kh1958

It still seems like the best major jazz label to me (perhaps faint praise). I like all of Jason Moran, Greg Osby, Eric Trufazz, and Stephan Harris. Moran's Same Mother and Osby's last trio releases were terrific, in my opinion.

After seeing Louis Hayes many times with the McCoy Tyner Trio, as well as a couple of times with the Freddie Hubbard Quartet, and most recently backing up Bobby Watson and others in a Jazz Messengers alumni group, I must say I love Louis Hayes' drumming.

Just when I thought I'd heard just about every great hard bop date on Blue Note, I stumble across this one in a Tower cutout bin--Kenny Drew's Undercurrent, from December 11, 1960, with Freddie Hubbard, Hank Mobley, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. Six Kenny Drew compositions, and both Freddie and Mr. Mobley are in great form. According to the Blue Note discography, this is one of only two sessions as a leader for Mr. Drew on Blue Note.

Art Blakey--Buhaina (Prestige)--with Woody Shaw and Carter Jefferson--good record it appears I bought for $4 many years ago.

My favorite 1980s Freddie Hubbard recordings are these: Outpost (Enja)--quartet recording. Temptation (Timeless)--quartet with Kirk Lightsey as co-leader Sweet Return (Atlantic). Bolivia.

No. Do these early 80s recordings capture the Hubbard you're talking about? I'm guilty of not really listening to FH after Red Clay. Maybe time to rethink that.

I hate this thread.

Don Pullen

The Bill Mays Trio University of Texas at Dallas Date: Saturday, April 1 Time: 8:00 p.m. Venue: Conference Center The Bill Mays Trio will perform April 1. Born into a musical family and beginning at the piano at age five, Bill Mays had his first exposure to jazz as a teenager—a solo concert by Earl "Fatha" Hines. Later, discovering the music of Bill Evans, Art Tatum, Horace Silver and Jimmy Rowles, he found himself "hooked" and embarked on his professional career. Since then, Bill has been the musical director for Sarah Vaughan, accompanied singers Frank Sinatra, Al Jarreau, Mark Murphy and Helen Merrill. Before moving to New York in the mid-80s, he spent 12 years as a session player in Hollywood making many albums and recording hundreds of TV and movie scores. The Bill Mays Trio includes Matt Wilson on drums and Martin Wind on bass.

Sammons Center for the Arts WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2006 - 7:00 TO 10:00 P.M. “Annual Artistic Director’s Concert – A Tribute to Ray Charles” Featured Group: Leroy “Hog” Cooper – a key member of the Ray Charles Orchestra for twenty years heads up a group of musicians in this tribute to the great Ray Charles. Mr. Cooper will demonstrate his superb mastery of the saxophone and will be joined by other former members of the Ray Charles Orchestra including John Bryant on drums and Jack Evans on trumpet. They will be joined by James Gilyard on bass and Arlington Jones on piano.

I strongly recommend the Curtis Amy Mosaic Select. I got this one for Christmas and it is great, a somewhat unexpected favorite.

Yeah, on those nights when he was really on, it was jawdropping unbelievable. I have to laugh at the people around here who think he was at his best on Blue Note in the 1960s.

Live in Germany?

Presumably some more live recordings.

Trees just closed.

Sharpeville is a good one (with Thomas Chapin).

Ditto.

Ornette Coleman--Opening the Caravan of Dreams.

Pretty bad excuse! EAC and some cheap software can do that job... But the 4CD package is great, anyway! Bad excuse? You ain't kidding. I appreciate 32 Jazz more and more every day--especially for the sheer ambition of the CD packages. Budget pricing, well-assembled, classic OOP albums--that's how you get this stuff back on the market. After all the 32 Rahsaan packages, Collectables's weird album pairings and botched single-CD releases just seem weak (although it's nice to have some of the stuff back on the market, and not all of the twofers are strange). I'm just waiting for the day that Rahsaan gets an Atlantic boxed set (e.g., Beauty Is a Rare Thing). Another really nice 32 Jazz compilation is David Newman's "It's Mister Fathead" which has (on 2 CDs) four of his Altantic LPs--Ray Charles Presents, Straight Ahead, Fathead Comes On and House of David.

