mikeweil

Couldn't say it any better - all three of the happy variety!

Yeah, Focal point is underrated. I think McCoy Tyner's Milestone LPs are a case where Orrin Keepnews' ambitions to present the artist in a variety of settings - which worked great, IMO, with Joe Henderson - kind of obscured Tyner's own concept. His working band was not documented as much as I would have liked to hear it, especially the one with Eric Gravatt, who was absolutely mindblowing. Some LPs are superfluous, IMO, like Fly With The Wind or the one with chorus - the live recordings worked best. But a lot is a little over-ambitious and a little stiff - you feel the studio too much.

Well, Dauer does, but his book is in German ...

Listened to A-1 earlier today - a Mobley original, obviously based on Get Happy changes. I don't know his 1950's tunes well enough to say if he recycled it, though.

I think this was his greatest achievement. I like the follow-up on Arista, Promises of The Sun, too - the band has a nice groove. That type of groove right in the middle between fusion and traditional Brazilian was a new thing back then, and I actually like it, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea - I don't view it as just "commercialized. They wanted to try something new after playing bossa nova for ten years. Have you listened to Airto's very first US LPs, Seeds On The Ground - I can't remember the title of the second - they were on Skye, re-released very soon by Buddah. Airto, Flora, Hermeto, Sivuca and Ron Carter - they are worth a try. On everything after the two Arista LPs, I find one third great and the remainder bland. Same goes for the live gigs I attended - three of them over the years - but his natural showmanship overplays that easily. The Brazilian's definition of "commercial" certainly are different - but I see what you mean when you mention the Dom Um Romao records. But this isn't jazz, for one ..... Hermeto is in a realm of his own, a genius. If there is an un-commercial Brazilian musician, it's Hermeto! Egberto Gismonti - well I think he drifted more and more towards a modern classical tradition in the wake of Heitor Villa-Lobos' chamber music - when you listen to these two side by side it makes sense.

I suspect that was the only date RRK produced ... never heard of any other.

I am well aware of these things - Kubik tells the story of a musical bow of clearly African descent taken over by white settlers who now consider it their own heritage, etc. I didn't want to offend anybody, I just think that the African part of the American jazz heritage is still underestimated.

Thanks, Allen, for these recommendations!

If you can listen as fast as Terry Gibbs can talk ......

Jim, I understand your point - but I think those rural black communities preserved a lot more of the African part than we might imagine. Other parts were certainly lost - like the polyrhythms: that drummer simply bangs the beat, no trace of the intricate African patterns. Jim: I beg you - please read Gerhard Kubik's "Africa and the Blues" (link) and tell me what you think about it. I started a thread on this book some two years ago, but nobody here seems to know it. A totally different perspective on African traits in American rural music.

It's not primitive, but just an entirely different conception of all aspects of music - I thought the times of calling non-Western musical cultures based on different tonal and rhythmic concepts "primitive" was over .....

I'm checking out the samples on cduniverse right now. It's....um. Jim's review is fairly accurate. I think the trombone player (at least, I think that's a trombone, though it sounds a little like a buzzsaw) only learned how to play one note. At the time of this recording he was evidently still working on getting that one in tune... edit: Please tell me that's at least a trombone and not a tenor saxophone. Please. I'm starting to lean toward it being a bass washboard. Try to find and listen to a recording of ivory trumpet orchestras of the Senufo people of West Africa - same procedure: each player plays rhythmic patterns of only two or three notes to compose interlocking patterns. We speakers of German are lucky to be able to read a scientific report of renowned Austrian jazz scholar, Alfons Michael Dauer, who researched the roots of early jazz in African orchestral traditions - these Folkways recordings are among the sources he analyzed. The intonation of these guys is purely African, not Western, and clearly intentional - they perceive tonalities in a totally different way.

To quote Doug Ramsey's liner notes to Savoy SJL 1104 - the album which first issued this tune - : - he probably wants to say it is a Mobley original on Get Happy changes - it is credited to Mobley on the label. Claude Schlouch lists it in his discography as "A-1 (Get Happy)" which probably led to others' misinterpretations. Don't have the opportunity to listen to this now, however .....

So here they are - I will have to pull out the discs as well as my guesses, but certainly won't find the time for this until mid-January ..... again, everythimng covered, discs I have and recognized, discs I have but didn't, and of course, discs I neither have nor recognized or guessed .... very interesting choices. Would you mind to comment more elaborately on your reasons to select the first three tracks? I mean, I can do the math and draw some conclusions, but still ....

Happy new year to everyone on the board! Due to a forecast of ice rain we decided to stay home, I cooked some, and my wife was snnozing well before midnight - I woke her up with the pop of a cork at midnight ..... My cold is not as bad as tjobbe's, but won't leave me alone nonetheless - Gute Besserung! (As long as we had animals in the house when my mother was still among us - we used to stay here to watch them disappear under the bed - I know what you're talking about!)

Milt Holland - thanks for including him on the list - it wasn't mentioned here before and I only heard about it two weeks ago on some other forum. I'm afraid most here don't know who he was. A great drummer and percussionist who only occasionally made himself heard outside of Hollywood's studios. There are two albums on Concord by Laurindo Almeida and Almeida with Charlie Byrd - I adore his playing on them - one of the most tasteful bossa nova drummers ever. A pioneer of ethnic percussion - I remember reading a short article on him in downbeat many moons ago that heavily influenced my attitude towards the instruments.

What I have heard so far was excellent: Good reader, inventive solos, very good group spirit.

Now did you really have to post that here ...... Universal must have quite some overstock of these.

Any more definite ideas about what will be in the Hutcherson Select?

Play two Sonny Sharrock solos and one Wes solo simultaneously and you will get the idea .....

I understand less and less why Cuscuna didn't look for an LP copy when reissuing that album ....

I seriously doubt this - David Wild would have mentioned that. He and Michael Cuscuna wrote about the Trane-Wes collaboration in their magazine disc'ribe many years ago and were searching for tapes back then. This would have been known, as sensational as it is.

Wow! I'm sure this will blow our minds - reviews tell that Wes was observed as the best soloist in that short lived band, although he himself thought it was just the other way round ... 2005 was a great year for unexpected finds! But I will believe this only after I heard it with my own ears!