Hot Ptah

Has anyone attended a show in the present tour of Wayne Henderson and the Jazz Crusaders? I see that Wayne is the only member of the original group in the band, and I wondered what it was like.

I recall reading an article in one of the major jazz magazines of the time about the breakup of a Sam Rivers group which had Barry Altschul on drums. The article alluded to something major and negative that occurred between Rivers and Altschul, without specifying what it was. Whatever it was, the article made it sound like about the worst thing of all time. So I do not know if they would work together now or not.

McCoy Tyner, Joe Ford, Ron Bridgewater, Charles Fambrough, Eric Gravatt, Guilherme Franco.

I wondered if anyone else remembered that! I found September difficult to sit through to the end. I thought that the prominence of the Tatum/Webster recording was by far the best thing about the film.

I agree that the Decca set should come first. After that, here are three that I find very enjoyable to listen to: Well, I cannot figure out how to get the images to become visible. What I am trying to post are the covers from "April in Paris" and "Count Basie Swings and Joe Williams Sings", from the mid-1950s, and "Count Basie and the Kansas City 7", an Impulse album from the early 1960s.

I think that the Horo big band album is one of Sun Ra's very best big band albums, for mainstream and swing songs. The band is more together on the arrangements than on "Sunrise In Different Dimensions" or other albums with bop and swing material. It is worth paying something for--$100? That's for everyone to decide for themselves. I have seen some of the lesser Sun Ra Saturn Records albums go for over $300 on ebay. Now that strikes me as excessive--at that point you are collecting objects rather than seeking out music to hear, in my opinion.

Didn't realize we were in a cross-examination mode. I guess I lost the trial.

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.

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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!