brownie

Sony and Bertelsmann are planning to merge their music companies. From AP:

There was a biography of Lennie Tristano by French critic Francois Billard that was published in 1988. A 200-page pocketbook that included a short discography. Not bad, very factual. Doubt that it is available nowadays. If you can read French, I have a copy and could ship it. PM if interested.

The session was written about by Leonard Feather in one of his columns which appeared in the French review Jazz Hot in 1955. Feather mentions that the Epic producers allowed Quincy Jones and his sidemen to take two hours to record each numbers instead of the regular four sides by three-hour session. Why couldn't Columbia release this now?

Have always being puzzled by the lack of accompanying musicians information on quite a number of Sonny Stitt albums. Most of the Roost/Roulette albums did not list any personnel and the sidemen's identitied remained a mystery until Mosaic researched the personnel and provided informations. Same went for Argo albums. Even some Sitt albums on Verve fail to provide the names of the musicians. 'The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt with the Ralph Burns Orchestra' and the 'Previously Unreleased Recordings' Sonny Stitt albums do not list any sidemen. And some of the musicians are among the best. The 'Unreleased Recordings' album - a Stitt Plays Duke LP - has uncredited Lou Levy, Paul Chambers and Stan Levey behind Stitt. Was the omission of accompanying musicians deliberate? Stitt's decision? The producers?

There are a couple more reunions of Billie Holiday with the Basie crew. One was the making of several soundies in August 1950 which produced two Lady Day appearances with the Count Basie sextet (Clark Terry, Buddy de Franco, Wardell Gray, Basie, Freddie Green, Jimmy Lewis and Gus Johnson). She sang 'God Bless the Child' and 'Now, Baby, Or Never'. The soundies are notorious because the distributors did not want to have films with an integrated orchestra and Buddy de Franco was replaced by Marshall Royal for the visuals. Lady Day also appeared with the full Count Basie orchestra on September 25, 1954 at Carnegie Hall (with her accompanist Carl Drinkard subbing for Basie on piano). Seven songs appeared on the Roulette 'Carnegie Hall Concert' album.

There was an expanded 12" issue of the Kelly 10" in the 80's, same goes for the Kenny Drew. Don't remember the name of the series, maybe Blue Note Piano collection. The Garner was not in it, as these were licensed recordings. The Erroll Garner BN albums were reissued back in the '70s by Blue Note France. Two 12-inchers (BNP 25101 'Ouverture to Dawn' and 25102 'Yesterdays') were released but were quickly withdrawn by BN France after representatives of the Erroll Garner estate moved into action. The two volumes became rare BN items. Some of the items have since been published in the Erroll Garner Chronogical Classics series.

Warner France has reissued some 19 albums from the Atlantic/Reprise/Warner catalogue in 24bit remastering with some bonus tracks added on some of the CDs. They're out in Paris stores this week. The list includes: - Rat Bryant 'Alone at Montreux', - Fathead Newman 'Ray Charles Present Fathead Newman' - Sonny Stitt 'Plays Bird' - Ornette Coleman 'Ornette (I bonus track) - Bill Evans 'You Must Believe in Spring' - Ben Webster 'The Warm Moods' - Lennie Tristano 'Lennie' - Eddie Harris/Les McCann 'Second Movement' - Peter Christlieb/Warne Marsh 'Apogee' (3 bonus tracks) - Yusef Lateef 'The Blue YL' and others. They're supposed to be listed on a warnerjazz.com site but I have not been able to enter that yet.

May I recommend number 49 of the series, the Jazz & Cinema, volume 1 which includes the Barney Wilen-Kenny Dorham-Duke Jordan score for the film 'Un Temoin Dans La Ville'? The remastering to that excellent soundtrack music is superb. The volume also includes the music Alain Goraguer wrote for the film 'J'Irai Cracher sur Vos Tombes'. A horrible film which was based on the spoof mystery novel by author, singer/composer and jazz critic/producer Boris Vian. Vian died in 1959 of a heart attack at a private screening of the film, obviously in shock after seeing the treatment his book got. The Goraguer score is however excellent jazz parody music with solos by people like Roger Guerin, Georges Grenu and vibraphonist Michel Hausser. Goraguer was one of the main music arranger for Vian and Serge Gainsbourg.

