Mark Stryker

Does anyone know if the four moody ballads Miles recorded on July 9, 1955, for Debut -- "Alone Together," "Nature Boy," "There's No You" and "Easy Living" -- were originally issued as a 10" or 12" LP? I assume it would not have been an EP at that point, but the timing is very short at some 27 minutes. Here are other details: Miles Davis Quintet Miles Davis (trumpet) Britt Woodman (trombone) Teddy Charles (vibraphone) Charles Mingus (bass) Elvin Jones (drums) Audio-Video Studios, NYC, July 9, 1955 Nature Boy Debut DEB 120, (D) DEP 27, 12DCD 4402-2 Alone Together - There's No You Debut DEB 120, (D) DEP 28, 12DCD 4402-2 Easy Living - * Debut DEB 120; Fantasy LP 6001, LP 86001; Original Jazz Classics OJC 043, OJCCD 043-2; America (F) 30 AM 6051 Miles Davis - Blue Moods = Disques Swing (F) LDM 30035 Miles Davis = Prestige PR 24022 Miles Davis - Collector's Items * Debut 12DCD 4402-2 Charles Mingus - The Complete Debut Recordings * Debut (D) DEP 27 Miles Davis - Blue Moods, Vol. 1 * Debut (D) DEP 28 Miles Davis - Blue Moods, Vol. 2

Thanks for checking Lord and the Balliett reference. Still, odd that there seems to be nothing else floating around about him.

No. Performances are different years, venues and personnel (different drummer and WV set has pianist.)

Can anyone shed some light on the life and career of pianist Billy Greene? Was listening to Elvin Jones/Richard Davis' "Heavy Sounds" (Impluse) last night and was struck by Greene's tune "M.E.," which has a strong Freddie Redd flavor. You can get a taste of the tune here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NZU3U8/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk3

Not dismissing it, it is excellent, it just doesn't have the visceral appeal of the CTI album, imo. Same producer, radically different results. Different, that's all. Two cents: Also from vastly different eras. There might be literally just six years between "Guitar Forms" (1964/65) and "God Bless the Child" (1971), but the world had changed A LOT more than, say, between 1954-60 or 1960-66

There's a very good piece in the current Bass World, the magazine of the International Society of Bassists, about Eddie Khan. The piece is written by Jeff Campbell, a fine bassist who teaches at Eastman. Campbell was a kid in Salt Lake City in the '70s when Khan moved there to work as film editor at the local ABC-TV affiliate -- he also played gigs on the local scene. There's no link because the magazine doesn't post content online. However, I thought I would point it out so that anyone who might be interested could track down a hard copy. Kahn ("One Step Beyond," "Speak Brother Speak," "Smokestack," "Breaking Point," etc.) was a really great player -- versatile and adventurous in the manner of Richard Davis, able to play bebop, modal, odd meters, free, hooking up tightly with the drummer, strong technically and always playing with a vivid imagination. Campbell's piece has a lot of transcription and analysis. Apparently, at a certain point Kahn became a video engineer and worked in TV news. He died in 1988 of lung cancer in his early '50s.

Stumbled on this 1992 Associated Press interview with Joe Henderson. The writer is basically clueless but there are some things in here I wasn't aware of and she gets some interesting quotes out of Joe, including an acknowledgement of drug use. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1957&dat=19920510&id=n4dGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OukMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2585,2828275

http://jazztimes.com/articles/73865-bob-belden-remembers-donald-byrd A brief remembrance by Bob Belden.

Byrd certainly had his influences -- who does not? -- but he was not a copycat. One recognized his voice as his from the first. That Blue Note book was a piece of trash in my opinion. Picked up a copy at the library the other day after this mention. Skimming through, my favorite gem so far is Cook's saying that Curtis Fuller's solo on the title track of "Blue Train" is "dyspeptic." As someone used to say, "word salad." That may be the most stone-eared description I've ever seen of practically any piece of music. Dyspeptic? Curtis' solo bursts with exuberance. It's an amazing, swinging, bluesy ride, strutting with confidence, lickety-split technique and soulful expression -- one of the great trombone solos of the era and a definitive example of his style that shows you why he zoomed to the front of the line when he arrived in NY. I'm dissecting that solo in some detail in my piece about Curtis for my book. In fact, it's the lede.

