Gheorghe

This is the album I mentioned before: Charly (Karl) Ratzer had formed the band in 1977: With Jeremy Steig, Eddie Gomez, Joe Chambers and Ray Mantilla, that means "Fast company", really . ...

Milestone was a fantastic label. But it is possible I don´t have much of the earlier albums from the 60´s. Milestone was our entrance into a lot of musicians we saw live, I mean first we saw them and then we bought their current album or so (McCoy, Sonny Rollins etc ) . The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band I saw also live, but I don´t know with whom they were under recording contract then. They sold an LP at the Concert Hall, which was recorded in Polonia and had the same personnel like on the date I saw them (Steve Coleman was on alto).... I never saw Pepper Adams live, maybe he did not so much touring to Europe then.....

Did you see him too (Jazz by Freddy at Schottenfeldgasse) ? With Fritz Pauer Trio, and in April 78 Fritz Pauer Trio with Johnny Griffin ?

Those were the days. Though I might say at that time though I sure listened to RTF it was more because another class-colleage who was a RTF-fanatic brought them albums in. For contemporanous jazz I was more into Miles with Dave Liebman, Al Foster and Mtume, or Herbie´s Headhunters.... But for Chrismas my wife surprised me with a new RTF (Mothership returns feat. Jean Luc Ponty) and it´s fantastic, so I dug back in those good old days when there was so much good live music and kids comin together to listen to records at home or in clubs....

Bassist Jimmy Woode was the first great bassist I saw live. He came so often to Viena (I think he lived in Munich). Heard him with Griff when I was a teenie. George Wein All Stars was on a festival schedule here in 1985, But that was one of those festivals where you had to choose in which hall you go, like, I had to miss Lou Donaldson because at the same time was Jackie McLean in another hall, and maybe I missed George Wein since there was something else in another hall (it could have been Charlie Haden´s Liberation Orchestra or Pharoah Sanders), so I might have missed some of the more mainstream attractions.....

Mingus´ 100th Birthday would also be a good occasion to finally issue some of the concerts he did with his working group from 76-77 with Walrath, Rickie Ford, Bob Neloms. This was a roaring group and they got to heights of inspirations and emotion and the live versions of his later extended compositions like "Three or Four Shades of Blues" and "Cumbia" are much more interesting than the overproduced studio versions. And what they did on the simple tune "For Harry Carney" with them ferocious duets with Richmond, that tension between calm and power..... I´ll never forget that as long as I live. This was the Mingus who we were blessed to see live. And it would be worth some CD´s (Two bootleg LP´s did exist for short time then in the late 70´s (Mingus in Buenos Aires, and Mingus in Europe on an obscure label "Burning Desire".....

I don´t know if she did smoke, but I think the cause of death was another one. And sure, smoking can kill, but I would not generalize it that way. In my case: 1 after breakfast while drinkin coffee 1 for afternoon coffee 1 after dinner 1 after makin´ love... I don´t think this will kill me too soon. No excesses, like other "goodies" you have, if it is not to excess: Not too much eating, sometimes a piece of chocolate, until 2 years ago on glass of beer on friday evening .... that´s all.

Looks interesting. Is that the Willie Jones who played with Monk and others in the 50´s ? That was the Brooklyn Scene then..... Max too. And I remember my disappointment when I bought "Charles Mingus Quintet plus Max Roach" which has Willie Jones as the regular drummer and I had hoped that "plus Max Roach" means TWO DRUMMERS, but it was only two tunes, where Roach replaced Jones (but anyway, a fantastic record, even if it does not have two drummers). See, this was the time of "Prime Time" , so stuff with two drummers was interesting for us drummer freak youngsters.....

oh yeah, Dynamo A and B. And that strange conversation between Leonard and Bird, I think I have it on a bootleg from a strange label called "Queen Disk" . And Bird with his deep voice askes Leonard if he want´s to hear Dynamo A, or would he like to hear Dynamo B. On the other hand, it´s some really weak Bird, and the best player on those sides is Walter Bishop. Shortly after that, I had the luck to play a gig with the fantastic alto player Allen Praskin and he suggested a set only with Dizzy tunes, among those was "Diggin´ Diz" and I remember when we made the set list I imitated Birds Voice and said "would you like to play Dynamo A or Dynamo B ? and Mr Praskin laughed and said, yeah that record with some really poor Bird, but Bish sounds fantastic on it..... so .....same impressions..... great ! Of course, with played "Dizzy Atmosphere" too. If I remember some tunes we played was "Shaw Nuff", "Salt Peanuts", "Diggin´Diz", "Woody´n You, What could I say: Heaven on Earth, but now looking back About that "Queen Disk" I think the titles was type written letters on a paper glued on the back cover. I also had one with Bud Powell, also from 1953 with the same design. I heard somewhere it was Boris Rose tapes..... really a strange label. @BillF: Yeah, Peewee the Midget. Many occasions were you hear his voice on live recordings at Birdland. And his intentinally misspelling of names from musicians who didn´t pay him tip, so that produced "Hor Ass Silber" "Art Blakeley" "Teddy Kottex" to name a few of them.

