Gheorghe

Somewhere in my archives I have a video of Miles with Gil Evans, where Miles plays fluegel on "The Duke". That video was done around 1960, so it´s 3 years later than "Miles Ahead". But I don´t think Miles had appearances on fluegel after that. The only thing is, I think I remember during the end of his live, Miles was planning to pick up the fluegelhorn again. I heard it´s easier to play if a trumpet player starts to have problems with his chops. On "Musings", Miles doesn´t play fluegel, on most of the tunes (especially those from the Ahmad Jamal repertoire) he plays harmon mute, but sometimes seems to be a bit out of tune. I like the album, though it´s not perfect. Somehow it´s not very good recorded, the piano sounds somewhat tinny, and even the great Oscar Pettiford sounds somehow unsteady. It´s interesting that Miles on his autobiography says he likes that album. I mean that´s interesting for a man who never looked back and said about his work with Bird and Gil Evans "shit I´ve already forgotten".....

I must admit the most Lucky Thompson I know is from the 40´s until 1954 and it sure as that Don Byas Thing. But I heard and saw Lucky Thompson on a Paris Jam with the Bud Powell Trio doing "Anthropology" and was quite astonished he sounded much more like Prez than on earlier stuff, so maybe that´s how he started to change his style a bit.

I had purchased that Stuttgart-LP during the 70s. It was in the record store and seemed interesting to me. The personnel is the same like on the now available Paris CD (Sonny Rollins, Don Cherry, Henry Grimes and Billy Higgins). There are two long tunes (each more than 20 minutes): On Green Dolphin Street , and Sonny Moon For Two, and a very short 52´nd Street Theme. I don´t know the name of the lable, but it´s not important. Anyway it looked cheap and was cheap. The sound quality is quite the same like on the Paris CD, maybe a little worse, but if you are a freak of historic live recordings, purchasing all the stuff somebody recorded from Bird etc., bad sound quality don´t bother you. I must admit, during that time I was still a youngster, I didn´t even k n o w there´s something like bootleg recordings, I didn´t even know the word or the meaning of it. My opinion was - if something round with a hole in the middle and jazz on it is in the stores, it´s for sale and I´d better get it, if it´s some musician I admire. That strange label was concentrating on live recordings done in Europe during the 60s. I haven´t seen many of them: A "Mingus at Stuttgart" (I think it was a double album), and a very interesting LP with "Max Roach Quintet" on side A , and "Sonny Rollins Trio" on side B, recorded at Graz (Austria!) in "1963" (with must be a mistake, since Rollins and Roach were in Graz in 1966. I can´t play the mentions Stuttgart LP. Since I remembered that music and at my age you like to listen to stuff you did when you were young, I purchased the Paris LP with about the same kind of music, even the same tunes.

@AllenLowe! Gee, you knew Curley Russell. To me, he´s one of the unsung heroes of bop. I´ve always been so impressed with the list of greats he played with, all those geniuses, my heroes, Diz, Bird, Fats, Bud, Tadd Dameron oh boy.... It was really hard then to cut through a band with an unamplified bass, especially if someone like Blakey was on traps (I´m thinking about that incredible Birdland Allstars from June 1950, on the same evening the Miles-Tadd Dameron Band, and the Charlie Parker All Stars, both groups with Curley Russel and Blakey on b and dm. I´d like to see some of them youngsters trying to play the bass fiddle that way, they might get blisters big as a house. And Curley Russell had a strong sound that recorded well. So he made very very important contributions to the music. He was not so well known for his solo work, but his short soloes (a very nice solo on a BlueNote record "Blowin´in from Chicago") are beautiful. I always wondered what happened to him in later years. Not much has been written about his activities after the late fifties. I read somewhere he worked with bands at hotels in New York. I have the greatest respect for musicians like him. Too bad I didn´t have the occasion to tell him that personally.

