Gheorghe

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".

The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Golden 8 is quite an untypical thing for Blue Note. I got it years ago from my wife , a japanese mini LP cover CD. Very fine, but as I said completly different from the usual BN stuff, first because it is recorded in Europe (others were Ornette at Golden Circle and Dexter "Our Man in Paris" and a few others) and second, because it´s kind of a "mini big band format" and BN usually was a combo-label...

I still don´t know what "direct-to-disc" means, and why the horns sound off mike on the studio album....

Yeah, this was around the time when Dexter made his classic BN album "Our Man in Paris" with Bud, one of the greatest "bop revivals" after the 40´s. He also played "Tunisia" and "Scrapple" on that. About the Steeple Chase: When I was young and we were a group of big Dexter Fans, I purchased all those Steeple Chase "Dexter in Radioland" , things like "Cry Me a River", "Cheese Cake", "I Want More" and so on, but at some point I stopped.

Yes, all the Dexter albums for CBS are great, most of all "Manhattan Symphony". And I remember the before mentioned bop discoveries , I had them all , they were called Contemporanous Masters" and I had "One Night at Birdland", "Summit Meeting at Birdland" and "Bird with Strings" all three with Charlie Parker, and the also mentioned "Miles Davis Paris 1949" with that french radio voice but Miles very strong like Diz or Fats..... And the Miles comeback in 1981 with the first Miles albums: "Man with the Horn" "We Want Miles" and "Star People" were great, "Decoy" somehow bored me, "You Are under Arrest" was more interesting, but I got bored of all those endless performances of "Time after Time" and "Human Nature" all the years that followed.... But as I remember, from 1977 on there was an increasing audience for renewed "acoustic jazz", like VSOP which I love so much, Dexter´s comeback and so on. My difficulties in the 70´s were mostly with Blue Note. Many many of the classic albums slowly went OOP, there were only those LA-Series which was new, but some of it wasn´t even BN. Prestige also had a lot of double LPs. I don´t know about other big companies, since I only heard jazz and I think the only labels that maybe had also non jazz artists was CBS and maybe Atlantic, I´m not sure.

I first heard it after my friend Cristi , who was 5 years older than me , saw the group live at "Ronnie Scott´s " in Londra. This was shortly after the recording of that album, originally a double LP. This is latin feeling at it´s best, with a really wonderful group with the great Paulinho on percussion, with flute and two guitars Al Gafa and Mike Howell. I was surprised to see that Mike Howell also played guitar. I only knew him as the fantastic bassist he was, when he played with Dizzy´s quartet for a long long time and where his bass solo on "Tunisia" was one of the highlights of the evening. I don´t know why this album got so few reviews, and some of them even negative, like in Jürgen Wölfer´s book "Dizzy Gillespie" from Oreos press, Germani (written in german). I like it because it´s not the typical Pablo recording with just straight ahead jazz more in the Norman Granz manner.

Finally I could listen to it , since it was a birthday surprise for me from my wife 2 days ago. I must admit, it is specially for me, since she might listen more to something like "Cotrane meets Johnny Hartman" . For me it´s one of the most fascinating things I heard this year. I closed my eyes and listened carefully. The addition of a second bass is very interesting, like on Coleman´s "Free Jazz". I think McCoy Tyner left the band shortly after this. He has a great solo, but it´s the most conservative part of the suite. Elvin Jones is wonderful, and very very fine recorded. Also those other percussion instruments. Trane at his best, Pharoah Sanders also very impressive. Some of the best live music of the 60´s .....

what does that mean exactly ? Is that the reason why the horns sound off mike ?

I have this and bought it after I had bought the "Charles Mingus Quintet plus Max Roach" with the same personnel and recording date. Then, I was a bit disappointed since the title "plus Max Roach" let me expect that there will be two drummers. That was in 1978, the same year I saw Max Roach for the first time life.

One of my favourite live albums recorded by BN. Fantastic rhythm section, lex humphries was a very fine drummer.

Well I have a leather bag where I put the packs into it, or I have a golden tabatiera I don´t know how you say in english, that´s really looking nice,

I never really heard that "smooth jazz" but I´m used to other sounds of the alto. I like exactly what others don´t like as much: The sound of Jackie McLean.... some say they can´t stand it, I´m an addict of his sound. I like alto sounds like Jimmy Lions too, Ornette Coleman maybe less for his sound but for the whole thing..... So my start for more "mellow sounding alto" seems to have been wrong.... I forgot Bird. Bird-McLean-Jimmy Lions .... somehow that way.....

