Gheorghe

Yesterday was Mingus´ 100th birthday. He means so much to me and actually, his "Great Concert in Paris 1964" with Dolphy was the second album I had after Miles´ "Steamin". So....Mingus was and still is a source of inspiration for me and one of the very favourite musicians and composers of mine. And I was lucky I saw him live.

I love it, wonderful compositions. The first tune "The Thespian" is so beautiful with that intro with Chambers on arco, and then the fast theme. All tunes are great. That latin tune "Olé " is a real earworm, you don´t get it out of your head and I remember when I first heard it after I bought the CD, I jumped to the piano and did it. So easy and natural changes.... a dancer might dance to it, a player has the urge to play it....

It´s one of the best albums of the first half of the 60´s, one of my favourite BN albums. One of those I enjoy most. One of my favourite bop albums. And it´s very interesting to hear that completly different approaches between the session with Bud and that with Lewis and J.J. with "Afternoon in Paris" on it. Two different moods and both of them really fantastic stuff. We had a short discussion maybe a bit OT on "Jazz Literature" were I stated that I like Bud most together with horn players and some, first of all Mr. Mark Stryker disagreed but Mr. Stryker made also a statement that this Prestige LP is some of Bud´s best. Stitts tenor is fantastic on both sides....

Thank you all for your great comments and I really apreciate your participation. As for playing an instrument. A piano was in our house long before I was born. My father could play some classical tunes like Beethovens Moonshine Sonata, I was still in ....wait a minute....dictionary...."napkins" ...that´s how you say, and got under the piano just to hear that deep sound. When I was about 2 or 3, my father got me up on his lap and showed me the keyboard and playing the notes and said "look, this is a C, this is a D, this is an E ..... and so on. Then the flat keys and this went on for serveral days until he told me to get off the piano and not look at what he plays and hit a note and asked me which one it is. And somehow step by step I´d start to finger out things and would try to play the theme of "Moonshine Sonata" by ear, just with the limitations of my little hands. So I remained a piano player for the rest of my live, but I never got formal training and reading sheet I only can read a single line, not a whole partitura or piano music and of course chord progressions. Later I got some money after my grandma died and bought a bass fiddle and started fingerin around on it until I could fill in on bass when there was no other bass player around. So music was something that I feel naturally. It´s compareable with the dance talent of my wife: She got some medails and if she sees some special dance she will do it imeadiatly like I would play something by ear after one listening. So we both got our talents. And yes, very much about the first listening experiences at ages like 13, 14 always will remain key experiences. In my case, my first jazz album was Miles´ "Steamin´" and my second was "The Great Concert of Charles Mingus". Those were key figures for me, because Dolphy let me to Ornette and New Thing and tunes like Mingus´ "Parkeriana" or Miles´ "Salt Peanuts" and "Well You Needn´t " would let me learn about Bird, Diz , Monk and so on...., and Miles led me to electric jazz. So very very shortly after those 2 albums I enjoyed listening to bop, hardbop, modal, free and electric and I think that´s about the styles I still prefere.....

So you both KNOW at least something about form. I don´t mean technical skill, but musicianship. But the form and the chord progressions is not a thing that I have to analyse, it is there anyway. About keys if somebody knows or doesnt know what key it is. I heard that there is something what people call perfect pitch and I don´t like that expression because I don´t like the word perfect, but each key is like a colour for me. As if I look at an obiect and can tell what colour it has, I can say this is in Db or Bb or plain C ...... all them keys ...., I don´t know else but would be interested if people who don´t recognize keys in the way I do, how they get their impressions....... and sure they get....

It took me much time to decide if I want to start that topic and even was not sure in what category it might fit in: In the course of many music discussions here on the forum both with musicians and not playing music lovers I would like to UNDERSTAND, how people who just love the music but don´t play it ore don´t know musical details , well.....how they listen to albums or to live music, how they enjoy it. This might also be very helpful for a player to understand how he can touch the ears of a listener. In my case: If I first hear a tune I hear in what key it´s done, what form it has and that I hear the form in the solos and know where they are at and at the same time I enjoy what they do, how they might develope their solos, what mood they are in..... well ..... as other musicians would listen. If it´s a so called "free jazz recording" I still think I can hear where they are at and what they doin and how moods, sounds , certain patterns, modulations are happening. And this is nothing theoretical or analytic, it´s just happening automatically, like if I see a house or a landscape and know what kind of house it is, or what kind of landscape it is. You realize what it is and at the same time you enjoy lookin at it. And now I would like to hear also from you fans who don´t know about musical forms, numbers of bars, or in what key they playing and all that: Is it mostly the rhythm, is it the "sound" or the "mood", is it like a tone poem, or how do you enjoy the music. I hope it is not a dumb question, but I just want to know how people who are not musicians are listening to music.

Yeah ! My favourite tune on it is that beautiful ballad "X-Love", for me also the highlight on the 1962 Town Hall event.

