Walter Bishop Jr. - Bish At The Bank: Live In Baltimore

[mjzee]

Release date April 21:

Bish at the Bank: Live in Baltimore is an official previously unissued set of recordings by one of the unsung heroes of bebop jazz piano, Walter Bishop Jr., featuring a swinging trio with Harold Vick on saxophone, Lou McIntosh on bass and Dick Berk on drums. This double CD set was transferred from the original tape reels and, boasts 100 minutes of music and is packaged in a cardboard gatefold sleeve with an extensive 32-page booklet with essays by esteemed jazz journalist Ted Panken and jazz video journalist and friend of Bishop's, Bret Primack; rare photos by Don Schlitten, Raymod Ross and Jan Persson; plus, poetry pieces written by Bishop. The set is produced by label owner musician Cory Weeds and Jazz Detective producer Zev Feldman.The double set consists of 2 shows recorded in Baltimore, Maryland, disc one recorded at The Madison Club on August 28, 1966 and The Famous Ballroom on February 26, 1967 on disc two.

[Dan Gould]

I am all over this for certain.

[jazzbo]

ME TOO

[Joe]

Hell yeah! 

[Dan Gould]

Valerie has passed hasn't she? Would be nice if her husband gets some attention from this and she is still around for it. And that she was involved or compensated if she is still alive.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

20 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

Valerie has passed hasn't she? Would be nice if her husband gets some attention from this and she is still around for it. And that she was involved or compensated if she is still alive.

Valerie died in 2017 but I don't think she would have been compensated anyway. She was Walter Bishop's ex-wife, not his widow.

[AllenLowe]

I did a month with Bishop at a restaurant in Hartford back in the '80s. Sweet guy; almost all we did was talk about Bud Powell, whom he described as "infantile" in every respect except musical.

[kh1958]

It's up for pre-order on Amazon.

[felser]

Hopeful, but will wait for more on repertoire and sound quality before ordering.   

[Dan Gould]

2 hours ago, bresna said:

Valerie died in 2017 but I don't think she would have been compensated anyway. She was Walter Bishop's ex-wife, not his widow.

Thanks for the reminder, I thought she had died and was thinking she was ex-wife too but couldn't recall.

29 minutes ago, felser said:

Hopeful, but will wait for more on repertoire and sound quality before ordering.   

I am the opposite, excited about this but hesitant a bit on the Shirley Scott especially given the repertoire mentioned, or at least the first three pop tunes listed.

I'm not worried about sound - I've spent the last 2 plus years paying for audio cassettes to be transferred by the Smithsonian and the vast majority were not soundboard. I'll deal.

[JSngry]

14 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

 I'll deal.

Put that on my headstone! 👁️‍🗨️

[Dub Modal]

Damn. Well, guess the Jazz Dick be swingin' 🙊 ☠️

[Eric]

19 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

I am the opposite, excited about this but hesitant a bit on the Shirley Scott especially given the repertoire mentioned, or at least the first three pop tunes listed.

Shirley Scott?

4 minutes ago, Eric said:

Shirley Scott?

Nevermind.  What a cool cover on that one!

[Dan Gould]

12 minutes ago, Eric said:

Shirley Scott?

Nevermind.  What a cool cover on that one!

🙃

Yeah I was referencing Felser being more excited at Shirley Scott and not as much on this one.

I guess April 21 must be Record Store Day but I am going to hope there's at least another 1 or 2 coming for the end of the year too.

 

[felser]

43 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

🙃

Yeah I was referencing Felser being more excited at Shirley Scott and not as much on this one.

Hesitant on them both, mainly because of past huge disappointments on the sound quality of recordings from the Left Bank (especially thinking of those 32Jazz releases by Getz, Hubbard, Walton, Stitt, etc.).  Big draw on the Scott for me is George Coleman, though Harold Vick isn't small change either.

[Ken Dryden]

Benny Green had some nice things to say about Walter Bishop, Jr. Bishop vouched for the teenager and called himself his “New York father.”

[mjzee]

The SQ on Left Bank issues is pretty predictable: kinda flat, a little raw, a little distant.  The more exciting the performance, the more the music breaks through SQ issues - the two Dexters are first that come to mind.  But these are snapshots of an era that seem more precious as the years go on.  

[Gheorghe]

I love a lot of things Bishop played. He must have been influenced by Bud Powell but never did copy him. He had his own style from the very early days. You hear it on his playing with Bird on "Happy Bird" in Boston, and I slightly remember I once heard a tape of some very very weak Bird where the only player worth listening to is  Bishop. He plays so great solos on that set where Bird was unable to breath or to play, it´s just incredible. 
And than those magic moments where he plays them great ballad solos on a Dizzy Reece album. 
In the mid sixties I think he toured with a Bird memorial band and some video tapes were made that I saw, but Bishop had lost some of his own unique style on that. 

