david weiss

Well, we asked him to speak....I don't expect he'll play Below is a more updated list " To Freddie With Love " The Freddie Hubbard Memorial Please join Freddie's widow Briggie, his son Duane, his musical director and friend David Weiss as well as: Donald Byrd, Cedar Walton, Louis Hayes, Charles Tolliver, Gary Bartz, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, Billy Harper, Joe Chambers, Wallace Roney, Buster Williams, Lenny White, Stanley Crouch, Randy Brecker, Javon Jackson, Christian McBride, Carl Allen, Reggie Workman, Joe Lovano, George Cables, Russell Malone, Jeremy Pelt, Vincent Herring, Larry Ridley, Killer Ray Appleton, Howard Johnson, George Coleman, Jimmy Owens, Pete "LaRoca" Sims, The New Jazz Composers Octet (David Weiss, Myron Walden, Jimmy Greene, Steve Davis, Norbert Stachel, Xavier Davis, Dwayne Burno, and E.J. Strickland) along with many others- the list is getting longer each day... Date: Monday May 4th Time: 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm Place: The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine 1047 Amsterdam Avenue New York, New York 10025 The Cathedral is located at 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, one block east of Broadway. The Jazz Foundation took care of Freddie during his times of illness. A tax deductible donation can be made in his name to the Jazz Foundation of America. Aside from helping to make this possible, you will be saving hundreds of great artists in crisis. 1600 emergency cases a year. Saving jazz and blues... One musician at a time. The family asks that donations be made in Freddie's name to the Jazz Foundation of America: Donations online: www.jazzfoundation.org or make checks payable: Jazz Foundation of America 322 West 48th Street 6th floor New York City 10036 Attn: In honor of Freddie Hubbard Special thanks to St. John the Divine for all they are doing to make this possible.

Well the lie thing..... I don't have a big problem with musicians lying to themselves so much, that self-delusion can be motivating. If they believe they are doing something and continue to work hard fueled by that belief than hey, more power to them. If you want to dress like it's 1948 as well then, I don't know, as long as your happy I guess. The problem to me are the ones who believe their own press without the slightest hint of irony and act accordingly. Ego is a tricky thing but if you are not smart enough to take all the attention with a grain of salt and not let it deter you from whatever path you originally were on then you deserve whatever inevitable downturn in attention you get. Hype giveth and hype taketh away. There are few exceptions but eventually they will stop writing about you unless you continue (or begin) to be interesting. If your star was made by record labels and publicists and you believe the hype and get lazy or stop growing then there won't be much to cushion your fall from grace. One of the ironies of this is that many of the second generation of young lions are just coming into their own now, most of them ten years removed from their last record on a major label. As for the college thing, me and Freddie Hubbard used to have this argument often and it started on during an on air interview at a college radio station. He didn't think going to school to learn jazz was useful or helpful in any way mostly I think because the folks who did this, came out with no personality of their own in his opinion. My argument was that this was perhaps true to a point but if you had the talent and you were going to get it, that you would get it despite the perceived harm studying at a college would do. I think he might be right though at this point though there are exceptions of course. I see a lot of young guys who seem to absorb the language of this music very quickly, some at an amazing rate actually but then as Jim said, they don't ultimately know what to do with it (or even know they are supposed to do something with it). How do you learn to be a bandleader if you've never worked in a band with a true bandleader. Now there are some with a real conception that have a strong enough vision to pull something off but this is rare. If you have enough talent or a look or something to get signed by a record company at a young age and you've never really led a band before but now you have 50- 100 dates a year as a leader and some at major jazz festivals, do you figure something out and grow into the role or do you just get a little better because you have some talent and you are playing more often. Do you develop a group sound because you are able to use the same guys for all these gigs or does your group just sound a little better because you have all these gigs together and can't help but improve a little bit but you have no real great bandleading skills or real group conception so you probably can't soar to the heights that a group with a strong conception and purpose would do with the same amount of work. Does it work anyway because of the press and the hype and because there aren't that many killing acts on the same program to put this to shame. Is that as big of a problem for the public perception of this music as J@LC?

