brownie

Well done! The man deserves his title

I notice that our friend JOEBIALEK who posts here off and on (in Politics exclusively) gets the Annoying tag for his Member Title. First time I've seen this. Anybody else won that title?

Sad news in the 'Seattle Times' today!

Serge Gainsbourg. For anyone not familiar, check this site: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Musee/1489/...ourg/serge.html

JohnJ, if you enjoy 'Paris Moods', you'll like 'Modern Nostalgie' too. It's one of Barney Wilen's best. Also a good opportunity to get acquainted with an excellent French pianist Olivier Hutman who played pretty often with him.

The news finally reached the New York Times. From today's edition:

Fresh news on the Revenant box from the ayler.supanet site with the full content of the box: http://www.ayler.supanet.com/html/what_s_new.html

The J.J. Johnson Quintet 'Dial J.J. 5' (Columbia) the great JJ Quintet with Bobby Jaspar, Tommy Flanagan, Wilbur Little and Elvin Jones!

Mike, I'm spinning that vinyl right now! Great blowing (and drumming) all around. Had not played this in a long time and it took your post to remind me of that session. But the charm of Miriam Klein's voice wears thin. Billie Holiday tributes by female singers are usually a pain for fans of Lady Day. The comparison is a joy killer. Wish they had led Roy, Slide, Dexter and the others do their thing sans vocal! Good to hear that Billy Brooks is still going at it!

Atom, welcome to this Board. And honored that you chose a photo I took of Marion Brown for your avatar. The photo was taken in Paris in 1966. The original was handed to Bernard Stollman of ESP along with some other photos that were used for the front and back covers of Marion Brown's ESP album 'Why Not'. The slide eventually turned up in Italy where it was used for a reissue of the album. Wish I could get the original back. But that's a long story!

Ghost, not really a specialist in post-WWII French politics, just a curious follower. One book I would recommend is the biography of Pierre Mendes-France by French journalist Jean Lacouture. It seems to be still available in the USA. Mendes-France was appointed Premier shortly after the fall of Dien Bien Phu and was very instrumental in arranging a reasonable end to the IndoChina war, something that his predecessors never managed to do. Mendes France was also involved in a number of top decisions that led to the reconstruction of France after WWII. A man of the Left, he also feuded with de Gaulle and broke away from gaullist politics when de Gaulle was brought back to power in 1958.

Billy Brooks was a pretty visible drummer in Europe in the sixties. He is shining on drums on one of Nathan Davis MPS album 'Happy Girl' that was reissued on a Nathan Davis MPS CD 'Two Originals' that reunites 'Happy Girl' and 'The Hip Walk' (this one had Kenny Clarke on drums. Excellent reissue of the two MPS that also featured Woody Shaw and Larry Young on piano on 'Happy Girl' and Carmell Jones on 'Hip Walk'. Billy Brooks was also the drummer of some of the Paris Reunion Band concert dates. He also had a very rare MPS album under his name 'El Babaku' that was recorded in Germany in 1971. Wish MPS would reissue that one! Never heard that Nuria Feliu album that came out on a Spanish label Edigna. That date had also Tete Montoliu on piano in addition to Booker Ervin and Billy Brooks. Another one that should be reissued.

I read Bernard Fall's 'Hell Is a Very Small Place' a long time ago (but well after 'The Grapes of Wrath' ! I remember a very thoroughly researched and gripping book about the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The only book I cared to read about this event. I thought a serious non-French writer would make more sense of this than a French one! I still remember the trauma that accompanied the tragic outcome of that battle which nearly coincided with the end of my early youth. I have journalists friends who covered the Vietnam War and who had very nice things to say about Fall. Also about Michael Herr!

Ubu, paid less than half of that sum for an original LP copy long time ago. The session is out - along with the first Hank Jones Capitol album - on an excellent CD release 'The Talented Touch/Porgy and Bess' on the Okra-Tone label. Great recent Mosaic-like CD reissue with photos by Francis Wolff.