About the Baltimore Left Bank records. It must have been a great club with great music, but I think I have somewhere in my batch of LPs a George Coleman + Wynton Kelly LP and the sound is terrible. The sound of the tenor is ugly, the bass is almost unheard and from the drum you hear only the cymbals, not the full drum set. I think there were also some Jackie McLean albums from that club, strange enough on the danish Steeplechase label which usually only recorded at Montmatre in Copenhaga. 

[sidewinder]

The Record Store Day lineup beckons, I guess..🙄

2 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

About the Baltimore Left Bank records. It must have been a great club with great music, but I think I have somewhere in my batch of LPs a George Coleman + Wynton Kelly LP and the sound is terrible. The sound of the tenor is ugly, the bass is almost unheard and from the drum you hear only the cymbals, not the full drum set. I think there were also some Jackie McLean albums from that club, strange enough on the danish Steeplechase label which usually only recorded at Montmatre in Copenhaga. 

On ‘Affinity’? - If so, I saw a copy of that one the other day and nearly picked it up. Is it really that bad?

[Gheorghe]

31 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

The Record Store Day lineup beckons, I guess..🙄

On ‘Affinity’? - If so, I saw a copy of that one the other day and nearly picked it up. Is it really that bad?

This one, I don´t know the label, it was cheap and on a batch of "new records" that arrived at the record store where I was a regular. 

The sound is not enjoyable, and somehow you don´t hear the deeper parts of the drum set. It seems you only hear the cymbals and the snare, but this can also be Jimmy Cobb´s style. I heard a similar thing on a live album of Davis, where Cobb plays the drums instead of Philly J.J. . 

But on the other hand, somehow it´s not really exiting music, I think it was recorded in the late 60´s when that kind of super straight ahead was already out-played. I enjoy Wynton Kelly´s piano on those BN records with let´s say Hank Mobley with a good sound, but that way it´s hard to enjoy. 
I think I heard that Jackie McLean from Baltimore too, with Billy Higgins on drums, it´s also a weak sound, but the music is so challenging you almost forget the weak sound.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

4 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

This one, I don´t know the label, it was cheap and on a batch of "new records" that arrived at the record store where I was a regular. 

The sound is not enjoyable, and somehow you don´t hear the deeper parts of the drum set. It seems you only hear the cymbals and the snare, but this can also be Jimmy Cobb´s style. I heard a similar thing on a live album of Davis, where Cobb plays the drums instead of Philly J.J. . 

But on the other hand, somehow it´s not really exiting music, I think it was recorded in the late 60´s when that kind of super straight ahead was already out-played. I enjoy Wynton Kelly´s piano on those BN records with let´s say Hank Mobley with a good sound, but that way it´s hard to enjoy. 
I think I heard that Jackie McLean from Baltimore too, with Billy Higgins on drums, it´s also a weak sound, but the music is so challenging you almost forget the weak sound.

Also available on a 2 CD set with this cover:

The audio was so terrible that I didn't even rip it to my hard drive before I sold it.

The sound of the Kelly/Mobley Left Bank recording is better but rather "thin" sounding, meaning not much bass & Mobley's sax is little recessed in the soundstage but still worth keeping for this Mobley fan.

[JSngry]

"Thin" sound comes with the territory for this stuff. Not sure what they recorded on/with or at what tape speed, but I'd  wager dollars to donuts that it was at best consumer tape at no more than 7 1/2 ips, quite possibly 3 3/4. You can certainly get a clear recording like that that's good enough for personal replay and such, but it's not going to be any better than that. Factor in mike selections...we're lucky to have it at all, especially after the passages of times.

[hopkins]

https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/products/9433497--bish-at-the-bank-live-in-baltimore

You can listen to a few samples. There’s some tape hiss,  but overall it sounds ok (on my phone).

[Dan Gould]

7 hours ago, hopkins said:

https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/products/9433497--bish-at-the-bank-live-in-baltimore

You can listen to a few samples. There’s some tape hiss,  but overall it sounds ok (on my phone).

Thanks for this, it confirms how much of a no-brainer, want-it-on-release day this is for me, for these reasons apart from the players:

There's a sound floor but hardly a prominent one (heard on good PC speakers);

The titles played;

The track times - none 15 plus minutes or breaking 20 which I find extremely tiresome almost always. It is perfect to say your piece and get out and far preferable for me.

 

[Peter Friedman]

I have not been much of a fan of Walter Bishop Jr.'s recordings. There are many other pianists I prefer from the period in which Bish was on the scene. As a sideman I am always wishing for  a different piano player than Walter Bishop Jr.

However, he sounded very good when I saw him in a club in New York back a number of decades ago. He was in a wonderful group with Bill Hardman, Junior Cook, Paul Brown and Leroy Williams. The music that evening was memorable.