[Dizzy Gillespie at 100]

I was blessed I saw him live on several occasions, that fantastic quartet he had with Ed Cherry, and some all star groups.

And as a composer..... well I think one of his fellow musicians once said he is "the Beethoven of Bop'"

[What would you ask Chick Corea?]

So even if I didn´t get a direct answer to my question, this seems to proove that a lot of people from that church were in the audience and the fan community. I wouldn´t be astonished if that boy I knew who was CC and RTF fan, became a member .

There´s only one Hubbard for me: Freddie , and only one Ron: Carter

[Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia Of Jazz In The Sixties]

4 hours ago, CJ Shearn said:

Leonard did write liners for a few CTI albums IIRC, definitely "The California Concert", and at the beginning of "CTI Summer Jazz At The Hollywood Bowl" he dryly remarks "if jazz was dead, this was the biggest funeral I ever saw".  So, he must have had some taste for what was going on in the 70's.  Though it does seem in the liners to (I think) Stan Getz' "The Dolphin" on Concord, he seemed to delight in the fact Getz was returning to a purely acoustic quartet mainly playing standards, versus what he did at Columbia, making odd mention at the beginning that Stan at Concord was making real music, and had artistic control.  Feather and Ira Gitler's notes on LP's have had a huge impact on me on how I write about jazz, if not necessarily agreeing with their viewpoints on acoustic vs electric and vice versa.

Stan Getz returning to acoustic jazz and the acoustics vs electric reminds me of that 3 or 4 CDs from Montreux 1977 (CBS All Stars or like that), with Stan and other´s from the acoustic era, together with some of the foremost electric players like Bob James, Billy Cobham etc.

I also can say that I reallly enjoyed Feathers and Ira Gitlers liner notes, but it was mainly on older albums, many of them BN.

[Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia Of Jazz In The Sixties]

That´s really some very interesting and important things you said.

[What would you ask Chick Corea?]

2 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I try to think about CC strict musically, he´s a most important voice in jazz from the late 60´s until now, period.

I was sure I will avoid the other things , that ideology , church how you call it because I hate to get into that having no knowlegde and no interest in the non-musical aspects.

But since there is so much discussion about it, may I ask you: During the boom of Return to Forever was it a known fact to the public his association to all that ? Now, after almost 40 years I seem to remember the guy from my school class who was crazy about "Return to Forever" was a strange type who always had that peaceful look and kept asking questions about the purpose of life, about how to become a more perfect human being and stuff like that, which seemed unusual to my conception of an average dude of 17 years....., and he used emphatic phrases like "that music changed my live...."

Now, I love good music and good musicians, but I wouldn´t go up to one of them and tell him he "changed my life"....

Due to that boy´s  recommandations and to the all present interest in "Return to Forever" I got to listen to some of it and yeah there´s a lot of good music even if it didn´t "knock me out" the same way Hancocks Headhunters would have done or Miles´ stuff between 1970-1975, referring to 1970´s jazz or jazz-linked stuff.

That strange an peaceful and philosofic young dude , knowing that I also play modern jazz and start to get some gigs, asked me if I would try to "make my music the way it would make a better world and phrases like that".

Now, this never was my stuff, gettin into something like that, but now while I remember that strange kid I ask myself if he was from that movement and got to Chick Corea through all that, and not like me who said well he´s the guy who played with Miles, let´s see what he plays now.....

 

[Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia Of Jazz In The Sixties]

Thank you Big Beat Steve .

So, his books cannot be compared with something like Joachim Ernst Behrend "Jazz-Buch", who really was interested in writing about the current styles. My 1977 edition had it all in it, the Free Jazz from the last decade, and the electric jazz of the 70´s . 

[What would you ask Chick Corea?]

I try to think about CC strict musically, he´s a most important voice in jazz from the late 60´s until now, period.

I was sure I will avoid the other things , that ideology , church how you call it because I hate to get into that having no knowlegde and no interest in the non-musical aspects.