I had to take my old english dictionary to find out what "florid" means , and now I can say YES, that´s a good description. I saw him in 1983 with Charles Lloyd on festival schedule and have the LP with them from Electra Musician from exactly that period. And I can tell you what my impression was (about both Lloyd and Petrucciani); First listening "wow", but it remained my only album of that genre. Not really my music. And Petrucciani well he had a helluva technique but it seems to be a very very classical approach, it doesn´t really have that natural rhythm feeling I want to hear from a pianist.

I first had that silver Atlantic LP cover, that was used for several classic albums I also purchased then, like Ornette Coleman Free Jazz, John Coltran-Don Cherry the Avantgarde, Mingus Blues and Roots, Les McCann Eddy Harris Montreux 1969.... they all had the same cover design....

One of my favourites, since it was the second Mingus LP I bought or better said my mother saw it in London and bought it for me. I don´t know how often we spinned it and hummed all the tunes. A friend of mine was especially fond of "Moaning" (has nothing to do with Timmons ´Moanin´).

I have this. Is it possible it was during the time, when BN had slowed down it´s business , so 1976 /77 that period. I haven´t listened to it recently, I´m not soooo much into vocal jazz with the exception of a few, Billy Eckstine (with the bop band), Earl Coleman, Johny Hartman etc.... and if female singer than Sarah with that first session with "Lover Man"....), but I bought this one since I think somewere is written "feat. Dizzy Gillespie"..... well if I remember right, I didn´t hear much Diz, is it possible that he just plays on his mouthpeace only on "T´Aint Nobody´s Bizness.." ??? Well the first half of the 70´s was an extremly rough period for acoustic jazz veterans... I remember how it was and how it started to become better in the late 70´s .

I only know it as a fast tune, as Bird played it, and others like a 1977 version of the Messengers at the Korner did it. Was it originally played half time, or is Bird´s version double time ?

Miles played it in F and the brigde in Bb. I never had heard the original version since I´m not really familiar with Benny Carter´s work, but didn´t play Miles with Benny Carter in LA in 1946 and decided to stay and record with Bird ? Miles´ bridge on "Well You Needn´t " is common ground at jam sessions, but I always ask which bridge they want, since if I play it on my own, I use the Monk bridge, since I´m familiar with Monk´s music.

I also have this (present from my wife) . Strange the back beat rhythm on "Light Blue" which always let me wonder how Monk´s career could have continued through the 70s if he also changed the rhythm of some of his tunes from swing to slightly rock and using fender bass instead of acoustic, like Diz did in the 70s and 60´s when he played Con Alma with a rock beat and so on..... But Art Tayler, who seemed to have been a strictly straight ahead swinger, seems to have difficulties with it. On the alternate takes you hear how "stiff" it sounds. Anyway, if Monk would have continued that way he sure would have landed a "hit" like Morgan´s Sidewinder..... Of course I never had heard that name, but is the title tune Conception played in the Miles version (with the pedal point in it) or in the original written AABA form ?

Yes, it fades away, but anyway it is not well organized, more a sketch. Because there is no musical connection between that fascinating a capella which maybe have been the first "idea" of things like "Todo Modo" or "Three Drums" , and that simple slow blues (strange enough in D-natural as much as I remember). I mostly listened to this session for Bobby Jones who really was something else but underrated. Maybe I was a bit disappointed when I heard it first and I will tell you why: I was a kid of the 70´s and my first and most enduring impression of Mingus (with Dolphy and so on in 64) was just 6 years ago (then). So, thinkin about musical changes from 64-70 (maybe influenced by the differrence between Miles 1964 and 1970) I had thought that will be the same with Mingus. So my expectation was "Byard, Richmond even more in action and more into "far out" , more free sections, less "swing", and then I was astonished it was a quite tame thing, mostly straight ahead swing and .......you don´t really hear Danny Richmond ?!!!!

If I like to listen to an easy listening long track, one of my choices may be "Long Drink of the Blues". Funny how Jackie sounds on the tenor too. And I like Jackies renditions of ballads on some of the Prestige sessions.

Later there were more concerts at TU, but in late 78 and early 79 I saw two concerts at WU (Joe Henderson quartet, George Coleman quartet. I remember this, because it was in the 18th district and you had to go the way up from the Stadtbahnstation (now U6). My sister studied at WU when it still was "Hochschule für Welthandel".....

I had the original LPs on America, "Blue Bird" an "Piticantropus Erectus". Yeah, that "I left my heart in San Francisco"! and that a capella horns on "Love is a Dangerous Necessity" .... sounds a bit like the horns on Mingus´ last work "Three Worlds of Drums" .

I heard them about the same time at Audimax WU, but with Ray Drummond instead of Sam Jones. Ray Drummond was very much in demand at that time, but I never saw Sam Jones live.

