sgcim

I'm still looking for one track OP played with Eddie Costa, "Taking a Chance On Love", although I doubt it's on this compilation. I know it's on OP's LP, "Discoveries", but that has only been released on vinyl, and it's both hard to find, and very expensive, considering I just want ONE track. I've heard it was an extra track from the "Winner's Circle" LP, which I finally found. It would be ideal if someone put that out on CD with the extra Costa/Pettiford track, because the sound on the LP is terrible.

There's a great you tube video of the Master live with his old buddy Johnny Smith, plus Ray Pizzi, Alan Dawson, Bobby Shew, and Larry Lappin. Just enter Johnny Smith Live, and look for the 27 minute version of a great jazz clinic concert they had, back when Wynton didn't have to approve you to teach jazz... Twenty minutes into it, George is featured playing a composition of his called 'E.K.E's Blues, written for Duke, and originally played by Harry Carney.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. It's great to see that he's still doing jazz gigs in London, and playing concerts with Caravan at the age of 79!

I just heard Jimmy Hastings' great flute solo on 'Binoculars' on the National Health album, 'Of Queues and Cures'. I was able to find one song by Caravan (Love Song with Flute) that featured JH on flute, but are there any other albums by Caravan or preferably more jazz-oriented people like Phil Moore, Dave Stewart, Humphrey Lyttleton or any others that featured JH on flute? TIA

I found a copy of Winners Circle for $3 at Planet 9 in Richmond VA. It has some great playing by Trane, Donald Byrd, Rolf Kuhn, Kenny Burrell, Eddie Costa, Oscar Pettiford,, Philly Jo, Frank Rehak and Gene Quill. Supposedly, a trio recording of 'Taking a Chance on Love' featuring Costa, Pettiford and one of the two drummers on the session, Ed Thigpen or Philly Jo, came out of this session. It's available on Pettiford's "Discoveries", but that's a hard one to find. I also picked up Philadelphia legend's Joe Sgro LP, "A Guitar and a Girl", which features a picture of a nude woman with a classical guitar covering her privates on the cover. She is looking straight at me, promising me many pleasures of the flesh, yet they have failed to materialize yet... Sgro, a devout Jehovah's Witness, plays with only vibes, bass and drums. He plays a few standards, and then some of his semi-classical arrangements of things he calls 'Rachmaninoff and You', Tchaikovsky After Hours', Ravel After Hours, Tcaikovsky Sits In, and The Lady Likes Chopin. He plays solely in what guitarists call 'chord melody' style without any single string improvisation, with the vibes doubling the melody in octaves; a variant of the 'Shearing Style', as if to say, "We don't need no steenking piano". On Harlem Nocturne, the last number, he finally lets loose with some single string improvisation, and sound quite capable. Another $3 special.

You can say that again! Paul Shaffer said in a recent interview that Letterman told him not to play any jazz, because he (DL) hated it. You can say that again! Paul Shaffer said in a recent interview that Letterman told him not to play any jazz, because he (DL) hated it.

No man, it didn't happen; it's all in your mind. No man, it didn't happen; it's all in your mind.

Some jerk re-used the tape that had all the great jazz musicians Steve Allen had on the first season, and wiped it out. My obsession is to find any video of Tal Farlow in the period 1954-59, his peak period IMHO (maybe some Eddie Costa, too). There are some Norvo trio tapes on you tube, but they're just accompanying singers in film shorts. The one exception is "Keep It Cool", a 1955 short film featuring several bands.The Norvo trio with Tal and Red Mitchell play one tune , How Am I To Know?.

Yes, Atlantic City.

Benny Golson was there, and describes the event in detail in his autobiography.

I liked the fact that a great guitarist like Dick Garcia only made one record as a leader. Then he got into a Zen Buddhism thing, and has been in seclusion for the last 50 years.

Cinderella was definitely the better player of the two, but Mecca was the 'go to guy' for a back adjustment. Cinderella appeared with Vinnie Burke and Matt Matthews on some record, maybe Chis Connors'. He got involved with the NYC studio scene, and did jingles, TV etc... I played with some organist who was doing a club gig with Joe in NJ. He switched to playing solo piano at lounges in Atlantic City. On the 2002 album, he plays an 8-string guitar that was tuned in 3rds and 4ths, and plays a lot of chord things that you could only play on piano. He passed a few years ago.

