Alexander Hawkins

Thank you! I think AkLaff is an awesome, awesome drummer. I sincerely hope the trio with Pheeroan, Cecil Taylor and Henry Grimes records. p.s. are there playlists for this show anywhere? There's a wonderful guitarist on at the moment whom I can't place, and would love to know who it is!

Here's some footage of maestro playing Impressions

Why don't they have stuff like that in my local Oxfam???

That is going to be some ride. I've had that Mosaic on the radar as well recently, but I need to wait a bit, digest what's on the way and save some pennies before making another large purchase. ... But that box looks very good. I'll be interested to read your thoughts on it. EDIT: Speaking of Mosaic, this one also looks interesting: Small group session from 1958. More high praise for Gonsalves, Clark Terry and Jimmy Hamilton. Anyone familiar with this one? I recently got 'The Cosmic Scene' on vinyl. I absolutely love it. Great instrumentation, with these three plus the trombones. And I love how Ellington used Clark Terry.

FWIW - I caught them the night before that - scribbled some thoughts here.

Evans is making a real wave on the improv scene. Mostly for his absolutely STUPENDOUS chops (pretty unreal, on occasion) - which is almost a shame, because the music's great, and whenever anyone cries 'chops', it somewhat overshadows the important stuff. It's 'stunt trumpet', for sure... He's done a couple of gigs in London, neither of which I made, which everyone has been talking about since - once with Evan Parker, John Russell and John Edwards, and the other time, sitting in with Parker/Guy/Lytton (at which Evan introduced 'the future of the music' - praise indeed!). There's a great solo record of Evans on Evan's label, PSI - worth a listen!

For sure! Muhal is simply awesome on this one.

This is quite a useful site: http://jazzfests.net/dates/ N.B. these festivals often 'hunt in packs' - have hook-ups with agents, so bands can tour them.

Just listening to 'Jurassic Classics' for the first time. Carter I'm slightly lukewarm on. Taborn/Shahid/Tabbal, however, are totally incredible. Taborn is a true MF.

Have to take exception to some of the comments about 'The Piano' here! Where I'm coming from...I personally do not enjoy a lot of Herbie's stuff. I haven't bothered with any of the recent releases. I have to confess, I can really take or leave him with Miles. I enjoy the early BN stuff - e.g. Takin' Off, and his playing on KD's 'Una Mas'; but don't care too much e.g. for Empyrean Isles or the stuff with Shorter...These are just my preferences - wouldn't want to argue about any of it...BUT: I think 'The Piano' is stunning, particularly the standard tunes and the blues. The producer's note suggests that Herbie was inspired by the format (direct-to-disc) - that the challenge of complete performance and having to be 'dead on' from a timing point of view really pushed him to great things. I agree in a sense - I feel that it's a bit like a return to 3-minute tracks - he simply DOESN'T have time to be self indulgent. I sometimes get the feeling with Herbie that because he CAN, he DOES - e.g. you get him with a clever rhythm section who subdivide this-by-that, metric modulations, etc. etc. etc., and he'll get all 'clever' back (at the expense of the music). But obviously solo here, there's no-one to tempt him. There's some very dense, very beautiful voicing, but nothing 'precious'. None of the self-consciously 'hip' stuff which has maybe made some of his playing become a caricature of itself (and which lots of post-Herbie/Jarrett/Corea pianists seem to have bought into...). Nothing 'slick'. He can definitely be heard thinking through things, rather than 'running his stuff'. Plus, the recording quality is phenomenal. Just another perspective - am very very surprised to see this one get such short shrift above!

I believe the Braxton is slated for reissue (as is The Dark Tree, which I'm really excited about as well!): http://www.hathut.com/home.html

Hey Dan, A good way to start might be to find a 'friendly' jam session, and start playing a bit there...Of course, having said that, my mind's gone totally blank and I can't think of any in town (checking out 'Jazz in London' or whatever it's called might be a good start!), but there must be lots!

I saw Cecil with Braxton (William Parker on bass, Oxley on drums), amongst other things. Utterly mindblowing music!

My pops was on a tour in 1966 with the Harry James band and stayed in a hotel in NYC that had a lounge featuring Roy Eldridge. So pops decided to saunter in, have a taste, and relax. Roy was just getting ready to hit with his quartet when he noticed my dad at the bar with his tenor case, ordering a taste from the bartender. Roy yelled over to pops to come on up and play.. So pops got his taste, walked over to the bandstand and got his horn out. While standing there putting his mouthpiece and reed together he noticed a familiar face coming through the door into the lounge and it was none other than Coleman Hawkins! Hawk sat right up in front and growled "Hey man you gonna play?" .. Pops looked up and nodded and asked Roy what he wanted to play.. Roy or "Little Jazz" looks over at Arno with a grin and says "Let's play "Body & Soul".. :rofl:

