mikeweil

Here's the obituary from the New York Times' website, with more in-depth information: Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian Drummer, Dies at 76 April 9, 2003 By JON PARELES Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian drummer, bandleader and teacher who was a tireless ambassador for African music and culture in the United States, died on Sunday in Salinas, Calif. He was 76 and lived at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Calif. The cause was complications of advanced diabetes, said his daughter Modupe Olantunji Anuku. Mr. Olatunji's 1959 album, "Drums of Passion," was the first album of African drumming recorded in stereo in an American studio, and it introduced a generation to the power and intricacy of African music. While field recordings of African drumming had been available, "Drums of Passion" reached a mass public with its vivid sound and exotic song titles like "Primitive Fire." Mr. Olatunji was born and reared in Ajido, a fishing and trading village pervaded by Yoruba culture, and he made it his lifework to bring village memories to audiences everywhere. His band of drummers, singers and dancers evoked both the village's music and its masquerades, with outsize figures dancing in elaborate raffia costumes. His credo was: "Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human action revolves in rhythm." In 1950 Mr. Olatunji received a scholarship to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was planning to become a diplomat. He studied public administration at New York University, where he formed an African-style ensemble that eventually turned into his full-time occupation. The group performed at concerts and at civil rights rallies led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After the group appeared with an orchestra at Radio City Music Hall, Mr. Olatunji was signed to Columbia Records. Mr. Olatunji secured foundation grants to tour schools. Among the students who were impressed by his performances - dressed in African robes and playing hand-hewn goat-hide drums - was Mickey Hart, who would go on to join the Grateful Dead and later recharge Mr. Olatunji's career. "Drums of Passion" made Mr. Olatunji the most visible African musician in the United States. Bob Dylan cited him alongside King and Willie Mays in "I Shall Be Free" in 1963. "Drums of Passion" was hugely influential among musicians, helping to spark a wave of African-jazz fusions in the early 1960's. "Jin-Go-Lo-Ba," from "Drums of Passion," was remade as "Jingo" to become the first single by Santana in 1969. Mr. Olatunji mixed African music and jazz on his albums for Columbia in the 1960's. He was a featured performer at the African Pavilion of the 1964 New York World's Fair. With support from John Coltrane, he established the Olatunji Center for African Culture in Harlem, which offered music and dance lessons to children until 1988. After his Columbia contract ended in 1965, Mr. Olatunji continued to perform, record and teach. Mr. Hart invited him to open for the Grateful Dead's New Year's Eve show in Oakland, Calif., in 1985, introducing his music to a new audience. Mr. Hart also persuaded his label, Rykodisc, to rerelease two independently recorded 1980's albums by Mr. Olatunji: "Drums of Passion: The Beat" (1986), which included guest appearances by the guitarist Carlos Santana, and "Drums of Passion: The Invocation" (1988), featuring Yoruba chants. Mr. Olatunji recorded and toured during the 1990's as a member of Mr. Hart's world-beat supergroup, Planet Drum, and made an instructional videotape, "African Drumming," released in 1996. He moved to Washington and then to Big Sur, where he became an artist in residence at Esalen. Mr. Olatunji also continued to lead his own group, Drums of Passion, which included students and family members: his daughter Modupe and his seven grandchildren. He is also survived by his wife, Amy Bush Olatunji, from whom he is separated; two sons, Omotola Olatunji, of Brooklyn, and Niyi Esubiyi, of Belle Meade, N.J.; another daughter, Folasade Olatunji Olusekun of Boston; and a brother, Dr. Akinsola Akiwowo, of Alexandria, Va. Mr. Olatunji's most recent album, "Love Drum Talk" (Chesky) was released in 1997 and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Columbia reissued an expanded version of the original "Drums of Passion" last year, and Mr. Olatunji completed a new album earlier this year. Source: Drums of Passion

Jazz Times News It's been a few weeks since his passing, but I couldn't find any note about him here on the board. Strange, as he kind of introduced African drumming to the scene in a similar way that Mongo Santamaria did to Cuban drumming - they both recorded the first pure drum/vocals LPs in their respective field in the U.S.A. Columbia Legacy just reissued his classic "Drums of Passion", the Bear Family box set of his complete Columbia sessions is still available (with Clark Terry playing joyful highlife trumpet). One of the masters of the drum and a deep inspiration for many. Remember John Coltrane was about to perform at his cultural center but died only shortly before? R.I.P.

