david weiss

Funny, I don't remember any of those, perhaps they were from after I left school..... I remember Joe Henderson because he hung out out at one of our apartments listening to music after the lecture (Woody Shaw's "In the Beginning" had just come out and he had't heard it yet)..... I also remember Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Flanagan, Michael Brecker, Tom Harrell, Dave Holland and Barry Harris. It was a great series.....

Thanks for coming out Pim, it was a fun day. Eddie is fine. He had a minor health issue and was not allowed to fly for a couple of weeks until it was resolved. He joined the band in Nice a couple of weeks later. Billy Hart had a conflict with his own band performing at the Village Vanguard that week and was unable to join us. Billy Harper, unfortunately, has not been in the band for over a year now. His "management" removed him from the band. Azar Lawrence has been the tenor sax player since the beginning of the year and is a great addition. I thought the subs did a great job!

I was at this clinic. I was going to North Texas at the time. Elvin played a few tunes with the students as well. I wonder why they weren't included. Perhaps there were clearance issues or something. The sax player at the end was John Schroeder. Any excellent sax player. I don't know what happened to him but all we thought he was one of the most promising players at school and destined to great things. Craig Handy, who was also a student at the time, also sat in at some point during this clinic. There were a number of these clinics. Joe Henderson was among one of the more memorable ones.....

The listing is wrong (I forgot to mention that) Same clothes (as the photos I haven’t), same repertoire as the 4/12/81 show. Watch it, see if it rings some bells.....

We used a couple of photos from that show in the booklet. While doing my research, I came across video from that show on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRlg8mg1czA&t=3407s

Evidence owns this material. This is where it was licensed from. We tried to do more research on the original owners of the label to see if the original multi track tapes still existed or if they still had all the live recordings they did (they recorded at at least 4 venues for the Live recording for example) but we got nowhere.

The pride of Denton, Texas. Jim, did you know Sly was born in Denton. I don't know how long he lived there before his family moved to the West Coast though.....

Yes it is and it sounds like the other versions of Taurus Woman on the Garnett album "Black Love" and the Blakey Newport 1969. However, the track in question is not Taurus Woman but it is the same tune as the unknown tune on the Rutgers concert. I like the Rutgers version a little better, they play the tune better as if they've played it a few times by then....

Hold the phone folks. I don't think this is Taurus Woman at least not how I heard it on the Garnett album "Black Love" or the Blakey Newport 1969. Tyrone and Woody were certainly Newark buddies....

How many albums total do you think this is?

I apparently have a bootleg copy of this that I actually purchased a while back. My copy says Tyrone Washington as well. I'd have to listen to this. little more closely to see if I think it's him. I was also intrigued by the unknown tune. It's a nice tune though perhaps a little underdeveloped.

The last recording date is September 1987. That album "A Prayer Before Dawn" was probably not released until 1988 at the earliest yet there are discographies and a listing in discogs that says this was originally released in 1987. There is no copyright date on the original LP. There is also evidence that this was released in 1989. Theresa records was sold to Evidence in the early '90s. They have no records of recording dates or session logs or anything like that. Most of the people associated with Theresa Records are gone. All this to say that a photo from 1988 is not really not that out of place, especially if it's the best cover photo option we had (and I think it's a pretty cool photo) Ironically, the photographer who shot the cover to "A Prayer Before Dawn" told me that the Theresa people had Pharoah tuck in his beard to try to make it appear less prominent. A few years later they probably would have pushed him to make it more prominent for a photo shoot.... So far, our work is finishing up stuff Michael started and will be for a while. There is really not that many moments of this being "out there" music and the last couple of albums on the label were essentially finding different settings to feature his beautiful, pure Coltranesque saxophone sound.

It was taken at Yoshi's in Oakland, CA in June 1988.

I actually played with Denis quite a bit when I first moved back to New York after college. At first, we both played in a band that played in the subway pretty much every day. The leader was a trombone player from Italy who called a slow blues and blasted blues licks as loud as possible for as long as he could and then recharged while I took a solo and then did it again. All day, every day. The guy was hugely popular and drew huge crowds and we made decent money but I can safely say that Denis wasn't loving it. I did some other gigs with him as well. A few years after that, I ran into him on the street (we both lived in the East Village) and he had been thrown out of the house by his wife so I put him up for a while (a couple of months if I remember correctly) until he patched things up with his wife. They did have a young child at the time. Denis was a sweetheart. However, I don't recall him ever talking about playing with Kenny Dorham of anyone of that ilk My Kenny Dorham roots were clearly showing at that point in my life (or so I thought) and he never said anything like I hear all the Kenny Dorham stuff you are trying to play. I played with him etc etc. I did call a mutual friend of ours to see if Denis ever talked to him about it or if he knows anything about his brothers.

There are different situations but if there are royalties involved with the deal, the leader gets the royalties. With live tapes, no one was ever paid so you would have to pay all the band members or their estates to legitimately release the live tape. So technically, Huss Charles or his family is entitled to compensation for his appearance on this record. I'm told that when Denis died, his obituary in the NY Times stated he was survived by his two brothers. That was a while ago though of course....