kh1958

+1 +2 Me too.

I also quite liked the Gabor Szabo release.

If I recall correctly, Hank Jones plays electric piano on Happenings. This one and Soulful brass are both in the category of Impulse's embarrassing mis-fires.

Looking at the reviews in AMG these seem to be a mixture of lost gems and clunkers. Apart from Mingus, Keith Jarrett and Freddie Hubbard I don't recall that any of the others have ever been generally available before. Are there any lost gems here? The two Chico Hamilton LPs.

If you enjoy the John Handy of the Mingus Jazz Workshop, and his Roulette and Columbia recordings, you will be rather disappointed by Hard Work, which is a typical '70s era commercialization of a jazz artist. Hard Work was a semi-hit for Handy (the title track anyway). I hate that song. Carnaval goes even further along that dire path.

There are also a couple of Art Blakey CDs and a Gil Evans CD on Projazz, recorded live at Sweet Basil.

Monk--Underground (Columbia, two eyes)

Ahmad Jamal, Heat Wave (Cadet)

Gene Krupa Quartet with Charlie Ventura (Verve)

Orrin Evans--Faith in Action (Positone)--Excellent trio session, with half of its songs composed by Bobby Watson.

Thanks, I was lucky enough to get some Mosaics for my birthday, the Ellington 1932-40 set, the Buddy Rich set, and the Sam Rivers Select. And now it's Bird's birthday!

The Bessie Smith Story, Volume 3 (Columbia, six eyes)

Thanks very much!

Happy birthday!

A Recital by Billie Holiday (Verve trumpet label) Count Basie, April in Paris (Verve trumpet label)

Last night, guitarist Butch Bonner with Johnny J Dallas on vocals, at Tuckers Blues. I believe that Butch Bonner is Floyd Bonner, ex-Freddie King bandmember. Very nice guitar player; good band, performing blues and soul at the best club in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Chico Hamilton--Passin' Through (Impulse, red and black)

There's also Lee Morgan's The Procrastinator, which has Wayne, Herbie and Ron Carter, but substitutes Billy Higgins on drums.

cdbaby looks the same as ever to me.

I was familiar with Eric Person and Cary Dinegris because, prior to playing with Chico Hamilton for many years, they were both members of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, and I had seen them at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth. Both are on Shannon Jackson's When Colours Play and Texas. The former live recording was one of the best engagements I heard there, but the club's engineers only performed adequately and didn't quite capture it.

Yes, it was definitely one of their jazz festivals, What is Jazz? perhaps.

I saw him once, at the Knitting Factory in 1999. He was playing drums just as well as ever, and the group featured Eric Person on alto and Cary DeNegris on guitar-- I heard two excellent sets. As I recall, there was a very small crowd present, and it was in the Old Office, a small venue in the Knitting Factory. During the break, I wandered over the main space, which featured Cyrus Chestnut and was packed. Talk about world gone mad.

Here is the DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Live-Montreal-Sonny-Quintet-Rollins/dp/B001QEJR44

So I found a DVD for a few bucks recently, Sonny Rollins Quintet, Live in Montreal 1982. The group has two guitarists, Bobby Broom and Masuo, with Bob Cranshaw on bass guitar and jack DeJohnette on drums. It's rather good, with Sonny in fine fettle, and I like the group as well. It says June of 1982. Appears to be an E.U. bootleg type of DVD.

Teddy Wilson--Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gershwin (Columbia mono, six eyes)