Jump to content

king ubu

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    27,693

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

 Content Type 

Posts posted by king ubu

  1. Funny Rat

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    NOW THERE COME THIS MUDDAFUCKN RUSSIAN AND KNOWS WERTHMÜLLER WOULD HAVE BEEN THE PERFECT DRUMMER TO FIT ON OUR FAVORITE HANK MOBLEY RECORDS... HOLY SHIT!! ubu START SCREAMIN' HELL YEAH!

    Welcome to the board! Great you made it over here, finally (well, you can't say I did not invite you earlier...)

    ubu :)

  2. Saxophone-bass-drums

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    I don't think anyone's mentioned two sax/bass/drum trio albums by Branford Marsalis: Trio Jeepy (1988; featuring Milt Hinton or Delbert Felix on bass, and Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums) and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1991; Bob Hurst on bass and Watts on drums).

    The latter album does have a couple of cameos by Courtney Pine (tenor) and Wynton Marsalis, but it's almost all the sax trio. Both are terrific, exploratory sessions. :tup:tup

    And the album covers match in a cool way, too...

    c47774seql1.jpg .... d84018fk298.jpg

    I don't have these two, but Branford's The Dark Keys is also nice to listen to, from time to time.

    ubu

  7. Blindfold Test #5

    in Blindfold Test

    Posted

    I did some work for TCB for a short time when I was in New York back in 1997. Peter was a real nice guy. They put out what turned out to be Jerome Richardson's last recording. There is a lot of nice stuff on the red spine series, not to mention the swiss radio days series. ^_^

    I did mention the Radio day series as often as I could, but alas nobody seems to be very interested (except, I have to admit, in the Mulligan CJB disc, discussed in some other, still recently active thread).

    I only know one track from that Richardson disc, but that one's so good I always wanted to pick up the album since then! (I didn't... but I will do so in the future)

    ubu

  9. Blindfold Test #5

    in Blindfold Test

    Posted · Edited by king ubu

    Yeah, Dan! Why not try!

    The owner of TCB, by the way, is an accomplished swiss mainstream drummer himself. Read more on the history of TCB:

    TCB (Taking care of Business) essentially means two things: It describes on one hand the personal concept and taste in music projected by the company's head, and on the other hand means plain, simply and unavoidably stated: Business. To unite these undeniably controversial elements to one common denominator by a singular person implies a considerably strong effort - and this effort has brought success to the one who took the risk of running a record label. His name is Peter Schmidlin.

    The city of Basel boosts a widely heralded tradition of drumming. It does therefore not come as a surprise, that Peter Schmidlin, born and raised in Basel, took up drumming at the age of 14. At first, he aimed at a professional career as a musician, found however better economic alternatives and stayed on as a semi-pro remaining one of the finest and sought-after drummers in Europe. Would this type of a musician ever think of a career as a music-producer? The answer is no, ask any drummer and he will tell you, that playing drums is the only constructive activity within the music-world ! No time for any sidekicks...except perhaps one...! However, Peter Schmidlin at one instance began seriously to contemplate the entering into the other side of the business, become a music-producer and be able to perhaps change some of the negative experiences he made along the way. Besides that, having been a full-time pro in his position as a drummer, he had absorbed a lot of the going-ons, from a musical point of view and from other perspectives, absorbing much of the mystery of music and ist surroundings.

    This should serve as an explanation, why, in 1988, he decided to produce jazz besides playing it.

    TCB was founded in 1988. The first productions were based upon a radio series that presented a house rhythm section including P.S. on drums and featured for each new performance another famous jazz musician, mostly of American origin. Stars like Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw, Benny Bailey, Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, Art Farmer and a host of others had been featured along the way. These first TCB-items were offered in the form of compilations, a series of LPs that featured the best of these recordings. Soon thereafter, the world entered the CD-age and TCB had to follow up. Schmidlin produced a substantial amount of Cds which presented the best musicians Switzerland at that time had to offer - however, inspite of fine musical quality of many of those recordings, their overall level appeared to be not high enough to succesfully enter into the competition within the international record market.

    Which culminated in the questions: Should the entire activities be deleted? Or should the producing of jazz records be considered as a hobby and done in one's spare time? Or should this operation continue on a completely professional bases, demanding all available time? Schmidlin decided for the latter and TCB Music was up for a fresh start midway through 1992. He assembled a couple of enthusiasts to come and assist him in getting things properly done. Office space was rented in Lausanne, the French part of Switzerland and by the 1st of January 1993, the company was up and running. The company gained further recognition and signed distribution contracts in all parts of Europe, South-Africa, Japan, US and Canada..

