Peter Friedman

Have you heard the new Barry Harris disc in this series? I haven't, but am considering it as well as "Hank and Frank." T.D. Yes, I also own and have heard the new Barry Harris CD on Lineage. It's a good one and labeled Vol. 1, so I hope there is a second volume in the future.

These two CDs were issued fairly recently and are both first rate. P.J. Perry - Time Flies - Justin Time Perry is a major saxophone player who is Canadian. He has been around for many years, but is not at all wellknown. I saw him live once in Toronto playing in a quintet with Jimmy Knepper. The music that evening was definitely memorable. Hank Jones & Frank Wess - Hank and Frank - Lineage A really delightful CD by two living jazz masters with a top level rhythm section. I heartily recommend both of these CDs.

My version is on a JVC XRCD. It has terrific sound. I would surprised if any of the other versions surpass the audio quality on this one.

I share the view that the soprano sax was a fine jazz instrument prior to the bebop period. I like Bechet, Bob Wilbur, Jim Galloway, and some others. Many of the modern soprano sax players get that piercing sound that at times reminds me of bagpies. I do like Lucky Thompson and Zoot Sims on soprano and often enjoy Gary Bartz. However I much prefer lucky and Zoot on tenor and Bartz on alto. Many soprano sax players are doubling on that horn and are really tenor or alto players. In every case I prefer them on their original horn -tenor or alto.

The late Charles Thomas was a legendary bop piano player from Memphis. He was a big influence on James Williams, Donald Brown and Mulgrew Miller. Thomas has three marvelous trio CDs on the French label - Space Time. The Legend Of Charles Thomas (Ray Drummond & Alan Dawson) Charles Thomas Trio - Live In Europe (Essiet Essiet & Ben Riley) Charles Thomas - The Finishing Touch (Ron Carter & Billy Higgins) *************************************************************************************** Dave Glasser is a fine "young" alto player who has been playing with Clark Terry quite frequently. Glasser has two very good CDs out that I greatly enjoy. Dave Glasser - Dreams Anew - Art Inis label (with Kurt Weiss, Barry Harris, Peter Washington, Lewis Nash) Dave Glasser - Begin Again - Chiaroscuro (Tardo Hammer, Lee Hudson, Tony Jefferson)

England had/has some good baritone sax players. The late Ronnie Ross has already been mentioned, but the late Harry Klein was not. Alan Barnes is a very fine baritone sax player, and he also plays most of the other reed instruments too. Both Bud Shank and Jimmy Giuffre were good baritone players, but Giuffre no longer plays at all, and Shank stays totally with the alto sax. My all time favorite baritone sax player is Pepper Adams. I have seen him play some blistering solos with Thad and Mels Band, and also in a variety of small group settings. Gary Smulyan and Scott Robinson are the baritone players I most enjoy who are currently on the scene.

Here are some of my favorites: Hank Mobley - Workout Jackie McLean - Bluesnik Horace Silver - Blowin' The Blues Away Sonny Rollins - Newk's Time

KH1958 it is under Steve Grossman's name as follows. Steve Grossman - In New York - Dreyfus 191 087-2 with McCoy Tyner, Avery Sharpe, Art Taylor

It is my sense that Steve Grossman's playing changed quite a bit after his time with Miles. In his earlier playing he struck me as a serious Coltrane oriented player. I really didn't care much for what I heard from him with Miles or with Elvin either. He seemed to lack a voice of his own. His 7 CDs on Dreyfus with Barry Harris, Cedar Walton,Willy Pickins, McCoy Tyner, Michel Petrucciani, the trio date, and the one with Johnny Griffin and Michael Weiss are another matter altogether. He plays tenor on almost everything and has a bigger sound with a strong Sonny Rollins influence. Based on his playing on these Dreyfus recordings plus some other things I have heard from him post-Miles, I have become a big fan of Grossman's tenor playing.

Nobody mentioned the 3 Charlap trio Criss Cross CDs. I like them better than the Blue Note's and they are as good if not better than the ones on Venus. My favorite Charlap Trio CD is: All Through The Night - Criss Cross 1153

I have # 3 and # 9. They are both enjoyable though not outstanding. There are many many non-Jam Session Steeplechase CDs that I consider clearly superior to these two.

I grew up in Detroit at a time when Yusef was a regular fixture on the local jazz scene. I had the good fortune to see him live countless times. In my view he is a marvelous tenor player that has been never given the respect he deserves as one of the best on that instrument. I very much like all his recordings on Savoy, Prestige, New Jazz, Riverside, Verve, Charlie Parker (now on Collectables), and Impulse. When he moved away from straight ahead jazz into the more new age style I lost interest in his playing.

Long ago (many many decades) when I first developed an interest in jazz I was a big fan of scat singing. Over time that interest strongly faded. There are very few examples of scat singing that I now enjoy hearing. Vocalese is a very different thing. I do very much like a large percentage of Eddie Jefferson's recordings. Yes, there is a novelty aspect to it, but there is nothing wrong with that. Singers such as Louis Jordan and many others performed novelty songs regularly and they were and still are a lot of fun. Does everything have to be deadly serious? Why not have some fun with the music every now and then. Among the many Eddie Jefferson vocalese songs I like are Dexter Digs In, When You're Smiling, Ornithology, Body And Soul, Parker's Mood, So What, and The Birdland Story. It can be fun to play the original instrumental version of the tune (for example, Bean's- Body And Soul), and then to play Eddie Jefferson's vocalese version.

I will be looking forward to the Steve Kuhn Trio CD. Steve has made a number of very fine trio CDs on the Japanese Venus label. There are also some very good trio CDs by Kuhn on Reservoir and Concord.