Well, maybe..... I think if you are going to play in an older style (which is just about every style by now) than you should play with the best musicians from that era. That's what I miss about the apprenticeship system and makes me ask this question. If you played with Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams or Horace Silver for a few years than does this make that music your native language even if you came up in another era. I don't see the point of playing music from another era with my peers or subsequent generations (except at jam sessions I guess but that's more about exercise for me) but I do play in a group with Billy Harper, Eddie Henderson, George Cables, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart on a regular basis. If I live and breath this music with these guys (and also working with Freddie Hubbard and Charles Tolliver) is it my native tongue or am I just getting more fluent in a foreign language even if playing with these guys helps me develop my own voice. If I take these lessons and experience and apply them to my bands with my own original conception and my own compositions does it make my work less original because of my experience with these guys? I'm not sure I can convince myself of anything but the point is I think, is to get there, whatever that there is and there are many paths to this, some that might take you off in the wrong direction but again as long as you get there eventually that should be good enough, no?

I feel I can comment on the Dorham part of this a bit.... As a trumpeter, I think if you are going to play in the be-bop/hard-bop element or at least master it's language than Kenny Dorham harmonically is about the most important trumpeter to study. I certainly transcribed him more than anyone else in college. Early Dorham had elements of Gillespie and Navarro and probably Miles but it gets blurry at times as to who is learning from who as except for Gillespie, they all seem to have common traits that can be attributed to any of them though Navarro is probably the strongest influence. Any trumpet player I ever talked to from that era (mostly Tommy Turrentime) were most in awe of Navarro. To me, and I can be wrong about this but Kenny Dorham seemed to come into his own when he was in Max Roach's band with Sonny Rollins. Suddenly you hear him being much more harmonically complex and using tri-tone subs to greater effect and basically turning into the Dorham that you hear for the next ten years or so. It could be a coincidence or timing, perhaps he just got certain things together during this time or perhaps hanging with Rollins opened him up a bit (remember, Dorham started on tenor sax, which might have something to do with his conception as well). I think Dorham's unique tone had developed way before this, certainly by his first records under his own name and when he was with Art Blakey but the harmonic complexity came later and my theory is the Rollins influence might have had a hand in this. Or maybe people just develop at different paces. Almost everyone from that period started out sounding like someone else. I guess it's just a matter of how fast you got away from that and developed your own voice.

sorry, my typo - fixed above. no relation to Strata East, then? Don't know the exact details but it was to be a partnership of sorts. Strata was first and Strata East was to be the East Coast leg of the organization. It never panned out though they kept the Strata-East name. The Detroit folks would know better than me but Cox and company apparently put on a lot of concerts, bringing out all the heavyweights from New York in the late '60s early '70s. I believe Tolliver and Music Inc performed there and that was the start of this. A shame about Kenny. I spoke to him a few times and he was a really sweet and helpful guy. The band of course was incredible but we've talked about this before I believe...... I have the Strata LP of the group, looser and more electric than the Blue Notes....

This is absolutely not true. I just spoke to his wife less than an hour ago upon her return from the hospital (which I do almost every day). He's still alive and kicking. Not much change in his condition at this point.

Go to this page http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...mp;#entry859576 and see how you can donate to a good cause and receive a copy of this CD as a bonus........

Last one I could find.....

Here's another... Lee didn't make this one however and Joe Newman subbed and according to Freddie, kicked ass.

That might explain why Jackson wasn't doing David Weiss' Golden Boy/Blakey Tribute show last weekend in New York then! Enjoy the show, Mike! Actually Jackson did do the Golden Boy thing but had to miss the night you were there to play with Les McCann at the Kennedy Center is Washington DC. Right after our gig he was off to Europe to join Ceder. Not a bad life I think.

Actually this is the personnel from our first CD from 1999 or 2000..... The group on this CD is David Weiss, Xavier Davis, Dwayne Burno, Nasheet Waits, Myron Walden, Jimmy Greene, and Steve Davis. If you are not familiar with Myron Walden and Jimmy Greene, I strongly recommend you check them out on something.

and another... I only have the trumpet ones scanned. I'll get to the others when I have a minute....

and another.....

Here's one.....

Thanks for the kind words Larry. The Cookers is a great experience for me and a lot of fun and quite intense but I do like to have my own stuff checked out as well.

