Bird, Miles in Paris 1949

[Gheorghe]

One thing about Tadd, I think he´s got a highly individual style of piano playing. On medium tempos like "Good Bait", which is also featured on the Paris recordings, he would start with something like an anticlimax as a contrast to the other players, fast companly like Miles, Fats, James Moody, Allen Eager, Wardell Gray etc, then play some single line patterns and at one point, mostly when starting the B section, he would burst into those heavy chords. He has the same way of playing on slow blues, like "Romas" on Mating Call, or "Bula-Beige" on Fontainbleau.

On ballads he plays mostly his chord based style, somehow strange how he plays every ballad solo in a kind of rhumba feeling.

But it´s a mistake to write off his piano skills. It reminds me of Monk: When someone asked him if he ever played a regular piano, he would do some Tatumesque runs and licks, and stride and everything and would say he can do that but dont need that.

Same with Tadd. Listen to his solo on "Eb Pob" from the Savoy sessions with Fats. He plays a hornlike piano, almost like Bud Powell, as if he would have liked to show us, that he can do that, but don´t need it.

On the other hand: Try to imitate his style on piano, it´s hard, it´s almost impossible to sound like him. You can get in that Bud Powell groove if you listen much to it, even Monk, many piano players can do some Monkish stuff, but Tadd? The only one, who once came close to it was Walter Davis on "Dial for Beauty" on the Dameronia album, but even he couldn´t do it in that unique way Tadd did. "Arranger´s style"? Nonsens. There´s no arranger´s style, it´s Tadd, the composer, arranger, a n d pianist.....

[HolgerFreimutSchrick]

In der deutschen Wikipedia legte ich zu diesem Festival den Artikel an:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_International_1949_de_Jazz

Hope you like it! Holger

[bichos]

i recommend this site. even if it´s in japanese and focused on charlie parker, there is the original program and fine pictures. you can find a lot of information there!!

keep boppin´

marcel

[Big Beat Steve]

In der deutschen Wikipedia legte ich zu diesem Festival den Artikel an:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_International_1949_de_Jazz

Hope you like it! Holger

What, no mention of the SWEDISH ALL STARS band that caused quite a stir there?

Not even mentioned in the lineup of the "other" bands that appeared there?

(I'd say the Swedish headlines almost speak for themselves for us Germans. )

"Swedish jazz a knockout hit in Paris"

"Every day was Christmas in Paris"

"Fabulous Swedish success in Paris"

Edited November 2, 2011 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

In der deutschen Wikipedia legte ich zu diesem Festival den Artikel an:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_International_1949_de_Jazz

Hope you like it! Holger

What, no mention of the SWEDISH ALL STARS band that caused quite a stir there?

Not even mentioned in the lineup of the "other" bands that appeared there?

(I'd say the Swedish headlines almost speak for themselves for us Germans. )

I must admit, I´m not an expert on European jazz. But who were the Swedish musicians who played at that festival. I had a look on the inside cover of my "Miles Davis Tadd DAmeron " LP with the festival program and couldn´t find about swedish musicians on the schedule. Anyway, there were few European musicians. Toots Thielemans trio, Hazy Osterwald quintet. Maybe the "European All Stars", they were on schedule for one evening.....

[mjzee]

i recommend this site. even if it´s in japanese and focused on charlie parker, there is the original program and fine pictures. you can find a lot of information there!!

keep boppin´

marcel

Great site; thanks, Marcel! BTW, if you use either the Google Chrome or Opera browsers, they can automatically translate the Japanese into other languages.

[Big Beat Steve]

@Gheorghe:

In a nutshell, Nils Hellström, editor of the Swedish magazine ESTRAD and concert promoter, got in touch with Charles Delaunay early in 1949 when the projected lineup for the festival materialized, and a couple of weeks prior to the festival the Swedish all star band (the "Parisorkester" as they were known) was all ready and assembled:

Gösta Törner (tp; Putte Wickman (cl), Arne Domnérus (as), Carl-Henrik Norin (ts), Reinhold Svensson (p), Simon Brehm ()b), Sven Bollhem (dr), Alice Babs (voc).

No matter what the (apparently prematurely printed) French ads and leaflets for the festival said and though the inclusion of the Swedish band was almost an afterthought, they were there and they caused a stir.

A glimpse of it is here:

Dragon DRCD 349:

http://www.dragonrecords.se/cdframe.htm

I doubt that live recordings by other European bands from that festival would go over or come across anywhere nearly as well ... such as in the case of some of the British bands that were booed mercilessly off the stage by part of the utterly uncivilized French audience that was still engulfed deeply in that Delaunay vs Panassié (progressives vs moldy figs) schism.

Edited November 3, 2011 by Big Beat Steve