brownie

The Monterey Concert is typical Mingus. A bit disorganised, often passionate and always exciting. Which is why he is loved by so many jazz fans. The Monterey concert was one of Mingus' best. This was part of the albums Charles Mingus issued on his own Mingus label. I have enjoyed those albums since they came out. You're in for a treat!

Thought this had been mentioned somewhere else on this Board. If not, you did it right, Chaney. Ayler Records is one of the two or three most stimulating labels around. I'm trying to keep track on their releases. They're really very good...

Bertrand, did get your e-mail. You should have my reply with details.

Claude, what's your audio source for that Antwerp concert? I have the J-Bop 042 'Masqualero' version from Jazz Birdies of Paradise and the sound stinks. But the concert really smokes. That Miles-Shorter-Hancock band was incredible! I was at the Paris Salle Pleyel concert one week after the Antwerp concert and this was the best Miles concert I ever heard. The Paris concert is out on JMY as 'No Blues' and the sound on that CD is much better than the J-Bop.

Connaisseur, the grin was worth it. Excellent idea to push the song into the Organissimo band's repertoire! Will be looking for their interpretation

King Pleasure is usually regarded as the first one with his interpretation of 'Moody's Mood for Love' which was recorded for Prestige in February 1952. Annie Ross' 'Twisted' came shortly after. This was recorded in October 1952, for Prestige too!

One Prestige Groove Holmes session I regularly enjoy is the 'Get Up & Get It' album (not sure it's out on CD). That's the one with Teddy Edwards on tenor, Pat Martino on guitar plus Paul Chambers and Billy Higgins. Could not miss. It did not! The version of Teddy Edwards 'Lee-Ann', a very nice groovy ballad, is worth the admission.

The 'Three Little Words' trio album on Black and Blue is a delightful date which you should be able to get without problems. Wilson has Milt Hinton and Oliver Jackson along.

Dan, that's just part of the tradition of sales. They don't really sell more than a few hundreds of CDs that way. You've probably seen those footage of Londoners crowding the sales at Harrod's to get loads of precious china for peanuts. They do that at every sales. Keep the customers happy. No problem with that. I'm happy

Thanks for the reply. Will have to consider if I can have the damn thing unsealed. FYI am not really a latebloomer on Brotzmann. Heard him at what was probably one of his first concert appearances at the jazz festival in Comblain, Belgium, in the glorious summer of 1966. Brotzmann showed up on stage with Peter Kowald on bass and Han Bennink on drums. Amazing trio. Unfortunately my attention on Brotzmann got sidetracked by other interests and activities. Catching up on him nowadays.

Bertrand, the sales last for about one month but as far as jazz records are concerned this will be over in a couple of days at Virgin. The FNAC stores should have some sales within the next few days but I don't expect they will have any real goodies on sales. Just several albums. FNAC had several jazz CDs on sale at 8.99 euros but nothing exceptional. Not to worry, I'll give you several adresses of stores which have interesting items on sale all year round (but not Japanese CDs at today's Virgin prices). Dan, this was a real sales. Much better than on previous years. Virgin probably got rid of an overstock of Japanese CDs which must have been gathering dust in their backrooms after most customers kept away from paying the 'regular' prices.

Today was the first day of sales in Paris stores. Somebody mentioned a visit to the Virgin store on the Champs-Elysees avenue might be worth it. Not my favorite place to buy jazz albums but I was there when the store opened. Boy, it was really worth it and I must say I overspent. But Virgin really meant sales this time. Here is what I got: - Sun Ra ' Holiday for Soul Dance, the recent Saturn reissue LP, - Jacques Coursil 'Way Ahead', the Actuel reissue LP, - Alan Silva 'Skillfullness', the ESP reissue LP. All the LPs were priced at 2.90 euros (3 bucks) and they all disappeared in minutes. One guy was showing off his hauls of other Actuel reissues plus Hank Mobley's '2nd Message' and Larry Young 'Groove Street' LP reissues! All sealed. They also had lots of Japanese CDs on sale. Got the following (all at 9 euros instead of the regular 39 euros prices): - Charlie Mariano 'Portrait of France', - Cedar Walton Trio 'At Good Day Club', - Roland Hanna/George Mraz 'Romanesque', - Roland Hanna Plays Alec Wilder (they had half a dozen different Hanna albums), - John Young 'Young John Young' and some non-Japanese discs at 6 euros each: - George Shearing/Cannonball Adderley at Newport, - Steve Lacy/Evan Parker 'Chirps', - Steve Lacy 'Packet', - Evan Parker 'The Two Seasons' (the 2CD Emanem issue at 6 euros!) - Tiny Grimes/Jerome Richardson 'Tiny in Swingsville', - BB King 'The Modern Recordings 1950-51' (the double CD from Ace). Now I'll need time to listen to all that stuff and to fill the hole in my pocketbook but who's complaining?

What's the word on the Peter Brotzmann catalogue and CD 'The Inexplicable Flyswatter' from his Chicago School Art Institute exhibition? Have a sealed copy of it on hold and just want to make sure this is a Must Have acquisition. Any opinions?

Habib Bourguiba was the Tunisian leader. 'Le Combattant Supreme', the Supreme Warrior as he was referred to. Tunisia served as groundbase for the Algerian Liberation Army during the Algerian War. At the end of the War in July 1962, that army led by Houari Boumedienne moved to Algeria. And Boumedienne took over power in 1965. And the sad truth about Algeria is that the army is still in power there. And horror story keep coming out of the country although things seem to have cooled down there in the past few months. Bourguiba died in 2000 after having been evicted by current Tunisian President Ben Ali.

