mikeweil

Back home again and returning to our favourite French red:

This morning: Beautifully recorded 400 year old harpsichord. Now:

Yes it was Sonny's first studio session. But read the credits, what the guys play: Wynton Kelly and Roy Haynes on box, and tubs, respectively! Those two London 78s never were reissued. The first Babs CD on Chronological Classics stopped before this session.

That must be about the rarest Babs ever issued. Read the personnel listing, carefully:

Any details? Can't find anything on the web; Dragon' site doesn't work.

This thread is an excellent idea!

I once bought his duo album with Dave Holand, but his playing on the bebop tunes didn't touch me. His rhythmic phrasing was not your prototypical modern bop style, more influenced by his classical training and the sophisticated Bulgarian rhythms.

R.I.P. A great player - I almost saw him in 1972 when the Bulgarian Jazz Quartet Focus '65 was supposed to play in Frankfurt as opener for Herbie Mann - but they were denied visa by their regime. A few years later he travelled to California to join the Don Ellis Orchestra and stayed in Frankfurt for a few weeks, making some amazing recordings with the Jazzensemble of the local radio. And he dropped a number of Bulgarian folklore records at the radio station, among them the original of what was to become "Bulgarian Bulge" on "The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground" - Leviev had sent a copy to Ellis, too, and was invited to join. Another perfect match.

That's the difference most people seem to forget.

Looks like a deep look into the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. If Miles deserves this kind of treatment, why not Zappa?

That was live broadcast on German TV. IIRC it was taped in Munich at the occasion of a Jazz Now Festival during the Olympics there. Blakey had an all-star band with guest Jeremy Steig, Stanley Clarke, and Tony Williams (!) which was great. All critics and viewers thought that Baker won by points because he was more creative and used Blakey's patterns as a base for his playing, while Blakey more or less threw his usuail repertoire of drum licks at him, as if he was asking "How about that?". Nice to see it again. There's an audio only track of a French performance of the group with Williams I mentioned:

The closest thing on the web is Michael Fitzgerald's chronology of the Messengers: https://jazzmf.com/art-blakey-chronology-and-the-jazz-messengers/

https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/11770

I once visited a local studio to get some 78's transferred to digitlal, and there was an old crime TV episode being restored in the next room. They took care and watched in real time to receive best results, trusted their eyes and ears. I'm afraid most studios just run a computer program doing the job. Like CD remastering, it is a matter of time and effort. What tape hiss is to old tapes, low resolution is to a visual medium. When you smoothen it out, it looks less natural, at least to my eyes.

Thanks! Nothing so far on Elemental's website. LP only, but I'm in.

Any details?

Yesterday: By far the best recording of these concertos ever made. Right now:

R.I.P. He was one of a kind, and dug deeper into African music than any other rock drummer. He was a jazz drummer just as well, but ....... If I were home, I'd spin some Cream, his two Atlantic albums, and the live ones with Fela Kuti, and African Force.

We saw Ragna Schirmer replicate a concert Clara Schumann performed in Hamburg in 1878, on a Grotrian-Helfferich-Schulz piano from 1875 (from Schirmer's collection, identical to the piano Clara Schumann purchased in 1875). That piano was developped with Schumann's ideas, and combines the power of a modern instrument - it was one of the first models with a cast iron frame - with the colors of a Viennese piano from Beethoven's time. The "Waldstein" sonata sounded clearer on it than we are used to; Robert Schumann's "Carnaval" was great. Schirmer is a fantastic pianist rendering these pieces with power and not a trace of egomania.

I can't understand his attitude. Autobiographies and interviews always must be taken with some grain of salt, memories can fail. I experienced that while researching Pony Poindexter's discography while consulting his memoirs. Some of the dates he remembers are unplausible, some are exact to the day and pass the test. Oh, and discographers can be mistakne, too, unless they get acces to a label's vaults, which rarely is the case, and even then ..... all of the dates for Cal Tjader's live recordings for Verve are one week off. There are reliable concert reviews that tell the correct dates. You always have to double check.