Sorry, but I don´t agree to that. In my opinion, jazz lost audience because the true personalities left us. Look, when I used to go out and see all those great musicians play, we all knew something about their stage behaviour. Some of them, well they had a reputation of being arrogant, like Miles (who anyway didn´t have to smile to the audience) or Freddie Hubbard (I remember his remark to the audience during a concert in Austria, after bursting out some of his trade mark high notes: "jive assed muthaf....."), others maybe were just shy people like Monk or Bud (they were not supposed to make speeches to the audience, even if Bud ....during a rare mood of humour once ...after a stunning set imitated Pee Wee Marquet´s voice saying in that high pitched voice " Now ladies and gentleman, how about a great big hand for the Amazing Bud Powell" ), Or Mingus, oh boy......! Others had that entertainer-qualities like Diz, Blakey or Johnny Griffin. Look, those where people they used to write books about and still do. When going out and hearing somebody of that caliber for the first time, we had done our lessons, let´s say we knew something about the artist and his live, his attitudes and we loved them for the way they behaved, for being themselves, and they gave it all to the audience thru the music. Now could you imagine go out to a show and expect the same thing (living legends) if it´s about all them Diana Kralls, Jamie Cullums etc.? By the way: The Woody Shaw I used to see was a very kind and good educated person with a beautiful deep speaking voice, all I can say is that he was not so kind to himself......

Well, that was Jackie McLean´s trademark, playing somewhat "sharp" (not "under"! as you mentioned). It was his gimmick to get a sound that isn´t too mellow, so even ballads get another quality. Maybe, almost half a tone over is a bit exagerated, maybe in later years Jackie kind of "overdid" his trademark. But in general, he´s got the sound I want to hear, such as Monk or a "Monkish Bud" got the sound I want to hear from the piano. But talking about Ernie Henry: I like his earlier recordings better, when he was on top of the bebop-movement. What I really admire at him is the fact, that he managed to hold his own, while everybody was trying to play like Bird. His playing with Fats and Tadd , or with the Dizzy Gillespie Bigband is just wonderful, he´s also very good on scatting together with Diz, on stuff like Ool-Ya-Koo, stuff like that. He´s really got that kind of humour that was part of the business.

With all due respect, I wish one wouldn't cite that bullshit book. It was a disgrace and the 'facts' are, in fact, suspect. Gavin did the literary equivilent of that other bullshitter, Bruce Weber: since any knowledgeable discussion of music or musicians is way over their heads---beyond their respective ken, they 'image pimped'. These 'works' are an insult to the memory of Chet, the jazz lover, the serious music lover, and---while I'm at it---my intelligence . This jackass, James Gavin, went on NPR when his rag came out and proved himself a moron in his insightless discussions of Chet Baker, comparing him unfavorably to, for example, Miles Davis----by saying Miles had a greater technique. Totally missed the point of both players, and then he arrogantly declaimed he 'nailed' Chet's death. Unless you were in the room, screw you Gavin. You didn't 'nail' shit other than how to embarrass oneself with clueless 'journalism'. Go to the Dutch bio of Chet (I forget the author's name). It's long on musical insight and respect----without glossing over the unpleasant facts. The Weber movie was homoerotic horseshit and it was embarrassing to see Chet sell himself so cheap in his role in it. Pitiful to see a great artist in that shape, and succumbing to whatever he succumbed to by allowing himself to be used by an ass that was pimping an 'outlaw' image or some such bullshit. IMO, Chet had a worse end than Woody in a way. I implore the reader and my Web friends here, please pass on this claptrap. BTW, I have at least a little personal insight into Woody, b/c I met and played with him at the nexus right before his unfortunate fall from grace. (ca: 1985). I also knew one of the guys that put him up (perhaps put up with him would be more like it) in Holland. I remain a fan of his music. I believe he was one of the last trumpet innovators and a harmonically very advanced and original musician. But what a mess.* I had the misfortune of getting in his line of fire when he was evidently looking for someone to verbally abuse---and verbally abuse he did. A total asshole, to be frank---at least with me that night. But, sadly, there are other citations, like one Branford Marsalis recounted on his old website. I did later learn the kind of changes he was going through and felt bad for him. But, I'm sorry to say, I've met, played with, dealt with all kinds of musicians and no one ever acted like he did, using a young cat to wipe one's capacious ego on. It's really a drag Woody went out the way he did----a tragedy when a brilliant mind and talent is taken so soon, as we need people---rare people like that----more than ever now. But it's even more of a drag when they act in a lousy way to themselves and others. Let's not sugar-coat Woody or Chet. They were junkies and wasted much of their lives and talents---and were not very nice to others, like most selfish and childish dope fiends. Romanticize them and others at your own peril..... I learned from my encounter with Woody---the hard way---a young musician trying to 'hang out' may well be playing with fire, and fire burns. Ever since that regrettable incident I've just concentrated on the music, and always will. *[i wish to make it clear that I only played with Woody Shaw in a one-off jam session context (at Barry Harris' Jazz Cuktural Theater, if anyone's interested) and it's not like the cat hired me or anything (likewise I never met Chet Baker, but his playing just has so much soul it makes me quiver sometimes----and he sounded phenomenal to the end to me). ] Hello fasstrack: thanks for that great insider info!

