mikeweil

The Cd I have is a French studio recording: Cammack and Muhammad are very good, Jamal is nice. Of course he is not as hot as in his prime. I have it with a different cover - they made three discs with that title, The Essence. I'm afraid any Jamal Mosaic is way out of reach - Jamal is sueing Universal: His original contract with Chess included a passage that he be asked before any subsequent issue, probaly to ensure his consent and payment of royalties. Universal has done three or four reissues without asking him prior to release, so he sued. I asked Mosaic and they replied, otherwise they would have done the Jamal trio with Ray Crawford long ago.

That observation confirms a few of my thoughts: 1) most drummers don't use the hi-hat in a creative way, just as a timekeeper - and if you make that accent with the brush, as Leon did, the hi-hat seems superfluous. It was funny - I started playing the drumset at around the time Leon hit the scene, and had the same thoughts about the hi-hat and the whole set, that a good drummer can swing a band with just a ride cymbal, went to the gig without a hi-hat and a similar minimalistic approach, and got plenty of strange looks. When I heard Leon it was a reinforcement of these ideas, but I find him to be very controlled in the sense of straight timing and predictability, even when he cuts loose - like on the ALIVE! album and the live track on his 32Jazz CD. I think he was the prefectionist of that trio. He certainly was on his own CDs, he doesn't improvise very much on the hand drums, and his sound on the conga is thin and his technique a little amateurish. The record where I like Leon Parker best is Geoff Keezer's "Other Spheres", where he handles the intricate arrangements with aplomb - and a hi-hat! And Jamal - his trio with Crosby and Fournier is hard to top. I like that CD with Muhammad. Seems he's growing old, musaically speaking. No wonder - but he really has played enough great piano for a lifetime. BTW - I remember Jacky Terrasson playing some hot hardbop piano on drummer Sebastian Whittaker's third CD "One For Bu!!" on Justice (http://www.justicerecords.com/) - anybody wanting a hot Messengers tribute is in for a treat, and it sounds terrific!

80 years ago, on March 26, 1924, Brew Moore was born. I thought this is an appropriate opportunity to remember his fluent improvisations and spin a disc or two of his. I'm sure he's having a great celebratory jam session with all the Brothers up there in jazz heaven, with Prez as the honorary guest!

That was a very cool idea, IMO. The plus of the trio with Leon Parker was the wide dynamics and creative approach to trio playing, using the Ahmad Jamal Trio with Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier as a kind of reference point. The minus was that it is a little too controlled. Where I can listen to Jamal over and over again, the Terasson trio starts getting stale after a dozen listens and doesn't sound as fresh anymore. Just my opinion - I kind of lost my enthusiasm for them.

That Jerome Harris disc has just been added to my wish list ... I love bass clarinet and have always liked Ehrlich, a very underrated player that works fine in any context.

It's perhaps the overall sound and feel of this track that made so many think of Return To Forever and/or Flora Purim, but I find her colour and phrasing to be quite different, and the groove not like that band. Do they have longer tracks with solos on this disc?

Happy recovery to you and your family, and thanks again for some very smart choices. That quote really hits the nail on the head, as I've said, I wish they'd be a little more adventurous. You can't beat the memory of grandma's cake ....

... and whoever visits the board every other day doesn't get a chance to vote?

I had to vote for Soul Station - it was the first album that made me really love his playing, I still know several of his solos on this by heart. I dig most of them, but the Turnaround/No Room For Squares/Straight No Filter group of four sessions stands out to me, as a whole, and in chronological order. Where Soul Station announced his early 1960's comeback, these sessions announced his setting sails for new shores.

I voted for the quartet 10" LP - the tunes and his improvisation on them are so hip, adding a new dimension to Charlie Parker's innovations. Wish they would have coupled that with the All Stars album with Milt Jackson for a Connoisseur or RVG - they would make a nice combination!

Neither. I'm pretty sure that. spelling notwithstanding, it is pronounced Kwinn-uh-SHAY, Monsieur Storaire. Who in all the world brought that up??? If French spelling applies, it is clearly Kinishette!!!

Michael Cuscuna (whose name could well be listed among the frequently mispronounced) cleared this up in his notes to the Tina Brooks Mosaic box set: It's Tee-nah!

