Mark Stryker

I'm sure this was discussed elsewhere but is there any extra/unreleased material here and how is the sound compared to the original LPs. Weighing the investment based on whether my LPs are good enough; quality remastering can make a big difference with Wayne's "non-acoustic" music. Edit to add: OK, found previous thread. See that there appears to be two discs of Weather Report material of solely Wayne's material. Still interested if there's any unreleased stuff from the four other albums, plus, of course, a verdict on the sound ...

Disagree. Curtis was not known at all at that point beyond Detroit. Assuming the 1956 date is correct, Pepper didn't have a national reputation yet either, since he didn't join Kenton until right after that session and hadn't made an impact on record yet either. Meanwhile, P.C had been in New York for at least a year and he and Trane were with Miles. Cuscuna tells me has not more info on this (other than what's been repeated above), as he "hit a wall" on this particular issue years ago. Thanks. My bad. I don't know why I was thinking that Fuller and Adams had already established their reputations in the mid-50s. No worries. The minutia here can drive you crazy ...

Disagree. Curtis was not known at all at that point beyond Detroit. Assuming the 1956 date is correct, Pepper didn't have a national reputation yet either, since he didn't join Kenton until right after that session and hadn't made an impact on record yet either. Meanwhile, P.C had been in New York for at least a year and he and Trane were with Miles. Cuscuna tells me he doesn't have any more info on this (other than what's been repeated above), as he "hit a wall" on this particular issue years ago.

As for the date of recording, F thanks much for this. getting a little closer i think. i emailed Cuscuna for any clarification he might be able to bring at this point and i'll go back to Curtis one more time to see if some of this context jogs his memory a bit more.

Thanks for this. Michael Weiss sent me some info from this LP set, but it confuses the issue compared to the info included with the Paul Chambers Mosaic Select from a few years ago -- both "High Step" and the Mosaic were both produced by Michael Cuscuna. The LPs give two possible recording dates, including April 20, 1955 (instead of 1956, which is accepted in many more recent discographies and reissues) and the LPs also say the recording location is either Detroit or Boston. I spoke directly with Curtis Fuller about this (the only one still alive from the session, including the original producer)and all Curtis remembers is flying out to Boston and flying right back for the date. He doesn't remember it as "his" date. Very murky.

I'm trying to determine if the April 20, 1956 sesson from Boston/Cambridge was technically a Paul Chambers date or if it was released as a collective without an individual leader. This online discography lists it under P.C.'s name, but I'm wondering if this is accurate or not. Also wondering if it was literally recorded in Boston or Cambridge. (I've seen it both ways.) Finally, is this date currently available on CD somewhere. Last I saw it was on the Paul Chambers Mosaic Select. Can anybody shed more light? Paul Chambers Sextet Curtis Fuller (tb) John Coltrane (ts) Pepper Adams (bars) Roland Alexander (p -2) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d) Boston, MA, April 20, 1956 1.High Step Blue Note BN-LA 451-H2 2.Trane's Strain Transition TRLP 30; Blue Note BN-LA 451-H2 3.Nixon, Dixon And Yates Blues Blue Note BN-LA 451-H2 * Blue Note BN-LA 451-H2 Paul Chambers/John Coltrane - High Step * Transition TRLP 30, (J) GXF 3126 Various Artists - Jazz In Transition

Joe plays great on the two Griffith Park Collection LPs, especially the 2-LP live recording "The Griffith Park Collection 2 In Concert." He also appears on a couple of good records by the fine guitarist Akio Sasajima, who I think is still somewhere around San Francisco but whom I knew as a Chicagoan some 25 years ago. "Humpty Dumpty" (Enja) and "Akio" (Muse)

Big, big topic, but thinking off the top, five indispensable Blue Notes that Joe just kills on are McCoy Tyner's "The Real McCoy," Andrew Hill's "Black Fire," Larry Young's "Unity," Pete LaRoca's "Basra" and Kenny Dorham's "Una Mas." Lots of interesting records of more recent vintage, too, but I've got to do some work. More later.

I know it's not what you were thinking of, but for what is' worth, I write about jazz and my twin brother is a jazz pianist on the faculty at Western Illinois University in Macomb. Elvin Jones had a twin who died as an infant.

