Hot Ptah

I do not understand the question. He was playing extended solos in a long instrumental passage which also included a soprano sax solo by Norma Jean Bell and a piano solo by Andre Lewis. The head that they played was "Chunga's Revenge", but they departed from that to a large extent. Was this from a bootleg? No. I was standing about 10 feet from the stage and remember it. In retrospect, that was dumb, as I probably sustained some permanent hearing loss. I have not found a bootleg of this show (Madison, Wisconsin, just before Thanksgiving, 1975).

My guess is that he couldn't. Playing over any kind of changes is an understandable concept, but a bit of a problem for some of us to execute in real time. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. Apart from any recorded evidence, I heard him play some solos live in the fall of 1975 which were structured, very beautiful, and played over the changes. He did not just "always freak out." Like what exactly? I do not understand the question. He was playing extended solos in a long instrumental passage which also included a soprano sax solo by Norma Jean Bell and a piano solo by Andre Lewis. The head that they played was "Chunga's Revenge", but they departed from that to a large extent.

My guess is that he couldn't. Playing over any kind of changes is an understandable concept, but a bit of a problem for some of us to execute in real time. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. Apart from any recorded evidence, I heard him play some solos live in the fall of 1975 which were structured, very beautiful, and played over the changes. He did not just "always freak out."

The film "200 Motels" was playing at the Majestic Theater in Madison, Wisconsin in 1978, an art house theater about a mile from our house at the time. Less than ten minutes before it was going to start, a group of us who were partying together, all Zappa fanatics, decided to see it. We ran as fast as we could, as far as we could, and arrived at the theater very winded, just a few minutes before it started. We slumped down in our seats, covered with sweat and wheezing for breath, and then were stunned at how unwatchable the film was. One of our party shouted out after about an hour, "this is the worst movie ever made!"

Great idea, a larger house with an isolated area in which to listen to music. I had not thought of that. It shows the value of a thread like this.

Oi! I've been saving my collection up so that, now I've retired, I can listen to it! My wife will have the bother of flogging it. It is NOT a job for retirement! MG You have a nice wife! Mine would never let me listen to it, if I was retired and at home with her. I wouldn't have a moment's peace if I tried, so I might as well sell it then.

It seems to me that the best way to do it is by offering individual items in online auctions. You would want to have an image of each album, a friendly format, and a lot of information about each album. You would then have to administer the receipt of payments and the mailing out of items so that everything ran smoothly, quickly and as close to perfect as possible. It would take a lot of time to do it right and maximize your sales prices. It would become a full time job if done on a large scale at once. Retirement years would seem to be the time to do it. So don't worry about not saving enough for retirement--you have your music collection as your capital. You may be too deaf to listen to it at some point anyway.

Dou you know anywhere those are available? I haven't really seen them around! p.s. Michael Ray - nice player I think that ebay is your best bet for the Horo albums. The Horo quartet albums are great, and the Horo big band album contains some of Sun Ra's best swing-style recordings, on Fletcher Henderson songs. I have not been able to find the Horos anywhere except after long waits on ebay, putting them on my watch list there.

I just discovered this thread. I have between 100 and 200 Sun Ra albums, on CD and vinyl. I stopped keeping count somewhere along the line. My favorites are: Supersonic Sounds, Jazz in Silhouette, Cosmos, all three Horo LP sets, Mayan Temples, Solo Piano, St. Louis Blues, and many individual cuts from many albums. I would comment that his Leo albums include some of the lesser recorded material in my opinion. I once read a critic's opinion that the Sun Ra Leo's were more about documentation than anything. Also, I think that anyone who has listened to many Sun Ra albums would have to say that there is a certain amount of recorded stuff that is not up to his best level, especially some of the live stuff. The live concerts were often spectacular to see, but without the visual aspect some of the music is not entirely compelling.

Well, I just disagree with most of you. I think that she is great live. I have seen her three or four times in the past five years and she has blown me away every time. I think that she plays with a lot of abandon and is a very interesting soloist. I am scratching my head at the lukewarm comments here. Maybe I have been lucky to catch her every time on great nights for her.

......

I saw Betty Carter live about 10 times from 1978-90 or so. She was always phenomenal live. Her studio albums never really caught her magic, in my opinion. If you saw her live, her mannerisms made sense, and she connected in a very emotionally direct way. Her mannerisms to me were the improvisations of a great jazz artist--much like John Coltrane's "mannerisms." She is the only jazz artist ever that I traveled to different cities to see, in 1980--I was so blown away by her performance at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit that I drove to Chicago to see her at the Jazz Showcase the next night. (I thought, if Grateful Dead fans do it, why not for Betty?) At the Jazz Showcase she sang an intensely moving love song while staring right into my eyes in the front row. It was incredibly powerful--I was shaken to the core. I have never had that kind of experience with any other artist in any genre of music.