Byard Lancaster and Rufus Harley will appear at a November 19 concert in Paris. The concert is at 830PM at Le Triptyque, 142 rue Montmartre. The two Philly jazz legends will be accompanied by Georges Edouard Nouel, piano, Eric Vinceno, bass, Noel McGhie, drums, and Roger Raspail, percussions. Time to check how Lancaster is playing nowadays and to hear some jazz bagpipe.

The session was mentioned in a story by Leonard Feather if I remember well. Art Blakey and Osie Johnson are listed as drummers. The session is mentioned in the Tom Lord discography with the same two-drummer line-up. Will go back to the original story and report. Will have to check on Art Blakey's state of mind at the time. The session was recorded just a few days before Bird died

There is an all star session led by Quincy Jones that was recorded for Epic in February 1955 that remains unissued (with one exception). Epic commissioned Quincy Jones back then to record a big band date. The budget was quite high ($3,000 was the quoted figure at the time). Quincy Jones had the following lineup: Ernie Royal, Bernie Glow, Al Porcino, Jimmy Nottingham, tp, JJ Johnson, Jimmy Cleveland, Kai Winding, Urbie Green, tb, Herbie Mann, fl, Dave Schildkraut, as, Al Cohn, Sonny Stitt, ts, Jack Nimitz, bs, Horace Silver, p, Oscar Pettiford, b, Osie Johnson, Art Blakey, dr. The band recorded four sides. The session remained unissued until one track 'Grasshopper' appeared years later on a Columbia 'Giants of Jazz' LP anthology. Anybody heard this? Any good? Any idea why the rest of the session remained unissued?

He was not a BN artist but he and Andrew Hill made signifiant music: Roland Rahsaan Kirk. Was listening to Kirk's Domino album the other day. That was recorded in 1962 before Hill made it to the BN label but his contribution is very impressive. I understand Hill and Kirk were very good friends. Wish they had recorded more than this single album.

Absolutely brilliant! Thanks for posting those. My favorite is 'Into Somethin' but I love the others. Let's have more when you can

Gerry Wiggins might know. He led the band that backed King Pleasure.

Will the Charlie Parker watch play Now's the Time?

Excellent. Have the VeeJay LP of it. 'Blues Bag' is the title of the album. The Blakey band obviously enjoyed playing with Buddy de Franco who made the most of the bass clarinet he was using, on session producer Leonard Feather's recommendation.

You'll enjoy that Zoot/Nash date. Zim was a very interesting label. Glad I got some of them. The label was very supportive of Howard McGhee and they released a couple of interesting albums by Maggie, one of my favorite trumpet player.

To elaborate further on why the Actuel festival did not take place in Paris, you have to remember this was happening one year after the violent Paris students riots of May 1968. The Actuel festival was to be held in central Paris and the last thing the French authorities wanted was a Woodstock type festival where tens of thousands of youths would congregate in the heart of the city. The authorities (this was during de Gaulle's presidency) vetoed the original site. The festival was moved to Amougies on the Belgian side of the French-Belgium border. The daily shows went out from late mornings to early mornings. It was widely attended but I remember that a lot of musicians felt they had been ripped off. Quite a lot of good music was made there and there were some very interesting jams. It also provided oppotunities for many of the new jazz musicians to play in front of large and enthusistic audiences.

Brandon, as I mentioned in my first post, the organizers did not obtain the authorisation to have the festival held in Paris. The organizers then located the Amougies area in Belgium, not far from the French border and decided to have the festival held there. This was a last minute decision. I remember some of the musicians were housed in hotels in Lille, France, very close to the border and Amougies. I may even have photos I took at the festival somewhere in my mess. If you can read French, here is a report on the festival amougies This appeared in a 1969 issue of the French magazine 'Rock and Folk'. Caught also a mention of the film on the web. Somebody reports his impressions: Have to agree with the assessment. I remember the film was shown on French cable TV years ago. I taped it but did not keep the video. Thought it was a waste of footage. Laperrousaz was a young director who later made a film about motorbike races called 'Continental Circus'.

