JSngry

They link directly from the Dragon site: http://www.dragonrecords.se/

For $5 no less! Carpe diem!

Wanna try Sweeden? http://www.swedishmusicshop.com/CDA/CDs.ns...4E?opendocument

The Dragon thing, In Stockholm (1959), is fairly common (or used to be at least) and comes highly recommended. Check it out!

I've got a late-60s edition that a relative gave me for Christmas back in '72 or so. The text is REALLY generic, but the pictures are cool. Not essential, but worth picking up for a good price. As long as you're browsing, keep an eye out for something called The Jazz Scene, an early-70s book by somebody Fox (Charles?), and most importantly, some STUNNING photos by Valerie Wilmer, including one of Johnny Griffin that will make you laugh, one of Don Byas that will make you cry, and enough color pix of Miles' "lost quintet" in full then-contemporary regalia to give you a flashback, regardless of how old you are.

HArd to believe that at the beginning of the decade, Tyner was a cult figure who was scuffling for gigs. Driving a cab and playing w/Ike & Tina Turner. Down Beat interviews were always full of players talking about how McCoy Tyner was a "secret" and stuff like that. Hard to believe, ain't it? But that's how it was. The man's career was in the proverbial lull. The first Milestone, SAHARA, was the big "breakout" album for him. All of a sudden, McCoy tyner had been "rediscovered", and Milestone built up a SERIOUS head of steam for him. Seems like he had an album out every 6 months (or so) all through the 70s. Honestly, at the time, they were coming so fast and furious that I began to get a bit jaded on them after a while. So did the critics - Stanley Crouch (yeah, I know...) derided Tyner as "the pentatonic Oscar Peterson" around '78 or so, and a lot of other reviews took on a kind of "oh, another McCoy record. It's good. So what? NEXT" vibe to them. But that was then, and now I just look back and think "Wow. What a run, what a substantive body of work". Some personal favorites after the initial run of truly earthshattering releases: ECHOES OF A FRIEND - solo tribute to Trane. Intense. THE GREETING - George Adams w/McCoy. 'Nuff said. TOGETHER - Hubbard, Laws, Maupin, Hutcherson, DeJohnette, an All-Star date that lives up to it's potential. Slick AND interesting. PASSION DANCE - live trio w/Ron Carter & Tony Williams. Happenin' stuff. Not crazy about INNER VOICES, FOCAL POINT (although you guys have made me think I should revisit it), & 13TH HOUSE. Not that they're bad, they're just not BAAADDD, at least not for me.

I don't know about the '59 locations, but "Sonnymoon For Two" is from Cafe Montmartre in '68, and was also issued by Moon on SONNY Rollins IN DENMARK 2. The '59 makes a perfect compliment to the Dragon disc and the AIX EN PROVINCE thing on Royal Jazz (a particular favorite of mine). It's Sonny after the CONTEMPORARY LEADERS album (his last "official" pre-hiatus album), literally just before he headed home to chill out and shed. It's fascinating stuff for me - you can often hear the germination of some of the things he's be working on and bringing to the fore in the '60s. Besides, trio Sonny is so often the best Sonny, at least in those days. The Denmark stuff, if you've not yet heard it,, is nothing short of phenominal. Again, Sonny had already recorded his last "official" album before a hiatus (in this instance, EAST BROADWAY RUNDOWN), and was ready to chill out for a while. THIS music catches him seeming to make peace with his bop/hardbop beginnings and his more exploratory '60s bent. He seems to be saying "whatever will be, will be", and just stretches out and PLAYS. 40+ minute versions of "Four" and "Three Little Words" higlight these discs, and when I tell you that those lenghty cuts are nearly all Rollins soloing or trading fours with Heath, I am not exagerrating, as I am not when I tell you that his imagination and inspiration are at their very highest peak. These are major, MAJOR documents, and should be snapped up on sight by anybody who so much as gets even a glimpse of them out of the corner of their eye.

Wedding bands of the world, GET READY!

A-HA! ANOTHER hunch confirmed, this one as to the series where this item might be found! (Sorry to be such a gloating geek, but this cut's been driving me NUTS!)

"While in" Mayberry, I'll call the "deputy". The Andy Griffith show was a popular American TV comedy in the '60s. Andy Griffith plaed the lead, Sherriff Andy Taylor, and Don Knotts played his bumbling Deputy, "Barney" Fife. It's another one of my "cryptic crossword" things. Don't hate me for being a geek, ok? What made me think of him? The age thing, basically. I knew that Wilen was a gifted player at an early age, and the playing here is not out out of character with what little I've heard of him from around this time. A LITTLE more idiomatically "boppish", but not enough to be implausible. Then I looked at AMG for his birthdate, and it fit. I got a scare when I looked up Bernt Rosengren - he was born the same year! Told you I take these things seriously!

Put the call back in - that Jazzland side was recorded in 1960, not 1958. http://www.jazzdisco.org/rv1960-dis/c/#495 The only Wilen I can find from '58 that fits is a session for a soundtrack that's got Bags on PIANO(!!!!), Percy Heath, & Klook. Howeveer, a percussionist is listed in the discogrphy, and I don't hear one on here. Otherwise, it fits my initial impression perfectly (ok, SORTA perfectly ), except that I don't know Wilen's work hardly at all, he's NOT Frank Foster, and who knew that Bags was such a badass pianist? (yeah, I know, SOME of you did ). but other than Wilen's totally authentic bebop phraseology which he didn't learn on 52nd St, it fits the bill of "cats who were there". Assuming that it IS Wilen. And if it's not, hand me a bottle of SOMETHING. I give up!

Oh shoot, cancel the call to the deputy, maybe... I was thinking Barney Wilen.

That's enough! While in Mayberry, I'll call the deputy.

Bring it on! Give the people what you want them to hear!

Probably so, but the irony is that he had just the opposite effect on generations after him. Or at least on many segments of those generations. Go figure.

You mean Sonny Criss playing "Up, Up and Away" isn't the shit? Oh, that's beautiful all right, but a different kind of beauty it is.

"Other" people's music, perhaps? If not necessarily other people's musicians... Remember the time and the place where this music was made. Remember the initial concept. Remember where Criss spent the majority of his career playing when not on the road. Remember that video of Criss, Teddy Edwards, and Sweets. Remember the audience therein. THAT'S what I hear on this album, and hell yeah, liberation rings from every note, and not just musical.

Very basic discography of leader dates only: http://www.joyousshout.com/chencyclo.html Here's a VERY cool Flash e-card about Chico: http://www.joyousshout.com/e-card12-02.html As long as we're talking Chico discography matters, did he make any records with Lena Horne during the time he was with her?

A souvinier from Claudine Longet, no doubt....

I think it was some kind of Satanic hoop that RCA made their artists jump through. Remember Al (He's The King) Hirt?

(but it's hard for me to feel TOO much warmth towards a man who's married to Geri Allen. Jealousy abounds!)

Ray Charles claims to have been a huge Shaw fan in his youth. Says he felt Shaw's soul. And yeah, he makes the Goodman comparison too. What that has to do with anything I don't know, but I think it's a neat piece of trivia. Interesting, also, is that in the next generation, the Goodman/Shaw "debate" lived on in the DeFranco/Scott "debate", and with identical premises. The more things change...