Larry Kart Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 Those who are stylistically so inclined might want to check out this "live" recording of the band's initial 1966 Vanguard performances. Listened some on Spotify -- sound is quite good, the band is on fire, and one gets to hear Thad solo a good deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 It's been here for at least a week, I need to get to it, no doubts here about its worthiness. But who is the guy who subbed for Pepper on opening night? Can't say that I've seen/heard the name before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GA Russell Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 I still like Disc One, and I'm still looking forward to March 21! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted O'Reilly Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 17 hours ago, JSngry said: It's been here for at least a week, I need to get to it, no doubts here about its worthiness. But who is the guy who subbed for Pepper on opening night? Can't say that I've seen/heard the name before. Here he is: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/marvin-holladay-mn0000859706 and the end of paragraph one may indicate that Pepper send him in as a sub... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 Thanks. Looks like I have him on several Kenton records. Guess I never looked at the personnel that closely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Friedman Posted February 27, 2016 Report Share Posted February 27, 2016 Just listened to Disc 1 this morning. It sure sounded good.Hope to hear Disc 2 soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Starting the day off with this one, not even halfway through the first tune and am already having some serious "holy shit!" moments from the sheer energy coming out of the band. The feelings of being "unleashed" implicit in so many accounts of the bands early days have never been captured in fuller force than they are here, almost literally from the first note of the first tune...Jeryy Didgion playing a pretty spirited Phil Woods kind of thing, ok, but then teh band comes in with this ginormous Thad Mindfuck Chord that pins the walls back to themselves...between that and the Richard Davis/Mel Lewis BRING IT hookup, woo woo woo, what a little big band can do for you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Little Pixie on Disc 1...that's the kind of shit, all of it!, that would get you fired from a "regular" gig..."unleashed" indeed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 I'm going to play it today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted February 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Yeah -- I listened to "Little Pixie" on Spotify and placed my order immediately. When I asked my friend Bill Kirchner about the set (a frequent reed section sub in later editions of the band, he wrote the notes for the Mosaic Vanguard Orch. set) he replied: "The first night in particular is as you might expect--exciting but sloppy. To me, the most remarkable thing is how just six weeks later, the band already had started to acquire considerably more focus and polish. "Here's a video of my favorite edition of the band: in Nice, July 1977, with Danko, Rufus, Dodgion, Oatts, Perry, Frank Gordon, Pepper Adams, et al. Astounding, and little documented, alas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5sbYomOixk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HutchFan Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, JSngry said: Starting the day off with this one, not even halfway through the first tune and am already having some serious "holy shit!" moments from the sheer energy coming out of the band. The feelings of being "unleashed" implicit in so many accounts of the bands early days have never been captured in fuller force than they are here, almost literally from the first note of the first tune...Jeryy Didgion playing a pretty spirited Phil Woods kind of thing, ok, but then teh band comes in with this ginormous Thad Mindfuck Chord that pins the walls back to themselves...between that and the Richard Davis/Mel Lewis BRING IT hookup, woo woo woo, what a little big band can do for you... I wish Jerry Dodgion had made more records in a small group setting. I think he's an interesting musician -- but you usually only hear him in big bands. One exception that I've really enjoyed: Portrait of Marian McPartland (Concord). It's a quartet record with MM, Dodgion, Brian Torff and Jake Hanna. IMHO, it's a beautiful record and super-easy to overlook. I've not heard Dodgion's one record as a leader, Jerry Dodgion & the Joy of Sax. Any thoughts on that one? Sorry to digress from the theme of the thread. Back to Thad & Mel! Edited February 29, 2016 by HutchFan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 39 minutes ago, HutchFan said: I wish Jerry Dodgion had made more records in a small group setting. I think he's an interesting musician -- but you usually only hear him in big bands. One exception that I've really enjoyed: Portrait of Marian McPartland (Concord). It's a quartet record with MM, Dodgion, Brian Torff and Jake Hanna. IMHO, it's a beautiful record and super-easy to overlook. I've not heard Dodgion's one record as a leader, Jerry Dodgion & the Joy of Sax. Any thoughts on that one? Sorry to digress from the theme of the thread. Back to Thad & Mel! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted February 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 6 hours ago, BillF said: I also like Dodgion on another McPartland album, "Plays the Music of Billy Strayhorn," the best solo work I've heard from him. Don't think of him by and large as a gripping, story-telling improviser but as a tasty embelisher (sp?) and top-drawer section man; on the Strayhorn album his handsome soulful personal take on Hodges is evident throughout. Spent a fun very late evening with him and singer Anita Gravine once in NYC after a concert; a lovely guy with a wry sense of humor and a fund of great stories. Dodgion is also in good form on this sadly o.o.p. and at the moment ridiculously pricey Eddie Bert album, which also has some superb Carmen Leggio. (It seems to be o.o.p. and ridiculously pricey on Amazon but also seems to be available direct from Fresh Sound at its original price.) Charts are a bit cute at times, but the playing is as good as you might expect/hope. Duke Jordan! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Enjoyed the first disc marginally but noticeably more than the second, but really, am quite happy with both. I do wonder about the book, though. After a while, it's like reading answers to a questionnaire (and quite often with the same type of responses). I get wanting "deluxe packaging", but sometimes less is more? Still, not complaining. I bought it for the music, and expectations met, if not exceeded, please sigh here acknowledging that we have discussed this review. