Gheorghe

Well I might give it another try, but that will take some time, because now I´m busy listening the CDs my wife bought for my Birthday and then maybe others might follow tomorrow. Until now from the Birthday Batch I listened to Coltrane´s "Love Supreme Live Seattle 1965, "Coltrane meets Ellingon" and "Return to the Mothership" (all really great). With Dexter, I was a big big fan of him for many many years, starting from the Savoy´s in the 40´s on. But somehow I got tired of a lot of his stuff, with the exception of "Manhattan Symphony" which is one of the best acoustic albums of post-electric "acoustic revival"..... Philly J.J. was one of my favourite drummers from the beginning on. He is on my first "jazz album" (Steamin´) and his solo on Salt Peanuts........ Max Roach, Philly, Roy Haynes, Elvin, Tony an so on, I love drummers and a great part of my liking music or not is in context with what the drummer does.

As much as I remember he later founded the label "Electra Musician" and took a lot of former CBS Jazz Artists with him. But I think it was short lived and as well Dexter as Woody Shaw made only one or two records. There was also the Bird and Bud in Washington 1953, and Clifford Brown/Max Roach 1956 live. Some other musicians were less interesting for me, but I should have purchased a thing that I think I remember as something with Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, Lenny White titled "Glass Menagerie" or something like that.

Yes it may be a question of different tastes. Billy Higgins is one of my favourite drummers. I like the "insistent accenting" very much, I like it if a drummer really lifts the stage and pushes the musicians. Others like the drummer more as a suportive role, like Harewood maybe was. Harewood was much used by BN in the early 60s for more swing routine recordings. Let´s say I have very much chronological BN stuff, but less from the more mainstream of "Three Sounds" "Ike Quebec" or "Stanley Turrentine" . In that context I think it was the same way with Dexter when he started at BN. He was from the batch of older, then nearly forgotten players after long time of prison, not even having a carbaret card. My personal afection to BN is much more what became new and more demanding, the series of Freddie Hubbard records, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers , Herbie Hancock, McCoy, with drummers more like Billy Higgins, Elvin Jones of course..... Dexter was better off during his comeback in the late 70´s. That´s when CBS really did interesting projects with him like "Sophisticated Giant" and above all "Manhattan Symphony" and listen to the drummers he used THEN. Eddy Gladden, that´s really powerful and it really pushes the proceedings to a highly emotional manner. Those were good years, but I think the increasing drinking problem of Dexter stopped CBS for further projects. Even the last CBS "Gotham City" is more or less a gathering of all stars like Blakey, Percy Heath, Woody Shaw...., and very very short......

Maybe there were some Shorty Rogers fans or West Coast fans in Austria too. I think it was a generation thing. I supose that it was the generation for the college kids of the 50´s who were into that, and they were gentlemen around 50 years old, usually in solid social positions at a time when I was young and into Trane, Mingus, If they dug Brubeck what they did, they might have dug Shorty Rogers also ? As I said I haven´t even heard about that name in a time when I thought I know everything starting with Bird /Diz and all the boppers, diggin Trane and Ornette and the then contemporanous electric jazz like Miles, Headhunters, Billy Cobham-George Duke, Return to Forever etc. About Dixieland, I think I had heard once about a "Dutch Swing College Band". There were so many Dixiebands like "Barrelhouse Jazzband" "Two Beat Stompers" and so on. I think that was another kind of audience. Usually they hated what they called "modern jazz", even if they were not particularly old". But that´s the story I already told you....

Sometimes, in the LP era there were pics of album covers inside the cover of the LPs, sometimes even in chronological order, and since I was already a Miles Davis fan when I was a kid, I saw this too. I didn´t know what "Nefertiti" should mean, anyway it´s written in a way I missread it and thought it reads "Neferetti" which sounded to me like an Italian name. So I thought this is maybe an Italian Film composer and it could be a collaboration between an Italian composer and Miles Davis. Like Miles-Michel Legrand in the 50´s and again after 40 years in "Dingo"...

ist normal so bei uns. Ösis, Ossis.....darf man keine Wunder erwarten . Der Witz ist aber, wenn ich in meine 2. Heimat 1000 km weiter östlich fahre, dort haben sie alles, da sehen wir in Ö. arm dagegen aus.....

