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I had a copy of this at one time. Unfortunately I can only locate the cover and can't find the dvd. I remember really enjoying some of the memories of those that knew Charlie Christian. I also remember reading some personal reminiscences by Barney Kessel that I enjoyed very much. Anyone else seen this DVD and have any opinions? My vinyl copy of the Minton's session's is this one. It's on a French label called Jazz Legacy. I always thought it had a big full sound, considering the source.

Are there not two George Benson's? One a reed player I believe. Jesse 'Ed' Davis was one of my very favourite guitarists.

George Freeman. Really? He always sounds hyperactive to me. Like he's swatting flies from the fingerboard. Love his playing though. Massively under-documented musician. On record and film. Oh yes. Try his intro to the blues track on the Jimmy McGriff/Lucky Thompson 'Friday the 13th' live album on Groove Merchant, or 'Introducing George Freeman with Charlie Earland sitting in' or practically any ballad. Bob Porter thought he did the best intros of anyone, but he took forever to get going If you look at it right (or one way, anyway), those 'swatting flies' bits ARE the spaces. MG I've got a mint copy of Birth Sign. I better give it another listen (it's still got an original Delmark George Freeman press release in it ). I've also got a badly storage warped Charlie Parker/George Freeman which I love his playing on. And also the Groove Merchant with the naughty picture But I remember Birth Sign as the quintessential one. Actually, I reckon the quintessential ones are 'Rebellion' on Southport, with Vonski on piano all the way through, and 'Frantic diagnosis' on Bamboo (never on CD but Da Barstids often have it on LP), also with Vonski, Charles Earland, Caesar Frazier and others I can't be asked to go upstairs and look up. I'd really like ot see the press notice; can you scan it and put it up? I wonder if there's a thread on George? MG Yeah, I'll scan it and post it. I'm just looking at it now. It's a typed out version of a Dan Morganstern Down Beat article from 6/10/71 (so it says at the bottom of page), but it would be nice to post, as it was presented with the record.

George Freeman. Really? He always sounds hyperactive to me. Like he's swatting flies from the fingerboard. Love his playing though. Massively under-documented musician. On record and film. Oh yes. Try his intro to the blues track on the Jimmy McGriff/Lucky Thompson 'Friday the 13th' live album on Groove Merchant, or 'Introducing George Freeman with Charlie Earland sitting in' or practically any ballad. Bob Porter thought he did the best intros of anyone, but he took forever to get going If you look at it right (or one way, anyway), those 'swatting flies' bits ARE the spaces. MG I've got a mint copy of Birth Sign. I better give it another listen (it's still got an original Delmark George Freeman press release in it ). I've also got a badly storage warped Charlie Parker/George Freeman which I love his playing on. And also the Groove Merchant with the naughty picture But I remember Birth Sign as the quintessential one. I've had Birth Sign since I was about Eighteen. I remember at the time I found this record, one of my 'private school educated Jazz guitar friends' crashing the night in my room. I was always 'over'-keen to play him my latest Jazz Guitar discoveries, so I put on Birth Sign as our record to go to sleep to. Towards the end of the first side he began vigorously complaining about GF's weedy guitar tone. I almost got up and threw him out onto the street for the night

In the British case in the time period you mention, not many. More the case now (but I suspect that's equally true in the USA). Again, and in the time period you mention, most. Lots came up through dance bands, amateur trad/skiffle bands; some played in radio orchestras. By the 60s/70s many were getting their grounding in blues bands (McLaughlin for example) and later still many started in rock. Today's younger performers are far more likely to come up via academic training though that is not always classical and I can't say the classical training is what I hear first and foremost in most players. It does sound different to American jazz, even contemporary American jazz, but that is more due to the different environment and a very conscious effort by many musicians since the 60s (not all) not to sound American. I'd imagine something similar is true of other non-US countries with a strong internal jazz tradition. Personally I'm with Gheorghe in terms of listening history and preferences. But certainly I see what you mean for British Jazz pedigree's. I know Derek Bailey always mentioned his beginnings in the dance bands of the era. So not classically trained, but still a long way formally from the American roots. The Trad thing is interesting, Britain and Australia both shared this movement. As I understand it, the Cavern was a Trad Jazz club originally. And then I believe, there was also the strong Calypso influence as well. The Trad thing though, was very tied to the Louis Armstrong (etc) records as the blueprint was it not? In Australia it was inexplicably linked to 'Modernism' throughout the 30s -50's, and in the 60's became almost a 'mainstream pop music' at certain points. However, I still hear the Ronnie Scott scene as connected to the 'classic Blue Note/50s-60s Jazz aesthetic. So perhaps those things mark British Jazz of the time as a working class music? Now for France, and especially the Eastern Block countries, and Scandanavia in the era before Jazz Studies Courses, I'd really only accept evidence based arguments that (as a rule) Classical music was not the 'Lingua Franca' jumping off point for Jazz. Here is an excerpt from an article on NHOP, He studied classical music as a foundation, but jazz was in the air, and all through the Pedersen house. “Since I’m the youngest, all I know of music goes back as far as I can remember. Since my older brothers played Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and God knows what, when they said, ‘Play the bass,’ I thought it was very interesting, intriguing. One of my so-called heroes was Walter Page. To me, that was one of the greatest rhythm sections ever.” My link And here is another excerpt from a Karl Berger interview, TP: How did vibraphone become your instrument of choice? KB: That’s also very accidental. I am a classical piano player, and as I was playing in a little club in Heidelberg called the Car-54, which was frequented by a lot of American players from the Air Force and Army bases around there… That’s where I met Carlos Ward, Cedar Walton, Lex Humphries, Don Ellis, and all these people. The piano was always in bad shape and out of tune, and there was a vibraphone player who came in sometimes, but then he left his instrument there. So I basically started playing it because the piano was so bad! The other reason was I could get up and move around. Because music makes me think of dancing always—and there I could do that, I could move around. But purposely, I never took a lesson on the vibraphone. So it’s my toy. Like, I played a vibraphone probably, because of that, like nobody else, just because I never learned how to play it classically. So piano is really the instrument I know everything about. Vibraphone I only use for my own compositional and improvisational purpose. My link Also with regard to the 'wide-world' of Jazz. Why do so many non-American Contemporary Jazz trained players decamp to New York for as long as they can sustain it?