Thanks for returning to the topic. Nothing against Sun Ra, but if I feel like posting about him, there´s enough place for it on other topics. The brown Blue Note 2 LP set. Yeah, that was the LA-Series from the 70s. But are you sure when you say "without PJJ"? As much as I know, the quartet date has Trane, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. The whole double LP was made of parts of "Whims of Chambers" and the whole stuff from "Chamber´s Music". I got a japanese CD of "Chamber´s Music" that has the quartet tracks recorded in LA and an earlier date from march 1956 (3 tracks) , also with Trane, Chambers, Philly J.J., Curtis Fuller, Pepper Adams (it was originally recorded for the Transition label if my memorie´s rite, while the quartet date was on Jazz West). The remainder of the double LP (from "Whims of Chambers") has only the tunes with Trane on it. The rest of the album (tunes played only by the rhythm section "Dear Anne", and "Tales of the Fingers" ) are not on the double LP. When I decided to re-buy the whole stuff I picked up the two CD´s ("Whims of Chambers" and "Chamber´s Music"). All the material has Paul and Philly J.J. together!

Let´s face it: The team Chambers Philly J.J. was the reason for me to become the jazz fan I´v been for decades. I´m not going to count the albums on which they team up, cause that´s more discographical stuff. Let´s say it this way. I had heard and liked some music before I heard my first copy of a Miles Davis Prestige date with the "first quintet", but the full sound of Paul´s bass together with the fantastic trapswork of Philly J.J., all that sounds and feelings would become the reason for me to really dig into the music. Sure, there´s much more to it, and I dug back into the past and further on into so called "New Thing", but Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones were the heroes of my youth, like maybe Erroll Flynn to the girls or so... It´s something that never ceased to amaze me. I went so far I bought anything that´s round and has a hole in the middle, if it had those two giants on bass and drums. That´s how I became, for example the Hank Mobley fan I am. Authors of Miles Davis bios were not always kind to Hank, but I wanted to really get into his music and when I hold "Workout" in my hands I bought it without more thoughts: "if it´s got Paul and Philly J.J on it, it can´t be wrong".....you dig me?

Another thing that's interesting is that Woody is playing with Maxine Gregg's ex-husband. At that time, Woody himself was Maxine Gregg´s ex-husband. As much as I know, Woody Shaw was married to Maxine Gregg, and after their divorce Maxine Gregg married Dexter Gordon.....

Hi! I´d like to give you some impressions I had about Woody Shaw. First I didn´t know he was on drugs and everything. When I first became aware of him, he was at the peak of his power and on interviews he told that great trumpet players got to have a great physical condition and that´s the impression he made to me when listening to him on records or live with his band. Young,powerful, for me a reason to believe that jazz goes further, while Miles was inactive and Diz, though still was playing great, was from the earlier generation. Some years later, it was in 1987 I was astonished to hear that he was scheduled to play with a local rhythm section (?!) at a really nice club in Vienna/Austria. I didn´t expect him there since I was used to hear him only with his own groups at concert halls. Naturally, I was one of the first guys to be at the club, to make sure to get the best seat. Woody was already there, I noticed he was almost blind, but what really shocked me was the fact that until he started his first set he already had consumed at least 7 or 8 little bottles of brandy, and some beer. Though he didn´t seem to be drunk, his playing seemed to be unsure and I was astonished he didn´t play his original stuff (maybe because the local rhythm section felt more comfortable with "real book"-stuff), he played stuff like "Tea for Two" or "Star Eyes" which is ok for me, but more so if the older trumpet players would have played it (Harry Sweets Edison, Joe Newman and of course Art Farmer played frequently at that nice club). Woody Shaw had to be led on stage, smoking a cigarette. Each time after he played his relatively short solo , he quickly lit up a cigarette, smoked it and threw it down on the stage. Well, it´s ok for me if musicians smoke between sets or during an extended drum solo, but it was quite unusual for me to see a guy lighting up a cigarette imediatly after taking his horn out of his mouth. During intermissions, he drank more small bottles of brandy. I really was worried about him and I wasn´t surprised when a year later (1988) I read that he was sick and couldn´t play anymore. I hope this informations are useful for you. Gheorghe

