Peter Friedman

I am in full agreement. When one considers his longevity as a jazz musician, and the great respect he engendered, it is somewhat strange that he recorded so rarely as a leader.

The tune "Calgary" is on 2 CDs in my collection. Benny Golson - Disques Swing Ray Bryant is listed as composer James Williams Meets The Saxophone Section - DIW It is listed as "traditional" with no composer named. Can anyone clarify this?

Happy Birthday Michael!!! Just finished listening to this one with you on piano - Louis Smith - Bopsmith - Steeplechase. You sounded terrific!!!!!!!

I particularly like these 2 early Mal Waldron Prestige sessions. Mal-1 a quintet date with Idrees Sulieman , Gigi Gryce, Julian Euell & Arthur Edgehill Mal-4 a trio recording with Addison Farmer and Kenny Dennis

There is some very good playing by Zoot Sims on this one.

Though Mulligan himself is not present, this is an interesting CD. The Gerry Mulligan Songbook - Chiaroscuro with Bill Charlap, Ted Rosenthal, Dean Johnson & Ron Vincent

John Norris of Toronto, Canada died today of a stroke. John was the founder and first editor and publisher of CODA Magazine. John was also the owner and founder of Sackville Records. John was one of my closest friends for roughly 40 years. He spent almost his entire adult life in the jazz world in a variety of capacities. I had planned to visit him in Toronto this summer. I will miss him greatly.

The date with Ben Webster is ESSENTIAL, as are the Concert B recordings on Verve/ Mosaic. Some that I don't believe were mentioned in this thread are quartet dates with a piano player. I like these very much. Jeru - CBS (with Tommy Flanagan) Dream A little Dream - Telarc (with Ted Rosenthal) Midas Touch - Concord (with Ted Rosenthal)

Though Frank Wess is a good flute player, I prefer him on tenor. In the latter part of his career, his tenor playing has (in my opinion) gained greater depth. I saw him live in a quartet format a few years ago and his tenor sax playing was excellent. This is a very nice Frank Wess date. Frank Wess Quintet - Surprise! Surprise -Gemini with Joe Cohn, Norman Simmons, Lynn Seaton, Jackie Williams Some other Frank Wess CDs I like include: Frank Wess (Octet) - Trying To make My Blues Turn Green - Concord Jazz Frank Wess - Meets The Paris-Barcelona Swing Connection (11 piece group) - Fresh Sound New Talent Frank Wess - Opus De Blues - Savoy

Stan Getz / Kenny Barron - People Time Disc One

In the period from about 1953-1955 when I began to be interested in jazz my focus was on what was happening right at that time. Illinois Jacquet and Flip Philips on JATP recordings, and also the Stan Getz Quintet with Bob Brookmeyer, and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and Shorty Rogers and His Giants. My next move was into both bop and hard bop so Bird, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, and Miles Davis were in the forefront. It wasn't till a couple of years later that I became interested in the playing of Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Hodges, and Benny Carter,Duke Ellington, etc. It took perhaps another 15 years for me to appreciate the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Hot Sevens and then eventually Eddie Condon, Pee Wee Russell.

"Romantic Love" by David Fathead Newman from his recent CD -. THE BLESSING Newman's tenor solo is pure delight. The solos of Steve Nelson and David Leonhardt are also very fine.

I never cared for "Satan In High Heels. The duos by Mundell with Tete Montoliu are far more to my taste. i need to check out Guitar Moods.

There are so many the list could be extremely long. Here's a few to get you started. Sonny Rollins -on Prestige or Blue Note Clifford Brown Thelonious monk Zoot Sims Stan Getz Sonny Stitt Count Basie Lester Young Horace Silver Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

Los Malos Hombres from the Duke Pearson album "The Right Touch". Very swinging solos by Stanley Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard and Duke Pearson.

Lee got yelled at for not playing a long enough set. A few years ago I was at a Jazz Party and the person who ran the event told a friend of mine he would not be inviting a musician/leader back again. The reason was that he played longer than he was scheduled to play. i realize it was a different situation, but it strikes me as funny that you can get in trouble for playing too short a set and also for playing a bit too long a set.

