sgcim

This was the only record John Collins, Dizzy's buddy and musical advisor during the founding of bebop, ever made as a leader. I don't know if it ever came out on CD. https://www.discogs.com/John-Collins-The-Incredible/release/9862178#images/27165407

No one has ever played the guitar like this dude. He used fingerpicks because he said he used to drop the pick all the time when he played drunk. He was member number 11 of The Hell's Angels when he was younger. Look at him. He was one dangerous dude: https://www.discogs.com/Buddy-Fite-Buddy-Fite/master/470825#images/7500534

This guy was a great player who had a serious stroke at a young age and died soon after. This was his only record as a leader. https://www.discogs.com/John-Gray-The-New-Wave/release/4814654#images/9732758

That documentary on McFarland, This Is Gary McFarland, is finally available on the Fandor channel, but you have to have a subscription.

Great record. I found it on CD at a used record store for $2. They also had a CD by Calvin Newborn for the same price.When I picked that up, I realized musical talent isn't necessarily genetic...

They just had a show about this on WNYC: http://sonnyrollinsbridge.net/

Great album. They let you listen to the entire record. In Angel's long bio they never mentioned Arthur Lee, Love or Forever Changes. There's a good account of Angel's sessions with Lee for the FC album in the bio of Arthur Lee, Forever Changes. Thanks for the link!

I don't recall a great use of profanity, but prepare for a lot of collective gasps when they detail BE's personal life. The filmmaker said the DVD contained some extra material that we didn't see in the screening. He recounted that Eddie Gomez wouldn't be interviewed unless he was paid a huge amount of money, so he doesn't appear in the film. He tried to get Jimmy Cobb, but he said Cobb had too many family issues preventing any possibility of an interview. They just did it occasionally on weekends. Neither got hooked.

According to my friend, a pianist who's devoted his life to every aspect of BE, this happened when they were very young. They were just chipping, Denny was smart.

Very sad to hear. he was my fave guitarist of the Canterbury Scene groups. RIP.

I saw one of the showings at the New School with the filmmaker present over the summer. It was well done, but if you're an Evans fanatic, and have read the biography, there's not much new there. The audience didn't seem to be aware of some of the more tragic aspects of Evans' life, and let out several collective gasps when that part of the film was reached. The Q and A session ended abruptly when they were discussing who introduced Evans to heroin. The usual suspect was Philly Joe Jones, but I had heard that he started chipping on weekends with Denny Zeitlin before he went with Miles. When I mentioned this, a friend of Zeitlin's got very upset, and started yelling at me that Zeitlin had never used heroin. The filmmaker got disgusted, and called an end to the Q and A session.

I'm pretty excited about this. Herrmann's Symphony (the only one he wrote) hasn't been performed in concert in many decades. Leon Botstein's NOW Orchestra is going to play it, along with the Psycho Suite and Korngold's Symphony in F# on Nov. 3rd.

This was the first LP Bob Berg ever played on: https://www.discogs.com/Kenny-Gill-What-Was-What-Is-What-Will-Be/release/1546568

Most of the musicians on String Fever were local Staten Island musicians, including Wayne and Joseph. Costa got on the ferry to join them.

I worked with the trumpet player/arranger, Ronnie Woellner from that Bobby Scott LP, but he was playing piano at this point, because his front teeth were all knocked out by some type of accident. He must have been a good trumpet player, because he placed very high on a DB poll in the trumpet category back when the Bobby Scott LP came out. He didn't have great chops on the piano, but he was some type of harmonic genius as far as substitute changes were concerned, and I still play some of his changes on tunes today. The Potts LP was one of the few LPs two of my faves, Phil Woods and Bill Evans played together on. Another one was Geo. Russell's NY, NY, which featured Woods, Trane and Evans.

One obscure jazz guitarist from Seattle, Buddy Fite, made a few LPs in 1970 on Cyclone Records, and then never recorded again, except for some small group things recorded live called 'Tasty'. The Cyclone records were standards and pop tunes of the time with vanilla string and big band charts that sounded like they were recorded separately. Fite was unusual because he had a twangy country sound, and played with fingerpicks (because he claimed they prevented him from dropping his picks when he was drunk). I don't think any of his LPs were made into CDs. Jimmy Raney's 'Strings and Swings' LP was never made into a CD either, and features him playing his Suite For Guitar and String Quintet, which has elements of Bartok mixed with his subtle style of jazz playing.

I left my hypodermic needle at home. I figured, why would I need it at Stop and Shop? Never again.

