sidewinder

Yes, 'Fickle Sonance' is a beauty. Tommy Turrentine sounds just great on this session. Love the LP cover art too. Currently spinning: 'Bill Russo in London' (UK Columbia Lansdowne, mono). With the London Jazz Orchestra, recorded 1962. Clarke-Boland Big Band 'Handle With Care !' (French Bel-Air pressing. Probably way better than the US Atlantic).

The Lowther is indeed a very fine album. Original LP copies of this one have been treasured by Brit jazz fans for many years and it has become something of a cult album. I like the way it brings in a load of influences, including English folk music and some of the vibe of Miles' very early electric material. The Surman 'Algonquin' is another beauty - great colaboration with the Canadian arranger John Warren and one of Surman's very best IMO. I don't think he ever surpassed this one. There was also a follow up collaboration with John Warren put out fairly recently on ECM. Another option with the Westbrook 'Love Songs' is the Japanese CD issue, which Dusty Groove were selling recently. Don't know if it's still available. Not sure what the situation is with regard to the Vocalion reissue. I'm off to see Westbrook's band tomorrow night and if I get a chance to ask the obvious question (unlikely but you never know) I will do so.

Hmm...

I'm just listening to PC on an original LP of 'AT's Delight'. That sound is instantly recognisable but it's hard to put into words what makes it so distinctive. With PC though his playing has such great timing, swing and clarity that it's always a joy to listen to. Especially the work with Wynton Kelly such as this session.

Just clearing out a load of old paperwork in the study I came across a copy of this Fantasy Catalogue. Never even realised I had it ! Incredible the range of music in there. I've always found Fantasy very helpful in the past (particularly Terry Hinte). Beyond the call of duty in terms of level of help.

My analogue satellite service used to allow me to pick up all the German-language stations and I was always amazed that if I tuned in late at night there would be some great live jazz on there, presented in the professional manner that it deserves. Charlie Mariano used to pop up a lot on these. Now with my so-called improved digital service there are no German/Austrian/Swiss channels and the only jazz is the occasional BBC4 offering ( ).

Jackie McLean 'Bluesnik' (BN 47W63d mono, DG side 2). Man, what a great session this is.. Followed by more Jackie - 'A Fickle Sonance' (BN NY USA stereo)

BAS$$%**DS ! I'm trying to save for a holiday here - CUT IT OUT !!!

One of the vivid memories (apart from the great music) from that Monk 'Straight, No Chaser' video is of that incredible menagerie of cats she had running riot in the appartment. Whoever did the cleaning in that place had a challenge, to say the least. Also the incredible view of the Hudson River from the panoramic window. Time to dig that video out, I think.

Irinically, I keep falling over this RVG title in the shops over here (not the blue-rinse version). They are ten a penny !

Hilo Hattie David Battie Hugh Scully ← Hugh Grant Divine Brown Divine

Yes, belated Best Wishes from me too..

Lord Grey Lord Blackadder Baldrick

He looked a bit ricketty when he came on the stage at Bath a few weeks ago.

Spinning disk 1 of the Stanley Turrentine. Wunderbar !

A pleasure !

Pressing quality is usually pretty good though and they have that nice Vertigo 'swirl' on one side..

Betty Carter Jimmy Carter Charles Mingus

Clifford - like many of the Vertigos its quite a tough one to find. Took me ages to find one but this copy appeared yesterday at £8 ( ). Sleeve not the greatest but vinyl not bad at all after the VPI treatment.

Only after Caiman have listed the Euro-box

I think Living is on LJCO "Ode" as well (as are most players of the period, it seems); haven't heard much of his soloing, though. What's he like in a stripped-down context? ← Quite fiery - very similar to his work of this vintage with Mike Westbrook. He's also featured on flute and Harry Beckett takes a couple of trumpet solos.

Yes, there are several inaccuracies in this obituary. Freddie Redd appears as 'Freddy Redd' as well. At least they tried..

