Peter Friedman

The Joe Locke- Kenny Barron CD on Steeplechase is a real beauty. I can't say anything except if you like these players you NEED this one!!!!!!!! Milt Jackson is by far my favorite vibes player. In fact, I consider him one of the alltime great jazz musicians regardless of instrument. He recorded a huge number of times during his career and it is hard to find more than a tiny number that are not damn fine. I would probably select Dave Pike as my second choice. Pike recorded three albums during the 60's that are very very good. IT'S TIME FOR PIKE - Riverside (w. Barry Harris, Reggie Workman, Billy Higgins) PIKE'S PEAK - already mentioned more than once JAZZ VERSION OF OLIVER - Moodsville (w. Tommy Flanagan, Jimmy Raney, George Tucker, Walter Perkins) Unfortunately, the JAZZ VERSION OF OLIVER session has not been re-issued on CD. Pike in the late 60's and 70's went on to play a more rock oriented type of jazz that I did not care for at all However, in the late 80's he returned to playing straight ahead Hard Bop. Pike recorded PIKE"S GROOVE with the Cedar Walton Trio for Criss Cross in 1986, and with Charles McPherson and a Dutch rhythm section - BLUEBIRD - on Timeless in 1988. Just a few years ago a very good Dave Pike CD was issued on the Ubiquity label titled BOPHEAD. Teddy Edwards and Anthony Wilson are also on this CD. I like some of Bobby Hutcherson's playing, but at times he leaves me cold. Gary Burton is frequently too "sterile" sounding for my taste. Most of what I have heard from Cal Tjader strikes me as rather "lightweight". Tjader does not seem to dig into the music with the depth I hear from Bags (or Pike). Johnny Lytle has been a disappointment. I have owned a few of his recordings and ultimately disposed of them. I found them basically uninteresting. Eddie Costa, Victor Feldman and Buddy Montgomery are three piano/ vibes players whose work on vibes I prefer to many on the list.

Just checked my TOM LORD and no other version of "Blues For Mr. Tatum" is listed other than on the unissued Lee Morgan session. Listening right now to the three unissued tracks. BLUES FOR MR. TATUM - Lee Morgan, Frank Mitchell, and Harold Mabern all take decent solos, but nothing really special happens. This track is on the dull side. THE SLEEPWALKER - A nice Hard Bop unison head gets this track underway. Mabern gets the first solo which is far more interesting than on the previous track. Frank Mitchell comes next and his playing here also surpasses the earlier track. Lee may not be at his best here, but certainly plays a better solo than on the first tune. THE CHIEF - Frank Mitchell is the first soloist and seems a bit shakey in spots. Nonetheless, with so little by him available this is worth hearing. Morgan follows Mitchell with a short but perfectly ok solo. Harold Mabern has a short but rather sweet solo spot. Lee Morgan trades eight's with Billy Higgins before the theme returns ending this tune. In summary, it is my view that not issuing the track "Blues For Mr. Tatum" is no real loss. However, "The Sleepwalker' and "The Chief" are well worth being commercially released.

I have a copy of this session with Kenny Dorham, Charles Davis, Kenny Drew, Grant Green, Wilbur Ware, and Philly Joe Jones. I even have a traycard and booklet that looks very much like an official Blue Note production, though it is doubtful that it was done by Blue Note. Personally, I consider the music to be worthy of release. In fact, I find this session to be as good if not better than some other Blue Note recordings that have been issued.

I was listening to the Jackie McLean tune "Great Rainstreet Blues". It is on the Steeplechase recording called ODE TO SUPER. That tune sounded extremely familiar. I was able to rather quickly identify it as the title tune of the Blue Note recording BLUESNIK. It is not totally shocking to have tunes re-titled. It would be interesting to have a listing of such tunes. It usually happens when composer credit is given to a different person. It happens less frequently when, as in the Mclean case, the composer credit remains the same with both titles.

The question is almost impossible for me to answer. I like so very many of Miles albums. However, my list of favorites would be the things recorded no later than February 1964. A few of Miles albums that I would have on my list that I don't believe have been mentioned are: Bags Groove- Prestige Walkin' - Prestige Miles Davis and The Modern Jazz Giants - Prestige In Person Friday and Saturday Nights At The Black Hawk - Columbia and of those mentioned: Milestones - Columbia Cookin' - Prestige Relaxin' - Prestige Four & More - Columbia Birth Of The Cool - Columbia and many more !!!!!!