Speaking of "Solar" ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Miles_Davis_Gravesite.JPG and this ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQOUxYdNeR0

I thought it was long established that Wayne wrote "Solar," no? Or is this is this actually the first documentary evidence that literally proves it? If so, very cool. "Solar" is a 12-bar form; "How High the Moon" is a 16-bar (+16) form and the changes diverge enough that "Solar" shouldn't be thought of as a contrafact of "HHtM." Yet there is a similarity in the harmony starting in bar three where both move (one bar each) G-7/C7/F/F/F-7/B-flat7/E-flat that definitely leaves the scent of HHtM even though the tunes are in different keys and ultimately begin and end in different places. It would not surprise me if "HHtM," a tune as familiar as the blues or "Rhythm" in that era, entered Wayne's mind when he was creating that part of "Solar." Would love to know if there's any hard evidence of how concsious or unconscious the reference might be. Coda: As Ethan Iverson pointed out on Twitter today, Wayne plays the opening chord as major while Miles played in minor -- actually minor with a major 7th, an exotic sound in 1954. Certainly that's one reason the tune proved alluring to musicians. Also, the truncated form is interesting -- 12 bars but not a blues, though I suppose it kinda winks at the blues in an oblique way, going to IV major in the fifth bar. But it's a quirky, circular form. Coda 2: Why do we pronounce the title "So-lar" rhyming with "bar" rather than "Solar" as in "solar system," rhyming with "her"? Seriously, when the hell did that start?

Biography is part art, part science and part craft. Oral histories are of course invaluable but they are by no means gospel -- people lie (benevolently or willfully), they stretch the truth, they mis-remember, they forget, they tell a different version of their story each time they tell it to an interviewer, who may or may not have the skill, knowledge or experience to deal with the material in a sophisticated way. Anyone who has done any interviewing or writing knows how elusive the "truth" can be, even about mundane facts much less the complicated issues in which personal relationships, pyschology, family, identity, ego, insecurities and other issues are involved. The primary source interview is the place to start, but it is by no means the end. It can take a lot of post-interview probing with the subject and extensive follow-up fact checking through secondary interviews and scouring the written documentary record -- and then collating all of the information -- before you begin to get at some sense of the objective truth. You know, letters can often be a gold mine -- think of the Founding Fathers, who wrote down just about everything in voluminous letters. Yet there was also myopia and score settling and it takes an artful biographer -- who herself/himself will be dealing with their own biases -- to make sense of it all.

I like his last line: "That is one nutty hospital!"

"Spinal Tap" rules. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDIipofjBQg

Related: Patti Smith was married to the late guitarist Fred (Sonic) Smith of the MC5, whose landmark album "Kick Out the Jams" included a piece co-credited to the MC5 and Sun Ra. Patti was always a fan of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman -- see the photo of her here with "A Love Supreme" http://www.retronaut.co/2011/06/celebrities-and-their-vinyl/ Also, in her book "Just Kids" she talks about reviewing records for little magazines back in the early '70s including (and I'm going from memory here) Albert Ayler and other avant-garde musicians in a variety of idioms. I saw her recently in Detroit performing some of the new material (and lots of the old stuff) in an intimate and acoustic setting with just her two children -- her daughter plays keyboard and her son is a good guitarist. Great performance. For what it's worth, I wrote a rather lengthy piece about her in the context of her work as a visual artist and her deep connection with the Detroit Institute of Arts. http://www.freep.com/article/20120603/ENT05/206030415/The-DIA-through-Patti-Smith-s-eyes-Musician-artist-unleashes-her-imagination-on-a-tour-of-the-museum-she-has-loved-for-decades

Thanks -- yes, Turbo Village is probably the club. Now, any tapes of Freddie and Wayne's quartet? If there were any, David Weiss would know ...

This is tantalizing: In this new-to-me interview with Freddie Hubbard he is asked about Wayne Shorter and says that he and Wayne had a quartet that played for a year and a half in Brooklyn with Tom Williams and Pete LaRoca. Anybody know of any tapes or witness accounts of this group -- repertoire, sound, etc.? Freddie may say the name of the club, but I can't quite make it out in the interview. The section about Wayne starts around the 4:50 mark.

I just listened to the first track and Woody and Victor Lewis are on fire! Really exceptional. Looking forward to the rest of the tape. Thanks for posting

Great photos. Thanks for posting. Miles' $8,000 Ferrari in 1959, by the way, would cost $63K today according to a quick calculation with an inflation calculator.