Is this the one with Sonny Rollins? That's a 1956 concert at Music Inn with Jimmy Giuffre present on most tracks. He pairs with PeeWee Russell, Rex Stewart and Teddy Charles. Those sides were in the Giuffre Mosaic box. There's also a track with Herbie Mann on flute. No Giuffre. And no CD yet, or so it seems. Atlantic released two more albums from Music Inn concert. Both were by the Modern Jazz Quartet with Jimmy Giuffre as guest on one, Sonny Rollins on the second.

Always liked Freddie King but nowadays when I want to hear this music I turn to Elmore James. Elmore kills me!

Norman Granz would have known. Where is the great biography on that quite impressive personality?

The slogan was 'Algerie francaise, Algerie francaise'. Even de Gaulle pronounced it at least once when he travelled to Algeria after his return to power in 1958. Pierre Mendes-France indeed turned against that war but was more vocal about it once he was not in power. That war is still a mighty thorn under French feet.

The Atlantic1331 Newport Festival album has a photo showing a daylight Newport festival scene from the audience. Lineup includes the usual George Wein suspects: Buck Clayton, Vic Dickenson, PeeWee Russell, Bud Freeman, Wein, Champ Jones, Jake Hanna. A nice session that was recorded at Wein's Storyville club, not at Newport

Jim, the liner notes to this album were written by Dorothy Dandridge's biographer Donald Bogle. He does not go specifically on the reasons why the album was not released. He states that her movie career and her personal life at that time were in a bit of a mess. He writes: 'During this time, she also went into the recording studio to do an album for Norman Granz with an augmented Oscar Peterson Trio. Oddly enough, except for her early recordings with Lunceford and some material with Louis Armstrong for the film 'Pillow to Post' she had seldom recorded. But now faced with professional and personal tensions, she was restless, anxious and all the more insecure.' 'The album was never released. But the signs were noneless there that, had she not despised nightclub work so much, she might have developed into a major stylist.' I like Dandrige's singing but the album seems to be built on slow moody songs with not much to relieve the depressing succession of slow ballads. Her singing is sometime a bit too much tentative. I loved her acting in 'Carmen Jones'. Always imagined that Clifford Brown must have been around during the shooting of that scene where his then coleader Max Roach beat out those rhythm on drums. Every time I watch the movie, I try to find out if he is not somewhere in a corner

I'm a great fan of Terry Gibbs, the vibraphone player. Not sure there is a crowd around here. Don't like everything he does but when he is good and that happens quite often he can be thrilling. But about his big band, I'm a huge fan. That band had fire, great arrangements (Bill Holman, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn, Manny Albams, Lennie Niehaus are some of the names that come to mind) and superb soloists. They produced a lot of remarkable albums. You can pick any of the big bands albums that have appeared on Contemporary. You won't be disappointed. I rank that Terry Gibbs band right next to the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band (and that one goes very high in my book) and right above the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra. The Gibbs band swung hard. The arrangements left lot of space for solos. And solo duties were performed by people like Conte Candoli, Frank Rosolino, Joe Maini, Bill Perkins, Richie Kamuca. A typical rhythm section was Lou Levy, Buddy Clark and Mel Lewis. But you could also have Pete Jolly, Max Bennett and the everpresent Mel Lewis in pre Jones-Lewis times. When you hear that band, you can feeel the enthusiasm and the fun these people had performing together. One of the very best of the big bands.

At the end of the war (1962) I saw WWI Lebel rifles - the very long one with those narrow bayonette sticking just above the gunmouth - being distributed to non-fighting soldiers. They were ashamed of being seen with those! I went to Algeria right at the beginning of 1961. Ended my military career walking the streets near the Casbah to make sure the fascists OAS fighters would not kill too many natives. My moment of glory during the war was when I and another soldier were assigned to arrest a French Army Colonel whose regiment had joined the anti-de Gaulle uprising in Algiers in April 1961. The colonel who knew he had taken the wrong route took this in a pretty dignified way. Strange moment! Strange war! On the eve of my departure from Algiers harbour there was a goddamned awful explosion (from an OAS bomb) in the harbour at the early morning when the arab workers would gather in the hope of getting work at the docks. There were some 70 dead. I left the country the following morning. There still was blood and bits of flesh all around.

Ubu, the soloists are indeed all right, and some more than that on the Riverside session (the only Levitt album I am really familiar with) but none seems really able tolift the band above an OK level. No solo really lifts you off like on those George Russell or Gerry Mulligan records.

The Webster, Gordon albums from the Montmartre first appeared on the Black Lion label. I think the first albums that Debut Denmark released came from the Mingus-Roach Debut label. There were for instance: Debut 120 - Miles Davis 'Blue Moods' Debut 124 - Jazz at Massey Hall (the Quintet album) The 'Jazz Albums Covers, The Rare and the Beautiful' book by Manek Daver that was published in Japan in 1994 (with cover by Gil Melle and foreword by Norman Granz, no less!) has several samples of the Danish Debut albums. Not listed in my previous post are the following: - three 7-inchers (all from Debut US material) Debut 101 - Jimmy Knepper Quintet, Debut 102 - The New Oscar Pettiford Sextet, Debut 103 - Max Roach Quartet, - plus these four Danish free jazz 12-inchers Debut 133 - Bent Axden-Bent Jaedig 'Let's Keep the Message', Debut 134 - Jorn Elniff 'Music for Mice and Men', Debut 135 - Louis Hjulmand-Allan Botschinsky 'Blue Bros', Debut 150 - Palle Mikkelborg 'The Mysterious Corona' (a 4-track stereo release)

Lon, I'm with you on that Leo Wright 'Blues Shout' album. I had missed on that LP when it came out. And it was the mention of Gigi Gryce contributing arrangements for the date in the 'Rat Race Blues' book on Gryce by Noal Cohen and Michael Fitzgerald that brought my attention to the session. Was lucky to get an excellent copy of the LP shortly after. Great album!