When I searched for a vocal version of "St. Thomas" I came across Mark Murphy's version, calling it "Down St. Thomas Way", credited to Ray Passman and Herb Wasserman. Virtually identical. Any stories on this? Who really wrote it? Or did they all copy it from some Calypso tune - "Fire Down Below", which Randy Weston and Ted Curson recorded, is pretty similar.

"The critics? Who needs 'em? Who - I wonder - reads 'em? Besides us ...." words by Iola Brubeck, sung by Carmen McRae in "Good Reviews", part of Dave Brubeck's "The Real Ambassadors" (these are, of course, the musicians!). To me, this remains the ultimate word on critics. In the long run, they are superfluous. I write CD and book reviews, between 5 and 10 each year, for the newsletter of Germany's association of percussionists, and most of the stuff I'm sent is not my taste, but I always try to hold my resentiments back in favor of the musicians' goals and achievements. Crouch considers race matters to important because they are important to him. I'll never forget that blindfold test with Roy Eldridge after he had assured he could always tell white from black musicians, and he missed about half of them and admitted you simply can't tell by ear. Journalists are in a position that implies constant justification of their own existence. Musicians do not need anything like that; their music is reason for being. Music is there for its own sake, in the first place, and as am expression of one's culture it can bear aspects of a political/social statement: you are what you preach. And so you don't need a spokesman like Crouch. I remember he wrote some insightful liner notes several years ago, I'd have to search them. But I generally disapprove of liners or articles which are basically just lobbying for a certain group or musician. Music journalism should operate beyond simple matters of taste. And Crouch's personal assaults certainly are beyond taste.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem .... Now Crouch was a very big part of the problems he described! :rsly:

That's what I thought about the cymbal sound on most ECM records. It certainly is Eicher's aesthetics. He sometimes used reverb on the soloist in a way different from the rest of the ensemble, so his sound isn't natural, it's very artificial. I guess I'd like many ECM's a lot more if they were recorded in a more direct and less spacious manner. But I'm sure it sounds greaton a $ 20.000 system ...

Michel Ruppli, with various authors assisting, did label discographies on Blue Note, Savoy, Prestige, Riverside, King, Atlantic and a few others. If I find a publisher's link I'll post it here. Some of them are still in print, but they're not cheap ... Here 'tis: Michel Ruppli discographies at Greenwood press They were praised all around, by the way.

Bruyninckx lists two unissued Grant Green sessions for Verve, but no personnel. Maybe someone reading this has the Ruppli Verve discography at hand?

A look into Monk discographies from various sources confirms that it was the first and only recording of Boo Boo's Birthday Monk made - at least officially in the studio.

These would clock in at about 145 minutes, including the seven tracks from Milt Jackson's Atlantic LPs. Two Cds would be sufficient.

Do you mean the Jazzline CD with extracts from concerts at the Olympia in Paris in 1960 and 1965? The audience reactions are wild on this one; at least half the people there certainly was not prepared for the freestyle improvisations of Giuffre, Friedman, and Phillips. They play one Carla Bley and Ornette Coleman tune each, had Coleman been to Europe before 1965?

Well said, Jim!!!

As a document of Mingus' attempts at large ensemble writing and his personal failures on the way, I#d say it's indispensable. If you only look for his fully realized albums, it's second order. If you're a Mingus fan, well why did you ask in the first place?

Actually it's one and a half album she did for Bethlehem. Some instrumentals among it, e.g. a take on Tadd Dameron's Good Bait with some neo-baroque contrapuntal touches - these show up quite often in her piano playing, she was proud of her Juillard studies, and rightly so. If you can take some classical influences in her piano playing, go for it; of course there is earthy bluesy jazz piano as well. Her singing already is her unique style. It's a pity there never was a CD with the complete session. Great accompaniment from Tootie Heath and Jimmy Bond's fat bass sound. In short: I like an' recommend 'em!

I agree, the Mahler set is great and was hailed as one of the best recordings available. Same goes for Inbal's Bruckner cycle, which is scheduled for reissue in the near future and includes the rare no. "0" symphony. If anyone of you cares for harpsichord, the complete Bach harpsichord works in two boxes is as good as it can be at that price, with very good performances by mostly younger performers that hold their own when compared to other recordings, and the Domenico Scarlatti series is fine (3 boxes with 3 CDs each so far), considered better than Scott Ross' unaffordable big box on Erato by many.