    New ideas were initiated. Among them a great help to the potential consumer: The spine of a TCB-CD is marked with a specific colour, indicating the style and direction of ist musical content. Red depicts Bebop and beyond. Blue is dedicated to the legacy of Benny Goodman and other heroes of the swing-era. Green marks a series of previously unreleased recordings by Swiss Radio, featuring but the best jazz ever had to offer: Quincy Jones, the Cannonball Adderley Sextet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Louis Hayes and Woody Shaw Quintet or Buck Clayton's All Stars and many more. A yellow spine indicates "contemporary jazz" with artists like trumpeter Jack Walrath, trombone wizard Ed Neumeister and German keyboard specialist Christoph Spendel. We finally find black spines that belong to productions of "World Jazz-Music" with musicians from Africa or Brazil.

    The red series boosts today over 40 items with top artists like Phil Woods, Clarc Terry, Bill Goodwin, Kenny Werner, Toots Thielemans, Hans Kennel, Benny Bailey, George Gruntz, Richard Galliano, Cojazz, Buster Williams, Michael Philipp Mossman, Kenny Drew Jr, Ritchie Vitale, the N.Y. HardBop Quintet and vocalist Alice Day, famous saxophonist Jerome Richardson and the Swedish "Monday Night Big Band" from Malmö to name but a few..

    It is not at all easy to remain successful in view of a seriously aggressive marketing behaviour by the major record companies of this world, they all have plenty of jazz to offer! But this situation does not prevent Peter Schmidlin from being his usual optimistic self as far as TCB's future and well-being is concern. The man knows from experience, that there is a large jazz-loving audience out there, be it the millions overseas or the somewhat smaller congregation of Europe, which has all the potential in the world to keep growing. All this speaks positively for the little Swiss label that intents to grow with the times by doing the right things. (Among them a definite move to new head-quarters in Montreux, the Swiss jazz capital). This did not go unnoticed by the many TCB-artists, who enjoy working for and with P.S., who knows very well what a jazz musician needs (and what not!). His prediction, that these times are good for jazz may well be correct, he has proved in the past to be a man with vision and the will to realize his ideas. The artists are game, the market is open and Peter Schmidlin and his team are obviously ready to go further to produce and promote that great, lively music called - JAZZ !!

    Kurt Weil

    (taken from their site)

    By the way, they've got a real nice links site! Why not ask them to link organissimo forums?

    ubu

  11. Favorite Reed Player with Charles Mingus

    in Artists

    Posted

    Yep.

    You know, I had a similar experience with Hadi's playing on that disc as you did describe so eloquently. I had the a real bad old remaster (from our good friends ZYX in germany), and never liked it, sounded so bad. Then I got the Avenue edition and it blew me away! Actually, Hadi's playing blew me away... On the earlier stuff with Mingus he's got his sound together (as on, say, "Blue Cee" from The Clown), but on this one he's really really good.

    ubu

  14. Rick Margitza

    in Artists

    Posted

    I had a chance to pick up Margitza's two latest Palmetto releases for a very good prize, and did get them. I only knew the very few tracks he made with Miles, and some of his work with Maria Schneider (one CD and one live concert, at that concert Rich Perry took all tenor solos safe one by Margitza).

    I think he's a very solid player. Nice sound, nice style all together.

    What do you think? There's almost nothing to be found on him on the board, safe for that Stanley Cowell CD which one should obviously better not get...

    ubu

  16. Art Tatum

    in Artists

    Posted

    Sorry for being such an egoist, EKE!

    Have you picked up one of those live Storyville CDs?

    ubu

    I ordered "Live Tatum vol.1" from CDUniverse. It hasn´t arrived yet. Will post when I listen to it.

    My hunger for Tatum grows and grows dangerously. :D

    PS: No need to worry for being an egoist, ubu. Who´s not an egoist nowadays? :P

    I actually do my best not to be... never have been on very good terms with "nowadays"... listening to jazz in old europe sure makes people think you are one hell of a strange person (well at least in switzerland, it often seems like that - jazz did not cross the alps with Hannibal, Napoleon or the Russians!).

    I read about you having ordered Vol. 1 of the Storyvilles. Please do indeed report back when you get it! I shall consider picking them up, too.

    ubu

  18. Art Tatum

    in Artists

    Posted

    Brad, the Pablos were not discussed here so far.

    I made some comments on them in another (unrelated) thread. I went on vacation for two weeks in october and took with me both the Pablos, the Capitol 2CD and the 20c Piano Genius 2CD. It was exhaustive listening, and I was overwhelmed! You really should not be scared by virtuosity, though that's probably a difficult thing with Tatum.

    I only heard the Pablo solo material once in chronological order, then went back to some single discs, or some tracks. It is exhaustive, but it's worth the time!

    Well I did some search and found that post of mine:

    Well, among the 20 CDs I took with me for my two weeks vacation (which had to end, alas, yesterday), were the Tatum solo, group (both recently acquired via 2001 and unlistened till then), the Capitol and the 20th century piano genius sets.Sounds like an overdose, and, indeed, I was overwhelmed more than once.

    I started with the Capitol sides, then went on to the Verve stuff, then the solos, and finally the group masterpieces.

