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I shared a table at the Caravan of Dreams with Prime Time (Ornette was around at the club but not sitting with us), watching Paquito D'Rivera. Denardo said they might sit in with Paquito, but it didn't happen.

Happy Birthday. What's MixUp in D.F.? MixUp is a CD store chain in Mexico, similar to Tower (which also still exists in Mexico). Not so unbearably hot, but they are spraying us with pesticides from the sky.

Thanks very much!

Awieama Little John, Nyamenle A Amanle Mea (Ambassador Records, Ghana, 1980). Lonnie Smith, Drives (Blue Note, blue and white Liberty)

Happy birthday!

That is shocking and tragic. I saw her at Smalls once; I stuck around after seeing another band because she had Logan Richardson on alto; her set turned out to be terrific.

If it's on Obey, it's an eighties pressing. SOme LPs on Obey appear to have been original issues, but most bear the catalogue number of the original Decca release, but the Obey trademark. Which have you got? Here's a link to Obey's enormous discography. http://biochem.chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~endo/EAObey.html MG It's this album: 1974 Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey & His Inter-Reformers Band Iwalka Ko Pe (Decca WAPS 218) [A] Iwa Ika Ko Pe / Gbogbo Bi A Ti Nse / Maa Se Niso / Ninu Odun T'awa Yi Edumare Jeki A Lowo Lowo / Ori Mi Ma Jeki Nte Motun Gboro Agba De / Imole De / Ilu Mi Ko Kere / Egba National Anthem / Lai Ku Ekiti / Jinadu Isale Eko / Eyo O It is on Obey and has the designation WAPS 218, so it must be the reissue. The vinyl is in near mint (or close to it) condition. The address below the trademark photo is 7A, Shipeolu Street, Onipanu Palmgrove, Lagos, Nigeria.

Once ran into Marchel Ivery loading groceries into his car in a Kroger parking lot. Pete Fountain pumping gas into his very nice little sports car (don't remember the model) at a convenience store uptown in New Orleans around 1990. I was walking a few blocks to the Jazz Standard to see an Alvin Queen group featuring Melvin Sparks and wondered if the fellow walking in front of me with a guitar case was Melvin Sparks, and he was.

Roy Ayers--Virgo Vibes (Atlantic stereo, blue/green label) Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey and His Inter-Reformers Band (Obey/Decca (West Africa). For some reason, 1970s West African pressings rarely turn up at Half Price Books in Dallas, but this one did.

Steve Kuhn/Gary McFarland--October Suite (Impulse mono, orange and black). Modern Jazz Quartet--Concorde (Prestige, W. 50th)

I have the Ornette/Prime Time CD in that series; also, there's a fine Adams/Pullen concert, post-Dannie Richmond's death.

In the realm of George Adams obscurities, the Mingus Dynasty album, Live at the Village Vanguard, has a little more than 2 minute version of Good Bye Pork Pie Hat that is really beautiful. For Adams and Ulmer, my favorite is Jazzbuhne Berlin, perhaps hard to find these days, a wonderful live concert.

In addition to Mingus, Pullen, Gil Evans, and Hannibal Marvin Peterson, he also made interesting recordings with James Blood Ulmer, and I've long enjoyed his two recordings on Soul Note with Dannie Richmond and Jimmy Knepper.

Stan Getz and Albert Dailey, Poetry (Elektra Musician)

Johnny Hammond Smith, Love Potion #9 (Prestige, blue label mono) Gems of Jazz, volume 1 (Mildred Bailey, Jess Stacy, Meade Lux Lewis, Joe Marsala, Bud Freeman) (Decca ten inch)

The band he led at Smalls where I heard him last year was quite good (Mark Gross on alto and Marvin Sewell on guitar).

Copies are $27 to $83 on amazon.com.

There was probably a meeting of the DFW powers that be: Agenda item 1: A DFW powerbroker businessman has gone off the rails by supporting the non-approved arts (something other than the symphony, opera or museums)--it must be stopped! Agenda item 2: Let's build a really expensive and stupid bridge and a toll road in a flood zone.

I recall that right after the "cult" article ran, I went there to see Philip Walker (a West Coast blues guitarist), and there were only three people in the audience in the club, counting me. The place was definitely run by amateurs spending someone else's money. The only play that I saw, Celestial Navigation, was atrocious. The music (Ornette and Prime Time, except Jamaladeen Tacuma was not there) was fantastic. It looks like there were New York performances. http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?pagewanted=print&res=9906E0DF1138F937A15751C1A962948260 I wish he wouldn't. If Eartha Kitt and William S. Burroughs did an album together, I'd buy it. But I'd probably rather hear Eartha singing Lonely Woman. Two separate LPs.

