mikeweil

Lookahere

That's a swinger! I always liked it - had a Jazzland LP with half of the material, which I gladly dispensed of when the CD came out. Will give it a spin or two.

Valid opinion, as they did record an album with Shearing for Jazzland (available on OJC CD).

Let's be honest: Whenever we hear a quartet with vibes, piano, bass, and drums, we first think of the MJQ, and then listen harder to find out if it's not. I would say that every quartet with that instrumentation after their first records showed at least some small influence, especially when they focussed on arrangements - derivative is too hard an expression, pretty narrow minded IMHO.

I found that one disappointing in every respect - and I'm a big fan of Herbie's. Not nearly as convincing as Keezer's versions. I recently borrowed it from a friend to verify my initial judgement, and it still is !

Keezer's Radiohead cover is even more cool as he combines with some Gamelan-like piano. He did "Lose my breath" by British pop group "My Bloody Valentine" on his 1996 Columbia CD turn up the quiet - he heard echoes of Ravel's "The Gallows" in it and plays it accordingly - great!

Well, I dig both Tjader and Feldman - wish Feldman had recorded more often on vibes - but they're really in different bags (no pun intended). Is there any particular "bad sounding" Tjader record you have in mind? I think he had a beautiful sound, which you get by comparing many different albums from all over his career. I agree there are some Fantasy LPs sounding below par.

One can go the Chronological Classics way, too:

I think noone else did more tunes refering to beverages: Bad Bad Whiskey Good Good Whiskey Milk and Water One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer Just One More Drink This is good music for fun, and should be taken as such. I collected a lot of R & B for a while, grew somewhat tired of it and sold two thirds of it, but Milburn was among those I kept. Anyone have details on that 3-CD comp?

Real strange, knowing Hendricks started out as a drummer (and abandoned the instrument after hearing Roy Haynes ....).

Yeah! This is the only one with the great trio with Paul and Art that isn't on CD. But they do an LP of it, at least in theory. It was "available soon" for a long time. It was available as OJC 224 on LP - strange they did not issue a CD of it. How about the solo LP of Red Garland: This wasn't even reissued on LP! ANyone ever heard it?

I remember the rave reviews this got in German jazz radio shows and magazines when the first America issue came out. The deal between Fantasy and America was a mutual one, by the way - I had the first European issue of the first Creedence Clearwater Revival LP on America. Still, America was a strange label, a mixed bag of live and rare and probably partly bootleg jazz albums, some pop ... little consistency, even in the CD era. I once had a rare Anthony Braxton Quartet LP on America. Was America part of Musidisc from the beginning? And when exactly did Universal buy Musidisc?

Certainly more fun to post babes than these ... my Cuban avatar babe is gettin' goosebumps from looking at it.

He may have shied away from the touring schedule - he suffered from fear of flying (is that the correct expression?). Beyond that, he had a band with his brothers with vibes/piano, bass and drums - what more can you ask for. Check his great album with Milt Jackson on Riverside/OJC or any with his brothers for what it would have sounded like. His unabilty to read could have caused problems, too, considering the delicate balance of arrangement and improvisation in the MJQ's repertoire - his own organ trio with melvin Rhyne featured some clever arrangements, but not as elaborate as John Lewis' pieces. What is the source for the offer?

Maybe they sound too tame after all that jazz happening since their most popular days. Blue Note should inaugurate a new series "Roots of cocktail jazz" and have Norah Jones presenting - that's the way Verve would try to market this.

AFAIK IMP is defunct - but as I have and love Rosen's Schumann CDs I will go searching for this, thanks for the hint, Chuck! Does anyone know of a recording of this work on a period piano?

Just wanted to post that I read your symptoms description to my wife, who works with MS patients, among others, and said it does not look typical for the early stages, and see you might have figured it out. I sincerely hope these doctors are taking you serious. Jim you're a GREAT!!!!!! guy in every respect. (now where's the real big thumb?)

I sure will tape that! Just wanted to post it here.

You're welcome! B-) Now if you had kept on practicing then, you wouldn't be sitting in front of your computer screen getting flashbacks ... ... I tried it too, but the many hours of practice needed ..... a friend of mine only managed to stick to it, he told me, by smoking some grass so his resistance was lowered. But this had the negative side effect that he was playing too soft - when he took lessons with Trilok Gurtu he always was told "I can't hear you, I can't hear you .....

I remember (and have taped) a documentary arte made about Milford Graves - will have to check if it has that speech in the background.

Courntey's website features a fine online introduction - highly recommended! The second LP of Shakti, A Handful of Beauty, opens with Zakir Hussain and Vikku Vinayakaram doing a short exchange of bols.

Each of the bols corresponds to a specific stroke on the drum heads, either on one head, left or right, or both combined. There are sixteen basic strokes, and the combinations, analogous to snare drum rudiments or melodic practice patterns, go into the thousands. The term tal (pronounced tala in English with a very short closed "a" on the last syllable) describes the basic beat/accent structure in a rhyhmic cycle, which is heavily ornamented and embellished. There are lots of preconceived embellishments varying according to regional and personal styles. Many are composed and presented vocally by singing the bols before playing them on the drum. But beyong that, the bols and tala are learned by any musicians as well as singers and dancers as a rhythmic training - the level is much higher here than in any western training method I know of. I happen to work on a review of a newly published book on tabla playing which serves a fine introduction even if you are not playing the specific instrument - the Indian way of structuring and counting time is superb. David Courtney, Learning the Tabla

Another favourite Haynes sideman date of mine is Introducing Nat Adderley, which is currently available in Verve's LPR series. He is well featured throughout and gives plenty lessons in creative modern bop drumming. Excellent stuff!

Gégé Telesforo from Italy, whom I featured on disc 1 of my recent BT, improvises his own vocalized drum solos, I have a live record where he even does exchanges with his drummer. That's about as close as it will get. Jim, do it yourself - you don't need perfect vocal pitch for doing this! But, Indian hand drummers do this in a way - singing their solos by using the mnemonic syllables used for encoding the drum patterns, and then play it on the instruement. But in jazz? Not to my knowledge, and, being a big vocalese nut, and a percussionist, I think I would have noticed.

I second that recommendation - I had a 2 CD Columbia Compliation with all the master takes, but the 1997 CD has a few alternates, other bonus material, and better sound and annotation.