Well I can imagine, that "Bish" sounded more fluent. The Hakim solos I hear on some Savoy sides (Bird, Dexter) sound a bit strange. Mostly chromatic, and played in syncopes in a very stiff manner. I´m self taught but I know that piano lessons for beginners often have chromatic exercises, and it sounds somehow like that. I´ve read somewhere that he didn´t even have a Union Card so on the Bird sides Dizzy is listed as piano player, if I remember right. Lewis playing "himself", well: Lewis was Lewis, and he did some very substantial compositions for the bop repertory: For example: "Two Bass Hit" is one of the greatest sounding stuff in the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band On the other hand, I wouldn´t have associated Jimmy Rowles so much with bop. I have him on some Dexter recording for Spotlite, I think it´s some ballads, but not much else. Considering my generation and what was it about in the 70´s, I saw his name for the first time on "Three or Four Shades of Blues" by Mingus, where he plays a short little waltz in C. Even then I wondered why they needed to get Jimmy Rowles in the studio only for that little section, since on the live versions I saw, Neloms played it, so I don´t really know why they called Rowles in the studio only for those few bars...., About the same time he was very much in demand as Ella´s pianist which he did really fine.... great mellow sounding chords...

I have been a big Dave Liebman fan since high school. And his love for drums and drummers, as I saw live and heard on my first Liebman LP "Drum Ode", an alltime favourite of mine. This and "Lookout" Farm. And the paradox thing is that those are the only ECM´s I have. And I had to laugh when I read Lieb´s Autobio and his hassles with ECM, they didn´t like that music for their directions. And then, decades later this one: Fantastic and a dream team. Hamid Drake is one of my favourite drummers who play now, and Adam Rudolph is fantastic on percussion and other things...... and Lieb is strong as ever, I love his sound and passion for what he does.

I think I remember Blue Mitchell in his last year played with "Supersax" which sold quite well in the late 70´s, and Blue Mitchell played the trumpet part and solos, I think after that he died of cancer. I had the luck to meet another great trumpet player from that period : Bill Hardman ! He was friendly to me and I could sit down with him and ask him a few questions: I remember the first thing I said was that the first time I heard his great trumpet was when I was at highschool and a Blakey fan and bought "Art Blakey and the Jazzmessengers play Lerner&Lowe" from RCA (the Black&White series), and Bill Hardman was glad to hear that and said "long long time ago, but you are right, I remember that session"...., and he played his set "Walkin", "Funny Valentine" "Tunisia" . That was during the old "system" in the 80´s when we played at a festival in Cehoslovacia and Hardman was the last artist, the only US-Star who played at that time in that Eastern Europe country. Ah yeah, and I told him I also saw him live with Junior Cook a few years earlier.....

I have seen that cover often but I must admit it seemed I missed that when it was out. Was that in the late 70´s. I think I missed it than, since I didn´t buy albums with different musicians (I had a sampler-phobia) but this is not really a sampler. Okay, it must be nice. I´d be curious how Sadik Hakim sounds playing "Bird", since on the sides he plays with Bird he sounds very "stiff". I made the same mistake when I was looking for some Ornette Coleman that I didn´t have, and O.C. records were quite rare, and the dealer showed me a Charlie Haden album "The golden Number", and I didn´t buy it, because O.C. was only on part of it......now I´m sorry I didn´t buy it.

Reminds me of something: My wife (Serena) gave it to me for Chrismas) !

The mentioned Mobley albums are the best and I have all of them and LISTEN to them. On the other hand, from the many many 50´s albums, I don´t listen so regularly to all of them, same with the post 1963 albums, I listen to "Dippin Inn" which is one of the best of that later period, but if I say "today I´m in the mood for an hour of Mobley, it´s mostly Soul Station or the other four mentioned. And maybe Mobley was not really into religion, Maybe when he was not playing he was after dope, like many of his generation....., and maybe he just penned out a tune and gave it a title since he thought it sounds like some church music, or maybe Alfred Lion asked him to do something "with a churchy, groovie beat" (as Lion said in his german-english : yes , dot schwings). and not knowing how Baptists or other religions sound as music, he gave it that title.

In my school time, this one was the thing. I bought it and many came to my place to listen to it and we all love it.