Harold Ashby suffered an attack immediately upon the end of a concert at the Folly Theater, Kansas City. He was hospitalized afterwards and never came out of medical care, dying some period of time later. At the time of his attack, a fan had just come up to the stage and unexpectedly screamed in his face, "what kind of saxophone did Johnny Hodges play?"

One reason this is wrong is that I have seen several of these women in concert, and they are not hot at all. Several are positively matronly.

The crux of the bisquit is the apostrophe.

Hey, he was a key component of the Braves' World Series teams in the late 1950s! A solid #3 starter!

Jazz Crusaders, all six discs on a long car ride for work. Surprisingly good.

Mr. Nessa, This is a wonderful story. It makes me wonder--is there much of anything new coming out now that you enjoy and think highly of? What I mean is, with standards like those, is there anything coming out today that meets those standards? If so, I want to go get it!

Alaadeen has had a long career as outlined on his webpage. In the past 20 years in Kansas City, he has been a welcome fixture in the local scene. He was a key member of the City Lights Orchestra in the mid to late 1980s. This group featured Tim Whitmer on piano, Laverne Barker on bass and David Basse on drums/vocals. They released two albums (the first was praised by Gary Giddins in the Village Voice) and were a leading jazz group in Kansas City. They played a lot of swinging, accessible music, with their own spin on 1930s songs, and also played beautiful, lyrical jazz, more contemporary. Alaadeen has been featured with national jazz artists who have come to play in Kansas City. He has been the featured soloist with Jay McShann on several gigs over the years, playing then in a classic tenor sax swing style. He appears with his own group regularly. He is generally thought of as one of the leading players in Kansas City.

I see your point. My opinion only--Sonny tends to drop fragments of quotes into fevered improvisations in which the sparks are flying and you can hardly keep up with the quotes. When I saw Dexter, the quoted melodies were played more entirely, slowly, during a part of a solo in which not all that much was happening for the moment--the quotes stood out very vividly. Often people would audibly chuckle when Dexter played them. It's a matter of personal taste, but I thought that sometimes Dexter's use of quotes was different from that of many other musicians. Maybe others had different experiences with his playing. I hasten to add that I love his music and that the quotes did not significantly detract from the performances, for me.

I am looking for tapes of radio broadcasts of the Ann Arbor Jazz Festivals in 1978, 1979 and 1980. I had taped them off of the radio but a friend erased the tapes, not understanding what they were. The lineups: 1978: Mary Lou Williams, Max Roach Quartet, Stan Getz, Max Roach/Archie Shepp Duo, Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine, Sun Ra, Marcus Belgrave and the II-V-I Orchestra, Chico Freeman, Hubert Laws, Ellington Orchestra, Mose Allison, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. 1979: Dexter Gordon, Sun Ra, Joseph Jarman/Don Moye Duo, Larry Coryell, Mingus Dynasty, McCoy Tyner 1980: Stephane Grappelli, Oregon, Anthony Braxton, Chico Freeman, Stanley Turrentine, Arthur Blythe, Sarah Vaughan

I saw Dexter several times in 1978--81. He always played quite well, with a great tone. I will say that some of his solos seemed to go on too long at times, and he would seem to "tread water" for a while until inspiration hit again. He would obviously drop quotes from other songs into his solos, not trying to disguise them as some artists do. His band was always very hot. Eddie Gladden swung his butt off every time. One of the most exciting things I have ever seen live was at the 1978 Ann Arbor Jazz Festival. Johnny Griffin played a great set with his quartet, then Dexter played with George Cables, Rufus Reid and Eddie Gladden. Both groups hit a peak of energy and intensity. Then Johnny joined Dexter with Dexter's group. They played a scorching "Blues Up and Down" together which had the audience in the 2,000 seat auditorium screaming and stomping for a long time. It was magic. As the pandemonium finally wound down, Dexter said to the still hysterical crowd, "Thanks........thanks.......LOADS, folks!" I saw Dexter that weekend at a "meet the artist" session at a record store. He was gracious and nice to everyone. A young man came up to him in an agitated state, and talked for quite a long time, a mile a minute, about how he wanted so badly to play jazz but had to play disco music to make ends meet, and how could he break out of that pattern and get to the point where he could just play the real jazz that he loved so much? When he finally finished this rant, Dexter looked at him silently for about a minute, then said in a raspy voice, "keep on swingin'." (That was it, no other advice). I also talked to Dexter one time between sets, when he was playing quite well and speaking eloquently on the bandstand. He was so drunk that all he could manage was a gutteral moan in response to my comments. I wondered how he could function so well on the bandstand. I do not think that his recordings have a noticeable drop off after 1974, as has been suggested by another poster. I think that "Stable Mable" on Steeplechase is one of his best ever, for example. There is very good playing on his Columbia albums too, in my opinion.

Jack DeJohnette--Inflation Blues (ECM, 1983) Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt--Jug and Sonny (Chess)

I have purchased Bennie Maupin's "Jewel in the Lotus" on CD.