Actually I think this something that was done about a month or so ago in Viersen, Germany. That was fast, it's on dime before the festival has even sent me a copy of the concert. I'm told it's up on youtube as well. Nice gig if I remember correctly but it was the first night of a tour, I always wish they would record or film us a couple of gigs into the tour especially when we are breaking in a new member (Kirk Lightsey was subbing for George Cables who was busy getting a new kidney) but that never seems to be the case.

These were an annual event for a few years and there was an annual trumpet one as well. One of the trumpet concerts came out as a Trip LP in the '70s and it was reissued by Fresh Sound a few years ago. I was asked to listen to it to identify the soloists and write the liner notes and I spoke to Jim Harrison who was one of the producers of these events. He gave me fliers to a lot of the shows (one was used for the cover of the Fresh Sound issue). I have these scanned but I've never been able to figure out how to upload anything here (I'm not good at that sort of thing). If someone can walk me through it or if someone is willing to do it for me (I can e-mail them) I'll be happy to post them or let them be posted.

I seem to recall going through a lot of Cooper's album at one time. The only ones that are still around the house are Rags and Music for Other Occasions so I going to say that those are the two I found to be the best. While on the subject of group members solo projects, I also have a Tim Hodgkinson CD called Each in Our Own Thoughts that is nice.

I was thinking it was on Tzadik and under Frith's name..... Is that possible or is my memory foggy and I'm think of another project altogether....

Bertrand, I'd have to go back and listen to the version on Standards again (which is the last thing I need to do until I finish this engagement) but from what I recall, I liked Pearson's arrangement as well but it was quite different. I think it's in a different key as well. I'll have a listen once this thing is over

No, we are not above criticism, not all at.... If it were the first time I wouldn't have said anything but this isn't the first time.....

I always liked Massacre.... For what I remember Ralph records recorded a trio of records with Frith each featuring a variety of already existing bands like The Muffins, Massacre, Etron Fou Le Loublan and some Swedish bands whose names I can't recall exactly and certainly wouldn't spell correctly. I think they were Gravity, Cheap at Half the Price and Speechless. I still have Speechless and think it was quite good. Never warmed to Gravity or Cheap at Half the Price though. I checked out the thing he did with the Rova Sax Quartet a few years back (during his serious composer phase) and I thought it was nice. I played with Frith and Cutler once when I was in college. It was an interesting experience, I was way to young but they were nice about it. When I was in high school, Frith was living in New York and I would see him playing around town in various configurations quite often. If I remember correctly his girlfriend was a bass player in an all girl rock band (they were pretty good too)

Is this really necessary? You know I'm a fellow board member and you have done this shit before, shouldn't you give a fellow board member a break. I come here to get away from this sort of crap. I don't come here and say Mancini is not Mancini without Mancini when you mention that gig or Getz/Gilberto is not..... You get the idea.... Wouldn't silence be more civilized.

The Blakey tribute also has Charles Fambrough and the great Louis Hayes on drums. The music will be from the record Golden Boy which Bu always said was his favorite record. If you don't know the record, it from 1963 or 64 and features the Jazz Messengers at the time (with Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard) with the addition of James Spaulding, Julius Watkins, Bill Barber (on tuba), and supposedly Pat Patrick on baritone sax (according to Curtis Fuller). The music is all music from the play Golden Boy, which had just opened on Broadway, arranged by Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton and Curtis Fuller. The arrangements (especially Wayne's) are beautiful and I am painstakingly transcribing all this music for this gig. I'm sure this music has never been performed live and I thought it a good thing to present this stuff as, like I said earlier, the writing is really wonderful and I think it should be heard.

I think I went in 1981 or 82, right out of high school..... I remember Frank Lowe, Phillip Wilson, George Lewis, Jimmy Guiffre, Leo Smith, John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, Gary Windo, Pauline Oliveros, Peter Kowald and Jack DeJohnette along with Karl Berger of course. I think Tom Cora was on staff. There were others of course but I can't remember everyone. Great place, old Catskills resort or hotel near Woodstock. It was a great experience. Most helpful, Jimmy Guiffre and George Lewis. Least helpful, Jack DeJohnette who insisted on keeping things way over our heads and was annoyed at our questions.