The four major Detroit pianists -- Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris and Roland Hanna -- were terrific early on, but they matured into masters in the their 40s, 50s and beyond. On record the 1970s was an especially great decade for all of them. I think Elvin Jones and Roy Haynes both got better with age. Buddy Rich, too. I prefer the best of late Art Pepper compared to the best of early Art Pepper, but that's a personal preference and much discussed in other threads. (Related: I prefer early McCoy to later McCoy, but that's not to deny the greatness of later McCoy.) Branford Marsalis is another one; anyone who still judges him based on his playing from the 1980s and 90s is evaluating a completely different musician than the personal player he has become today. Let's see, who else comes to mind right away? Dexter Gordan grew tremendously of course, peaking in the 1960s and early '70s.

Didn't get any action the first time around so bumping to see if any latecomers have any suggestions ...

Anyone know a source for a complete Curtis Fuller discography? I was able to find this list of his his sessions as a leader http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Leaders/FullerCurtis-ldr.php But unless I'm missing the obvious, I can't seem to find a complete sessionography of his recordings. Thanks as always.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_joke Wiki not reliable of course on all things all the time but some boiler plate here ...

The standard for libel is quite high under First Amendmant law: I think I am correct that for an average person to prevail, he/she has to prove the statement in question is not only false but that it caused harm and was the result of negligence. Anyone who meets the definition of a public figure has to also prove "actual malice," typically defined as publishing something that was knowingly false or showed a reckless disregard for the truth. Lawyers could go into more detail ...

I agree with Jim above. Re: Allen's point and Ornette, he gets at the same idea in this 2004 interview with him I wrote up in which he gave me an impromptu saxophone lesson: ------------- Ornette Coleman knew that I was an alto saxophonist and jazz musician before becoming a journalist, so when I pressed for details about his harmolodic theory, he generously offered to give me a lesson right there on the spot. He pulled out his saxophone case, assembled the horn and handed it to me. It was a top-of-the-line Selmer Mark VI that the company gave him in the 1960s. An experimental model -- the company made fewer than 200 -- the horn has an unusual low A-key that allows the player to reach a half-step lower than on most saxophones. The horn was lacquered white, recalling the eccentric plastic alto that Coleman played on his early records. Coleman had left his Meyer mouthpiece and reed attached to the neck of the horn the last time he played, and the whole apparatus was shoved inside the bell -- with no protective cloth and not even a mouthpiece cap to guard the cane. Any teacher who caught a student storing his instrument this way would have a conniption. Coleman apologized sheepishly: "I know I should have a mouthpiece cap." In the harmolodic system, Coleman completely deconstructs normal Western musical syntax. All instruments are treated as if they are tuned in C. All instruments can read from the same part without transposing and still produce what Coleman calls a "unison." Improvisers are allowed to play in any key or any clef at any time. He first had me play the notes A, C, D and E-flat, because in harmolodics these are considered a unison. "One note, four sounds," is a Coleman mantra. Then he had me play three chords that led through all 12 notes of the chromatic scale -- C major 7, E-flat minor 7, D minor with a flat 5, and a final A to account for the 12th note. "That's your first harmolodic lesson," he said. "You can use any tonic and play those same three chords and come up with 12 different notes." Coleman asked me to improvise starting on any note but to keep in mind the intervals I had already been working with. He was trying to liberate me from conventional harmony, and it worked for a few bars before I relapsed into a bebop pattern. "Here," I said, handing the horn back to him. "Show me." Coleman closed his eyes and played a fresh, leaping phrase that, like many of his ideas, ended on a high note that shivered with the aching cry of the blues. I noticed Coleman doesn't keep his top teeth on the mouthpiece, a highly irregular technique that allows the vocalized flexibility of his sound. "You can play sharp in tune and you can play flat in tune," is another mantra. Coleman played a series of zigzagging lines. Some were aggressive blurs like the sweeping gestures of an abstract painter. Others were simple shapes in bold colors. Each idea was as natural as breathing. Each painted the air with swing. Several were melodies worth surrounding with a frame and calling it song. "Don't let the saxophone tell you what to play," he said. "Let your ear tell you. The same note could be any one of the other 12. An E can be the major 7th of F, the minor 7th of F-sharp, the major 6th of G. If you start thinking like that, the saxophone is going to get smaller and smaller. No matter how much technique you have, you're not going to play no music if all you're doing is playing from how the instrument is built."