But since there is so much discussion about it, may I ask you: During the boom of Return to Forever was it a known fact to the public his association to all that ? Now, after almost 40 years I seem to remember the guy from my school class who was crazy about "Return to Forever" was a strange type who always had that peaceful look and kept asking questions about the purpose of life, about how to become a more perfect human being and stuff like that, which seemed unusual to my conception of an average dude of 17 years.....
Due to his recommandations and to the all present interest in "Return to Forever" I got to listen to some of it and yeah there´s a lot of good music even if it didn´t "knock me out" the same way Hancocks Headhunters would have done or Miles´ stuff between 1970-1975, referring to 1970´s jazz or jazz-linked stuff.

That strange an peaceful and philosofic young dude , knowing that I also play modern jazz and start to get some gigs, asked me if I would try to "make my music the way it would make a better world and phrases like that".

Now, this never was my stuff, gettin into something like that, but now while I remember that strange kid I ask myself if he was from that movement and got to Chick Corea through all that, and not like me who said well he´s the guy who played with Miles, let´s see what he plays now.....

[Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia Of Jazz In The Sixties]

Tell me more about it, please. I cannot say too much about LF, only knew his liner notes on the first records I had when I was almost a kid.

 

But I always thought LF was more a fan of swing into bebop and hard bop and not further. Did he dig Ornette, Don Cherry, Sun Ra, etc so much that he could write an encyclopedia of jazz of the 60´s ?????

And a LF book about the 70´s ??? Was he into funk and fusion and all that good stuff we had ?

It must have happened a miracle with LF that suddenly he might have dug what happened in jazz in the 70´s , because in LF´s book "From Satchmo to Miles" he seems not to understand what Miles does (and that book is so old it was written in the early 70´s, so Miles was just at the very early beginning of electric (On the Corner ) .

[What would you ask Herbie Hancock?]

Before I´d ask him a question I´d tell him that I love everything he has done, all his musical projects.
I´d avoid to ask him about Miles because this might be questions asked too many times. Though I´m most interested in so called acoustic jazz, it´s natural I also listened much to stuff like "Headhunters". That was the times when I grew up,  and I was aware of both  Hancock´s : The nice, and neatly dressed kid from 1963 that played so beautiful piano with Miles, and the still very young afro-look styled Hancock from 1973, 74. And he reinvented acoustic jazz in 1976 with the first edition of VSOP.

So, what might I ask him ?  He´s a genius, he has it all and I just might say I want to thank him for everything.

 

[Ethan Iverson on Thelonious Monk in the New Yorker]

It doesn´t sound like Monk if you hold the fingers in the more classical position how he does it. The secret of Monk´s sound is you must imagine a bit to be him to slip in his physical manners of playing the piano.

If he´d hold the fingers in the flat positions and would make a bit more body movement he would hit the Monk-sound better.

And to give an example of how Monk would play a tune you don´t need sheet.

Monk´s way of harmonizing an otherwise simple piece are quite logic, it´s his "language" and if you get inside that language you can get nearer to what he might have done.

My wife said once, after looking at some video: "He plays the piano as if he had invented that instrument just for himself". She´s not a musician but I think that´s the point.

 

[Sonny and Roy]

Thank you, Hardbopjazz for your kind answer. I really thought I did a sacrilege when I wrote about my impressions from only one tune that I hear on record. But indeed it sounds like Sonny was somehow far from his peak. The surroundings really must have been annoying .

[Sonny and Roy]

At least one tune from that evening is on Roadshows Vol. 1. "Some Enchanting Evening". But it´s not really representative, it sounds very reluctant. But as I said that´s the only item I know from that date.

There is much more music on Vol. 2 , again with McBride and Roy Haynes from 2010.

It may sound strange for jazz purists, but I´m much more used to Rollins with the settings with electric bass. Maybe as I get older I can hear the electric bass better, it cuts better through the band.......