    The Solo Masterpieces is certainly one of the very most impressing sets I ever heard! Yes, you got to take it in small doses, but after having heard the Capitol and Verve stuff, I was familiar with quite a few tunes (& their arrangements), which made it much easier for me to listen to those 7 discs of piano genius.

    I have had similar feelings about some (actually about all) of the Group Masterpieces sessions as EKE. Tatum needs no drummer (hardly ever the drummers start a tune, or establish a tempo - Tatum usually handles this on his own, the others - the drummer being among them - enter later on), neither does he need a bass player (and, sorry, but Red Callender is just a little bit too stiff, cuts his notes short without letting them really sound. He certainly was no bad player, but he's just not one of my favorites). The drummers are great, and do a good job, too (nice to hear Bellson and Rich for once not showing their pyro-technical skills), but, hell, Tatum could do all this himself! Then regarding the horns (and Barney Kessel), it does quite often seem like they do just sort of "play along", yet there are so many delightful and beautiful tunes in that collection (my favorites would probably be the Webster sides, my least preferred the Edison/Kessel date, but they're all very close and all at least good, and all include stunning Tatum solos, of course...).

    I find the liner notes to be quite helpful regarding the problem of interaction (or rather of the difficulty of it) with Tatum, by the way.

    ubu

  19. Tony Fruscella

    in Artists

    Posted

    Based on all the interesting comments in this discussion I picked up the Fruscella Atlantic disc recently, and yesterday found a copy of the Spotlite LP "Fru'n Brew". No chance to spin it yet, but I love the Atlantic! Thanks for all this information, guys! :tup

    ubu

  20. AOW November 23-29 Bud Powell

    in Album Of The Week

    Posted

    I know, Adrian! I have picked up Vol. 3 Bud! In its RVG incarnation, and it's beyond comparison. Yet, I have listened to the stuff in the box so many times, it would be like losing an old friend to dump it!

    The liners are good, in my opinion, and I have gotten used to "read" the session infos etc. the way they put it there.

    And then, the two Roost dates, at least the first of which is essential, too, in my opinion, are not available on a single CD except from Japan.

    But I will pick up the RVGs someday, I know!

    ubu

  21. Blindfold Test #5

    in Blindfold Test

    Posted

    Dan, I never knew that was his brother, don't have any of his discs.

    You might find a lot you like on TCB! Check out their site: http://www.tcb.ch. Go to the Red Spine series in the catalogue section.

    There are records by Louis Hayes, Buster Williams, and Steve Nelson, among others. While I don't have many of them, I think the "agb" series is a good one!

    ubu

  23. AOW November 23-29 Bud Powell

    in Album Of The Week

    Posted

    excellent Powell, I think I will always regret getting Powell's complete on Verve as ther is so much poor playing on that disc that it spoilt my appreciation of Bud at his best .

    Vol 2 and Vol 1 on BN are sure his peak ( along with his earliest Verve stuff)

    That was my impression, too, when I first was through the Verve box, yet somehow I at least appreciate everything by Powell I heard up to date.

    Certainly the earliest Verve dates and the Blue Notes collected on Vols. 1 & 2 are the prime Powell, and yes, brownie's thought about genius is really accurate for these handful of dates!

    I have hoped to pick up the RVG (still have the old 4CD box), using this thread as an excuse to do so, but had no time yet.

    Keeps some more comments coming!

    ubu

  24. Clark Terry

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    Matt, I don't know Serenade to a Bus Seat, but if you start digging Terry, you should look for his Emarcy debut album, just called Clark Terry (AMG), reissued in the Verve Elite Edition series. A very good one! Jimmy Cleveland, Cecil Payne, Horace Silver, Oscar Pettiford, Wendell Marshall and Blakey are the sidemen.

    Another real good one is the album he made with Monk, In Orbit (AMG), on Riverside.

    And Daylight Express (AMG), a twofer featuring a short Terry album as well as a good date he co-led with Paul Gonsalves, is another good one.

    Another Verve Elite Edition disc featuring extraordinary work by Terry (and Burrell, Hancock, Carter) is Ed Thigpen's Out of the Storm (AMG).

    I think all of these (except In Orbit) are OOP, but might still be around. Keep your eyes open and grab them if you pass them by!

    ubu

  25. Tenors West - Jimmy Giuffre w/ Marty Paich Octet

    in Discography

    Posted

    Thanks, P.D.!

    Hell, I recognized Mondragon! ;)

    The possible tenor chase could be explained by Enevoldsen and Klee both playing (at least) section tenor to get the three tenors & bari four brothers sound (as Feather states). So there might be some short solistical phrases with several tenors involved...

    The personnel listing implies that the Octet this time includes Cooper and Giuffre, respectively. (There's these Tormé Bethlehems were the "Paich Dek-tette" listed has 10 musicians + Paich, so those octet/tentet tags seem not always very reliable)

    Will listen to the album next week sometimes and check it out and report back!

    ubu

×
×
  • Create New...