My father was a salesman, and he used to go to people's houses and try to sell them stuff. One time he went to Lenny White's house, and they were talking about the fact that he just left Chick's band, because he was sick of the Scientology BS. LW said that after each one of their performances, they were graded according to Scientology principles, and they were awarded stars if they were good Scientology boys. There are a lot of crazy stories about Scientology and jazz. I was surprised to find out that Melvin Rhyne was into it. Their line was, "Look, you can go to a shrink and pay him thousands of dollars to fix you up. Just give us a thousand bucks, and we'll get you back on your feet..."

Ask him how he put up with that doofus Al DiMeola? Ask him for any memories he has of the pianist John Jacobson. Ask him if L.Ron Hubbard is still away on research?

I was in a Stop and Shop a while ago, and this guy was whistling 'Well, You Needn't' over and over again. I stalked him for a few aisles, and then confronted him. "You know you're whistling Thelonious Monk?" "Oh yeah, I like that tune." "Are you a musician?" "No, I just like that tune.' I pondered bringing him into the lab to perform some experiments on him to account for this anomaly, but he disappeared by the frozen food aisle. Dr. Warren Kruger

I'll never forget seeing Grady at Carnegie Hall in concert with Michel LeGrand. His groove on the Phil Woods feature, You Must Remember Spring, had the audience on their feet, in a frenzy of applause. RIP, Grady. Of course, Organissimo has taught me that Phil Woods had nothing to do with that reception. After all, according to the majority of Organissimo, Phil wasn't an important, great jazz artist. And the fact that Oliver Nelson's arrangement of I Remember Bird featured Phil, well, that must've been an oversight or something. They probably just couldn't find anyone else, or maybe that Encyclopedia of Jazz guy stuck him in there. And when Oliver Nelson defied a death threat nailed on his door threatening his life if he didn't get that white, lead alto sax player out of the band, well, that must have been just a coincidence or sumpthin'...

I searched for this book here, and just found an announcement for it, and then some knee jerk sexism put-downs by the usual suspects... While there is a lot of material on the Bunnies (PF was a former model and Bunny) which I just skipped over, there''s some interesting jazz content, and a portrait of the 'Hef' as one of the few civil rights activists in the entertainment biz in the 50s. People such as Dick Gregory, Freda Payne, Aretha Franklin, Al Jarreau, Maurice and Gregory Hines and Ramsey Lewis were given their first steady, decent paying gigs and exposure to a larger white audience at Playboy Clubs, resulting in all of them becoming nationally recognized in their fields. Gregory, Payne, Hines and Lewis were interviewed in the book, and gave Hef's courage in hiring and defending them from racism, credit for their success as artists. Great jazz artists such as Monty Alexander, Gene Bertoncini, Earl May, Al Foster, Al Belletto, Larry Willis and Al Gafa were given steady gigs that lasted for years, playing uncompromising jazz. Willis would get pianists like Chick Corea, Albert Dailey, Herbie Hancock and Roland Hanna as subs if he had another gig. Jim Hall and Ron Carter recorded the groundbreaking duo album Alone Together at the NYC Playboy Club, and Bill Evans had a week's engagement there. In the South, they established a New Orleans Club in 1961, where Al Belletto led an integrated house band with musicians like Richie Payne, and Ellis Marsalis had his own trio that played there for many years. HH had two TV shows, one in 1959, where he featured Dick Gregory, and another one in 1969.where he featured Dick Gregory. The '59 show featured jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughn, Ray Charles, June Christy, Dakota Staton, Beverley Kenney, Carmen McRae, Joe Williams and Billy Eckstine. Jazz groups included Woody Herman, Cal Tjader, Dizzy Gillespie and Buddy Rich. Pianists featured were Earl Hines, Count Basie, Ahmad Jamal Eddie Higgins and Dave Brubeck. Crooners such as Tony Bennett, David Allen and Frank D`Rone plus pianist/vocalists Buddy Greco and Nina Simone were also featured. You can find some of these shows on YouTube, and Frank D'Rone's 'Joey,Joey,Joey' knocked me out, accompanying himself on guitar back in 1959!

Yeah, it was more realistic than 'A Man Called Adam' with Sammy Davis Jr., another jazz movie made around the same time about a messed up jazz musician. They were both made in gritty B&W, but the cinematography was tons better on AMCA. SLB was a much lower budget movie, taken from a novel by John Williams named "Night Song". They said they cut the movie too much, and that might account for the disjointed feel of the whole thing. Jan Murray was good as a down and out academic who bonds with DG, as they both drink and drug themselves to death. DG gave a very realistic portrayal of a junked out jazzer. Robert Hooks, in his first role, was good as a Chile Place/Bar owner who gives the messed up duo a new lease on life, by giving them jobs at his place.

He was also in a jazz movie, loosely based on bird's life, in 1967, playing an alto player named 'Eagle' Stokes. George Coleman did the ghosting for him, and Mal Waldron composed the score. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062325/

Yesterday