Thanks -- but no luck. I checked that particular issue. Still searching ...

I'm trying to track down the original source for a quote that's widely attributed to Elvin Jones: "Playing is not something I do at night. It's my function in life." Anybody know where in print (or broadcast) Elvin said this? Thanks ....

No, can't identify the naked women (smile). But Thompson -- a really fascinating figure and great artist. He was part of a group of figurative expressionists in the late '50s and early '60s who continued to paint the human form but favored loose, gestural brushwork that pushed toward abstraction, which was, of course, the dominant mode in American art in those days. Other figurative expressionists that Thompson is often grouped with are Lester Johnson, Larry Rivers, Jan Muller and others, including De Kooning when working in a figurative idiom. Thompson was especially interesting for employing myth and allegory and the way he riffed on old-master paintings the way jazz musicians improvise on standard songs, using vibrant color, abstracted forms and rhythmic repetition to give his paintings a real syncopated pop. He was quite the bohemian --heroin, the whole bit. He kept a set of drums in his studio and and was close with a lot of jazz musicians, including Charlie Haden and Jackie McLean. He died in Rome from drugs at the ridiculously young age of 28 in 1966. There's a great long essay about Thompson in Stanley Crouch's book "Notes of a Hanging Judge" that's called "Meteor in a Black Hat." In the big Thompson monograph published in conjunction with a show at the Whitney in the late '90s there's some background on "Garden of Music" in the essay by Judith Wilson: "One day while Charlie Haden sat watching him work,Thompson announced, 'I'm painting my favorite musicians, the ones who inpsire me!' A few days later he phoned and told Haden, 'I'm putting you in the painting.' Haden went to the artists' loft and spent an afternoon watching his portrait emerge. ... The painting shows the figure representing Haden staring at a giant bass fiddle that he holds aloft by its stem. When he asked why Thompson showed him addressing his instrument in this impossible way, Thompson said that was how he played. Recognizing the accuracy of the painter's insight, Haden explains that he was extremely dissatisfied with his playing at the time. ... 'There are certain people in different art forms that you feel more akin to than others people,' Haden observes. 'Bob felt a closeness to the way we felt about what we were expressing about life. He really painted sound. A lot of people felt very excited about what we were playing at the Five Spot, but not to the extent that Bob did -- in terms of a realization of it in his work. It struck something in him where he felt, 'Yeah, I'm not alone.'" (BTW, that's also Ed Blackwell in the middle of the painting, seating behnd a drum, holding a knife. Thompson was apparently fascinated by the way Blackwell whittled his own sticks.) Some years ago I went to see some of Thompson's work at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York and at one point Rosenfeld pulled out a box of drawings that had come from the artist's widow. There were a number of interesting black-and-white pen sketches of musicians that I was told were done on site at various jazz clubs including the Five Spot. I think some had enigmatic markings as to who they were and I remember that I was able to help identify some of them for Rosenfeld, including John Ore (may have been a Monk gig.) I was also able to point out that several of the drawings were surely done in the studio because they were recognizable images of Trane and Cannonball that were clearly taken from Prestige and Riverside LP covers. There was, however, a dazzling drawing of Sonny Rollins done with all these swirling concentric circles around him. Somewhere I have a photo of it and if I can locate it, I'll post it. In the end, however, I thought it was overpriced and couldn't afford it. My wife and I did eventually acquire a small Thompson oil on paper done in Europe in 1963 with great color and some quintessential Thompson bird-like figures and mythological creatures. There is a small painting on canvas that it relates to -- some of the figures are repeated exactly. That painting, "The Search," is in the Whitney monograph -- figure 96 on page 120. Sorry to ramble. Thompson is a real passion of mine.

