HW!

Even nicer is the fact that Mr Logan is still alive and his fifth album has just been published: http://www.improvising-beings.com/#ib16. Sorry for being out of topic, I would just find it saddening that another re-re-re-re-reissue of ESP stuff overshadows what's happening in the here and now of our heroes' difficult lives...

That is extremely sad. Here's a player that deserved more accolades. Memories of a long phone conversation with him back in 2005... discussing his music and Sonny Simmons' on ESP, quote: "Taking Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things' by the North Face"... "If I play the saxophone half an hour today, I know I'll be there tomorrow". Fascinating character. I gathered his discography here: http://sonnysimmons.org/wilson.htm Nancy, if you read this, my thoughts are with you.

http://www.theolympian.com/2013/03/27/2479348/death-notices-for-march-27.html Barbara Donald passed away on March 27, 2013, aged 70. R.I.P. After she suffered several strokes in the early 1990s, she was removed to a nursing home and was unable to perform anymore.

More info here: http://www.sonnysimmons.org/disco1.htm#2. Basically a demo tape cut by jazz enthusiast Fred Lyman to help out Lasha and Simmons upon their arrival in NYC - a mere hundred copies in a cardboard cover to hand out to radios, producers, promoters... Quickly withdrawn by order of Contemporary records who didn't want a companion record to "The Cry!" in the way. Its legit reissue was discussed by Prince Lasha before he sadly passed away. Fred Lyman did help musicians at the times - he's said to have recorded Ornette and Ayler during Ornette's infamous withdraw from the scene ca. 1963, and Cecil Taylor too... Unheard stuff. Might have sold it to big-time record collectors in the 1980s. Maybe veterans on this forum have more insights about this character and his material. Sweet dreams!

Fausse bonne idée, as we would put that in french. Sunny Murray did one terrible mistake: he let Richard Raux conduct the orchestra (I don't know if Raux arranged the music though). Murray has Odean Pope, one of the most able guys on earth, and he gives the direction to a Richard Raux! - who has no authority whatsoever on the others. I mean, we love these musicians but they have strong personalities. The right conductor would have had to organize things a bit. Raux wasn't clever an organizer enough for that (I'm not speaking of his musical abilities here). I wouldn't like to show Sunny Murray any kind of disrespect but I too felt some of the event was badly flawed. Actually, it seems as if they hadn't choosed between spontaneity - whoever feels it takes his solo - and arranged stuff. Problem, some of the guys (Grachan Moncur, Sonny Simmons, the two brilliant englishmen, even Mateen) stuck to their music sheets and awaited their hypothetical turn - which never arrived - and others were all over the place, special mention to Rasul Siddik. This Raux man didn't seem to know where he was at. And he sabotaged Sonny's solo in a ballad (at the last moment he waved Jamal the signal for a solo and shut Sonny!) and Grachan at some other point. Don't know what happened. Not enough rehearsals? only two days and a half to get this kind of act together - music sheets, learning intricate heads - even if you have 13 of the best jazz musicians on hand, and some of them are true genius, they have their limits. Sometimes the rhythm section, in spite of Bobby Few's brilliant efforts (what a splendid artist!), would collapse, and the whole piece would go on without establishing anything clear. I don't pretend to decipher Murray's moods, but more than once I think he looked plain displeased. He almost interrupted one piece. Anyway, it's a love story between us and these men and the sight of the 13 of them together is never to be forgotten. Plus, they were treated like kings by the production and the city of Dudelange. The public too. How many times have we been offered to enjoy this music in a real concert hall ? Whatever happened musically, I suppose this had to be done, and according to Sonny everybody tried to do it as best as he could - the thing was spiritually right.

According to one of the musicians it was - at least he got paid for it.

The original CD (J.A.S. 02, 1987). It had Sunny Murray, Khan Jamal, Odean Pope, Middy Middleton, Byard Lancaster, Fred Houn, Grachan Moncur, Tyrone Hill, Ted Curson, Brian Brown, Monnette Sudler, Dave Burrell, Tyrone Brown, Romulus. Excellent!