From my copy of the Daily Telegraph 'Book of Obituaries' ('Eccentric Lives' edition): Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who has died in New York aged 74, was the daughter of a British Rothschild and the wife of a French diplomat, but rejected her native milieu to become a notable patron of jazz. She was known as the 'Bebop Baroness', as her friends and beneficiaries were leading exponents of the Bebop school which revolutionised the American jazz scene in the 1940s and 1950s. They included Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Charlie 'Bird' Parker - who spent his last hours in 'Nica' Koenigswarter's Manhattan apartment. Themedical report on Parker indicated that his death was due to an excess of drugs and alcohol; that he was a jazzman and she a baroness provided a heady mixture for the press. The headlines included 'BOP KING DIES IN HEIRESS'S FLAT' and 'THE BIRD IN THE BARONESS'S BOUDOIR'. She featured in all the books on Parker and is portrayed by Diana Salinger in the Clint Eastwood film 'Bird'. She is also seen in 'Straight, No Chaser', a documentary about Thelonious Monk - in which she comes across as a lively and beautiful woman, her cut-glass accent, without a trace of Transatlantic overtones, contrasting starkly with Monk's unintelligible mumblings. The Baroness was witty, sardonic and outspoken. She painted abtruse canvases, using a mixture of acrylic, milk, scotch whiskey and scent; she was fascinated by African sculpture, Afro-American music and negritude generally. She dressed casually in highly expensive clothes. Her Rolls-Royce (which she described as her 'Silver Sparrow'), her furs and gold pocket-flask were familiar to the habitues of the jazz clubs in Greenwich Village and Harlem. The eccentric Monk was her closest associate, and he recorded 'Pannonica' as a dedication to his benefactress; other dedications were 'Nica Steps Out' by pianist Freddie Redd and 'Nica's Dream' by alto-saxophonist Gigi Gryce. It was Monk who introduced her to Parker, who was much impressed by this unexpected vision of haute Bohemia, by the Baroness's politeness in dealing with servants and her casual handling of complaints by her outraged landlords. He was amused too, to find in the Fifth Avenue salon of this eccentric aristocrat a haven from the pressures of poverty, the hostility of the critics and the attentions of the Narcotics Squad. Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild was born in 1913, the youngest daughter of the banker Nathaniel Charles Rothschild - and a sister of the late Lord Rothschild, another notable jazz enthusiast, and of the naturalist Miriam Rothschild. Pannonica had a conventional upper-class childhood, attending a finishing school in Paris and a coming-out ball in London but she showed early signs of atypical behaviour by becoming an aviatrix. She met her husband-to-be, Col Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, Minister Plenipotentiary at the French Embassy in New York, at Le Touquet Airport. They were married in 1935 and had five cildren; the marriage was dissolved in 1956. During the Second World War the Baroness was variously a decoder with Gen. de Gaulle's intelligence service, a private in the Free French Army, a broadcaster from a propaganda station in Brazzaville, Equatorial French Africa and later a driver for the War Graves Commission. In 1951, bored with life as a diplomat's wife at the French Embassy in Mexico City, she left her husband and took up residence in a luxuriously-furnished suite at the Hotel Stanhope on New York's Fifth Avenue, which soon became a 'crash pad' for a number of black jazz musicians. Thelonious Monk was often to be seen in the hotel lobby wearing a red shirt, deer-stalker hat, dark glasses and carrying a white cane, much to the disgust of the other excessively respectable residents who complained to the management, adding to the many complaints about jam sessions going on until the early hours of the morning. An annoyed but respectful management doubled her rent - a matter of little import to a Rothschild. It was Monk who persuaded her to abandon hotel life, with its tiresome constraints on the playing of Bebop jazz throughout the night, and together they moved to an apartment overlooking the Hudson River. Since Monk's death in 1982 she had been virtually a recluse, living with an assortment of cats. December 10th 1988 Incredible !

Just dusting off the Teddy Wilson LP set for the afternoon..

Thanks for your thoughts on this one. I'll snag it next time I see it.