Late

Motivation had its 50th anniversary this year. Maybe for the centennial it will see a digital release.

You are so right. I must have been conflating Dewey Johnson with Bill Dixon! I didn't know that Frank Wright was invited to be on Ascension. Imagine four tenors on that album! I've also thought that Gary Windo might fit the bill, but he was in the UK (I think) and still in his early 20's. True on Dixon. Marshall Allen and John Gilmore together on Ascension would have made it a ... Sun Ra record? (Maybe, kind of.) I think Jackie would've been great on that album. And then maybe sub in Tony Williams. And, why not, get James Spaulding (but forbid him to fall back on his favorite licks). I still think that Barbara Donald would have been an excellent choice for the trumpet line. Would Ornette have agreed to appear on trumpet? Now I need to play Ascension back-to-back with Machine Gun and see what happens.

Al Shorter and Frank Wright are good calls. Were there a trombone section, Roswell Rudd would have added considerably to the session. In my list above, Lasha perhaps should be replaced. Marshall Allen? I also thought about Bill Dixon on trumpet.

For those who missed the Mosaic, this one is highly recommended: Not a bootleg, 2 discs, and good remastered sound.

This is what Simmons fans need to watch:

Freddie Hubbard: trumpet Dewey Johnson: trumpet Marion Brown: alto saxophone John Tchicai: alto saxophone Archie Shepp: tenor saxophone Pharaoh Sanders: tenor saxophone John Coltrane: tenor saxohpone McCoy Tyner: piano Jimmy Garrison: bass Art Davis: bass Elvin Jones: drums This is just for a bit of fun. Let's say you're a cryptodiscographer, and you've heard of, but never actually seen, an alternate, never-before-heard version of Ascension. Same instrumentation, but different personnel. Who would be on it? Feel free to retain certain original personnel—all per one's fancy. Who would you want to hear? Off the top of my head, I'd be interested in hearing this version of Ascension: Barbara Donald: trumpet Don Cherry: trumpet Sonny Simmons: alto saxophone Prince Lasha: alto saxophone John Gilmore: tenor saxophone Gato Barbieri: tenor saxophone John Coltrane: tenor saxophone Don Pullen: piano Gary Peacock: bass Henry Grimes: bass Milford Graves: drums

Just click the YouTube "play" button (you probably already have!) and let it play. Simmons plays well, but Donald plays really, really well. Barbara Donald should have been on Ascension.

Listened to the first half of Escalator yesterday. Brilliant. Going through it again, I was struck by how well-recorded it is, with just a few jarring edits. Gato Barbieri fairly explodes. The "libretto," as far as I understand it, was never intended to make narrative sense. There are some phrases that add on to each other to become coherent sentences, but otherwise Paul Haines' approach seems to be ... dada-esque. I like what Marcello Carlin wrote about it: "No protest, no social commentary. No expression of love, of grief, of hope, of despair. It is literally whatever you want to make of it. It is devoid of every quality which you might assume would qualify it to be the greatest of all records. And yet it is that tabula rasa in its heart, the blank space which may well exist at the very heart of all music, revealing the hard truth that we have to fill in the blanks, we have to interpret what is being played and sung, and our interpretation is the only one which can possibly be valid, as we cannot discern any perspective other than our own." I wonder if Ray Davies or Pete Townsend heard this record at the time. They both created works in a similar vein which were far less complex but received far more exposure. While the Penguin Guide states that Escalator Over The Hill is something "better to have heard than to listen to," I agree (with Mr. Fitzgerald, 17 years ago) that it's a masterpiece. It has an inexhaustible quality about it.

"Did you know that George Barrow is on this album?" "What album?"

Sonny Simmons San Francisco Chronicle article. Simmons' 1991 reunion with Donald, here. Neither had lost their touch.

Agreed, but it (sadly) seems unlikely. It's Barbara Donald's finest hour in my opinion.

Hipsters don't know how to smile.

Same here. Yes.

I believe so. Hermansader created the first two covers, and Reid Miles created the third. I like them all.

As much as I've been enjoying The Three Sounds this summer, this Jamal album is on another level. I think perhaps it's Vernell Fournier that I respond to in particular. The Three Sounds were a trio—a fully functioning unit that responded to each other—and so were Jamal, Israel Crosby, and Vernell Fournier. Phew! What a vibe. (The 2016 Japanese SHM-CD sounds really, really good.) I'm listening right now. Soooo good. I'm sure there are other fans of this album here. For me, it's Jamal's Kind of Blue.

Liebman really shines on that gig. Miles looks like he's looking for something that the band isn't quite giving him. Regardless, that 1973 unit was pretty tight. I do kinda wish that there was a keyboard in the mix, but I understand that Miles was moving away from that instrument during this period. After Liebman left, the emphasis moved solidly to the guitars. Not a bad thing, just what it was.

A favorite box set to play in the warmer months. Paired with a vodka martini and lemon twist.

I always found it interesting that A Night At Birdland got three different covers!

Stockholm, 1973

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that June 26 is also the date that we lost Richie Powell (and Nancy, his wife). Just when I think that Richie Powell is perhaps not a very interesting pianist, he always surprises me with a turn of phrase that I previously didn't pay very close attention to. I wonder how much he and Bud sat at the piano together. Well, I just checked Powell's Wiki entry, and the second sentence claims that Richie received no assistance in his musical development from his older brother. Instead, apparently, Richie was influenced by a New York pianist named Bob Bunyan; he also studied under Mary Lou Williams. I found this Wiki claim interesting: "His relatively heavy touch and use of left-hand fourths influenced fellow pianist McCoy Tyner."