Hello ! I up this thread for there's some interesting news about Juma Sultan, who played the drums with Jimi Hendrix and the bass with Sonny Simmons and then in the Jazz Loft era with about everyone... but who actually isn't Jum(m)a Santos, congas on Bitches Brew (here's Santos' web site: http://www.jumasantos.com/. (If that addresses the thread's first issue.) Juma Sultan, with a grant from Clarkson University, has started his own web site, Juma's Archive. The folks at Clarkson help him preserve hundreds of hours of music (not any second of it has ever appeared on the traders circuit), videos, thousands of pics... A documentation that covers the gap between ESP'Disk and the Wildflowers. Too say the least, it's gonna be important.

'Twas with Olu Dara, Leo Smith, Philip Wilson and Freddie Williams. Not his best, but haven't spinned it in a long time. Talking about oddities, my favorite is the Jerome Cooper double set on Kharma, "Positions 369". Lowe blowing against Kalaparusha, and Cooper doing wild percussions... They all have their solo spots, and there are incredible duets between FL and McIntyre. At the end of 1976 he made a short sojourn in France which provided two fine records on Marge and Palm: The "french" rhythm section consists of Didier Levallet and George Brown, and Butch Morris is on cornet. "Tricks of the Trade", the Marge one, is on CD.

... Wait until you hear it!

Thanks for picking it anyway! (the corect link is now www.sonnysimmons.org/disco.htm, leads you to the up-to-date discography). This track is the best exemple of what Mr Simmons has to give - much more than he is famous for. He could have flirted with fusion (check Bert Wilson' "Palo Colorado Suite") and his aftermath - so, "Tachyon" - and again in the early 00's had a funky quartet. There's a full tape of Sonny Simmons goes rap somewhere...

Anyway, thanks for checking! Another of the deep mysteries of the Parallactic label ... Besides the Bob Brewster film, there's a good french movie, "Together With Sonny Simmons" (dir. François Lunel), due for (european) release in October, dealing with his various french sojourns. He inspired much film-makers, though much is unavailable. The Prince Lasha/Sonny Simmons might be surprising at first sight, for their names are and will be forever associated in history - nevertheless, one can hear from their subsequent careers that they were both from the start of very different breed and mind. Lasha was the spiritual - mystical - kind, the avant-gardist pushing forward (Ornette oblige); Simmons is a rather earthy person, a nostalgic of the magic 40's and 50's, in spite of his habit of burning bridges behind him. During their erratic association (ater all, two years together at their start, then two records in some ten years, and no live hints after 1963) they clashed more often than not. Simmons has always felt his own achievements had been shadowed by Lasha's, a more talkative person who, early on, showed strong dispositions to publicity (the first motive behind "Illuminations!" was: advertizing. The guys come from nowhere, and they're suddenly adopted by 'Trane's rhythm section: what a newspapers story!). On the other hand, Simmons (before his later come-back) was a quasi-mute artist, deeply emotive (sometimes, one is under the impression that half his art and heart remained with Dolphy and Rollins, even to these days) putting emphasis on the music only. He quickly went away from a boisterous Lasha to follow his harsh research of the impossible synthesis between the old and the new, with the help of the even more silent Barbara Donald. Compare their respective versions of "Music Matador" (a composition they both claim: another source of quarrels) : spanish, warm and lyrical on Lasha's "And Now Music" (Daagnim), it's danceable, sounds like a hot and bright afternoon in Mexico; focused, abstract, tense, on Simmons' "Jewels" or "Live at Rive de Gier". It's the perfect illustration of their antagonism. (Newermind, wouldn't it be paradise if they reunited?) "Oh Boy! The Things I could tell you." (Sonny Simmons)

Yes, great stuff, my favorite Simmons documentary film to date, - the one that gives an accurate picture of his real frame of mind (but haven't seen the Bob Brewster "In Modern Times" film yet). The contrast between Simmons and Braxton, as they're shown by Evans, is interesting to witness. Which version of the DVD do you have ? Allegedly, the first ones had bonus audio files that could be accessed from a computer. Never found that version.