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Weiss Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 1 hour ago, JSngry said: Enjoyed the first disc marginally but noticeably more than the second, but really, am quite happy with both. I do wonder about the book, though. After a while, it's like reading answers to a questionnaire (and quite often with the same type of responses). I get wanting "deluxe packaging", but sometimes less is more? Still, not complaining. I bought it for the music, and expectations met, if not exceeded, please sigh here acknowledging that we have discussed this review. sigh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Let's hear it for the good sight-readers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted February 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Just arrived today. I'm a few tunes into disc one and even though I'm playing it at less than the volume I normally would because my wife is working on something upstiars on her computer and requests relative quiet for a while, I'm galvanized. I know what Jim means about the booklet questionnaire being fairly repetitive, but I'm grateful for the care with which some guys specify how important and distinctive Lewis' drumming was. With Thad being out front and writing most of the pieces, it would be easy to think that it was essentially his band, but it was definitely Thad AND Mel. Also, am I wrong or does this edition of the band sound a good deal looser than it does on any of its other recordings -- at the Vanguard or in the studio? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Weiss Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 1 hour ago, JSngry said: Let's hear it for the good sight-readers! After my big band career is over I can be a proofreader! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Yes, looser. Although perhaps the"official" recordings were intended to have cleaner readings...remember who this band was comprised of...but I don't think they swing any harder there than here, and for my tastes, the little bit of "sloppiness" is more than fine by me. The jaggedness of imprecision is indeed a game of milliseconds, but when it happens on the right side of wherever that line ends up being, whoo! Or as some of the younger folk say, WOOT WOOT! As for Mel, maybe it's my background, but I never had any doubt as to how essential Mel was to the band's "thing". Never. What I did fin interesting was the one guy who said that it was really Brookmeyer who was 2nd in command, not Mel, and isn't that a quietly recurring them in Brookmeyer's musical life, how it seems like he was always there to take some kind of charge? Not that he didn't earn it or deserve it, but the quote from some guy in that Jazz Loft set about how some guy came in and tried playing a little freer drew a Death Ray from Brookmeyer, and when asked what he did wrong, he got a "you know what you did wrong" kind of a I Am Master Of All Judgements thing back, and don't get me wrong, some guys are just like that, and every scene needs guys like that in order to do more than just flounder in a gloop of Interesting Ideas, I'm just saying, for that scene and as long as both it and Brookmeyer existed, Brookmeyer was That Guy, or so it seems. It also sounds like Jerome Richardson was one fun cat to be on a gig with, or in a room with, or, I guess, in a world with. I know it was fun as hell to Go To The Movies with him on United Artists records! The one really fascinating tidbit that I got out of the entire book (apart from Thad having some of his charts in Duke Pearson's book...who knew?) was that it was Mel who called Richard Davis for the band. That ended up being one of the greatest ideas ever, imo, and I would have never thunk it in a million years. Even thought the networking seems to have taken place within Traditional Commercial Environments, it ended up being a case of two 9-5 coworkers running off with each other out of the same building and hooking up for some the best sex ever and not even trying to be discrete with it, and dammit, let 'em go, this is FUN! I swear to god, there have been many times over the years (including a few today) where I get up and dance and SCREAM when Richard and Mel hit on one of their things, and if it's getting that good to me, you can only imagine how good it was getting to them. 42 minutes ago, Michael Weiss said: After my big band career is over I can be a proofreader! Serious question - are there still professional copyists? Not people who will load your score into whatever part-writing software they have, but cats who can still crank out handwritten parts like tornadoes or something? And to get hyper-arcane about it - who was Thad's copyist of choice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted March 3, 2016 Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 Thanks for all your impressions! Ordered mine from Catalonia last night - and from Mr. Sangrey's descriptions, this is going to be all as hot (and as much of a hoot) as I was expecting! Btw, Mr. Sangrey, do you know the Basle 1969 set with Joe Henderson? That one's hilariously fun, too! (isn't there an earlier thread, can't they be merged? or is chaos method here?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted March 3, 2016 Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 I knew from the start this was an item to get, but what I just read makes me want to hit the button immediately! Ubu, you ordered from Catalonia? Details, please, for a European co-addict! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted March 3, 2016 Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 jazzmessengers.com - easily recommended, free shipping (and tracked, too, so I usually have to pick it up at the post office, alas) http://www.jazzmessengers.com/en/70776/thad-jones/all-my-yesterdays-debut-1966-recordings-at-vv they have good prices on many labels, Resonance, Xanadu, Pi, Intakt, Steeplechase ... they're selling Mosaic's officially and by agreement with Mosaic (though usually I still order those straight from the label) ... they're also selling the entire euro PD crap, but as at least some of that (Fresh Sound!) is nowadays quite nice to have, with the major's jazz reissue programmes dead or on life-support, some of that is welcome, too ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Weiss Posted March 3, 2016 Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 On February 29, 2016 at 5:29 PM, JSngry said: Serious question - are there still professional copyists? Not people who will load your score into whatever part-writing software they have, but cats who can still crank out handwritten parts like tornadoes or something? I'd like to think so. There's still nothing better than a well made hand-written part. I wrote out parts by hand for a long time but have recently succumbed to Sibelius, mainly for the ease of editing and creating pdfs. I still prefer my own hand for looks. On February 29, 2016 at 5:29 PM, JSngry said: And to get hyper-arcane about it - who was Thad's copyist of choice? I'll have to look into that. I've heard stories of Thad composing at the last minute for record dates while the band was on the road (1970s era) and asking band members to copy parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted March 3, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 Talented composer-bandleader Anita Brown (daughter of Tristano-ite tenor saxophonist Ted Brown) used to be the Vanguard Orchestra's copyist (or one of them) in the Jim McNeely era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted March 3, 2016 Report Share Posted March 3, 2016 5 hours ago, Michael Weiss said: .... but have recently succumbed to Sibelius... wow, that sounds really bad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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