Late

Club Jamaica, En Vivo ~ 1961 Early Gato recordings, released on the Argentinian label RGS, due out September 10th.

Thanks for sharing! Von Freeman sounds great on those tracks. Reminds me in places of John Gilmore. Which gets me to thinking—I wonder what Von would've sounded like in Sun Ra's band. Or, rather, what would the band have sounded like with Von in it.

I wonder if the Blue Spirits session will have any other bonus tracks. This one is superior.

Isn't Thompson on the unreleased Wayne Shorter/McCoy Tyner Blue Note session? Or am I thinking of someone else.

Spinning this one again tonight. The range Dennis Brain had was amazing. Died like Jackson Pollock.

This album is being reissued in Japan this August. I was totally unaware of it. A good listen.

Anyone here pick up these vinyl releases?

I've never thought about how a soprano would fit on top of that record. Could/would work. Cecil Taylor seems like he actually might fit the bill, but then it would become a Cecil Taylor record. I wonder how he and Coltrane got on for that 1958 United Artists recording.

This is how I know Schwaller. I need to spin that disc again—been far too long. I remember his tenor being a highlight.

Motivation had its 50th anniversary this year. Maybe for the centennial it will see a digital release.

You are so right. I must have been conflating Dewey Johnson with Bill Dixon! I didn't know that Frank Wright was invited to be on Ascension. Imagine four tenors on that album! I've also thought that Gary Windo might fit the bill, but he was in the UK (I think) and still in his early 20's. True on Dixon. Marshall Allen and John Gilmore together on Ascension would have made it a ... Sun Ra record? (Maybe, kind of.) I think Jackie would've been great on that album. And then maybe sub in Tony Williams. And, why not, get James Spaulding (but forbid him to fall back on his favorite licks). I still think that Barbara Donald would have been an excellent choice for the trumpet line. Would Ornette have agreed to appear on trumpet? Now I need to play Ascension back-to-back with Machine Gun and see what happens.

Al Shorter and Frank Wright are good calls. Were there a trombone section, Roswell Rudd would have added considerably to the session. In my list above, Lasha perhaps should be replaced. Marshall Allen? I also thought about Bill Dixon on trumpet.

For those who missed the Mosaic, this one is highly recommended: Not a bootleg, 2 discs, and good remastered sound.

This is what Simmons fans need to watch:

Freddie Hubbard: trumpet Dewey Johnson: trumpet Marion Brown: alto saxophone John Tchicai: alto saxophone Archie Shepp: tenor saxophone Pharaoh Sanders: tenor saxophone John Coltrane: tenor saxohpone McCoy Tyner: piano Jimmy Garrison: bass Art Davis: bass Elvin Jones: drums This is just for a bit of fun. Let's say you're a cryptodiscographer, and you've heard of, but never actually seen, an alternate, never-before-heard version of Ascension. Same instrumentation, but different personnel. Who would be on it? Feel free to retain certain original personnel—all per one's fancy. Who would you want to hear? Off the top of my head, I'd be interested in hearing this version of Ascension: Barbara Donald: trumpet Don Cherry: trumpet Sonny Simmons: alto saxophone Prince Lasha: alto saxophone John Gilmore: tenor saxophone Gato Barbieri: tenor saxophone John Coltrane: tenor saxophone Don Pullen: piano Gary Peacock: bass Henry Grimes: bass Milford Graves: drums

Just click the YouTube "play" button (you probably already have!) and let it play. Simmons plays well, but Donald plays really, really well. Barbara Donald should have been on Ascension.

Listened to the first half of Escalator yesterday. Brilliant. Going through it again, I was struck by how well-recorded it is, with just a few jarring edits. Gato Barbieri fairly explodes. The "libretto," as far as I understand it, was never intended to make narrative sense. There are some phrases that add on to each other to become coherent sentences, but otherwise Paul Haines' approach seems to be ... dada-esque. I like what Marcello Carlin wrote about it: "No protest, no social commentary. No expression of love, of grief, of hope, of despair. It is literally whatever you want to make of it. It is devoid of every quality which you might assume would qualify it to be the greatest of all records. And yet it is that tabula rasa in its heart, the blank space which may well exist at the very heart of all music, revealing the hard truth that we have to fill in the blanks, we have to interpret what is being played and sung, and our interpretation is the only one which can possibly be valid, as we cannot discern any perspective other than our own." I wonder if Ray Davies or Pete Townsend heard this record at the time. They both created works in a similar vein which were far less complex but received far more exposure. While the Penguin Guide states that Escalator Over The Hill is something "better to have heard than to listen to," I agree (with Mr. Fitzgerald, 17 years ago) that it's a masterpiece. It has an inexhaustible quality about it.

"Did you know that George Barrow is on this album?" "What album?"

Sonny Simmons San Francisco Chronicle article. Simmons' 1991 reunion with Donald, here. Neither had lost their touch.

Agreed, but it (sadly) seems unlikely. It's Barbara Donald's finest hour in my opinion.