What can I say - thank you all for the compliments, really. It's been lots of hard work, and there's more to come in terms of articles ans CDs. All credits for the biographical data to Marc Chaloin (he wrote an important essay for Revenant's Ayler boxset) who's been working with Sonny for 10 years on his autobiography. There'll be tons of unheard stories in that book dealing with the various turns that jazz took on the West Coast - and yes, it states the importance of the Bay Area in the hard-bop > free-jazz transition, and the later period - how the scene tried to survive during the 70's. I'll keep you posted... Thanks again for your interest. Another question for all the Firebirds die-hard fans out there - Simmons and Lasha both attended a recording session with Sonny Rollins about the days of their arrival in NYC. Anybody knows who's in charge of the RCA vaults these days ? Nothing surfaced in the Sonny Rollins boxset, but it really happened. Message in a bottle...

Thanks Ed. Well, I didn't mean to advertize anything when I registered on the forum - I've been reading it for months, and I just saw a discussion starting on Sonny and the Prince, which doesn't happen tht often, but... you're asking, so - Yes, I have been working on a Sonny Simmons sessionography for two years. The discographical information is already online at Sonny's website ("Hello World! The Sonny Simmons homepage"), and the sessionography... will require a few more years, time to sort private tapes, boots, and collect a much difficult to find data on gigs announcement from the past (it's a collective work here, we're a group). Hope it's an enjoyable work to read...

Quick sidenote : there's no discographical ressource, but I gave the information relying on Mr Simmons' own remembrance of the session. 40 years elapsed, but I hope it was accurate. Mr Lasha or a good musician's ear could tell. If anyone gets around the right answer, let me know, it would be useful for Mr Simmons' discography. Ed, thanks for making the distinction between the pre-1962 situation and what followed. From 1954 to 1960 the group functionned intermittently (Simmons stayed in the Bay Area, whereas Lasha was going to and fro, Texas most notably) and was either booked as "Prince Lasha", "Prince Lasha & Huey Simmons", "Huey Simmons". There was a gap in 1960-1962. The association started again in 1962, not long before the recording was planned. According to Simmons, "The Cry!" was technically his date (he gathered the musician), then Lasha joined. The scheduled gigs (the group travelled from the West Coast to NYC via Canada) might have influenced Lester Koenigs' choice of a group name, as the LP was released while they were on tour. Anyway, the gigs from november 1962 to april 1963 were rather billed as the "Sonny Simmons-Prince Lasha 5tet" and the hierarchy established on the cover disappeared. Shortly thereafter, they took part to a batch of famous recordings ("It Is Revealed", sessions with Dolphy, the Bossa Tres and Elvin Jones), but Lasha started his own groups and Simmons dismissed to the West Coast. In 1966 Lasha went back from Europe to the West Coast, while Simmons was back in NYC, and only a short visit from the latter provided "The Firebirds", which is mainly a studio thing (to fulfill the contract with Contemporary!). Not much happened until Simmons' final return to the Bay Area in '69. In 1970-71 they did a few festivals (2 or 3), and some gigs with Hutcherson and the others, but it wasn't much of a working group, as Lasha and Simmons had their own and separate bands. Later on Lasha kept the name for his subsequent projects. Hope that's not out of your subject and that it clarifies the matter.

As far as I know the group was Sonny's (and most of the compositions) and Lasha ended up on the date. "Prince Lasha Quintet feat. Sonny Simmons" might have been more of a marketing trick than a human and musical reality. Not to lessen Lasha's power on this session, that said... It's one of the finest transitionnal record from the period, don't you think ?

The personnel listed is accurate, but here's to add a few details : Sonny is playing alto saxophone on all tracks, Prince Lasha is doubling on flute (no alto parts from him on this record) AND bass clarinet on 'Ghost from the Past'. He doesn't appear on 'Bojangles' and 'Lost Generation'.