I have a very nice Harold Land CD that I don't believe has been mentioned on this thread. CHARLIE SHOEMAKE-HAROLD LAND - STAND-UP GUYS - Chase Music Groupl CMD 8016 Along with Charlie Shoemake on vibes and Harold Land on tenor is some fine piano playing by a rather unknown person named Randy Cannon. Andy Simpkins and Bob Maize split the bass chores, and the drummer is Carl Burnett. If you can find a copy it is certainly recommended.

Dova, Here is list of some of my favorite CDs with Roy Brooks as a sideman. Sonny Red - Out Of The Blue - Blue Note Horace Silver - Horace-scope - Blue Note/ Doin' The Thing - Blue Note/ Silver's Serenade - Blue Note Blue Mitchell - Blues Moods-Riverside/ The Cup Bearers - Riverside/ Step Lightly-Blue Note Junior Cook - Junior's Cookin' - Jazzland Sonny Stitt- POW-Prestige/ Constellation-Muse or 32 Jazz / The Champ- Muse Yusef Lateef - The Golden Flute - Impulse Charles McPherson - McPherson's Mood - Prestige Dexter Gordon - The Jumpin' Blues - Prestige Woody Shaw - Bemsha Swing - Blue Note Chet Baker - Lonely Star - Prestige/ Stairway To The Stars - Prestige/ On A Misty Night - Prestige

I agree with most of what has been said. All of her Big Band recordings are worth having. I very much like her trio session on Evidence - REMEMBERING BUD:CLEOPATRA'S DREAM on Evidence. Another small group recording was issued fairly recently in Japan as follows: TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI - DIG - NIPPON CROWN CRCJ-91105 with: Walt Weiskopf(ts), Conte Candoli(tp), Toshiko(p), Peter Washington(b), Kenny Washington(dr)

I have 3 CDs by Nathan Davis and he is a sideman on some others. To be honest, I have never found his playing to be anything other than mediocre. I enjoy the playing of the sidemen on the Nathan Davis recordings better than I do that of Nathan. There are so very many tenor players I like, that by comparison the playing of Nathan Davis just doesn't do much for me. Of course that is just my personal opinion.

I have to go along with Brownie's pick. Kenny Dorham on the Bohemia albums has to be my personal first choice.

Mel Rhyne, Eddy Louiss, Sam Yahel, Larry Goldings

There have been many more Xanadu LPs reissued on CD than have been mentioned in this thread. I just counted and I have 38 commercially issued CDs of Xanadu material. Some are European and some from Japan as well as those from the USA. Xanadu was always among my favorite labels. There are still quite a few things that have not, to the best of my knowledge, made it to CD.

Very little by Chick during the past 25 years or so has appealed to me. I loved much of his early playing so it has been disappointing to find so few things I have enjoyed by him in recent decades. One story I recall from long ago. I was in NYC for a few days and dropped by the Village Vanguard on Monday night to catch the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orch. A piano player was subbing that evening, and I did not recognize him. He played wonderfully all evening long and really knocked me out. After the first couple of numbers I asked someone sitting close by who he was. The answer was Chick Corea. This was probably somewhere in the late 1960's.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned Buddy Tate !!!!!!!!

My favorite strings album is Dizzy and Stuff Smith on Verve !!!!!

I have had this one since it was first released on LP back many decades ago. Now have it on CD, I have always dug Kenny Drew a lot. His early playing was a terrific blend of bebop (ala Bud Powell), and a more bluesy style (associated with someone like Horace Silver). In his later years his playing on some tunes took on a more rhapsodic, impressionistic style, especially on ballads. I suppose the influence of Bill Evans effected him. But Kenny always was a marvelous blues player. Hubbard and Mobley are great on this album too,

Jim, It seems as if one of your last comments indicates you are agreeing with me. You agreed that when it became commercially viable most musicians switched back to playing straight ahead jazz. That would indicate that they were going back to the music they preferred to play, and that the move to jazz funk was done primarily to pay the bills. I agree that Cannonball was a man of the people, but many of the soulful tunes that became popular during his early days on Riverside were very accessible and reached the people. I remember going to hear Cannonball live in the period when "This Here","Work Song", and "Dat Dere" were new and popular. The place was packed with a highly enthusiastic crowd. The question of what influenced him to move quite a bit further into the jazz funk realm is an interesting one. You make some good points, and I would concede that there may have been a variety of factors involved, but would maintain that the commercial element was a very important one.