Can´t await to re-buy them as CD. Woody Shaw´s group from that period really was one of the highlights of the early 80s. I saw them live, of course. Woody Shaw, to me was something like the "young hope", a highly talented and very individual sounding trumpet player and each of the group members was just a phantastic musician. The Elektra label, as I remember was done by Bruce Lundvall, who until then was the boss of CBS. That was the period when great music was issued or re-issued on CBS, until the time when Lundvall left. So, Elektra Musician was his product and many of the artists were former CBS-artists like Dexter and Woody. It was Lundvall´s idea to include a short interview with the artist at the end of the album. Woody´s interview sounds cool, but with Dexter´s interview something went wrong, the interviewer was asking only dumb questions about who plays in Dexter´s group, stuff that you either know anyway or can read from the album lines.....

Great avatar! Great minds think alike! Everyone digs Go but Our Man in Paris is my favorite Dex album...it doesn't hurt that I'm a huge Bud Powell Fan. Great! I´m also a huge Bud Powell Fan, as you can see on my avatar. And of course I love everything Dexter Gordon did.

Well....ok, but.....the question was if somebody knows something about musical activities of Dexter in the period after "Round Midnight" until his death. I tried to answer h e r e as good as I could.

Well, since Dexter Gordon is one of my many favourites and at least I think I know something about his music and his life,I was glad to post 3 times at that mentioned forum, but ....let´s say it this way: I hope that eventually some people who are willing to write will be able to exchange impressions , reviewing records, so that we can get into a more mutual thing (at least that´s what I expect when I register into a forum). Look, if you playing, you also have to communicate, you don´t play your shit only for yourself..... Now, I tried to start something, since there was a chapter about Dexters BlueNote Years and the 60´s I found it might be a good idea to review one of my favourite albums. But nothing happened. Another thread from the same forum (the chapter about the BN/60´s period) describes Dexter´s Bopland-sessions and a live date from the 70´s . Now I´d ask what has that to do with the topic, especially if they got separate chapters for those periods (40´s , 50´s, 70´s and so on....). I hope things will change a bit. Otherwise it might not be the right place for me to discuss Dexter´s music with other people.

Hello betrand! Of course I´m aware of the music from "Round Midnight". The tracks where Dexter played are on two albums, one for CBS and the remainders are on BlueNote ("The Other Side of Round Midnight"). As much as I know, Dexter performed at an opus titled "Ellingtones" in NY, it was a compilation of Ellington compositions, with a larger orchestra (even strings if I´m right). But I didn´t see it recorded. During summer 1986, or 1987, a kind of "Round Midnight Allstars" played at the European festivals, featuring most of the musicians that played on the film. Dexter of course , concering his bad health didn´t play on all the tunes, he usually was brought up on stage after the others had played a few tunes. It just had become that situation. Obviously, doctors had told him he should rest and just enjoy being there. So it kinda happened that way that somewhere sombody announced "Right Now, Mr. Round Midnight-playing Round Midnight" and the crowd went nuts just for seeing him onstage. The last thing I read about Dexter playing his sax was on a Jazz-Cruise (with many jazz stars on it). Dexter attended it .....as a tourist, but went as far has playing two tunes at one evening (one of them, as I remember was a very slow "Skylark"). Excerpts of post -Round Midnight Dexter can be seen on a DVD about his live. Dexter is shown on two very short footages from 1986 or 1987, playing but it seems he felt unwell. There´s also an interview with him from 1987 in Nizza I think, but it´s hard to understand what Dexter says, he really looked exhausted and even speeking seemed to be difficult for him.

Really, it is. I just registered.