Yeah, Monk easily tops my list. Ellington comes next, but I doubt anyone could safely tell an unkknown Strayhorn tune from an unknown Ellington tune. Ornette is another abovious choice, and perhaps Silver. I think I could identify Geoff Keezer's tunes.

I found the Prestige sessions mentioned above somewhat disappointing, especially the percussion jams, which lead nowhere, and they have some problems with timing together, Blakey included. The band stuff was nice but not spectacular, and Walton does not sound too indentifiable on electric piano.

The track titles of that "Blow Up Extra Sessions" CD sehldonm mentioned indeed reads like another version of the Warwick bootlegs I described. Stay away from it! The Fresh Sound reissues give the most complete edition of this material, no matter if it's Donald Byrd with Herbie, or Teddy Charles without. (Noal Cohen and I researched the discographical data behind them)

Of course seeing it in a movie theatre beats the hell out of pretty much anything ... I'll see what I - or my burning assistant - can do about it - Thanks a lot to rockefeller center for technical advice!

If it's Warwick it's probably truncated takes from the Donald Byrd - Pepper Adamsa sessions with Herbie on that label, which have been bootlegged to exhaustion. Some issues didn't even include Herbie but edited material from Teddy Charles sessions with Bookers Ervin and Little from the same label.

You're right, the first two suites were the two sides of the LP "Latin Kaleidoscope". "Fellini 712" with its 32 minutes was an LP of its own.

The original covers were black and white - at least I never saw any others.

6/8 and 3/4 are NOT the same, because these are time signatures, not mathematical fractions! It's a common error, even most musicians forget that. You may not reduce 6/8 by 2 to get 3/4. In time signatures the upper figure tells you the number of notes to the bar, and the lower figure tells you what type of note these are. This does not imply identical numbers of beats per bar! 3/4 time is usually counted with three beats to the bar. 6/8 time used to be counted with two (!) beats to the bar, giving it (in modern terminology) a "triplet feel". The counterpart in time signatures divided by two to 6/8 was seen in 2/2 time, which is rarely used today. This all has its roots in European baroque music, where they started developping sytems of time signatures just as they developped harmonic systems. Johann Sebastian Bach used several dozen time signatures to differentiate very clearly between different rhythmic feelings, tempos and basic accents, it was written down by his student Kirnberger, but this was simplified to only few time signatures within 50 years after his death. When he wrote something in 12/8, it was not the same as a 4/4 in eighth note triplets, because triplets were always seen as an exception. Anyway, his system was much clearer, but most of this knowledge has been lost. The possibility of multiple division of a 6/8 or 12/8 meter is an African device, imported into Spanish music through Northern Africa. The so-called hemiola is a 12-12-12-123-123 subdivision. (to be read one-two etc.) You alternate 3 x 2 and 2 x 3. This is frequently used in Flamenco music. In 12/8 you can chose between 4 x 3, 3 x 4, 2 x 6, and 6 x 2 - most African rhythms use all these subdivisions equally and simultaneously, as do Afro-Cuban Bembé and Abakuá rhythms, among others. This multi-beat structure is what makes them so sophisticated for most non-Latin musicians. There is no clear and dominant beat structure, like the lack of a clear tonal centre in polytonality. Rhythmic theory in Western music theory is a MESS!!!!!

Is there a way to extract that audio only track with some software? Would make nicer listening without the long silent passages in between. It's not overwhelming music, but a nice Herbie Hancock piano ballad with Jim Hall heard nowhere else and some groovy alternates.

... where the lack of taste and the lust for the ordinary meet ...

I doubt that. It was not released by Amiga the GDR label AFAIK. This site has a complete listing of Amiga Jazz releases and We Insist is on it. John, is this a typo and should read " .... is not on it"??? Jim, what is the number of your issue of the Roach suite?

One thing that is always overlooked about this edition of the Silver Quintet - at least it seems so to me - is the rhythm team. Gene Taylor with his thick percussive and at the same time warm sound and Roy Brooks at the drums were an excellent team with a very personal definition of swing and drive. Tasteful and hittin' the groove always. Maybe the best bass/drums team Silver has ever had, overlooking his career. Let's give them some credit!!!

Elvin is a masterful brush player, with a very special momentun and swing. Seems I'll have to get me this one ... love Hank's playing, of course, and Thad's compositions. Besides his big band charts, Thad still seems to be underrated as a trumpeter and composer.