@Mark Stryker , dear Mr. Stryker. First of all I´m honoured that you responded to my statement and I respect the fact, that you disagrree completely. I can understand your point of view. I learned all I can play on the piano from listening intensly to Bud Powell for most of my live. My first listening experience was "One Night at Birdland" , 1950 with Bird and Fats, Curley Russell and Blakey, and soon after this the "Summit Meeting at Birdland 1951" and the Massey Hall concert. I already knew the quintet tracks from BN from the Fats Navarro album. After that I purchased the 2 LP Verve with the 1949-51 sessions. But from the first point I thought as a playing musician what fascinated me most is the bop language transferred to the piano. I would not say I did copy to much, but it seems it´s the musical language I know best. I find Bud´s highest qualities as an improviser in context with fellow geniuses and as a musician I want to hear the whole context, a drummer who responds to the phrases, or Bud picking up a Bird phrase when starting his chorusses or exchanging 4 bars....... . I don´t want to copy Bud, I want to play in this "language" which I understand best. So my approach was not just Bud solo or as only soloist in a trio , but more in the whole context. Best regards. Gh.

The Donald Byrd albums with Pepper on it, mostly the double album live at the Half Note I think.....

It´s a simple blues riff, like the one medium tempo blues on side 1 of "Bud!" Vol. 3 BN, so I think it was just done ad hoc for the session and forgotten after that. It´s sure not a blues line that would have gotten famous like Monk´s "Straight No Chaser" or Bird´s "Billy´s Bounce" and "Relaxin´ at Camarillo". I find the session less interesting than a live date from the same time which also features Monk tunes "At Café Blue Note" for ESP. Both were released in 1965 I think. Also the Eb rhythm changes based "Squatty" is nothing too exiting, not to compare with "John´s Abbey" in the same key....

Reminds me of an old book from East Germany from the 70´s "Notenkarussell" written as a young peoples guide to music. There was one single phrase about jazz which I try to translate: "If young people like to listen to jazz, that´s mighty fine. But with jazz it´s like drugs. If you take a small quantity of morphine, the next time you will take more until it get´s out of control. But we socialists must not leave our wit in the cloakroom........." Worse still, in the western world in the late 70´s early 80´s their was a book about "the fenomen of jazz" written by a guy who never might have listened to jazz. It was mostly about anthroposofical philosophy and the essence was something with more or less hidden or even obvious racism, that white people should listen to classical music and listen with using their brain, while "jazz" (which he didn´t explain what he thought that it is "jazz") is just something from the abdomen..... The red book is the Western European book from the late 70´s early 80´s, and the violet book is the GDR book for young people.....

Thank you for those links. Maybe he played a bit better in Netherlands or he had more friendly critics, since what I had to witness in the same time (same tour) was so weak it is one of the saddest memories I had in an entire live of jazz listening. It came near to Bird´s "Lover Man" session from 1946 or Bud´s painful performance at Carnegie Hall in 1965, and it was difficult to listen to and to look at Dexter on that occasion. I´d like to mention that on this evening three stars of modern jazz were booked, each with his own group (first Johnny Griffin, second Woody Shaw, third Dexter Gordon) and was promised that after the Gordon set, Shaw and Griffin will re-apear on stage to do a three all stars jam, which didn´t happen after Dexter´s desastrous "performance". A similar painful event was a completly drunk Sonny Stitt in 1980 (followed the next day by a splendid Dexter Gordon performance). In 1983 Woody Shaw was the highlight of the evening and some of the greatest musical impressions I ever had. Four years later in 1987 I saw him in a small club as a single artist booked with locals and it was similar painful as Dexter´s 1983 performance. Again it was due to excessive input of alcool (before the gig, Woody drank many many of those little bottles of "Underberg" and lot of beer) and it was painful to see the former hero looking "down and out".... In 2005 I saw Griffin for the last time. This time it was not due to abuse of substances, he just was a frail old man and had to sit during the performance and had a very thin tone. It must have been an enormous effort for him to stand through a performance, but Griffin still had some of his positive energy....

The early 1983 dates must have been from the same tour when I witnessed that embarrising performance, late ianuarie or early februarie 1983. In Amsterdam, yes I heard about that gig at the Bimhuis, but I also heard, that Dexter would have been scheduled for a Timeless recording together with Chet Baker. But Dexter couldn not be found , so Dexters rhythm section recorded and Chet sang and played on 2 numbers. A review from Jazz Podium from that time, I think it was in Köln at a famous club, was also very reveiling. I remember they wrote that for the first set Dexter was missing and only the trio played. During intermissions everybody might have asked where is Dexter and finally he came on stage, terribly drunk and shabbily dressed. He had glimpses of his old style and mighty sounds, but his pharasing was incoerent and his announcements were ununderstandable and the writer stated, that the end of Dexter´s career might be near. I might really wonder if that gig at Burghausen in 1984 took place. I doubt it, because I never saw something advertised or scheduled, and since it´s near to the Austrian borderline we might have gone there to try it out if he was in better form. But maybe it was cancelled before it would have been scheduled.....