Well, I´d say even if Ornette Coleman is not best known for quoting which anyway was part of the improvisation-style of the past (many bop and post-bop greats were great at quoting, Bird, Bud, Diz, Dex, Horace Silver to mention a few), he sure has his roots in the past. A further example of Ornette quoting something is on a "Caravan of Dreams" album from the 80´s with Prime Time, where he quotes a whole chorus of Parker´s "Au Privave". Now Ornette Coleman is a real master. Even if some of his contemporaries from the early period thought he doesn´t play the proper way, he sure could and did so (he went as far back as playing "Klactoveesedsteene", a tricky Bird-tune on that great 1958 live date at the Hillcrest-Club in LA). Anyway, those who started the whole New Thing stuff, they could play anything, at least as good as others who just "kept the flame". It´s hip to play avantgarde if you can afford to do it. But when I was a young person, too many europeans (maybe in other places too) picked up the "free-thing" without knowing nothin´about their axes. It´s "so easy" to get up their doing some "freakish stuff" because the kid didn´t pay the dues, doesn´t know anything ´bout chord progressions and can swing only from a rope :-D.... That´s what happened then, and it must be said once. But....Ornette and many other genius musicians, they really started a musical revolution and they had the means to do it and from where to start.

After I read your answer, I ordered it and got it yesterday. Well really, the music´s great. It´s much of the music they played at Golden Circle and it´s really interesting to see them improvising to the film. Too bad it isn´t a bit longer and I didn´t see the excerpt of Ornette playing on piano or Charles Moffett playing xylophone. But it´s great to see all of them playing. Izenzon really looks like a nice kind of person, would have been great to hang around with those people. The longest part of the film is Roland Kirk. Well I was really looking forward seeing that. The short excerps from Ronnie Scott are great, and Kirk at the Zoo also. But I can´t get with that other strange sounds and the John Cage stuff. Well, I´m hip enough to dig more freakish stuff like Ornette on the fiddle and all that, but if it´s just abstract sounds like "western avantgarde" it´s a bit too much for me.....

The foremost bop-trombonist and sure one of the 7 or 8 key figures of bop. Besides other recordings I´ll listen again to the Savoy-sides he made during the 40s.

I also have those two albums "Memorial Vol. 1 and 2" from Prestige (japanese edition with many alternative tracks especially from the first (1949) quartet session. And I especially like the tunes with Teddy Charles, that session with "The Man I Love". Some really really beautiful Gray I also can hear on a 1951 Boston date (live) with Parker (The Happy Bird). Gray is especially fine on that. "Lullaby in Rhythm" really knocked me out.

she looks nice. Anyway not "mint egy harcsa" (harcsa is the hungarian name for a big and quite ugly fish...something in the way like the american bullhead or catfish) . Üdv. Gheo

I don´t know exactly what you mean with "taps his drumstick 4 times in the be-bop fashion.....what´s that? I would have liked to ask Max what´s that supposed to tap his drumstick 4 times in the be-bop fashion..... Are you really sure you know what be-bop drummin´is like? And what´s that what Bud´s supposed to do while Diz "begin´s with a shift in rhythm and melody while Bud maintains the same melody an rhythm it started the number with?" Bud was "off" some times in his live but I doubt he wouldn´t response to some hip phrases by Diz in the same hip and quick manner. Too bad I can´t hear your tape, but even if you tell me how to play it, I can´t do it since I don´t have boxes attached to my PC so I couldn´t hear the shit. That´s bad, I think I know at least something about the music , especially if it´s about bop, but I´m a total dummy if it´s about modern manners to receive or to send files.... But even if your "review" doesn´t reveal much about the music, I´m really sure the tape is n o t from Massey Hall, I´d doubt even if it´s Bird, Diz, Bud etc. And as I told you on pm, and as @JohnL told you here: that Cole Porter tune was recorded by Bird only once, in 1954 on his last album. I´d say your file is mistitled. Whatever it is and from where it´s taken, be aware of the fact that a lot of bull.... is written even on album covers.

I heard that trio, w. Murray and Drake and it really knocked me out. I also noticed they had some Monk on their repertory, I remember a really fast "Evidence", and a very nice "Let´s Cool One" with Murray on bass clarinet. This must have been around 2004 if my memory´s right.