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Philly Joe Jones


Norm

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I just put The Miles Davis Quintet's Steamin' in after a long hiatus. When I hit track 2, "Salt Peanuts," I was totally blown away by the drum solo. Having heard Blakey's version of "Night in Tunisia" and "Drum Thunder" I thought for sure it must be him, only to look it up and discover this is Philly Joe Jones. Not only powerful and loud but extremely intricate and innovative. Holy Mackeral, that sounds good! Also, nice piano work on this album by Red Garland. It appears that I totally underestimated this album before.

I've picked up Cookin', Steamin' and Relaxin' so I guess I should just go ahead and get Walkin' and Workin' ...doesn't seem like you can do wrong with these early Miles dates.

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I just put The Miles Davis Quintet's Steamin' in after a long hiatus. When I hit track 2, "Salt Peanuts," I was totally blown away by the drum solo. Having heard Blakey's version of "Night in Tunisia" and "Drum Thunder" I thought for sure it must be him, only to look it up and discover this is Philly Joe Jones. Not only powerful and loud but extremely intricate and innovative. Holy Mackeral, that sounds good! Also, nice piano work on this album by Red Garland. It appears that I totally underestimated this album before.

I've picked up Cookin', Steamin' and Relaxin' so I guess I should just go ahead and get Walkin' and Workin' ...doesn't seem like you can do wrong with these early Miles dates.

be aware that walkin' does not belong into this series, it has a rhythm section of horace silver, pery heath and kenny clarke and different horn sections including the great lucky thompson and dave schildkraut... if you don't have it, miles' round midnight on columbia, also with the first quintet, is one to get... and there is of course an endless list of worthy dates featuring philly joe jones... e.g. the early coltrane albums with garland/chambers/jones...

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I just put The Miles Davis Quintet's Steamin' in after a long hiatus. When I hit track 2, "Salt Peanuts," I was totally blown away by the drum solo. Having heard Blakey's version of "Night in Tunisia" and "Drum Thunder" I thought for sure it must be him, only to look it up and discover this is Philly Joe Jones. Not only powerful and loud but extremely intricate and innovative. Holy Mackeral, that sounds good! Also, nice piano work on this album by Red Garland. It appears that I totally underestimated this album before.

I've picked up Cookin', Steamin' and Relaxin' so I guess I should just go ahead and get Walkin' and Workin' ...doesn't seem like you can do wrong with these early Miles dates.

be aware that walkin' does not belong into this series, it has a rhythm section of horace silver, pery heath and kenny clarke and different horn sections including the great lucky thompson and dave schildkraut... if you don't have it, miles' round midnight on columbia, also with the first quintet, is one to get... and there is of course an endless list of worthy dates featuring philly joe jones... e.g. the early coltrane albums with garland/chambers/jones...

Thanks, Niko. I had just assumed Walkin' used the same personnel because of the one-word album title and use of an the apostraphe for "g" on the end. Thanks for the heads up.

Yes, I picked up the Sony Legacy 2-disc edition of Round Midnight (2005) a little while back and love it. I guess I've probably heard a decent amount of stuff with Philly Joe Jones, but had never paid attention before. You mentioned those dates with Trane, Garland and Chambers...I'm assuming that most if not all are captured on the recently-released Side Steps compilation. I'm going to have to pay more attention to rhythm section as I listen to the relevant selections. That drumming on "Salt Peanuts" is just out of sight.

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Check out "Billy Boy"

That's the trio track on "Milestones" (Columbia), right?

"Ahmad's Blues" (the trio feature on "Workin'") is fun, too!

More prime Philly Joe can be heard on "Sonny Clark Trio" (Blue Note, with Paul Chambers). The same trio with Jackie MacLean and Art Farmer cut Clark's classic "Soul Struttin'" (Blue Note as well).

On many of the Coltrane sessions, btw, Art Taylor's on drums. Philly Joe would have been better, musically, but I guess his "issues" got the better of him too often, and he wasn't Prestige's (nor Blue Note's) preferred session drummer, alas.

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and he wasn't Prestige's (nor Blue Note's) preferred session drummer, alas.

...but he was Riverside's house drummer (or almost), appearing on dozens of albums for the label including three under his name.

I wasn't aware he was on so many Riverside sessions!

He also made a very nice album in 1978 for Galaxy - "Drum song" - with Blue Mitchell, Slide Hampton, Harold Land, Charles Bowen, Cedar Walton & Marc Johnson. I think that was reissued on OJC.

MG

Yes, I have that, I think it was reissued by Fantasy, not strictly an OJC.

That's "Cool Struttin,'" not "Soul Struttin.'" PJJ, PC, and SC are a fantastic team on the title track, amazingly compositional in the way they shift from one rhythmic feel to another as the mood and the soloists require.

Of course! That was a typo... I love "Cool Struttin'", but I think I love "Trio" even more!

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Always dug Philly's playing on Hank Mobley's "No Room For Squares" ......

He's fantastic on that one!

I'm sorry I never saw him live. I went to a Frankfurt club shortly before his death to see him, but he had cancelled the gig earlier that day, that was when his health started to decline rapidly ...

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