Gary Bartz ' Red and Orange Poems' Atlantic Sonny Murray '13 Steps' Enja Lyle Murphy 'New Orbits in Sounds' (GNP LP) Lennie Tristano 'Lennie Tristano' Atlantic LP Shelly Manne 'Swinging Sounds' Contemporary LP

The Les Brown All Stars may be listed under the name of Les Brown but he did not have much to do with the sessions. The only common denominator with the groups performing on it is that the four leaders (Dave Pell, Ronny Lang, Don Fagerquist and Ray Sims) all played with the Les Brown Band. This is the only Les Brown related album I have and it's good. Bob Gordon plays with the Don Fagerquist Nonette (which includes Zoot Sims) and with the Dave Pell Ensemble. He is featured on several numbers. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy this. What's the rare Bob Gordon/Zoot Sims date?

Tried several times to make the URL to the Bird's Death link work on my last post It does not seem to be working this morning.

I was there. This was the infamous Amougies festival organised (disorganised would be the better word) by those Byg crooks in the wake of their recording sessions from the summer of 1969. The correct name for the affair was Le Festival Actuel. Thius was scheduled to be held in Paris but the organisers could not get the authorisation to have it in Paris or in the Paris area. The event was moved to Amougies, in Belgium, just north of the French border. Was there for the first three days. This was held under a huge tent. I remember rain falling practically all the time. You'd better have the right boots to survive in the mud. There was some great music there (I remember the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp, Sonny Murray among others). Had to get back to work in Paris after the third day. There was an official film made throughout the festival. This was directed by Jerome Laperrousaz. The film was released in 1970. I saw it at the time but was left unimpressed. The film was as confused as the festival (and my memories of it).

I was in highschool in Paris at the time and a jazz fan for a couple of years. I was not the avid newspaper reader I am now and missed the news on the day it was published. It was not a frontpage item. But the two main French jazz reviews Jazz Hot and Jazz Magazine both had photos of Bird on their cover in their April 1955 issues. Jazz Magazine in its May 1955 issue had a two-page report on Parker's funeral by Billie Wallington (think she was George Wallington's wife). The report was illustrated with three photos from the funeral. The famous one of the coffin carried out of church with Leonard Feather, Teddy Reig among the carriers and Louis Bellson, Charlie Shavers and Charles Mingus attending. Another photo taken during the funeral ceremony showed Addison and Art Farmer, Elmo Hope, Doris Parker, Herbie Mann, Don Schlittein and Gigi Gryce inside the church and a third one showed Chan Parker and her brother with Tony Scott and his then wife Fran. Ken Vail's 'Bird's Diary's invaluable book reproduces some 'Bird is Dead' newspaper headlines of the time plus a couple of articles that appeared in Down Beat at the time along with the Parker coffin carried out of church photo. Since this is a thread about the death of Charlie Parker, I was intrigued when I found this link some time ago [url:www.holeintheweb.com/drp/bhd/CharlieParker.htm]Death of Bird Had never heard of the Art Blakey aspect of the story. Is this fact or fiction?

There were six of those (all with excellent anonymous remastering): K18P-9271 Elmo Hope Trio & Quintet (BN 5029 and 5044) K18P-9272 Herbie Nichols Trio (BN 5068 and 5069) K18P-9273 Julius Watkins Sextet (BN 5053 and 5064) K18P-9274 Howard McGhee All-Stars & Sextet (BN 5012 and 5024) K18P-9275 Gil Melle Quintet & Sexstet (BN 5020 and 5033) K18P-9276 George Wallington & His Band/Hank Mobley Quartet (BN 5045 and 5066) Those came out in 1983.