kh1958

I have the CD--it is a good one.

Yes, on Silveto (preachy self-improvement records with truly awful lyrics).

Dave Brubeck Trio (Alan Dawson and Jack Six), with Gerry Mulligan--Blues Roots. A truly great $3 purchase--a terrific album, with fine sound.

10% was enough to get me to buy 5 CDs. Horace Silver--Tokyo Blues (I only had the LP) A couple of OJCs--Duke Ellington, The Intimate Ellington, and Phil Woods with John Eardley, Pot Pie. A couple of Classics--Mess Mezzrow, 1951-53, and Tiny Grimes, 1951-54.

The Dallas Tower has already commenced its liquidation sale. However, at this point it is a very modest sale--only 10% off of CDs and DVDs.

Dick and Kiz Harp at the 90th Floor.

From Dusty Groove upcoming releases: Charles Mingus -- Charles Mingus In Paris -- The Complete America Recordings . . . CD . . . Late October, 2006

Link to review of 1983 performance: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...753C1A965948260

I know it was performed in September of 1983 in Fort Worth, with the Fort Worth Symphony and Prime Time, in conjunction with the opening of the Caravan of Dreams. There are excerpts of the performance in a Shirley Clarke documentary film, Ornette, Made in America.

Click on the button that says "Centers"--one of the drop down items is Bulletin Boards. It works for me.

They played at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth shortly after it opened, in late 1983. I loved the whole group--Lester Bowie an amazing trumpeter (in white lab coat), Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman (the latter in war paint along with Malachi Favors and Don Moye) a pair of tremendous saxophonists, and an incredible rhythm section. Complete with the most impressive array of percussion instruments one could imagine. A great live experience.

Not as much as "smooth jazz."

She has a new release (recorded in 1991), under Jim Pepper's name--Afro Indian Blues, on Pao. Also with Anthony Cox and Leopoldo Fleming. Very nice one.

Lionel Hampton--Flamenco (RCA)

Definitely get "Roger the Engineer," (aka Over Under Sideways Down). This is essentially their only true studio album (they recorded fairly haphazardly like most second-tier Brit groups). Most reissues include "Happenings" and "Psycho Daisies" with Beck and Page. Be sure to get the edition with the mono and stereo albums. The mono album includes some important overdubs left off the stereo. And the single disc Rhino "Best of" will give you a good survey of the Giorgio Gomelsky period (early stuff through "Shapes of Things"). And the BBC album would make a good companion to those. I have the Rhino collection, Roger the Engineer, the BBC CD, plus Five Live Yardbirds. I don't really like Five Live Yardbirds, but the first three, mostly featuring Jeff Beck, are good ones.

Priests just want to have fun.

Duke Ellington, of course. Best of luck acquiring the complete Ellington!

The '80s/early 90s is when I saw him, and he certainly had not slowed down. He always looked so happy when playing the drums, as well.

There was a small one in Richardson two or three months ago, but I don't know when the next one is.

