Stevie Mclean

And you just can't beat primo KD... or regular KD for that matter.

I noticed that Tommy Flanagan shows up on a suspiciously large amount of my favorite trumpet quartet records. I think it could be interesting to see which one is the most popular along with just starting a discussion on why Tommy works so well on all of these wonderful recordings. Personally I am torn between Quiet Kenny and The King and I, mostly for trumpet related reasons. However, I am undecided on which is my favorite for Tommy Flanagan related reasons. Please let me know if I'm missing any, these are only the records that I am aware of (with a heavy 50's/60's bias).

I can really relate to not remembering song names. However I might go as far as to say I am more inclined to recognize changes rather than a melody. I enjoy figuring out contrafacts, I have even started a spreadsheet categorizing contrafacts by their original version (with the hopes that it will help me one day remember song titles).

Thanks for the detailed explanation Jim, exactly what I was looking for. I love all the creative sounds Teef gets out of his instruments, like his humming while playing flute thing that also confounds me!

On the wonderful album "Images of Curtis Fuller", there is a song "Judyful", on which Teef opens his solo with this blaring note that I can only describe as a train horn! he does it another time later on as well. I just love how it sounds and it absolutely commands anybody within earshot to pay attention. Can anybody hip me to what he is actually doing with the saxophone to achieve this effect? I assume some kind of overblowing / loose embouchure to get extra vibration out of the reed?

I'm a little late to this thread but I have really been on a Harden kick lately, so I enjoyed reading everybody's contributions to this thread. I do have one thing to add, which I found quite interesting... In Bill Brower's interview with Curtis Fuller for the Smithsonian History Museum, Fuller has some very... interesting comments on Wilbur's playing/performance style along with what seems to be an allusion to some time spent in a mental institution. Brower: One Time I saw Brooks and he had these toy drummers, he had all these toys drummers. In some kind of way he could… He had this laser thing that he could trigger them with. You know when the Chinese had like the –– he had like an army of toy drummers in some kind of a way he was triggering the shit. He was out there. Curtis Fuller: He was out there! You know where he is now, or where he was? Brower: Insane Asylum. Curtis Fuller: Yeah, he and Wilbur Harden. Now, Wilbur, ‘Trane loved him, but I couldn’t stand to watch him. He’s a guy that you, literally, could hear him think. He would stand on the bandstand and be moving about “click, click, click, click” He would say, (scats very sparse, calculated melody). Brower: So, he’s editing-- Curtis Fuller: He’s editing as he’s trying to play. I mean, do you know what that is to watch? Win, and Cedar I couldn’t stand to watch. Cedar had a way like Elvin. Cedar’s time movement with his foot, I couldn’t look at it Brower: Because he would throw you off? Curtis Fuller: He would throw me off because his foot would move out of rhythm, with no distinct pattern or nothing. Sometimes, I would stand there and look like, “What the hell! How did you come up with that one?” Brower: But, Wilbur Harden, on top of his playing was his significance in writing Curtis Fuller: Who’s that? Brower: Wilbur Harden. Curtis Fuller: Yeah, some writing but not a whole lot. Then, there was another guy that was just like him. ‘Trane didn’t like him too much. He ended up with Mingus. Clarence something… Brower: Shaw. Curtis Fuller: Yeah, you know all these guys. Yeah, he was just late Wilbur. I never could get the gist of his… It was always something that was… He kept anticipating that he was going to play something but it would always be the complete opposite of what you thought he would do. The line would be so discombobulated. You would be like, “Where did that come from?” That’s the way he heard it so you can question the guy. I used to stand next to him and say, “Nobody’s home.” It's interesting how Fuller felt this way yet still used him for the Images session. Maybe his negative comments were more influenced by Harden's playing later on, possibly due to worsening mental and physical health. His description of Harden's "editing" style of composing an improvisation while in the middle of a performance sounds quite odd, I would have loved to see this going on firsthand! I can't say it doesn't make sense, as Fuller states in the last response, Harden had a very sparse and unpredictable sound, (which is one of the things I love about his playing, unlike Fuller.), I can kind of picture Harden standing there, thinking about his next line, in the middle of his recorded solos.

Apparently there was an unreleased take of Short Story done 3 days before the full recording of In n' Out with different personnel. Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Joe Henderson, tenor sax; Andrew Hill, piano; Eddie Khan, bass; Elvin Jones, drums. Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 7, 1964 1331 Short Story Blue Note rejected Does anyone have more details on this? Was there conflict for Andrew Hill or was the group just not working (unlikely since most had already been together on Our Thing and POD.)? Whatever the reason, I am quite disappointed. Would have loved to hear Our Thing part 2 WITH ELVIN!

I think you might be thinking of Mal's green medicinal cigarettes. I remember a documentary where he talks about needing them to manage the consequences of his overdose.

Wow! Thank you so much! This is an awesome piece of history and a great look into the intelligent mind of Sonny. I wholeheartedly agree with his message and I think this letter is a testament to his long and fruitful career and life. I am also a fan of the artistic choices made on the first letter of each paragraph.

I was listening to Soul Groove by Johnny Griffin and Matthew Gee and found it quite fascinating to listen to Big John and Hank Jones playing organ on the same record. Of course Patton lays down the grease as always, but it is very interesting to hear Hanks soft touch translated to organ in comparison. I really enjoy his melodic playing and I find it to be a nice change of pace from the likes of Big John and the other soul organ grinders. There seems to be an old thread on organ players playing piano, but I can seem to find any reference to piano players playing organ. Id love to hear of other examples pianists dippin' their toes in the grease bucket and what y'all think about their playing.

Thank you for bringing some spotlight to these brilliant young musicians. As a young'un myself I take much inspiration from them and I feel that they are woefully underrepresented in the jazz discourse. I would also like to state that I often see you posting on the "what are you listening to" board and I think that I have enthusiastically agreed with every single post. All of this to say, I think we should be friends Bill.

I've been listening to this album a lot recently, especially since I have been on a bit of a Lacy kick. I also really enjoy Evidence with Don Cherry for similar reasons. what really draws me to these albums is the collective improvisation over a repeating melodic idea without much attention payed to traditional harmony (I enjoy the piano-less trio and quartet setting). I understand that this is the basis of a lot of "free jazz" but I feel like these albums are still relatively easy to listen to and the vocabulary that they are using is not too abstract. I think the fact that they are playing monk tunes also contributes a lot to the sound as it seems like this attention to melodic and rhythmic structure rather than harmonic structure is a natural extension of how monk writes and plays. I am very interested in finding more music that has these qualities. I am open to more Lacy but I am also interested in finding similar sounding artists and groups playing more than just monk.

👍

That is very interesting, do you know of anywhere I can read more about this topic?

I absolutely adore Thad's playing on this. I find that he compliments monk so well and it sounds like he is having a good time on this record.