mikeweil

Details, please! ← If I'm not totally mislead, it's this one.

Vince Guaraldi was one helluva pianist that happened to make his mark on the Peanuts and Black Orpheus - that kept him relaxed. We all know how difficult it is to make real good music and still play for the larger audiences ... I always liked Guaraldi but still have to get me this - the short playing time kind of put me off - how does the SACD sound?

It was very hard to get a copy over here back then .... I only got it in the late 1980's in an obscure Italian reissue. Max trying to be hip, that's true, but he was very conscious of black power back then, suffereing from agents' ignorance for years after his engagement in the Civil Rights Movement, IIRC. I won't blame him. The music has some genuine power, and Atlantic were the only to record him in a decade!

I only have his three Columbia discs but like these a lot. Ah, the days when each pianist was an individual ..... BTW: the third disc of the Columbias is said to have alternate versions of tunes from the first two, but I can't hear much of a difference ...

Yes, I'd love to have the money to buy it!

OPERA!!!

Thanks, Bill, for these carefully selected discs - I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them. No checking with my collection or elsewhere this time, just my thoughts while listening. Track 1: Great track, very nice that it has a bass chorus (that's what I actually expected from this BFT ...). My knowledge of this era of jazz is limited, so let me just say I find this is an excellent piece of music. Does he play with a bow in the first two chorusses? Even greater, the feeling and swing he has with the bow. The great Pops Foster? Track 2: Another bass feature .... A great bass player on each track? As I said, that's what I expected. Orchestra bells - great! Good soprano sax, too. Very good arrangement. Jimmie Lunceford would be a wild guess. Track 3: More great swing music. This reminds me of the stuff John Kirby did - same instrumentation - what a big sound for three horns: trumpet, alto sax and clarinet! There should be a better transfer of this. Track 4: Basie with Prez was my first thought, but I'm not familiar enough with their earlier work together - a big gap in my collection! On second thought this does not quite have the looseness I associate with Pres, and a slightly bigger tone, so it could be somebody else ... Track 5: Bass sax! No idea who it is, but judging from the recorded sound this is 1970' or 80's. Nice, but, musically, not quite on the level of the previous tracks. Nice trumpet, warm tone - could well be some younger generation swing emulators as well as well aged veterans. No idea who the bass player is. Track 6: Slam Stewart! A dozen ************ for Slam, always! Is this from the Savoys recorded under Johnny Guarnieri's leadership - I have them, but didn't check. Track 7: "What am I here for". This way of recording the bass with a pick up obscures the sound of the instrument and the touch of the player, two of the most important components of a bassists playing, making it much more difficult to identify them, as in track 5. You can only recognize them by phrasing and choice of notes. And, not having to play as loudly any longer, many older players changed their attack completely. Can't tell who this is, but I tend towards a pre-bop stylist. He has some of the same intonation problems as Ron Carter, but none of the characteristic licks are here. An older player than Carter. Track 8: "Sophisticated Lady". Should be the Duke and Jimmy Blanton. Way beyond its time. Track 9: Forceful swing of the highest degree, heavily boogie inflected type. A bassist with great drive. Now that's Pres!!! I probably have this somewhere, at least I hope so! I should burn me a CD with all those Kansas City sessions. Track 10: Oscar Pettiford was my first, second and third thought ..... Mingus the fourth one. Take your choice. Track 11: Without checking: Art Blakey with Curly Russell, Horace Silver, Lou Donaldson, and Clifford Brown at Birdland, February 21, 1954, the very day I was born! (Only several hours earlier, of course, 4:50 CET.) "A night in Tunisia", of course. History was made that day! Track 12: Nice Monk if you can get it - well I have it. Blakey again and Gene Ramey. Very interesting to hear how well these Kansas City style bassists with their rubber band sound fit so well into Monk's music - John Simmons is another example. Fantastic - I almost wore out the first LP with this I had (the Blue Note reissue series twofer). Track 13: Bassic Blues ..... I know that one .... Miles with Blakey, Horace Silver and Percy Heath? Miles quotes Bird's solo from that famous blues on Savoy when he starts soloing, the one King Pleasure wrote words to ... Classic blues, that is. Track 14: Is Ruby Braff one the trumpets? What a great player! Both are great .... Very elegant pianist! And guitarist! Wonder who they are. I faintly remember some Paris session with two trumpets - Jimmy Gourley? Excellent bassist! Pettiford school. Track 15: As mad as they are, I guess Terry Gibbs and Chubby Jackson .... Shorty Rogers in there as well? The tenor player has a hard time keeping the pace ... That track hits the middle between swing and bop precisely. Track 16: Another "mainstream" recording - that's what we called this in the 1980's. A "Whirlybird" that's takes its time before it spreads its wings and flies, but then ..... Phineas Newborn? Or Peterson? The drummer's style is not what Phineas would have preferred, and I don't know Oscar that well. Track 17: Sounds like valve trombone. Or a bass trumpet? Not sure. Guitarist sounds familiar. Brookmeyer and Jim Hall or Raney? Track 18: I have that one somewhere ..... should be Paul Chambers. That slightly laconic tenor could be Clifford Jordan. Elvin in the background? Some Prestige all stars affair? Yes that's Elvin! That brassy tenor could be Donald Byrd .... Track 19: That's the Teddy Charles composition he also used on the "Dakar" LP he produced for Prestige with Coltrane, Pepper Adams, and Cecil Payne, but this is the other occasion he reocrded it. Mal Waldron comping unmistakeably. Another Prestige all stars? Charles is a very interesting musician. From the big sound I hear Doug Watkins handling the bass strings - I like him even better than Chambers. I could look this one up, but ..... I will do this one without external memory ..... Some challenging choices, and choice bass playing on each and every track! Thanks much! Will write up my disc two guesses tomorrow. p.s. edited for misspelling of names and a miscoded smiley