[What would you ask Chick Corea?]

Ask him about the tour he did with Dave Liebman in the late 70´s. It´s a shame this collaboration wasn´t recorded.

[Monk + Giants of Jazz tour]

Anyway, Monk did his last solo and trio recordings in London . There are some fantastic things and it´s just inbelievable how he does tunes like "Trinkle Tinkle", a really hard tune anyway with stride piano in the left hand. Same with "Rootie Tootie". He still had it all on piano. There is a bad recorded example of Monk from 1975 where he really fumbles with the left hand . But this can be due to illness or some ailment.

The Giants were in Viena in 1972 but it was a year before I got mature enough to dig jazz. Two older friends of mine reported later that on this special occasion Diz had not arrived and was replaced by Cat Anderson and Clark Terry.

The Sonet "Bop Session" doesnt have Blakey and Monk, it´s 1975 and has Max Roach on drums and John Lewis and Hank Jones on piano, Sonny STitt on sax and Percy Heath on bass, so that´s something else than the Giants mentioned in this topic. But there is one (bootleg?) record of the Giants called "Bop Fathers".

[Monk + Giants of Jazz tour]

I got quite a few records from that tour, the most famous is the Atlantic double album from London.

I must say that Monk plays fantastiallyc, and he does really interesting stuff on tunes that was written by Diz, like Tour de Force, Woodyn You etc.

It´s Diz´ compositions that seemed to appeal to Monks piano style. The chord progressions , you know.....

I don´t know if Monk was happy with that surroundings, he was really subdued during that time and had worn out like Bud had worn out a few years before.

Anyway it was too long a time with quartet surroundings with always the same tunes. So maybe it would have been a break , a new inspiration but Monk was really ill and eventually would retire.

But just from the musical point of view it´s great what he does behind the soloists, behind Diz, Kai, Sonny, and Blakey was his alltime favourite on drums.

[Grady Tate Has Died]

Really a sad loss. Drummers are most important to me, I think first of all I listen to what a drummer does and if the drummer on a record or a live date is not what I want to hear, it´s hard for me to enjoy the thing completely.

I think I remember I became really aware of  Grady Tate on some  Dizzy Gillespie Dream Band, I think it was a big concert and Grady Tate was on the Big Band selections, together with Candido, and Max was on the small band selections. Anyway, fantastic, and besides good traps work I like drummers where you see he´s happy with the thing he does, smiling like Billy Higgins, Al Foster, and Grady Tate really had it as a good drummer and a good showman.

He will be missed.

[Don Preston]

I´ve stayed in the same place for a very long time so can´t even imagine how difficult and painful it must be for an 85 years old to move to another place.

I love changes in jazz movement, but hate any changes in personal live, places to live, so I really feel sorry for that man whom I don´t know, which is my fault cause I really don´t know much about other music than so called jazz. The only "Prestons" I got acquainted with where one Eddie Preston on trumpet, on some Mingus stuff from early 1970, but not very profilic, and .....indirectly as the title of a tune "Billy Preston" on some Miles Davis album from the early 70´s. This latter one I think did other stuff than jazz, so I know about his name mainly from the title on the Miles album (Get Up with It maybe?).

[Jarrett and applause]

Well applause is what the artist wants to get, even if he doesn´t admit it.

I never really dug into Keith Jarrett when he became that huge solo star ,............ I really liked his playing with Miles on those two keyboards, the cellar door sessions, and I like one trio album dedicated to Miles, but never was really aware of the whole solo stuff, that´s not really my alley.

But I heard he is a difficult person and curses the audience out, even Miles was nicer I heard. Well that´s the way former Miles sidemen want to out-miles the master.

On the other hand their are even studio records where they brought fake applause in, saw it on a lot of albums.

I don´t feel disturbed if their is applause on a record, even if it´s not at the end, but after the solos, with shouts of encorage for the soloist, coming from fellow musicians and the audience. That´s jazz.