Oh yes ! And, how do you like it ?

we tried to find non alcoolic "Sekt" and the only we found was "Kindersekt" with Cherry Aroma and Kindersekt "White". So we drop it on revelion (how do you say in english ?) and I´ll have a non alcoolic beer. Lammsbräu I don´t know, my favourites ar "Clausthaler" or "Schlossbräu" here in Viena. And all that presents from other companies with bottles of champange and bottles of "Punch" I gather them and try to find people who would like it. I keep only the ciocolata or marzipan

Yesterday evening I was listening to the second CD and I´m just mesmerized. It´s such a fantastic concert . Unusual for RTF on the second CD they go into straight ahead on two occasions, on one Lenny White provides a kind of "Messenger Beat" like Blakey. The most beautiful thing is the medley "Concierto de Aranjuez/Spain". I heard there is also a DVD about that concert. My DVD-player is "kaputt". We´ll get another one after the Winter Holidays and will buy it. RTF with Jean Luc Ponty for me, and "Swan Lake " balet for my wife (but also for me, since we saw it live with the Bolșoi ballett (Lacul Lebedelor = Lake of the Swans" and loved it, and maybe she would agree to look at "my" RTF" also....".

Great, so we are already two. Don´t misunderstand me, I like Free Jazz very much, but if it´s straight ahead I don´t like those stop and go´s like it´s on that disc....., they swing really hard on "Under The Sky". But I like the first tune, only if I could hear the horns better....

Yes, it was hard to purchase. Sometimes I was lucky and ordered it from my record dealer and got it after some weeks or months. The only source of information was the "Bielefeld Jazzkatalog", a book that came out every year and the BN stock was reduced. I was lucky to find here Ornette´s "Empty Foxhole" "Golden Circle Vol. 1 and 2" and Wayne Shorters "Schizophrenia". About Shorty Rogers reissues I can´t say much. I think, that circle of friends and musicians I was around, mostly from them early to late 50´s born guys didn´t really listen to so called "West Coast Jazz". This seemed to be more the stuff of another kind of society which was older, they dug Brubeck and Shorty Rogers and so on. I only heard the name Shorty Rogers for the first time , when a 1927 born (then around 50 years old) middleclass gentleman who played a little drums invited me to his house and most of his collection was Brubeck and Shorty Rogers and so on. Somehow I couldnt get the same "butterflies in the belly" I got from Trane, Ornette, Mingus or from the past Bird/Diz/Monk etc. .... It seems that there were different "listener-categories" in Viena then: those of my "gang" that were into let´s say Bird and Bob and hardbop into 60´s New Thing until contemporanous electric jazz, and on the other hand that generation mostly middle class style that listened to Brubeck and Co, and the Oldtimers with Dixie and so on... There was not very much communication between them. And there were those who listened almost exclusivly to Oscar Peterson..... Once someone invited me to a matinee at some nice beer garden and a Dixieband played. Some of the more "open to beyond Dixie" knew me and asked me to sit in on piano for a number. Well they called "Georgia Brown" and when my solo came, I had in mind some impressions like Fats Navarro´s line on the Saturday Night Jazz session were some boppers mixed with oldtimers, or the 1947 "Bands for Bonds" were Bird and Diz did some oldtime tunes for "fun". So I sure played the changes, but didn´t do "ooom pah" but played more in a bop styled manner, maybe with a nod to older musicians like Teddy Wilson or Clyde Hart. Two younger guys in that Dixie Band who just played there "for money" smiled to me and loved it, but the leader, a white bearded really hefty guy, an ex policeman hated it and said it´s "Chinese Music", while I only tried to make a friendly connection, like let´s say "we all love music, the tune is a common field and there is no discrimination in music".... but it didn´t work with those guys....

