sidewinder

One of my favourite local second hand book outlets had a whole row of Ellington books on display, this being one of them. On first visit I saw this one but the price, although very fair, didn’t get me to pounce. I did buy Ralph Gleason’s tribute volume though. A month or two later on my next visit it was hidden in the shelf priced at £5 so I pounced. Pretty well as-new too !

CDs 1 and 2. Those Bechet-Spanier Big Four tracks are amazing. Awesome sound too.

An ‘Observer Music’ 4LP box set from the early 70s which I didn’t know I had - Philips material. One disk of Brown/Roach, one of Hamp at the Apollo and 2LPs of various groups (Miles, Blakey, Cohn/Sims etc.). Floats my boat ! Which label is that one on? I picked up a 50s copy on the London label in an Oxfam Shop some years ago.

One of Cedar’s more offbeat releases. Trying to do a Freddie Hubbard.

Different shelves and type, alas ! For the first time, I think I am now pretty well up to date with Mosaic releases. Spent half of my life catching up !

Was that a late 70s CBS double called ‘Miles Davis and John Coltrane’? I have that one somewhere - always liked it.

For some reason those mainstream Impulses can be absolute bargains, yet stick a modernist player on the cover (or Paul Gonsalves) and prices can go through the roof. Best I’ve done is probably a nice Ben Webster ‘See You At The Fair’ mono first press for £3. Alas, the shop is long gone.

What a difference ! Mine’s on its way from JazzMessengers. Looking forward. The only issue is freeing up shelf space to store it !

No - should hopefully be straight forward. The only recent change I noticed is that the free shipping offer has now gone but that applies also to Europe. Shipping comes in via Royal Mail and usually transits via Netherlands. I did a check and at last reckoning they have about 6 copies in stock.

London Jazz Collector has a post on this at the moment. Personally, I think that the music on the two 4CD sets is stronger, on the whole. Must admit though that it is a while since I last heard that album so another one to dig out..

Yes it was - definitely a one-off. There had been increased interest in Strata-East, which no doubt was the reason for this concert and I recall it being a sell-out or near sell-out. They also projected drawings of Strata-East cover art behind the musicians on the stage so you had art of stuff like the Dick Griffin and Mtume releases etc. as the music progressed, which was pretty cool. The poster I think was done by the guy who did these.

According to the Enja sleeve says DMM but sounds pretty damn good to my ears.

Tempting.... and succumbed... My excuse is that it is an early birthday present. At least the journey from Barcelona is less traumatic than shipping from Hartford !

I have some of the tracks from that one on a budget UK Quincy Jones A&M compilation. Also ‘Smackwater Jack’. Didn’t Jones farm out his arrangements at that time to Billy Byers and others? The Mike Gibbs, I recall, got pretty good critical reception here in the UK when it came out and also sold quite well.

Another spin or three for this one. It really is a splendid release.

I was wondering if I’d also seen him with Gil Evans in the early 1980s. Likely not - I think it was Don Weller covering the tenor chair. My memory of that Strata-East night is that Charles Tolliver’s lip was a bit ‘iffy’ at times on the high stuff (totally understandable) but Harper was absolutely on the ball. They also covered some nice Stanley Cowell tunes such as ‘Effi’ as well as Tolliver’s ‘Emperor March’. A memorable night. Jean Carne was good too on her numbers with the band. Still need to frame up the souvenir poster. Very glad to have caught my only appearance by Stanley Cowell that night.

It was a Strata- East Tribute. Also performing were Cecil McBee, Jean Carne and Alvin Queen. I previously saw The Cookers well over 5 years ago now. Also there that night was our late board member friend JohnS, who also thoroughly enjoyed it I think. My previous Billy Harper appearance before that was in the 2000s with Charles Tolliver Big Band in London.

Track 1 ‘Word From Bird’ is not a dedication to Parker but is apparently inspired by something of a recurrent obsession with the motif to ‘Parker’s Mood’ which apparently came out of the blue to Charles and lingered on. The full story is in the sleeve notes. The rest of the album is unrelated to this.

Cadogan Hall, London as part of the next London Jazz Festival.

I’m booked to see him with The Cookers in November. Last time I saw him was with Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell around 2016-ish. One of those players who always delivers, in performance.

Yes, great example of early third-stream. Interesting that Hall Overton is included in the lineup and Mingus appears on a few tracks. This mono copy has a pristine sleeve and looks flawless but yes, there is some background noise. I put the mono switch on the amp and it is significantly less intrusive. Suprisingly so. I have the ‘Tentet’ album somewhere and will have to dig it out. Another really good one. Interesting to read from the sleeve that ‘Word’ was written for the Stuttgart Light-Music Festival In 1956. The music reminds me in terms of style a bit of Andre Hodeir’s piece written for Donaueschingen around the same time. Gunther Schuller was also covering similar territory.

If that thing is for real, maybe it goes some way towards explaining all these yeti sightings !

Next up - Atlantic black label.