They were available at other stores, principally, but Mikulski must have made some special deal with Zeitausendeins, as they sold them at about the price other dealers would have to pay! This deal seems to have expired now, or sales figures reached a level too low to tolerate. I had the impression the LP sized box sets were imported from the US and filled with CDs manufactured in Germany. I agree on the poor packaging of the small box sets and on the horrible sound of ZYX' own remasterings. They never promote the Fantasy releases in German jazz magazines. But who else should handle them? Their catalogue is voluminous and another distributor probably would not carry the complete catalogue. At least from ZYX' own website and their mail order shop MUsic Garden, everything seems to be available. Other mail order shops mave deleted some rare items from their catalogue.

If one compares timings, Think of One must have been edited on the old Criss Cross LP and previous CD reissue (was 5:18 there). Same goes for 5 (!) tracks of the Underground LP and previous CD reissue: Ugly Beauty - 10:47 was 3:17 Raise Four - 7:01 was 5:47 Easy Street - 7:52 was 5:53 (complete take was on the Always Know twofer - a nice bowed bass solo by Larry gales restored) Green Chimneys - 13:11 was 9:00 In Walked Bud - 6:49 was 4:17

This looks like a straight single CD reissue of the original Solo Monk LP with some bonus material added. I can't understand why Body And Soul is not included, which struck me as one of Monk's greatest solos when I first heard it on the Monk Alone twofer.

At the deceased BNBB I suggested they break it up into 4 (!) sets, like the Miles stuff: Studio, 1963-63 (quartet with Frankie Dunlop) Live, 1963-64 (quartet and big band with Dunlop) Studio, 1965-68 (quartet and big band with ben Riley) Live, 1965-68 (dtto.) - the solos slipped in chronologically or kept seperate as in the excellent 2 CD set available. This would give them a chance to include the obscurer live material, some of which appeared on the Misterioso LP (Brandeis University, Mexico), or even some bootleg live recordings - there are not that many with Dunlop. I too don't think it will ever happen, but I wonder if the Brandeis and Mexico live recordings will come out in a series based on the original LPs, as the Misterioso LP will become obsolete.

Thanks, P.D.! Rudy Stevenson I know only from a Cedar Walton Prestige session. But Gale ..... he's doing some real hardcore blues guitar here. I could have sworn it was some Chicago veteran!

If you are into early Mingus - as documented by the excellent Uptown CD - this is the perfect companion. It is of course more about Mingus the producer and sideman, but everything bears his stamp. He was just as great a bass player as he was as composer and bandleader. And there's a lot of his working band of the mid-1950's in this set. I find it as indispensable as the Uptown CD and the Atlantic and Columbia dates. He recorded a lot - and arguably the more important dates - for other labels during the existence of Debut, maybe also to support his label. The very good booklet tells a lot about this. You will want to have it, sooner or later .....

Coles, Spaulding and Coleman are the main soloists besides Pearson. Mickey Roker's in fine form on it, too. (Peter Jophnson forgot to mention him.) The sound is one of the examples of extreme left/right stereo in Atlantic's catalogue ..... jazzbo is right, if you like Pearson (and Coles, in particular) you will dig this. But this was no blowing session, just as much writing as on Duke's Blue Note's - the more polished Van Gelder sound just makes this more obvious. I waited for decades for it to be reissued. Had a Duke Pearson day recently, played all of his Blue Note CDs, no surprise it was a nice day ....

Your comments encourage me to check out the Philips box. "Sings The Blues" is my favourite Nina Simone album, just put on the LP today... The first track sends chills down my spine every time! Is this really complete on that Novus CD? BTW, does anyone know who the guitar player is on that LP? The Bruyninckx disco gives Simone piano & vocals, Buddy Lucas harmonica, Bob Bushnell fender bass, Bernard Purdie drums, Ernie Hayes organ but no guitarist.

It turns out they reserve the "smaller" projects for the Mosaic Select series. I guess the Herbie Nichols Blue Note or Stan Getz Roost boxes would appear as MS these days. Maybe we should post our ideas for more MS sets: The Clare Fischer Pacific Jazz Sessions - a mixed bag with trios, orchestra, latin jazz, but all worth hearing The Jeremy Steig Solid State/Blue Note/Capitol sessions Anything else?

I'm exited that Brookmeyer's albums "Traditionalism Revisited" and "Kansas City Revisited" will be back in print - missed them the first time around. As far as I remember, Paul Quinichette is on one of them, one of my top five tenor favourites.