I remember in the early 2000´s I also ordered a batch of RVG´s but the sound quality was quite a mess, they were not as good from sound as the early RVGs. The strange thing is: When I was younger, I didn´t mind bad sound quality. Now that my hearing is quite bad and conversation is not easy if more people talk at the same time, I listen much more closely to the music and don´t play it as loud as I did when I was younger.

Das kannst Du laut sagen

Well I smoked more when I was young. But at almost 62 you really concentrate on what you do: I don´t listen to dozens of albums while doing housework or cooking or checking my mails like I did when I was younger. Now I choose one certain album, sit down, close my eyes and listen to every aspect of it. Same with fishing: I don´t go fishing 2 or 3 times in the week before going to the office, driving home at 6.00, having a shower and dressing for the office.... , I choose a certain beautiful day, maybe one or two times in the month. And I smoke a cigarette only if I really have those moments I described before. No doctor ever said it would be too harmful in this manner, only one female doctor once asked me if I wouldn´t think to quit it. I said why, and then she said "ok, that means 3 cigarettes per day, ok". I answered "Four cigarettes, you forgot the cigarette after making love

and he bites the Cigarette with his teeth, I never saw something like that. I think I never saw a foto of Hank Mobley without a cigarette. And remember those early BN fotos of Fats Navarro and Miles Davis holding the cigarette while playing. Fats already may have had TB on that foto... Same with Monk playing piano with the cigarette in his mouth. Bud lying in the hospital bed in France late 1963 while he had TB and got a visit from Johnny Griffin and Francis Paudras and he smokes in the hospital bed.... incredible . I must admit I also like to smoke a cigarette, but only if I´m extremly happy and relaxed. Having afternoon coffee with my wife........after a good meal. After a good fishing day before I drive home.....things like that ...

I heard that name quite often but never heard music from him, maybe what people told me was enough for me. There was another saxophone player who I think stated that he plays 98% funk and 2% jazz.... Well that´s okay for me, I wouldn not hate a guy who plays music for people who like it. Like David Sandborn I think. I never heard him and don´t have records of him. Same with Grover Washington, once someone gave me an album of him, it sounds nice, but I spin it one time, two times and that was it.

The Bird-Albany Session I already had on Spotlite LP "Yardbird in Lotusland". Miles sounds very much Dizzy influenced here, much more than on other occasions. Joe Albany, well for my tastes it sounds a bit "edgy". It´s some interesting ideas, but it sounds a bit like if a classical trained person tries to play bop, thinking that if you play more cromatic lines it is bop. Ernie Bubbles Whitman "the stomach that walks like a man"....... Well, it might annoy me too since I´m too much into the MUSIC I want to hear, but it is part of the game and when the Spotlite LP "Mr B. and the Band" came out, me and my friend played it so often and while sittin in the boat fishing we sometimes would try to imitate Whitman´s" voice...... "Thank youuuuuuu......"

Well, but it doesn´t have the same fire like the live albums, above all the 1979 "Under the Sky". The long jazzrock tune written by Hubbard is great, but on this I would prefer electric bass. I think the bass is recorded too loud, Freddie and Wayne sound really off-mike, Freddie plays fantastic, as does Herbie, but Wayne doesn´t seem to have to say much on this. Herbie´s tune "Fingerpainting" is great medium tempo swing, but I don´t really like those interruptions ...... where they don´t swing and then start to swing again. The Shorter ballad Circle is fine. Tony´s solo on his composition is fantastic as all stuff of Tony, one of my favourite drummers. My CD has also two "CD-Versions" as bonus tracks. The jazz-rock tune sounds better on this, but still I say I like electric bass more for that kind of rhythm....

Isn´t this shortly before his Birthday ? I think he was born in the middle of december like me..... Such a great pianist. Sorry I never saw him live. I saw so many greats but it seems that Mr. Harris was not so much touring in Austria. One of the rarest recordings I have is an encounter with Bud Powell from late 1964 when Barry plays some of Bud´s tunes and they discuss the music, at Nica´s place. If I remember right, Barry does Un Poco Loco, Darn that Dream etc. Then Bud plays "Somebody loves me" with stride piano....

Is much as I remember it was released as late as in 1979. But I´m disappointed there is no recording of Bud with the Adderly Brothers. In Francis Paudras´ book is a photo of the Adderly Brothers on stage with Bud, probably in Denmark

Great, though a lot of the material I had allready on individual albums. I bought it mostly for the 1965 "My Favourite Quintet" which was unavailable since I remember.