Just had my first couple of listens to the Abrams solo disc, 'Vision Towards Essence'... A really interesting record! It's very 'hard work'. Abrams seems to have much more of a 'thinking out loud' quality than (say) Cecil Taylor. Whereas Taylor's solo performances seem to unfold with a very obvious compositional logic, I don't get the same impression listening to Abrams (granted that there are quasi-compositional things going on...I'd have to listen more closely, but I think this performance is vaguely palindromic in the order in which it uses certain ideas). But the whole thing is more stream of consciousness than anything else...he finds a certain idea, worries it for a while, then moves on. In some ways, the approach reminds me of 'Mingus Plays Piano'. And whereas Taylor always seems to be presenting a predetermined compositional logic, because Abrams seems to be more introspective, it's in some ways much more challenging listening than Taylor. Abrams seems to be playing to himself as much as playing to the audience, and as a result the contours of the performance aren't necessarily as obvious as they might be in the case of other pianists. Obviously there are dynamic/tempo peaks and troughs, but the whole thing feels quite 'samey' unless you really listen hard! A couple of things. Muhal gets phenomenal sounds from the piano. Really stunning sonorities! I absolutely know what you mean about the piano being in some ways 'super-real' on 'Streaming', Larry. Here, I think it's just very 'real', although I'm surprised it's not a slightly better instrument...the bottom end is really quite thin. I read a couple of things about this performance being totally 'unreferential' to earlier styles, as opposed to e.g. 'Young at Heart'. I don't think this is true - there's an off-kilter boogie thing towards the end; two different stride figurations; etc. Most beautiful IMHO, however, are the sections where Muhal walks a bass, and runs boppy lines against it. Really great!

OK -- that's weird, because as you can see from my previous post, the titles you list above as being played by Getz/Levy/Vinnegar/Levey in Hollywood are in fact from TSS and are played by Getz/Allison/Farmer/Segal in New York (all the members of that rhythm section were New York-based; all the members of the other rhythm section were Hollywood-based). On the other hand, your saying that Levey's ride cymbal is much "crisper" than Segal's is correct, Levey having maybe the crispest ride cymbal ever heard before the dawn of the drum machine. I assume you just made an error in transcription or in cutting and pasting. Otherwise, I'm baffled. Larry - mea culpa! I'll plead tiredness! I'd indeed transcribed the info incorrectly, and it's as you said - 'All the Things...' etc. is by the Allison team, whilst Side A is the Levy section.

There's certainly a comment to that effect on the back of The Dolphin...

Thanks Larry! Don't know what I bought then (can't complain - the music's wonderful, and it cost me 50p in a store clearance ) - the tracks are as follows: Side A - Recorded NY July 12, 1957 - Getz/Allison/Farmer/Segal 1. This Can't Be Love 2. Time After Time 3. Smiles 4. All God's Chillun Got Rhythm Side B - Hollywood August 2 1957 - Getz/Levy/Vinnegar/Levey 1. All the Things You Are 2. To the Ends of the Earth 3. Bye Bye Blues 4. Down Beat Seems to be issued by something called the World Record Club - T467.

Here's my new one, due out on 21st January on Emanem! It has a particularly wonderful poem by a friend by way of liner notes...will post if I can find a copy!

Oops - yes - wasn't clear...the two things I listened to were 1) The Dolphin (Levy/Budwig/Lewis); and 2) TSS - side A Levy/Vinegar/Levey, side B Allison/Farmer/Segal...I'm afraid I know next to nothing about Getz etc. - does that mean that my TSS is a compilation? I think what felt a bit 'clunky' to me about the Allison rhythm section was actually Segal's ride cymbal - much less crisp than Levey on the flip side...although I don't know enough to tell whether that might be the way it was recorded more than anything...

Just spent a couple of hours listening to those two Getz albums I mentioned. The first was 'The Soft Swing' (1957), the second 'The Dolphin' (1981). TSS is interesting - different rhythm sections on each side. Levy, Leroy Vinegar arnd Stan Levey are a MUCH tighter, more compelling unit that Mose Allison/Addison Farmer/Jerry Segal, IMHO. In fact, the Levy 'section' is absolutely wonderful! Echoing Larry above (#16), Levy is really boppy here. Unsurprisingly I guess, given the date, but he's very much more from Al Haig (even Elmo Hope, on a more conservative, 'behaving' outing) than Bill Evans, who I hear a lot more of on the 'All Music' and '...Dolphin' dates. On the latter dates, although there's more of an Evans influence, Levy seems far more oblique (certainly on the Marsh date; again, probably unsurprising given the company and material, I guess!) and certainly more solid rhythmically than Evans.

p.s. picked up a bunch of very very cheap vinyl yesterday, including a 1957 and 1981 Getz sessions on which he features. so looking forward to those!

I don't know too much of his playing, I don't think, but he's absolutely wonderful IMHO on Warne Marsh's 'All Music' on Nessa.

Sounds like the bass is a dub...Piano...hmmm...dunno! Allen Toussaint, to second MG's guess?

In my experience of him in numerous contexts, Ashley is almost always very subtle indeed. Saw him a couple of months ago do a great set with a pianist (I forget who), and he was wonderful. Collecting my thoughts on the Abrams at the moment