[Pharoah Sanders @ SF Jazz]

I also love his music and fell in love with it after hearing my first album I had purchased "Live at the East".

Saw him live in his prime in the 80´s and 3 years ago when he still had a lot of energy at least on the horn, but even then he seemed to have difficulties walking.

I´m glad to hear that he still plays. But we all know how it is when we used to see our heroes during their prime and it would be unkind to compare what they used to do with what remained.

It happened with Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin, it´s the same with Pharoah Sanders. You just try not to compare how strong they were years ago, you just try to be happy you had the change to get glimpses of what they used to do and know he still has the essential part of it.

[Bud Powell´s Birthday]

It was yesterday, september 27th. Sometimes we post "happy birthday" even if the artist had died log ago.

I wanted to honour his birthday by spinnig some of his music.

Due to lack of time I thought I might choose one album, but which one ?

Bud was one of the unhappiest of so many unhappy artists of his time, so I decided to listen to a life recording that was done during a few days, when Bud really was happy.

It was in summer 1964 in Edenville France, where he spent some holyday with some friends and played in an inofficial manner on a bad tuned piano with an amateur bassist and drummer, but with the great Johnny Griffin joining the group on some extended tunes.

Even if the sound quality is not perfect , Bud sounds very very inspired.

It was only a few weeks before his 40th birthday. At that time he had entered in his finale and most unhappy period and it sounds strange how he speaks a few words during the celebration of his birthday, telling in a stiff collared manner "I apreciate your efforts to make my birthday a glad one".

 

[Trane and, um, Mel?]

Sounds interesting. I always pay very very much attention to the drummer´s work. There is nothing better for the inspiration of the other musicians than a good drummer.

Mel sure was a topnotch drummer, what I heard sounded good. But I must admit I heard him mostly with the big band with Thad Jones but the few things I heard him do on small group recordings are also fine.

 

[Concord enters the 5 LPs box market]

Same here: I also thought it´s about the Concord label. They had some beautiful stuff and I think some of it is OOP. I´m quite disappointed it´s not what I expected.

[Eddie Harris Corner]

I remember Eddie Harris played in Vienna once in the Mid 80´s for almost 2 weeks at a very very nice and very small defunct jazzclub "Jazz Spelunke".

Fantastic and I was there almost every evening , anyway I was a regular at the club .

It was about the most extended tenure of a US star in a club where normally performed locals.

It was our great pleasure to hear and see him every night , but now if I think about it I ask myself wether he was stranded in Viena or just needed a rest. Touring is a hard and unpleasant and tedious thing....

[80's Jazz music videos were horrible]

I don´t know exactly about  so called music  videos. The only 80´s videos I know are some concerts . In the 80´s you still could meet a lot of jazz legends on stage so I might have quite a lot of DVD´s and videos of jazz concerts filmed in the 80´s .

[Billy Taylor]

I don´t know I think he was more a teacher or a keeper of the flame than an important pianist, but maybe I´m wrong.

First saw his name on a strange double LP "Echos of an Era" with Art Tatum on Side A, Erroll Garner on Side B, Bud Powell on Side C and Billy Taylor on Side D. Though maybe i confounded his name with Cecil Taylor because I thought the last one might be the most far out.

But his playing on those tracks (with Mingus !) didn´t sound more advanced than Art Tatum or Bud. Since than I heard some of his solos, but it seems to me more like happy easy listening jazz, very very diatonic.

And there is one album Charlie Parker Memorial 1965 with various artists and the way Billy Taylor playes more like some fugue or counterpoint or something in the classic manner got on my nerves. It sounded like someone who normally plays Bach or other classic and tries to give the blues a chance.....

I saw Billy Taylor on many video comments , really interesting to listen what he says and what he knows about the music, but I think he was more a speaking voice about jazz than a soloist that would thrill me......