Don Brown

While reading Loren Schoenberg's superb notes for this set yesterday I found something amusing in three of the picture credits. I wonder who the W.C. Fields fan is at Mosaic? The photographs on pages 4, 10 and 13 are said to be from the collections of Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Larson E. Whipsnade, and Egbert Souse respectively. Lovely!

Another handsome tenorman for sure, and a good player as well, but I don't think he looks like Hank. It was definitely Hank that I saw on Steve Allen's October program. If the playing on the RLR disc is by Teo Macero then the music comes from a different edition of the Steve Allen show. This would be quite possible because Allen had jazz players on his show just about every week.

And you saw the program? If you had you would have definitely seen Hank Mobley onscreen. It's possible that the broadcast aircheck available on the RLR label comes from another program but the Steve Allen show that I saw live on October 6, 1955 had Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone. Teo Macero was never a tall, handsome, African-American. The only thing Teo and Hank had in common was that they both played the saxophone.

I have no idea why they say that. I do remember that when watching the show I felt both Art Farmer and Mobley looked uncomfortable playing with Monk. I believe it was the first and only time for both of them.

I'm sorry guys but I saw the program. It was broadcast in October during the period that Daylight Savings Time and /Standard Time were out of sync between the U.S. and Canada, and the tenor player with the Monk pickup group was Hank Mobley, not Teo Macero. I'm not blind. Hank Mobley and Teo Macero did not look at all alike. Perhaps Macero had done something earlier (in June?) with Monk on TV but he was not on this particular edition of the Tonight Show and neither was Eddie Bert.

The two Monk performances from Steve Allen's Tonight show are available on RLR Records (RLR88623). The title of the CD is Thelonious Monk in Philadelphia 1960 with Steve Lacy. The two titles from the Steve Allen Show are dated October 6, 1955, New York City. This is the correct date. I can remember seeing the live broadcast in the fall of 1955. For some reason the changeover from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time took place at different times in the U.S. and Canada that year so we could watch American TV programs an hour earlier here. It made late-night shows like Steve Allen's available at a more attractive time for us. Robin D.G. Kelley is wrong about the date in his otherwise superb Monk biography. And the tenor player was definitely Hank Mobley, not Teo Macero.

Thanks, guys. Hit 85 today but I'm still 19 inside. (My wife says 16.)

My understanding is that Volume 25 - the final volume in the Treasury series - will have more music by the 1953 band as well as more bonus material from the 1940s.

I see that Volume 24 of the Duke Ellington Treasury Series is now available, but so far only from Storyville. Volume 24 has 42 tracks including bond promos. Most of the music comes from the Blue Note in Chicago in the summer of 1953. There is also bonus material from the Hurricane in New York City from April of 1944.

I remember seeing Andy McGhee with Woody's band here in Toronto. It was interesting to hear Andy's big-toned tenor in Woody's "Four Brothers" reed section. Somehow it worked out very well.

Happy belated birthday, John.

My Clifford Jordan set arrived this morning.

I just got a notice about the Jordan set as well. Scott says that they're behind in shipping and that it will likely be another week before it actually gets into the mail.

I can remember seeing James Cotton at the First Floor Club here in Toronto when he was still a sideman with Muddy Waters. It was a great performance with Muddy and all the members of his band - including Otis Spann and Little Willie Smith - in great form. This was back when musicians, even those in blues bands, wore tuxedos when performing. It was interesting to watch Cotton who often ended up on his back on the stage floor, wildly kicking his feet in the air while lustily blowing his harmonica. As Dan Morgenstern once said about an Illinois Jacquet JATP performance, "Yes, but it was visceral." (I shudder to think of Cotton's dry cleaning bill. At the end of the evening the back of his tuxedo was white with several inches of dust and dirt from the stage floor.)

A question...my copy of this set arrived yesterday and I couldn't help noticing that the lid doesn't close snugly. I soon discovered why. The plastic tray holding the three jewel boxes has two depressions at the top deep enough to accommodate the first two of the three "big boy" jewel boxes, but the depression at the bottom of the tray is only deep enough to accommodate a single jewel box not a "big boy".This means that jewel box three sticks up out of the tray much higher than the first two boxes and, as a result, interferes with the closing of the lid on this new Mosaic set. Is it just mine that came this way or have other folks here had the same problem?

Yes, Shorty Baker is featured nicely on Ellngton Indigos but overall Shorty was never given many solos. I saw him twice live with Ellington and he didn't get a single solo on either occasion. Duke's featured trumpeters were Ray Nance, Cootie Williams, and Cat Anderson. Clark Terry was another Ducal trumpeter who was given far too few solo opportunities, especially in person. While there's a fair amount of Terry on Ellington recordings in live performances he was featured on Gerald Wilson's arrangement of Perdido and that was about it.

Another really under-utilized player was trumpeter Willie Cook, a musician with a gorgeous tone and interesting ideas. Like Clark Terry, Cook had been more than a little touched by bebop - he'd even been in the trumpet section of one of Dizzy's big bands. At a couple of Ellington concerts I attended he was featured on a ballad but that was about it. And there are very few Ellington recordings showcasing this fine musician. Also, Harold "Shorty" Baker who was in and out of Duke's band over the years, was featured sparingly. And he was another trumpeter with a glorious tone and great ideas.

I've found my LP copy of Volume 49, Lon. The music on Side A was recorded April 14, 1945 at the 400 Restaurant in NYC. Side B has music recorded at Franz Holzfiend's Blue Note in Chicago on August 1, 1953. Not to worry. I just realized that the April 14th, 1945 material from the 400 Restaurant is the FDR Memorial broadcast which has been issued on the D.E.T.S. CDs as an extra (on Volume 1 I believe.)

Actually, Lon, there were 49 albums issued on LP. Number 49 contained bonus material. If I was able to get at it right now I could tell you where that material came from. Perhaps in a day or two I can unearth it and let you know what's on it.

Happy Birthday, John. We haven't seen you at the pub lately. We still gather every Friday from noon till around 2:00 and trade lies about jazz, movies, and books and all the other good things in the world. All the best on your birthday.

The seven issued titles are on two CDs from Spain - Lonehill LHJ 10323 and Poll Winners PWR27238, Ted. Tom Lord shows four other selections as still unissued.

I haven't received my copy yet but I think I know why it's packaged that way, Lon. The single disc is manufactured by Sony since they own all the material contained on that disc while the seven discs in the two fat boys are manufactured by Universal, the owner of all the rest of the material

I met a guy here in Toronto in 1950 who owned a copy. He told me it had cost him $75.00. That was LOT of money in 1950.

I saw Dewey Redman on three occasions with Ornette but I never caught Don Cherry. I also missed Paul Bley.

The "Art Blakey Quartet" sounded good with Lee Morgan in fine form. But none of the guys looked very happy about having to make do without their tenorman. They did make the best of a bad situation though. I don't believe any of the concerts were recorded - not officially anyway. I saw Miles Davis, Ben Webster, Sarah Vaughan, Blakey, and the MJQ. Miles premiered the music he'd recently recorded for the Kinda Blue album which wasn't released until about a month after these concerts. We expected to see Coltrane and Bill Evans with Miles but they'd already been replaced by Jimmy Heath and Wynton Kelly. Cannonball and Jimmy Cobb were still in the band though.