Thad Jones

[John Tapscott]

I don't really have anything by the Jones/Lewis Orchestra, but I imagine he's often lost in this big ensemble.

If he had been only "lost", it would have been much more than I witnessed.

When I saw the band (Thad Jones-Mel Lewis) around 1978, Thad Jones didn´t even have his trumpet. He just "conducted", a big disappointment for me, since I was a young guy, already had heard Thad Jones´ trumpet on records and was lookin forward hearing him with HIS Big Band.

Well , after so many years, naturally my musical insight grew, and now I understand what it means to conduct, but then I didn´t understand what´s about music if you don´t play your instrument....

IIRC, Thad had an accident around '77-78 in which he crashed through a plate glass window and cut his lip badly. He couldn't play for a while and that's probably when you saw him without his trumpet. During the recovery he even took up valve trombone to ease the pressure on his lip. But I really don't think he played all that much from the time of his accident until he died some 8 years later.

Edited November 8, 2014 by John Tapscott

[Mark Stryker]

A LOT to say about Thad's playing and writing but saving it for the chapter I've written about him for my book. However, re: instruments. He had a lifelong preference for the cornet but he played both cornet and trumpet up until the mid 60s and then both cornet and flugelhorn. What's tricky is that cornet he played was a Conn Constellation 28A -- a long cornet that unless you're a trumpet geek, looks like a trumpet. Some of the BN albums with pictures of him playing what you would think is a trumpet is actually the Conn Constellation. As for the '78 accident, it was in Yugoslavia: A bystander shoved his hand through a taxi window in which Thad was riding and the glass cut his lip. It took multiple surgeries to repair. Thad always blamed the act on random violence of a drunk; but Thad also had a history of situations/altercations, particularly when it came to racial slights real or perceived. All of which is to say there's a good chance words were exchanged before the punch. There are some rumors floating but nothing I've been able to definitively nail down.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

There are some rumors floating but nothing I've been able to definitively nail down.

Hello.

[MomsMobley]

There are some rumors floating but nothing I've been able to definitively nail down.

Hello.

Ted Jones--

Ted Joans, comes onstage at 2:38--

[Larry Kart]

I spent some time with Thad one long, very interesting (at least to me) and also semi-goofy night in NYC in 1985, just after he briefly took over leadership of the Basie Band. That there was a whole lot running through his mind at any one time was among the impressions I had; he noticed everything, and the fact that he did so somehow seemed to ensure that more stuff would be happening than otherwise would be the case. I plan to write about that night some time, as one of a series of jazz-related anecdotes that I was a part of and/or present for, many of them somewhat humorous (I hope). Names may have to be changed in some cases (though not this one) to protect the innocent.

I saw the Basie band directed by Thad at the Henry Street Settlement that year. I don't think he played any of his arrangements. I know he didn't play any of his compositions.

If it was the band's debut under Thad, that was the performance I was at, too. The band, virtually or totally unmiked IIRC, sounded fantastic in that wood-paneled auditorium; you could hear Freddie Green. Also, in a round-table backstage interview with several band members that was hastily set up between sets (I was supposed to interview Thad, but he was a no show (which was the beginning of the evening's odyssey for me), Green quite forcefully said, when some member of the band (maybe Tee Carson or Byron Stripling) said "Freddie doesn't want to heard, just felt, "Oh, I want to be heard." Then he added some quite specific details that I don't recall off the top of my head about the harmonic as well as rhythmic importance of his playing.

Don't think I said or implied that the band played any of Thad's arrangements or compositions that night.

[JSngry]

(I was supposed to interview Thad, but he was a no show (which was the beginning of the evening's odyssey for me),

Hello.

[Larry Kart]

Hello, what? I hope tell the whole story of the evening's odyssey someday -- a story that is not to Thad's discredit but has much more to do with my semi-naivete, plus a whole host of off-the-wall events, at least one of which I probably would not regard as plausible if I had read it in a work of fiction -- but it's a story that may take a lot of words to tell and that I need to get just right as a piece of writing, among other things.

[JSngry]

Hello, what?

But seriously...the rumors about Thad's sudden departure from the US and his unfortunate accident, hello that, hello no-show for interview between sets, hello, that, as well as hello, motherfuckers sometimes DO be crazy, and their behavior/lifestyle choices follows from that, and sometimes crazy motherfuckers actually DO be geniuses (or at least brilliant), not a connection AFAIC, hello that, too.

"Discredit" has nothing to do with anything here, at least not as a part of what my value-system views as discredit, anything but that.

[Gheorghe]

Thank you for the infos about Thad Jones accident. Now I understand, why he didn´t play trumpet when I saw the band.

