It´s the best album Dexter made for CBS, one of his very best albums in general and maybe one of the best albums of late 70´s acoustic jazz. And not only the music, it´s the cover that´s great, and the liner notes is also great to read. I have only superlatives for that album and that Quartet.

Yeah, his chords and his voicings were unique. He could make a small band (with Fats Navarro, Allen Eager, Curley Russell and Kenny Clarke) sound like a larger group. For example "Our Delight". I can´t read more than the basics of chords progressions but I played it from ear and got those voicings even if I had to play it in trio. The way you lay the chords, the punctations, and it will sound like a "mini orchestra"...... And of course his out-chorusses, where he replaces the theme melody with a new line, you hear it on "Good Bait" , on "Our Delight" ....wonderful..... Somewhere I told the story about me and a bunch of fellow teenagers sharing the passion for jazz, how we "discovered" Tadd Dameron. It was around 1977 when that Miles Davis - Tadd Dameron in Paris 1949 came out and despite the terrible sound quality we dug it. And when I discovered the "Mating Call" - Tadd with Trane and told other kids that this Tadd Dameron played with Miles AND Trane, those who only knew Miles and Trane answered "if you say he played with Miles and Trane or they played for him, he must be a "big chief". And later we had fun humming his themes and his out-chorusses while sittin in the boat , fishing for trout. And for me Tadd Dameron is also a very unique pianist. That short solos are little "miniatura art pieces" as a friend of mine who also discovered Tadd thru me stated and damn right he was....

I first heard him in march 1980, when he played - also together with Harry Sokal at an after concert session in a now defunct club "Jazz By Freddie", after Sonny Stitt played here in town. So it was advertised that after the regular concert in a concert hall Mr Stitt will come down to the club and play with Roman and Harry. Roman and Harry played fantastic stuff, but Mr. Stitt was very very juiced and after two mediumtempo blues in Bb he decided to sit down at the piano and "play and sing"..... so sad to say there was no more 3 tenors....., Yesterday I had the honour to jam with Roman Schwaller and two other name saxophonists. Such a great musician and a beautiful guy. Three tenors with p,b,dr.

Well, from all VSOP albums that extremly short studio album is the one that´s got only 1 or 2 times spinnin´ here. The first Number Skagly would be cool, but it´s more a backbeat tune and the acoustic bass in the manner it´s recorded doesn´t really fit in. This number would have been great with a fender bass. The others is missing the tension I´m used to, that medium tempo swing number could be fine, but always those stops not only in the theme but in the solos too...., I like the other one from that year 1979, I think it´s titled "Live under the Sky", that´s really top....

My favourite acoustic group in the 70´s . But I think my favourite is the "Tempest at the Colloseum", though this one is also very very fine.

I don´t like the word perfect in music. Reminds me too much about one of the few occasions I heard classical music when two women (daughter my then girlfriend and her mother) took me to some opera and yeah, not my bag but I dug it and enjoyed it, but during intermission them two women start "did you hear how singer so an so did not hit the high C properly ? And so on and so on and they had fun doing that shit. I said well it sounds nice, I don´t know about the mistakes and if there are some, who cares ? As long as they bring the message out they are cool to me. They said that this is something like the cherry on the cake , to make observations like that. I said "can you get up there on stage and sing it better ? You can´t so you better let ´ em do their stuff as good as they know it....

Ok the way they look like or the tattoos.... I wonder how they sound and yeah, to hear them in trio format would have been the greatest. I like them all three, Gomez more in group than solo, his fast hi note stuff on "Me Myself and I" get´s on my nerves, but as a team player it´s a safe thing, All three some of the hottest guys around in the late 70´s and as I said, all three on "Me Myself and I" and yeah those exchanges Cuber with Pepper Adams on "Something like a Bird" is great. The way they look like. Well from my point of view as all I knew when I was a kid: Old guys who once were young guys... As about Tatoos, I can´t stand them, sorry and I don´t want to hurt nobody, but the only tattoos I saw in the past was the tatooed numbers ex prisoners had on the hand or so.... I don´t really like it. People say it´s a personal stuff you tattoo something that´s your personality, but what if I don´t want nobody to figure out what´s my personality about......, or what happens with such a tattoo if I change my personality ? Last weak I saw a guy with a gun tattood on his face. What if that guy changes and becomes a pacifist, he get´s rid of the gun-tatoo and get´s a white "porumbel" or "taube" ....( how you say in english to that bird ?)