I got that fantastic double CD from my wife for birthday. It´s great how she sometimes finds something I don´t have and probably might like. Such a great stuff, I have listend only to the first CD and I´m bursting with enthusiasm. "Medieval Overture" bring memories back to those old days when this was brand new. Chick, Stanley and Lennie are really fantastic, and the guitarist Gambale is new here , instead of Al Di´Meola" and the biggest surprise is Jean Luc Ponty. His composition "Renaissance" is fantastic ! I´m looking forward hearing the second CD.

I was served with it first in an Italian Restaurant in Viena. When I was in Italy I still drank Campari. I was astonished I found it, exactly that six-pack you show here, at former "Merkur", now "Billa-Plus". Since then I always have some bottles at home and drink one on special occasions. I liked to drink more beer when I was young, reduced it to maybe one small bottle of beer or a glass of wine on saturday evening but stopped even this, since I have to take some medication and am afraid that it might clash with even the smallest quantitude of alcool....

Yes I have this also, it is from the same date, but if I have to choose between the two, I prefer "Go" Don´t know what Spotfy is......

I usually order my books by Romanian online libraries. I This one is very fine. Sure I "could" read it in english, but that would take to much time, I might have to use the dictionary quite often......

San Bitter, that´s some kind of alcool-free Campari, since I´m not allowed to drink alcool. And "Schlossgold" alcool-free every day for dinner. It´s the best alcool-free beer I know.

Yes, that´s the best Billy Eckstine band I ever heard. Too bad there are not more of that format. I like the Savoy´s also very much, but here you hear the band better.

I have all BN´s of Dexter but the only one I´m really fond of is "GO". Doin´Allright is ok, but Al Harewood is not necessarly my most favourite drummer, it´s a bit "tame", On the other hand, "Dexter Calling" as a dream team rhythm section, but somehow it doesn´t work as well for Dexter as others. Our Man In Paris is great as a vintage bop re-unit. But "GO" with Billy Higgins is the best "pure Gordon" in my opinion.

Thank you Daniel, maybe the didn´t make the CD properly. It´s a "Wounded Bird" CD, but I had other Wounded Bird and they sound wonderful..... But if "the mix is almost perfect", the studio album of VSOP is not perfect at all. The bass is recorded too loud, and the horns sound off mike. The live recording "Under The Sky" is much better recorded.....

First of all Trane in Seattle with "Love Supreme Live".

Coltrane is so great !!! Only on one tune where they used another drummer than Elvin, the drummer does not fit to Trane´s great solo, you could imagine how this would have sounded with Elvin. Ellington has a unique piano style. It´s more an "arranger´s style" maybe in the way Basie did it, or later Tadd Dameron did it , or on ballads it´s a bit more impressionistic. That "bell" sound on the intro of "Sentimental". The best on piano is Ellingtons comping on "The Feeling of Jazz". That´s some really great chords.

I once got a batch of unissued Bud from NY 1964 and one CD is an evening of Bud with Barry Harris at Nica´s place. Benny Harris plays some of Bud´s compositions, very very fine. And then Bud plays a few himself, and there is some talking between them between the tunes......must have been a great evening.

I think in my youth there were people who dug Bob James but didn´t know about other "Jazz Artists". I think they played a tune of him on Radio (Jazz Shop) "El Verano" and I liked it. This must have been around 1977. I hear Bob James on the "Chet Baker-Gerry Mulligan at Carnegie Hall 1974" and I like both the Fender and the acoustic. Thats really a good rhythm section with Bob James, Ron Carter and Harvey Mason..... And the CBS All Stars in 1977, Both Bob James and George Duke on pianos/keyboards with all star horns. Stan Getz doing Night Crawler.....

But if "the mix is almost perfect", the studio album of VSOP is not perfect at all. The bass is recorded too loud, and the horns sound off mike. The live recording "Under The Sky" is much better recorded.....

I saw Elvin live in 1979 with what he had called "Elvin Jones Jazz Machine", and it was the same personell like his then latest album "Remembrance". I saw Blakey many times from the late 70´s until 1989. I don´t have problems with loud drummers, I usually sit quite near to the drummers because I love it and I have to hear them on record too, that´s what I also like very much on this Coltrane "Love Supreme live".