I'll celebrate the Jones Burrell birthdays with a renewed spinning of the Capitol 'Porgy and Bess' Hank Jones session (with Burrell, Milt Hinton and Elvin Jones playing arrangements by the one and only Al Cohn!)

While going thru the Disconforme catalogue, I just noticed that they released a 2CD issue 'Woody Herman Complete Capitol 1948-1950' with all the material that Mosaic assembled on the first 2 CD of the Herman Capitol box except the final two tracks of disc 2 that were from a January 1955 session. That's on their Definitive label. Bet that by 2006, the rest of the Mosaic Herman Capitol box material will be out on Definitive!

Absolutely! Monk made sense. We're the insane ones!

Dmitry, loved your report. Wish I could have gone there! I'm glad to see that I was not the only one to have trouble finding the place. At the time (1994) I attended that bash, I was cruising up and down NJ route 1-9 and was lost as soon as I tried to find another route. A colleague had warned me to not even try to get to route 1-9 because it was 'the most dangerous route in the US'. But with the kind of driving I saw there, I felt right at ease. Just like home in France. Nothing but crazy drivers. My crowd! My problem was getting out of that route (that's the one my friend Tony Soprano drives on in the screen credits, right?) and finding the South Plainfield hotel where the bash was being held. I see that the people aged gracefully. The very nice man with the Zoot Sims collection was at one of the WMFU fairs I attended. I got a couple LPs from him I was not aware that Zoot had played on! No more outside vendors in the parking lot? It added to the pleasure. I remember getting a number of Count Basie Verve originals at very friendly prices and all in mint quality. Plus many more including an original Jimmy Giuffre Capitol LP.

Happy Birthday to a true gentleman of jazz! 86-year old and still going very, very strong. Many happyh returns to Hank Jones!

Christern, thanks for recalling that one. Never heard of it before. Exactly what I'm searching for. Now where can I get a copy of this Armstrong opus just to have a look at it?

Thanks for the recommendation of the John Levy book. This sure looks very interesting BUT it does not really qualify as a beautiful volume: by that I mean a beautifully printed and beautifully illustrated book not nationally published as were the Charlie Parker and Shelly Manne labours of love that I mentioned in my earlier posts. The AEC book that Chuck Nessa mentioned joined that list. Now I'ld like to add another opus: 'A Life In the Golden Age of Jazz: A Biography of Buddy deFranco' by Fabrice Zammarchi and Sylvie Mas, a heavy 384-page volume with splendid illustrations, layout plus text and discography. It should not really qualify since it was published by Parkside Publications, out of Seattle, but I'm sure it got pretty little distribution. And it is a labour of love judging from the copy I just lay my hands on. Great photos (324 of them) including manyI had not seen yet of deFranco with Billie Holiday, Art Blakey, Sonny Clark and others. A beautiful tribute to a great musician!

Everybody just relax. The phone number I listed is not really a business, it is the office of the magazine Jazz Oc. It happens there are jazz festivals going on in southern France right now. The man in charge Jean-Luc Arvieux is away from the office most of the time this week having a good jazz time at one of the festival. He will be back in the office from next Monday on. That's when shipments will be starting on the Wilen. By the way the CD release is volume 1. There will be more. Arvieux cannot say how many at this stage. He added there will be a DVD since many of these Wilen concerts were filmed.

Upon couw's insistence - and help in getting Tusques' number - I have talked to Francois Tusques. He says Wilen was not at the Comedie des Champs-Elysees concert contrary to the information from Tom Lord's discography. Francois Jeanneau was the saxophone player at that concert. As for the Mouloudji LP 'Le Nouveau Jazz', Tusques said that when Mouloudji was still alive the singer had told him that the original tapes were lost. All Tusques has now are copies from the released album. Universal would have the rights to a reissue but under the current record business situation, Tusques does not believe it will be released any time soon.

Ran into Tusques the other day. We exchanged phone numbers. I have his number somewhere (but where?). Will give him a call to find out about his records.

And I missed THAT? Sad - even belated - news! Now why could I not find this when I did a quick google before posting earlier today? Thanks, J.A.W.!