A fantastic drummer and many here will know that the kind a drummer plays is most important for me. He is on many of my favourite albums. Many of them on BN from the 60s. Fantastic ! The funny thing ist, as a highschool boy first I didn´t know his name (don´t forget most BN was OOP then and most of the LA-2LP series were older stuff. So the very FIRST time I saw his name and HEARD him was on Charlie Ratzer "In Search of the Ghost". Charlie Ratzer (here "Karl") is my favourite austrian star on guitar and in the 70´s he worked in the States and had came back to Austria in the late 70´s (I even had some occasions to play with him then). So my first listening of Joe Chambers on drums was on that Charlie Ratzer album with some of the hottest NY players of that time.... By the way, if I remember right, Joe Chambers is also on Mingus´ "Three Worlds of Drums", kinda heaven on earth for me as a drums-lover....Richmond, Gadd, Chambers....right ?

I also heard some Mr. B from the time after the famous band, but my favourites always have been the Savoy stuff "Mr. B. and the Band" . From later albums I always missed that fantastic sound and arrangements. Like, when I heard "Billy and Sarah" and a friends place: Fantastic voices as always, but the band sounds more like a "show band" than a jazz big band. Like that Charlie Parker album with "Temptation" on it.....somehow like an early 50´s movie .... But Mr. B. always was my favourite singer. I would have liked to do a gig with a good male singer here , but there are much more female singer students with the usual standard program. Would have been nice to play a bop gig with an Eckstine- or Kenny Hagood style singer.

I love it. When I was a teenager, there was a Musidisc LP that had some of the tracks of this one. This seems to be quite a complete collection of the diverse broadcasts of the band in 1948. Only that they omitted the two beautiful vocal features of Kenny Haggood (Pennies from Heaven, and The Kitchenette across the Hall). The band with Allen Eager is wonderful, They are a fantastic band and sound great. And Tadd Dameron also plays some very fine solos. When was it recorded, it must be quite old if Kenny Dorham was still alive. I have another Parker Memorial from 1965, on which J.J. Johnson has a pseudonym C.C. Siegel, and it also has Coleman Hawkins on it. It was at Carnegie Hall 1965. Bud Powell was also on schedule, but played solo which is not on this record, but on another record. I had hoped that he plays with the band, he would have fitted better in it than Billy Taylor....

if we are already in 81,82, will there be also the first two Miles-Comback albums included. I mean, at least over here, 1981,82 that was one of the main discussions, and I liked We Want Miles, since it is live and a touring group that sounded exiting. From the 3 mentioned I only know the Word of Mouth, since it was very much spinned and discussed over here. Woody Shaw, thanks God got the attention he deserved in the early 80´s with that dream band with Mulgrew Miller, Stafford James and Tony Reedus..... , I am glad I saw him live when he was at the peak of his power.

I saw the whole video, I think it was a DVD that combined this old concert and a newer one from 1987.

Cape Verdean Blues is a very fine album. As Song For my Father, though on my RVG of "Song" there are to many alternative tracks with some short numbers, that didn´t seem to be very interesant for me. By the way, my wife and me have been 2 times in Cabo Verde. Especially the first time (1998) there was not so much tourism and you had touch with the original population, and of course with the music. You heard it anywhere. And I was astonished how similar the themes are to those of Horace Silver. Really fine music. The second time, 10 years later there were to many hotels and private houses of foreigners, and we had difficulties to recognize places and streets, that we had remembered from 1998.

I knew the tunes only because once a sax player wanted to play it, he had sheets for Jody Grind, Nutville and Peace (which a knew anyway) . But I didn´t have the album. I´m no completist, but is it possible that this one was not reissued on that RVG series ?

Here is some fantastic solos of Chambers, bowed on Ornithology and Groovin High and pizzicato on Dance of the Infidels. What a great group. Maybe the ideal choice for alto might have been Jackie McLean in that context (all BN stars with the exception of Phil Woods), but maybe Jackie McLean didn´t have a carbaret card at that time ?

This one , and a few others from BN. I´m not a Silver completist but some key albums I have. "The Stylings of Silver" is also very fine. Yes, the Mythic Sound CDs. But I have not listend to them for long time. This one is half solo in Paris, half trio in NY. The solo pieces, like many many of that kind that were recorded at Francis Paudras´ home and are not among the best Bud. The trio pieces ar better. At least, Bud plays the right Bridge on "Well You Neednt" and not the wrong one, that started with Miles on "Steamin" and is mostly played on sessions. Isn´t Bemsha Swing also on that ? Bud didn´t know it, he plays the wrong chords and is unsure and after one chorus