Back in the mid-50's the Prestige LP titled "Dig" was the first, followed soon after by "Blue Haze". and then "Walkin".

Here are just a few that I would love to see on CD: Charles McPherson - Free Bop - Xanadu (with Lou Levy, Peter Sprague, Monty Budwig) Dolo Coker - Dolo! - Xanadu (with Blue Mitchell, Harold Land, Leroy Vinnegar, Frank Butler) Art Farmer - Live In Tokyo - CTI (Japanese) with Jackie Mclean, Cedar Walton,Sam Jones, Billy Higgins Teddy Edwards - Feelin's - Muse (with Conte Candoli, Dolo Coker, Ray Brown, Frank Butler) Jimmy Knepper In L.A. - Disco Mate (Japanese) with Lew tabackin, Roger kellaway, Monty Budwig, Shelly Manne John Lewis - Lew Tabackin Duo - East World (Japanese) Johnny Griffin - NYC Underground - Galaxy (with Ronnie Mathews, Ray Drummond, Idris Muhammad)

Just was looking through my extensive collection of Coleman Hawkins CDs and noticed four different CDs titled - Bean And The Boys. They each have totally different music and different sidemen. They are on the following labels. Fresh Sound 1013 High Note 7075 Le Jazz 12 Prestige 24124-2

Sam Jones plays cello and is the leader on these two Riverside CDs/LPs Down Home The Soul Society

I bought my first CD player in 1984. There were very few jazz CDs available at the time. Almost all were imports from Japan or Europe. The first 2 jazz CDs I recall buying were: Don Menza & His '80's Big Band - RealTime Oscar Peterson Trio - Tristeza On Piano - MPS I still have both of them.

I prefer "AT EASE" and the reason is the piano player. Ronnell Bright has never been one of my favorites. Tommy Flanagan on the other hand is one of my very favorite jazz piano players. That difference between Bright and Flanagan makes AT EASE the definite winner over RELAXES for me personally. Hawkins plays very well on both sessions.

I am a bit late in reading this thread, but feel the need (or just desire) to throw in my thoughts on the various players that have been discussed. First, I wonder why Al Cohn, one of the three tenor players on the recording THE BROTHERS, was left out of the discussion? Over the long haul, I find Al Cohn to be the most interesting tenor player of the three. Al's sound deepened over time, but he seemed to keep his basic style in tact. His creativity in his solos improved with greater depth in his playing. Any influence from Rollins was minimal at best , and I don't hear any Coltrane influence at all. I especially love his quartet sessions with Barry Harris for Xanadu, though all of his later recordings are very good in my view. Kamuca died way too young. He was a real swinger who never made a poor recording. Leaving aside his alto work on the tribute to Bird album, Richie's sound also deepened over time and his solos took on a heaviness that showed he had been listening to many of the hard boppers. Nonetheless, the Prez influence was still there though slightly modified. I share the view that we NEED CD re-issues of Richie's Concord albums. I am old enough to have heard Bill Perkins early recordings when they were first released, and to have heard him live with the Kenton Orchestra. Perkins playing with Kenton, Woody Herman, Shorty Rogers Big Band and Terry Gibbs Dream Band thrilled me. His small group work as well as his big band roles in the '50's up to about 1964 led me to consider Perkins one of my very favorite living tenor players. Albums such as , On Stage, Tenors Head On, Just Friends, 2 Degrees East with John Lewis, and his sideman work with Lennie Niehaus, Chet Baker, Bud Shank, and others were strong favorites in my collection alongside the Hard Bop albums by Rollins, Horace Silver, Hank Mobley and many others. It was a major disappointment to me when Perkins so dramatically changed his style and sound. As has been mentioned by some, his changes led to playing that was unconvincing. As a desciple of Lester Young, Perkins was in my view a masterful player who combined beautiful sound, fluent ideas and graceful swing. Once he decided to take on Rollins, Trane and perhaps Paul Gonsalves as his inspiration his playing usually sounded clumsy, and dull to these ears. Once in a while he made a recording I could enjoy, but from about 1965 on until his death they were few and far between. I saw Perkins live many times in the last 6 or 7 years of his life and most often found his playing barely tolerable. His tenor playing was to my mind a disaster most of the time and I considered his soprano sax playing just slightly better. I liked him best in his later years on baritone sax. I know that Bill had many fans who thought highly of him, but I was greatly saddened by what I observed as a marvelous player who made (in my opinion) a series a bad musical decisions that resulted in music that I found very unsatisfying. Bob Cooper got mentioned in passing. Bob did stick to doing what he did best. His playing throughout his entire career was terrific. He never achieved the recognition he deserved, and perhaps it was in part because he chose to stay with Prez rather than jump on the Trane or Rollins wagon. But he left us with a highly enjoyable set of recordings over a period of more than 40 years.

In honor of Jackie's birthday I am going to play next his Septet CD - FIRE & LOVE - on Blue Note.

Some other nice Cecil Payne CDs that I don't think were mentioned include: Cecil Payne - Performing Charlie Parker Music - Collectables Cecil Payne - Stop And Listen To ... - Fresh Sound The Cecil Payne Quartet - Casbah - Stash

All the best to Johnny Griffin for speedy recovery. The last time I saw him live was about 10 or 11 years ago at the Vail Jazz Party. He was playing great at that time. I recall one set where Roy Hargrove played with JG. Roy watched Griff carefully throughout the entire set with a look in his eyes that indicated great respect and admiration. Johnny Griffin brought a spirit of enthusiasm and excitement every time I have seen him. One of the Giants of jazz during the past 50 years or so.

I like "The Bill Mays Trio - Summer Sketches".