George Freeman. Really? He always sounds hyperactive to me. Like he's swatting flies from the fingerboard. Love his playing though. Massively under-documented musician. On record and film.

I've found it very difficult to warm to Defrancesco, and I've tried. I have listened to him a lot, and he appears on what for me are seminal guitar/organ recordings, those being John McLaughlin's “After the Rain” and Pat Martino's Live at Yoshi's. There's just something to distancing about his playing. It's like it's all there - but there's nothing there. I feel the same way about Jimmy Smith most of the time too. It's hard to connect to the heart of what they play. I never feel this way about Young, Patterson, Patton, Kynard, Willette, McDuff or virtually any of the other greats.

Love the second photo. Kenny playing the very useful E#9 chord Great photo. Two survivors and two sides of the Blues. Wonder what they're about to play?

Norman Gunston Sally Struthers Scatman" Crothers

Yes for Herbie, on a personal level, the French Classical tradition was an influence, but overall, that influence is affecting his personal sensibility, and not a whole tradition he was otherwise a part of. I know at the time, many players who had formal lessons would have started with learning materials associated with Classical music, but how far can, and should, these arguments go. I mean was Bird's interest in Stravinsky of equal weight to the Blues. Was the Slominsky scale book a game changer for the music? Classical music is there tangentially in Jazz, but it would have been omnipresent in the lives of most of the European players. I think Jazz, for many of the European pioneers, would have been a rebellious choice of expression, and they would have approached their Jazz from a foundation in European Classical harmony, whereas for the overwhelming majority of Black Jazz musicians, no such choice would have existed, either culturally or socio-economically. Also, I wonder as well, how many White US jazz musicians were formatively versed in Classical harmony - before they began to learn the Jazz language.

Casanova Casagemas Cassandra

Was he on this one? And did we find out if he was a 'natural' redhead?

You guys should read the article before posting comments. Nobody "entrusted" or "paid" the woman, she did it on her own without permission and without other people's knowledge. Yeah, but if there was proper funding to look after the cultural heritage of the area, it would have been attended to professionally before she got a chance to show off her handiwork. To be fair though, there is such an embarrassment of riches in the sacred art department over that way, that people just take it for granted - unless it's work by one of the Masters. That's how come she got to do it all, because it wasn't deemed an important enough work for anyone to notice. Except for the 'world media' - who are always looking for some kind of innocuous distraction to get the WTTF factor happening. Wouldn't surprise me if the whole story was total BS anyway.

If you pay peanuts you get monkey's.

No, he's cleaned up.

How many of these European Jazz players, especially the ones of the 50s, 60's and 70's were academically classically trained (just like Herbie), and how many learnt their skills in community or on the bandstand? I think the European-ess of many European players from the earlier era comes from just that. An immersion and social-indoctrination in Classical music language and touch. From Bach to Satie to whatever. African-American musicians on the other hand, seemed to use the Army as a place to learn musical competency before being able to make a living on the road. And if Hancock (as he obviously was), is saying that all non-American based Jazz is simply Provincial, then I would agree with him. But it seems that time has passed - and now 'The Region' - is the whole world. No wonder the sense of urgency and need to reclaim Black American Music by the BAM movement. And the support it received from Black Musicians to ditch the Jazz word.

Bill Oddie Bloody Nora Nora Ephron

An interesting comparison is Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin. One a 'native son' another a 'British Blues Boom' progeny. Both in the shadow of Hendrix, both dealing with rock and modal jazz. McLaughlin never sounded like an American guitarist to me, while Coryell always does. I believe Coryell always had an earthier blues accent to his music. McLaughlin always seemed to me, to have a 'European sensibility' in his playing (even something like My Goals Beyond). McLaughlin's music became even more European accented as well, and Coryell ended up digging deeper into the Black music traditions. I am biased towards Jazz as an 'American thing'. So my favourite post Miles-McLaughlin was the Larry Young/Coltrane album he did with Elvin Jones and Joey Defrancesco. With Coryell, I tend to like everything, at least on some level.

Having heard that, I believe there must be a Billy Bang door out there. I will remain vigilant.

Maybe more aimed at the likes of Braxton and Vandermark? Not sure. It would be interesting if Braxton was in mind. But I just can't see anyone involved in free/improv music not seeing Braxton as an 'untouchable' of sorts, and a pioneer and fellow traveller for the Brotzmann generation. Although I'm not well versed in the aesthetic politics that would be behind these liner notes, I suspect Braxton has done it harder than any European musician.

Here's another little monster. He's found the pocket Judy Garland couldn't in that Count Basie clip

I saw Bonnie Raitt strolling through the streets of Melbourne late at night a few years ago with some of her band. Damn sexy woman she was too. And she was no spring chicken at the time either. But I guess the OP means strange sightings like the fact that Ornette Coleman supposedly guested on a French folk singers album. I can't find any more information though.

If I'm listening to vinyl, hopefully nothing, as my turntable doesn't have an automatic return function. If I'm listening to cd, I use the repeat function and hope to turn a short nap into a good nights sleep. Wes Montgomery's Goin Out Of My Head (absolutely gorgeous, lush recording) or California Dreaming are favourites.