Just yesterday I watched this one. Bud Shank - Against The Tide : Portrait Of A Legend - Jazzed Media I very much enjoyed it. Bud is interviewed and plays short bits of music with his excellent quartet of Mike Wofford, Bob Magnusson and Joe LaBarbera. A CD is also included that features the complete versions of the tunes that were heard very briefly on the DVD. Other tunes are also included on the CD.

Try to locate this one. Edmond Hall -1937-1944 - Classics Some of the tunes here are also on the Blue Note Jazzmen set.

The bad news keeps coming. But that's the nature of things.

Richard Wyands has a fine trio disc available on Storyville, too (with Lisle Atkinson on bass!), "Then Here and Now": Richard Wyands has a number of other very nice trio CDs available too. Reunited - Criss Cross Half And Half - Criss Cross The Arrival - DIW As Long As There's music - Savant Get Out Of Town - Steeplechase Lady Of The Lavender Mist - Venus

I get the sense that in one respect Jim has it backwards. It is WalMart that is the relatively "new' way to sell things. It replaced the locally owned smaller stores and ruined many smaller ciites and towns mainstreets. This sense that the new innovations and and ways of doing things move our society in a positive direction is highly questionable. SOME new things are very good indeed, but others are destructive and harmful to the society. The point , once again, is that we benefit from a mixture of both.

I am not sure why there has to be an "either/ or" answer. New developments may continue to change the shape of jazz, while at the same time some musicians will prefer to play within styles that were formed in the past. This sort of thing is nothing new. As each new jazz development came into being there have always been many who chose to not pursue the "new" direction. In some respects Jim's argument can lead to identifying a very tiny handful of jazz greats who made a powerful mark on the music and only listening to them. So, Louis, Bean, Rabbit, Pres, Bird, Rollins, Trane, and a dozen others are the legitimate group. Why listen to Stitt is we can hear Bird, why listen to Brew Moore when recordings by Pres are available. I don't buy it. As Bev indicated, each musician brings something of him or her self to the music. There will always be a limited number of MAJOR innovators and performing artists, but there is much musical enjoyment to be had from those not at such a lofty level.

An interesting thread but one factor seems to have been ignored. The age and listening background and experience of the individual making the judgements. I expect I am one of the oldest members here. I developed my initial jazz listening experience in the period when both West Coast jazz and Hard Bop were developing and flourishing. I "bonded" with that music and it became vitally important to me in a variety of ways. I spent some time listening to Ornette, Albert Ayler and a number of other "free jazz" players and soon realized that it was not something that gave me the musical/ emotional pleasure that I got from the above mentioned styles. In fact, I began to find a lot of musical richness in jazz that pre-dated my entry into becoming a serious jazz listener. So the jazz of the 20's, 30's and 40's entered my pleasure dome. A good friend once put it very well when he said that both he and I like our jazz to be based on tunes with chord changes. That was basically the way jazz evolved up to the time when Ornette and others moved things in a different direction. As the original players associated with Hard Bop, West Coast Jazz, Mainstream, etc. have been dying off I find it very rewarding to find there are newer players who have come on the scene who are continuing to play in the styles of jazz that are highly meaningful to me. It is also true that many of these "newer" players learned to play standing next to members of the previous generation. If the musical traditions are passed on so directly that would seem to fit with the way things have been happening throughout so much of the history of jazz. In the final analysis it boils down to personal taste. While some find the playing of someone such as Eric Alexander, and dare I mention Scott Hamilton, to be old fashioned, and tradition bound and not "what's happening" in 2010, I hear their music as refreshing, swinging, and emotionally rich in a sea of rather unmelodic,rather dull uninteresting music that does not speak to me. That "bonding" that took place for me back in the mid to late 1950's when I began collecting records and going to hear live jazz can still remain alive and well for me when I can listen to Grant Stewart, Eric Alexander, Scott Hamilton and many others who are keeping that music I love so much alive.

The 3 CD set with Rene Urtreger / Henri Texier/ Daniel Humair - HUM - is one everyone who likes the playing of Rene Uretreger will want to get. A terrific set from 3 different time periods.

I am in total agreement with Kevin too. Joe Magnarelli , Terell Stafford, Brian Lynch and Jeremy Pelt are also solid Hard Bop Trumpet players I like. One additional name not mentioned in this thread is John Swana from Philadelphia. John Tapscott was right in the bulls-eye when he said the Danny D'Imperio's CD titled "The Outlaw" on Sackville is a killer Hard Bop session.