One factor in this discussion that has been basically ignored it the time period of the 70's for jazz. That was a period when we saw many jazz musicians getting into the jazz-funk bag. The electric piano and bass were becoming fairly common, and the music itself was aimed in many cases toward a more commercial goal. Straight ahead jazz was not doing as well as it had in the 50's and 60's. It is within this context that Cannonball's music changed in the way we have been discussing. Does it therefore not seem logical to recognize that Cannonball's "new direction" was not something he just happened to decide to do internally, but rather was influenced by what he observed happening around him with other musicians as well as in the larger jazz scene. it is interesting to me to observe that many of the established musicians who played a role in the jazz funk realm eventually left that approach and gave up their electric pianos, etc. and returned to a more straight ahead style of playing.

I believe that to some extent it relates to the style of music you first heard and associated with that musician. I got the sense that in Tom's case, he heard Cannonball playing Jazz-Funk live early in his listening experience. But for many of us who heard Cannonball both live and on records playing the style of music associated with his Savoy, EmArcy, & Riverside periods, the later Jazz-Funk music he played was a big letdown. My first exposure to Cannonball was when I heard his deeply bluesy playing on "Hear Me Talkin" To You " on Savoy in the 50's. Remember Cannonball played a very soulful, funky type of music that resonated with many people on a large percentage of his Riverside recordings, and his EmArcy/Mercury records too. It was when in the 70's that he decided to go with the trend of that time period and go in the direction where he could do better financially that he lost me. As Allen said, he had every right to better himself financially, and it was up to him, certainly not me, to decide the music he chose to play. However, it my choice as to whether I found Cannon's Jazz Funk musically satisfying and the answer was clearly NO. The word monotonous comes to mind. This is a matter of personal taste, but I would pose the following question. If one had to take their five or six favorite Cannonball recordings to the proverbial desert island with them, which ones would they be?

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The influence of a dominant innovative musican can have have either a positive or negative impact on many other established musicians. In my personal opinion, Coltrane had a negative impact on some players I particularly enjoyed - before - they got , to some degree, "on the Trane". The most glaring example to me is with Harold Land. I suspect that many will not agree, but I much preferred Land's playing on his earlier recordings, such as the things he did on Contemporary, before Trane. Art Pepper is another example, though here I find it more of a mixed result. Some of Pepper's later recordings come off well with the emotional impact of the music reaching lofty heights. However, there are others where his lengthy Trane influenced modal playing bores me. I don't care much for most of Cannonball's later recordings. There are a few exceptions on Capitol, but it is his Riverside period with Yusef Lateef as well as the things like "Cannonball Takes Off" and "Things Are Getting Better" that say the most to me. Wynton Kelly was a great fit with Cannonball, and anything they did together turned out to be top quality. For my taste, much of Cannonball's later recordings saw a change toward a more commercially oriented style that I no longer found interesting. The frequent use of electric piano in Cannonball's groups was a symptom of a trend during that period that I found unfortunate.

I had a copy of Stanley Cowell's "Travelin' Man" CD and found it did not compare to a number of other CDs by Cowell. In fact, I thought it was pretty bad, and sold it. In my opinion, there are a number of very good CDs by Stanley Cowell that I would recommend. But "Travelin Man" is by no means one of them.

I had a copy of Stanley Cowell's "Travelin' Man" CD and found it did not compare to a number of other CDs by Cowell. In fact, I thought it was pretty bad, and sold it. In my opinion, there are a number of very good CDs by Stanley Cowell that I would recommend. But "Travelin Man" is by no means one of them.

I have had a copy of this session on CD for about 15 years. Buck Clayton - Olympia Concert 22 Avril 1961 - Vogue VG 651 / 600 160 (French)

I recently was on a long trip to India and decided to get some noise reduction headphones to use with my iPod. I went for the Bose and was very pleased with them. I used them for many many hours on my flights to and from India. They did a fine job of blocking out the sounds of the jet engines. The music sounded very good too, clearly better by far than the plug in the ear phones that come with the iPod.