He became a chiropractor. ATTYA was good, but I don't remember, being too impressed with the rest of it.

I am back with a definitive answer from a jazz guitar website. Within half an hour the guys unanimously agreed that it was.................RON ESCHETE!!!!!

I'm taking this to the highest authorities, sir, and we'll have an answer for you very soon.

Yeah, that's gotta be Ulf. OP probably hooked him up with Bags and Ray.

Nervous breakdown. He was in charge of a very expensive apartment complex in Boston, and the pressure was too much for him. He became an alcoholic, and then was 'born-again' . My mother met him at church, and she used to get him to do stuff around the house. When he quoted the price to paint every inch of my co-op apt., I almost broke out laughing! I just signed his little contract as fast as I could. He wound up fixing a whole bunch of other stuff for free. To my credit, I did tip him. Yeah, NY.

From most accounts, Lenny's junk habit, and inability to deal with everyday life, prevented him from being known to the general public outside of Canada. He had a lot of help from Chet Atkins, Johnny Smith wrote a blurb for his first album (he never endorsed anyone back then), and people like Randy Bachman and Gene Lees tried to help him, but he showed up so messed up on H sometimes, that he literally couldn't play. He auditioned for Oscar Peterson in Canada, and OP wasn't impressed. He sat in with Bill Evans in Toronto, and they clashed harmonically. There's a recording of him playing a big concert in Vancouver, where he's so messed up, that he gets on the mic, and babbles on and on about some personal stuff. When he finally tried to play, he literally couldn't.

I guess you're kidding about hooking you up with their numbers, but the guy from Ghana was rec'd by a musician/business owner, who was 'connected', so I guess the guy did such a good job, because I used the 'connected' guy's name. I rec'd him to another musician, who can be a real hard-on, and he hated the guy so much, he left the job half-done, and never came back! The born-again guy also did a great job, but he has literally disappeared. Nobody knows where he is. Brilliant guy, though; he used to handle the huge estate of some billionaire that has a building named after him in NYC.

I just got out my 'live at Bourbon St.' double CD set, and read your liner notes about testing out the new digital recorder. Wasn't Randy Bachman the owner of Guitarchives? Did he have anything to do with the digital masters 'mysteriously disappearing', and you not getting paid? He was really 'taking care of business...' Thanks for the great, historic recording of someone who was probably the greatest jazz guitarist in the history of the music. Nobody's even come close to him since.

I got a guy from Ghana to do the tiling in my co-op apt's bathroom for about 1 or 2k. He had to sneak in the tiling and his tools, because he didn't have a license, and he didn't think the co-op board would approve him. I got my entire apt. painted by an ex-engineer who had an NBD and became born again, for $900. He came in whenever he had the time and took a few months...

Yeah, that's the schist! who said ya can't dance to jazz...Swing that mother!

No, it was Kenny Seymour. Speaking of Harold Wheeler though, I'm going to be doing his Hairspray off and on through October.

I worked with Billy Butler for two weeks playing 'Hair', ten shows a week back in the mid 70s. Back then, he was involved in Galt McDemott's various bands and shows. I was still in my teens, and the look he gave me when I walked into the first rehearsal, would've put the fear of God in even the most confirmed atheist. He never let up on the competitive thing, even when i had him over my parents' house for dinner. I took him down the basement, and I played him the reel-to-reel tapes I had of him playing with Stitt. That, and some booze my father gave him seemed to mellow him out a bit. I was in my heavy Johnny Smith solo guitar phase, and he made an intriguing statement about these masterworks. "Hell, when that stuff came out, we knew that he was taking some piano arrangements, and adapting them for guitar using a D tuning." I read the recent Johnny Smith biography, "Moonlight in Vermont' multiple times, and it never mentioned anything about piano arrangements, but playing though some transcriptions of them, there's no way any guitarist could've come up with some of those harmonic ideas, so BB was probably right. The band was pretty hip, with players like the great George Barrow and Charlie Fowlkes, and was led by a hip pianist/conductor. We had spontaneous funk jams for a half hour before the show started every night, and I felt like I was in heaven. BB played some groovy blues licks, and I went into my Grant Green bag. Then the harsh realities of the NY music business poured cold water on us, when the contractor told us no more funk jams before the show. BB was always working with the Hindemith book 'Elementary Training For Musicians' on breaks. He told me he spent a lot of time chopping wood on his farm.