With Claude Black on piano! I used to drive to Toledo to catch Claude Black with bassist Clifford Murphy at Murphy's Place, which closed after Murphy's life/business partner passed away. Claude Black mentioned growing up and being friends with Donald Byrd, but I didn't know about this record. Black is a fine pianist, and has been fighting some health problems. You may not be aware but Black died last month in Toledo. Like Byrd, he was 80.

I would definitely recommend this show based on the checklist of works and what I've read about it. For what it's worth, one of Bob Thompson's great paintings is in the show, "Garden of Music," which pictures Ornette, Don Cherry, Trane, Sonny Rollins and, way in the back, Charlie Haden. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://sites.moca.org/thecurve/files/2012/11/blues_thompson.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sites.moca.org/thecurve/2012/08/29/blues-for-smoke/&h=342&w=615&sz=86&tbnid=1zUJqYAgUiANnM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=162&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgarden%2Bof%2Bmusic%2Band%2Bbob%2Bthompson%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=garden+of+music+and+bob+thompson&usg=__0kYKM_Sd6JkMnG14CVCfz9q5l9A=&docid=UnXVmzcqSLH5dM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=a2YZUeKeNKOOyAGp8IHYDA&ved=0CEwQ9QEwBQ&dur=132

Some interesting background: Robert (Bobby) Barnes is the uncle of saxophonist Allan Barnes (b. 1949) who was a student of Byrd's at Howard and a member of the Blackbyrds. I believe Bobby is still alive living in Las Vegas but I'm not positive. Allan lives here in Detroit. Assuming Byrd was 17 here, perhaps just 16, he sounds great -- he's got the vocabulary. Fats and Dizzy.

The funeral home in metro Detroit that's handling service posted an obituary today. Services private. Still no word from family. Short story here: http://tinyurl.com/clwzlro (includes a link back to our obituary from last last week.) The NYT has also posted an obit this afternoon.

Herbie has also said (to me and many others) that it was Donald who told him at a certain point: "It's time for you make a record." Byrd arranged a private audition/meeting with Alfred Lion for Herbie and helped him prepare by telling him to bring in three compositions for the company and three for himself, meaning three tunes that that Lion could relate to (one was "Watermelon Man") and then the others could be more personal, esoteric, etc. I seem to recall Herbie saying that he played the three tunes for the company and then told Lion he could do three standards, but then Alfred insisted he play more originals. All the songs on "Takin' Off" are originals -- highly unusual for a debut in those days.

Here's our obituary in the Detroit Free Press. A very difficult deadline situation tonight meant a very short window to write, so it's not as expansive as I would have liked, but the basics are here. RIP. http://www.freep.com/article/20130207/NEWS08/130207102/Donald-Byrd-legendary-Detroit-jazz-man-dead-at-80?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/Singer-Rick-Stevens-embraces-2nd-chance-4229673.php#page-1 As someone who never followed the band I was not aware of this backstory ... drugs, murder conviction, death sentence, overturned, parole 36 years later ...

Ah, was hoping Brownie would weigh in -- nice calls.

Think the Manne Clarinet Concerto/Combo included here: http://www.amazon.com/Volume-2-Shelly-Manne/dp/B00000FXOC

Heath's "Picture Of Heath" has been out on CD a couple of times, with the latest being on a Prevue CD issued in 1998. Thanks for the clarification.

Don't think the Juilliard String Quartet's early 1960s LPs on RCA of Beethoven's Op. 131 (frenzied intensity) or the compelling performances of the Ravel/Debussy quartets have made it to CD. Also, Air's "80 Degrees below 82," Jimmy Heath's "Picture of Heath" and Henry Threadgill's "When Was That?"

An email from a friend prompts this question: What are the greatest records to never make it to CD? (If there's a previous thread on this topic I apologize -- I looked but didn't see one.) My buddy suggests "Big George" (Affinity) by the George Coleman Octet -- a great one to be sure.

Hefty story in today's paper about Detroit-born drummer Karriem Riggins, a special musician with significant profiles in jazz and hip-hop. Nice portrait photo at top of page, too. http://www.freep.com/article/20130120/ENT04/301200061/Detroit-drummer-Karriem-Riggins-makes-his-mark-in-jazz-hip-hop