Yeah I just bought "High Energy"(on vinyl for $1) and was pleasantly surprised by the excellent playing and tunes.This is another record in that Herbie/ Mwandishi vibe/zone. Freddie even uses the echoplex or something from that time on his trumpet. George Cables plays great! Yeah I think Superblue is a great recording! Bundle Of Joy has that great trumpet ballad tune--"A Portrait Of Jenny"--Freddie and harp! But the rest of the album was pretty funny... I actually saw Freddie live for the first time about the time High Energy came out. George Cables was in the band on electric piano (a quintet), Henry Frankin on bass guitar, I don't recall the tenor player but it wasn't Junior Cook. He didn't use any electronic effects on his trumpet. I suspect Freddie was having a good time back stage because he made us wait a really long time for the second set, which was late and short, but he played Spirits of Trane, which made the wait worth it.

I usually use this site to book a hotel in New York. http://www.quikbook.com/ For information about who is playing where, I prefer Time Out New York and All About Jazz (this is available on allaboutjazz.com), supplemented by the Village Voice. For clubs, in New York you should usually call to make a reservation. If you stay in the Times Square area, both Birdland and the Iridium are in walking distance. I like both clubs but they are a bit expensive. I've had better experiences at both clubs on weeknights. On Tuesday nights, the Mingus Big Band plays at the Iridium. If you stay in the Murray Hill area, Jazz Standard and the Kitano are in walking distance. I really like both of these clubs. Jazz Standard is probably the friendliest of the major clubs. Kitano is a very intimate bar/club in a Japanese owned hotel. In Greenwich Village, there is of course a relatively small area on or near Seventh Avenue where there are five clubs close together--the Village Vanguard (my favorite of course), Fat Cat, Small's, 55 Bar (Mike Stern plays many Mondays and Wednesdays), and Sweet Rhythm (used to be Sweet Basil). A block or so over, the Cornelia Street Cafe sometimes has jazz in its basement. Over on Sixth Avenue, there's the Blue Note (not my favorite but sometimes one can't resist who's playing there). A bit further downtown, there's the Jazz Gallery, which has music Thursday to Sunday. This is more like a small concert hall, and I really like it. (Roy Hargrove seems to play there alot.) It's been a number of years it seems since I've found anything I wanted to hear on my visits at the Knitting Factory.

I listened to a side of High Energy recently and rather liked it (this one has Junior Cook on it). As I recall, Superblue had some merit. On the other hand, I recall Liquid Love as being beyond hope of redemption. I have the first two on LP and have never seen a CD of any of these three. I would rather see Keep Your Soul Together reissued on a (domestic) CD.

Uh, this is a 72 year od man who broke his hip and had to cancel all of his concerts for a couple of months. Maybe your Jazz Society should be a bit flexible. It's not really surprising that he would give preference to what amounts to his home town, is it?

David Newman's concert schedule from his website. Concert Schedule 2006 January 14 University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, Texas January 20-22 Jazz At Pearls San Francisco, California February 1-2 East Stroudsberg University Jazz Masters Series East Stroudsberg, Pa. February 3-4 Twins Jazz Washington, DC February 11 Arts Maplewood On Stage Burgdoff Cultural Center Maplewood, NJ February 12 East Coast Festival Rockville, Maryland February 14 University of Utah Black History Celebration Salt Lake City, Utah February 16 President's Cultural Series at Bryant University Smithfield, Rhode Island February 19 Academy of Music North Hampton, Massachusetts February 25 Ft. Pierce Jazz Society Ft. Pierce, Florida February 26 Twin Cities Winter Jazz Festival Double Tree Hotel, St. Louis Park Minneapolis, Minnesota March 3-4 Ellingtons Sanibel Island, Florida March 13-20 Radisson Luxury Jazz Cruise departs Ft. Lauderdale, Florida April 6 NY Community College Theater Jazz Series NYC April 7 La Guardia College Jazz Concert Series LI City, NY April 19-21 Duke University North Carolina

I don't know what you are talking about, but he was scheduled to play the same concert in Dallas last October, cancelled for health reasons, and it was immediately rescheduled for January 14. This appearance has been on his website since October. He also appears, from my observations over many years, to be a very pleasant, refined gentleman. Congratulations. Apparently it was this gig that he preferred to take rather than the one in South Florida he had previously committed to. And now I have it from the head of the jazz society he screwed around with that he is "not worth the trouble" so there won't be any future attempt to bring him here.