Some more Ornette quotes. (The writer incorrectly states that his last appearance in Fort Worth was 1983, when in fact he appeared at the Caravan of Dreams several more times over the next few years.) D Sultan of 'Sound'; At 76, Fort Worth native Ornette Coleman releases a bold new CD that's one of the prolific jazz titan's best By CHRIS VAUGHN STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER 1293 words 24 September 2006 The Fort-Worth Star-Telegram Tarrant 5 English Copyright © 2006 The Fort-Worth Star-Telegram. All rights reserved. Of all the lions of jazz in the 1950s and '60s -- a period in which the creativity of American musicians peaked, yet was sadly overshadowed by English mop-tops and tie-dyed peace anthems -- Ornette Coleman is one of the few still living. His lungs must be as pink as ever, as anyone who has seen him in concert in recent years will attest. At age 76, the Fort Worth-born musician is anything but a doddering shell attempting to live up to his considerable legacy. The years have not in the least dimmed his intellectual curiosity, prolific composing or musical adventurousness. "More and more, I realize music is more of an idea than an arrangement," says Coleman by phone from his home in Manhattan. "Most music is an arrangement. In my case, the guys who play with me play it where they hear it, instead of backing me up where I'm going." He has a new record that's proof of his continued daring vision, and though Coleman is long finished shocking critics and sparking fistfights, his music is no less ambitious than it was 40 years ago when he blew up jazz's standard format. Sound Grammar , released this month on his own label of the same name, is Coleman's first record in 10 years and, rather staggeringly, his 56th since 1958. The CD is the result of a musical journey he embarked on three years ago with his son, Denardo Coleman, on drums, and two bassists: Greg Cohen, a jazzman who plucks; and Tony Falanga, a classically trained player who bows. The band deserves much of the credit for Sound Grammar , recorded live in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in October 2005. Coleman had done a fair bit of recording in his studio in New York over the previous three years, but the band really liked the sets they played in Italy and Germany. "We'd done the same repertoire in Italy, and it had gotten stronger," Coleman says. "So when we played in Germany, everybody thought they would like to [release] that one." Coleman has always sounded best at his most stripped-down, as on The Shape of Jazz to Come , the two-volume Live at the Golden Circle in Stockholm and Love Call , a record he did with his old Fort Worth friend Dewey Redman. The richly expressive sound of Coleman's alto horn, so vocal in its phrasing and pitch, and that hint of blues in his sound (you can still hear Fort Worth in him after all these years) have always mixed best with the rhythmic simplicity of a drum set, a bass and not a whole lot more. That's why Sound Grammar is one of his best works in years, a typically complex Coleman idea executed with wondrous simplicity. The second track, Sleep Talking , is the most plaintively beautiful song Coleman has written in a long while. With a sultry beat and Coleman's emotional and repeating melodies, it sounds like a Raymond Chandler story. "The thing I had in mind with the melody was when you're dreaming, do you hear music?" Coleman says. Uncharacteristically, he has reprised a couple of old tunes, including Turnaround from Tomorrow Is the Question! and Song X from the album of the same title, a collaboration with Pat Metheny. Coleman's alto, and, sparingly, his turns on trumpet and violin, obviously carry every song, his distinct phrasing, rapid key changes and unconventional improvisation giving every other musician the melodic hook they need to work off of. Cohen, a gifted bassist, provides Coleman's music its jazz backbone. Drummer Denardo Coleman, who has played with his father since he was a child, is intuitively with his dad's sound, moving in and out of the front with a deft rhythmic touch. These three would make a formidable trio. But it's Falanga who makes the ensemble both musically daring and yet more melodically accessible than his more recent records. He contributes an undercurrent of evocative sound that moves with Ornette Coleman's alto -- and occasionally against it. On Once Only , Coleman's playing is mostly sunshine and upbeat, where Falanga's bass is deepening the piece by darkening it. Coleman, born to a cook and a seamstress on the outskirts of downtown Fort Worth in the early days of the Depression, made his name in the juke joints on the north and south sides in the '40s and early '50s. No one could imitate Charlie Parker note for note better than he could. Jazz was the scene then, and the local leader everyone looked up to was Red Connor. In a matter of a few years, Fort Worth spawned an inordinate number of notables -- Redman, Bobby Simmons, "King" Curtis Ousley, Prince Lasha, Julius Hemphill, Charles Moffett. Ornette Coleman became the biggest, of course, exploding onto the New York scene in the late '50s with his own compositions (almost everyone else still riffed off the standards) and a curious sound that bucked the strict adherence to predictable and melodic chord changes. He writes a melody for each song, then asks the other musicians to play their own melodies, creating a more complex harmonic sound in which no one is the "lead" and no one the "rhythm." He used to call it "harmolodics," but now his preferred term is "sound grammar." It's as much a philosophy as a technique, and only gifted and especially nimble musicians can make their creativity within a song intersect with Coleman's vision. "They can go anywhere they want," he says. "I don't tell them where to go. It's like sound chemistry." As a result, his music has always demanded a listener. It's not for hitting the dance floor or making romance. Neither is it "free jazz" that is utterly atonal and discordant. "Total freedom does not mean playing out of key or playing a note that isn't what you're trying to do with the piece," he says. Several years ago, Coleman was asked to name the best song he ever wrote, and was probably expected to answer Lonely Woman or Congeniality . Instead, he said he hadn't written his favorite piece yet. Those who play with him are forever having to learn new music. "I write music to inspire the guys who play with me," he said. "I feel like I'm cheating the musicians, using their energy to make money, if I don't give them new music. I want them to have their human rights." Coleman rarely comes back to Fort Worth. He hasn't played in his hometown since he opened the now-closed Caravan of Dreams in Sundance Square in 1983. Before that, he hadn't played in Fort Worth since 1966. But his conversations are peppered with memories of a local scene that's long gone (I.M. Terrell High School, Leonards Department Store, the Jim Hotel and the China Doll club), and everyone in New York can tell he's a Texan by the way he emphasizes "Fort," not "Worth." Asked when he would come back and play Cowtown, Coleman answers that he doesn't know anyone to talk to about it anymore. But, he says, "I'd like to play it tomorrow." Chris Vaughn, (817) 390-7547 cvaughn@star-telegram.com

I haven't heard this record, but I did see Charles Moffett performing a number of times with the Moffett Family Jazz Band--really, it was thrilling, a great group. As I recall, he did occasionally sing a song--it was nothing serious, just something he appeared to enjoy. His daughter, Charisse, is a fine vocalist. It was Mondre on trumpet, Charles Jr. on saxophone (I really liked his playing but have heard nothing of him for many years), Charnett on bass, and Coradyl on second drums. Then there would be an honorary Moffett on keyboards. Sometimes a special guest--a set with Ornette! Another time, with Rachella Parks. I really would urge seeking out their two recordings on Venus--Magic of Love is the best of the two.

I listened to this again--I definitely enjoyed the Cairo Jazz Band side on this LP, recorded in Cairo in 1983. Not to mention their vertically striped coats in the black and white photo of the band, which I'm guessing were red and white.

That's a cardboard slip-on cover. The CD insert cover is the same as the LP.

20 minutes?!? i sure don't remember it being anything but a full set which probably would have been 60-90 minutes. i'm fortunate to have heard Mingus in Calif. but even more so to have heard him more times than i can count in NY! Were you at Monterey in 1964 (Mingus played a full set, released as Mingus at Monterey) or 1965 (a truncated set, allegedly provoked because Mingus was following the great performance by John Handy (Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival) and they supposedly left early playing When the Saints Are Marching In)?

I bought one at the Mingus Big Band performance at the Iridium last week.