[MomsMobley]

Hello, what? I hope tell the whole story of the evening's odyssey someday -- a story that is not to Thad's discredit but has much more to do with my semi-naivete, plus a whole host of off-the-wall events, at least one of which I probably would not regard as plausible if I had read it in a work of fiction -- but it's a story that may take a lot of words to tell and that I need to get just right as a piece of writing, among other things.

[Gheorghe]

Is the story true, that Miles once sat in with the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Big Band ? And if it was so, when was it? Somebody told me once, that it was during Miles retirement. Hard to believe......

About Thad Jones´ trumpet style: If I remember right, Mingus praised him highly, and considered that he is a trumpet genius like Fats Navarro.

[Michael Weiss]

Is the story true, that Miles once sat in with the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Big Band ? And if it was so, when was it? Somebody told me once, that it was during Miles retirement. Hard to believe......

http://www.plosin.com/milesahead/Sessions.aspx?s=810600

[Mark Stryker]

Here's how Mel remembers Miles sitting in that summer.

http://books.google.com/books?id=q94ZBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=miles+davis+and+mel+lewis+1981&source=bl&ots=W_zuWO3IWk&sig=y9EUiE5CBqRn1gd35XCp29LNb8U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KyhiVPbuC8uXNvyrhJgN&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

There is a bootleg tape floating around ...

[BFrank]

Yes, the Mosaic is a splendid set.

This will be much cheaper.

Just to second these two recommendations. The Mosaic set is OOP, but can usually be found for a reasonable price on ebay, and "Mean What You Say" is still in print.

[Milestones]

Is Thad the soloist on the first version of "A Child is Born"?

[JSngry]

Oh yeah, do not forget about Thad on Heiner Stadler's A Tribute To Monk and Bird.

For that matter, do not forget about that album, period, although it's pretty easy to so do.

[Rabshakeh]

On 11/6/2014 at 4:56 PM, JSngry said:

I can see both points about Thad/Mel vs Mel/Vanguard Orchestra. Those really were (or became) two different orchestras in terms of style and personality. Time was making that happen even before Thad left, but once he did, everything accelerated. For me, the early-ish Thad/Mel was definitive, the later Thad/Mel sweet but changed, and Mel?Vanguard something else entirely, something I enjoyed but for totally different reasons. But that early Thad/Mel, up until the "veteran" contingent had dwindled down to just a few stalwarts, that was something special.

 

On 11/6/2014 at 6:17 PM, Peter Friedman said:

Jim has summed up my opinion very well. I enjoyed all 3 periods of the Orchestra, but each was a bit different and the first was my favorite.

Other than Consummation which are generally the most well love records from the first period, and what is a representative record from the latter two?

Consummation is the only one that I know.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

I love the first three, one is studio, the next two are live. And then, from 1977, Live in Munich.

In between is all good, although the studio albums on Horizon will be the last ones I reach for, and will maybe even put them back if I do.

Also, if I'm honest, everything before Consummation is OK with me, and that one is ok.  

And uh-oh, what's this, please? 

 

 

[Peter Friedman]

The  Thad Jones Quartet played a gig in a club in Rochester, New York while I was living there. Can't recall the date but the personnel may give a clue. He had Harold Danko on piano, and I don't remember the bass player and drummer. Wish I could remember if Mel was the drummer. 

But I do know that during the evening, tenor player Rich Perry showed up and sat in with the quartet. I believe that Rich Perry had only fairly recently joined the Thad & Mel Orchestra. He came in from New York City just so he could play with Thad in that small group setting.

The music was very good, but I am sorry that most details of that evening have faded from my memory.

 

[JSngry]

There's that quartet record on Artists House that is a pure, unfettered delight. Thad, Mel, Danko, and Rufus Reid? 

Maybe it was originally on Horizon, but AH released an expanded edition. 

[Rabshakeh]

Thanks. That looks good. I'll check it out.

[Peter Friedman]

Back in 1976, My wife, young son and I had the opportunity to spend a month in Oslo, Norway. One day when walking around town I saw a poster indicating that the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra was coming to Oslo for 2 nights. We were able to get someone to watch our son, and my wife and I attended the concert the first night. 

The music was thrilling, and Pepper Adams especially played some amazing solos. I was so happy to be there that evening that I decided to come back for the second night concert, though this time I came alone as my wife stayed home with our son. 

Though I had seen the Thad & Mel Band a few times previously, at the Village Vanguard in NYC and also in Rochester, getting to see them in Norway was an unexpected and wonderful surprise.

[JSngry]

I know there was a live gig taped for PBS, and I'm thinking it was done in Rochester, does that sound right to you, Peter? 

[JSngry]

 

 

[JSngry]