Seems like Barron developped into not only one of jazz' prime pianists, but also one of the best Monk interpreters!

Three tracks, that is, were issued elsewhere, but the rest - never. Except for a possible Japanese issue, of course.

Thanks for the link! Will order this promptly!

The Dexter/Stitt track was on the Gordon Blue Note box set.

... and no trace on the website of Rizzoli, the publisher of this year's calendar.

No trace at Amazon either, from whom I got the 2005 calendar ...

Thanks for searching and posting the link, John! You're right, that's 1970's sound, Tjader obviously recorded a new fourth version for the soundtrack. Vibes, guitar, electric piano, electric bass, drums, and congas - but doesn't sound like Tjader's regular sidemen of the time nor like the studio guys producer Ed Bogas employed for the Tjader studio LPs. I'm afraid I'll have to buy that puppy to find out whether there's any session info in the liner ..... Nice track, and indispensable for a Tjader nut like me, anyway.

This boils down to four versions: Fantasy, 1954 - 2:24 Fantasy, 1957 - 4:36 Verve, 1965 - 3:49 Fantasy, 1970 - 3:04 I have the first three .....

Who hasn't got this?

Now please don't tell me nobody around here has this ....

Some of this was broadcast on German TV at the time - I remember seeing the drum battle with just Blakey and Baker, and a larger group with Blakey, Stanley Clarke, Steig, Cables and Tony Williams. Would like to hear that again.

Yes jazz was fusion from the start and always will be or it will die. But "Fusion" in the narrower sense of the word is used by fans to describe a musical style that fuses jazz and rock and some funk, usually less on the jazz side.

No matter who you are taken for - belated birthday greetings!

BTW, Chris: Are you aware you're next on the test masters list?

Anyone here that has the Fritz the Cat Soundtrack LP or its CD reissue on Fantasy? Cal Tjader is reported to have played on Mamblues. Is there any personnel for this track on the liner, details about the recording date and studio? Or is this the version Tjader recorded September 21, 1954 - this one runs 2:24 - and first released on the Tjader Plays Mambo or Mambo With Tjader LPs? Thanks as always!

BTW - with that disc recorder I will finally make my own custom CDs of these sessions in recording order with all takes included - thanks for reminding me of this mess!

After comparing takes from the box set and my OJC CD of Portrait: The 6:16 take mistitled Movin' Along on the LP is the one recorded at the October session left off the box set. That's why I kept my single CD of Portrait - everything else but these four takes is on the box set.