The photo on the cover of Opening the Caravan of Dreams is a photo of the dome on the roof. James Blood Ulmer on his LP cover is also standing on the roof of the club. The record label didn't last very long, only a couple of years or so. I believe that In All Languages was the last recording issued. The first issue was the Ornette, Opening the Caravan... At some point they issued Prime Design Time Design (an Ornette string quartet), the James Blood Ulmer album (that was his second appearance there--he played first with the Odyssey trio, then returned with that trio plus a bassist (this was the recording)). There were two live and one studio Ronald Shannon Jackson releases; a third live recording later came out on the Knitting Factory label. I recall there being notices of additional Ornette live recordings to be issued (Prime Time and also the symphony performance), but they never materialized. I recall there were a couple of other releases I don't have, Eartha Kitt and a spoken word William Burroughs LP. Only three of the releases came out on CD on the label, In All Languages, and two of the Shannon Jackson's (When Colours Play and Texas). As for the people who ran the club, all I can say is thanks! They never bothered me at all and in fact were rarely present in the club.

The Caravan of Dreams opened in September of 1983 with an appearance by Ornette Coleman and Prime Time. In addition, at about the same time, Ornette performed his Skies of America Symphony in Fort Worth with the Fort Worth Symphony. The Caravan was in Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth. It was a beautiful club, with great sound, built with financial backing by one of members of the Fort Worth Bass family (Ed Bass). On the second floor of the building, there was a small theater, and on the roof, a geodesic dome and bar. Shirley Clarke was there filming the performance of Ornette and Prime Time on the opening weekend. Also, the recording, Opening the Caravan of Dreams was made that weekend and released a couple of years later when the club started its own record label. The club was designed to record live performances. Their sound man denied, however, when I asked him, that they recorded everything played there. I was skeptical of his denial, though. For a couple of years during the mid-1980s, the club did radio broadcasts on the local public radio station. I believe they did record Ornette on subsequent appearances, but no other live recordings of Ornette were ever released. Also, I recall being present for live recordings of David Newman with a very young Roy Hargrove, and for the Charles Moffett Family Jazz Band, also never released. Filming activity was not the norm; it's not true that most performances there were filmed. I recall that an impromptu set of Ornette Coleman with the Charles Moffett Family Jazz Band was filmed, but that was unusual. By the end of 1983, I had already seen there (in addition to Ornette), Jack Dejohnette's Special Edition, the Mingus Dynasty, Phil Woods, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, McCoy Tyner, David Newman (with Elis Marsalis), and James Blood Ulmer. 1984 was amazing, reviewing my notes, I saw there, Jimmy Rogers, Quest, Arthur Blythe, Cedar Walton, Paquito D'Rivera, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Freddie Hubbard, Fenton Robinson, Toshiko Akiyoshi (in a trio), James Blood Ulmer, Ornette Coleman and Prime Time (return appearances) Dewey Redman, Woody Shaw, Oliver Lake, Horace Silver, John Blake, Jack Dejohnette's Special Edition (with David Murray), McCoy Tyner, David Murray Octet (with Juliius Hemphill), Vienna Art Orchestra, Abbey Lincoln, Willie Dixon, Mose Allison, Ornette Coleman and Prime Time (performing music for a play in the theater), Paquito D'Rivera and David Newman. The club continued to book top flight jazz and occasional blues at a high rate through 1987; jazz bookings started to slow down in about 1988 (but they still had Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and Ronald Shannon Jackson and others that year). Jazz continued at a modest pace there through 1992 (Sonny Rollins!). After that, the club remained open and jazz became rare. The last I recall is Cassandra Wilson in 1996. The club closed in 2001.

Brief article discussing the reissue of Ornette: Made in America. Unfortunately, not on DVD. With promotional video. http://www.dfw.com/2012/08/02/660495/ornette-coleman-documentary-restored.html

Ahmad Jamal, Extensions (Argo/Cadet) Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Riverside Viktor)

September 6--Marcus Miller, Granada Theater October 5--Pat Metheny Unity Band, House of Blues February 8, 2013--Houston Person, Univerisity of Texas at Dallas

I have the very next catalog number, 7325, Cookin' Together, Red Holloway with The Jack McDuff Quartet in a gold label pressing.