What vinyl are you spinning right now??

[soulpope]

3 hours ago, HutchFan said:

👍👍👍!!!

[Gheorghe]

3 hours ago, HutchFan said:

 

and

I must admit I heard a lot of Al Haig from the 40´s but nothing he did later. I´ve always been fascinated how Al Haig developed his very personal style. In 1945 he still sounded a bit "stiff" but really started to stretch out later in the 40´s. And his ballad style is beautiful, his piano solos on Wardell Gray´s album are fantastic.

Did he change his style in the 70´s ? And strange, I have heard he had a very rough time in the 60´s, there are stories I wouldn´t like to mention, but on that photo he looks so straight, much more like a lawyer or a banc director than a bop verteran.....

[soulpope]

8 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Jimmie Rowles - Grandpaws (Choice, 1976)
with Buster Williams & Billy Hart

An excellent trio session with typically sub-par Choice sound.  I prefer this LP over Paws That Refresh, the second Choice LP derived from the same March 1976 session. 

👍👍👍.... although the complete Choice session is excellent .... btw love the straight forward grooves courtesy of Billy Hart ....

[BillF]

On 5/27/2019 at 8:37 AM, BillF said:

No, Bill watrous had the best haircut of the bunch:

 

 

Not forgetting Sonny, of course:

And you can't forget the late Roy Hargrove:

 

[HutchFan]

11 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I must admit I heard a lot of Al Haig from the 40´s but nothing he did later. I´ve always been fascinated how Al Haig developed his very personal style. In 1945 he still sounded a bit "stiff" but really started to stretch out later in the 40´s. And his ballad style is beautiful, his piano solos on Wardell Gray´s album are fantastic.

Did he change his style in the 70´s ?

I would say that Haig's style continued to evolve.  He wasn't a pianist like, say, Barry Harris, whose style stayed rooted in bop. For example, Haig does an interesting version of Cedar Walton's "Holy Land" on Invitation.  Given Haig's approach, I can see how he must have appreciated Walton's sense of craftsmanship and logical construction. Haig doesn't necessarily play funky like Cedar can, but Haig definitely was listening to & incorporating post-bop developments.

And I agree with you that Haig's way with ballads is very impressive. That didn't change.

I have several Haig LPs & CDs from 70's -- on Seabreeze, Spotlite, Choice, Progressive, and Interplay.  All of them are well worth hearing, but Invitation and Ornithology (Progressive) are the two that I pull from the shelf most often.

 

 

EDIT:
Thinking about Haig prompted me to queue up this album:

Various Artists - I Remember Bebop (Columbia, 2 LPs)

This session is more bop-oriented than most of Haig's recordings from the time, since it's intended as a retrospective. (Haig plays four Dizzy Gillespie compositions here.)

From Henri Renaud's liner notes: 
"And Dizzy himself confided to me that in Chicago in 1976, during the making of a TV broadcast about the history of Bebop, he was struck by the discovery that his former pianist played even better than in the heyday of Bebop when they both used to work together at Berg's in Hollywood!"

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by HutchFan

[Gheorghe]

@HutchFan, thank you so much for this great infos. I think I should purchase some of those late Haig recordings. I think the Spotlite LPs where around when we used to buy LPs during that "era" , but I fear that during that period (1978)  I was too much interested in Bird (who was something for me like let´s say James Dean would have been for the generation before me )  and since Spotlite was very much a "Bird-Label" (all those "Bird in Lotus Land" "Bird in Paris", '"Bird in Sweden" etc.) I overlooked the Haig albums under his own name, I think I "listened" to pianists only as Bird and Dizzy´s "sideman", but that was the situation, I was just a bit too dumb then to dig the whole thing......

I think I saw "I remember bebop" once or twice but didn´t buy it, maybe I feared it might be a sampler, but I think this was Henry Renaud´s thing, always trying to gather the bop pianists who had survived. On this cover I could recognize very easily Duke Jordan . Barry Harris, John Lewis, I´m not sure but the man next to John Lewis could be Walter Bishop ? Is Al Haig the first one? Or the one in the middle ? then, I don´t have no idea who is the first one .....

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

@HutchFan, thank you so much for this great infos. I think I should purchase some of those late Haig recordings. I think the Spotlite LPs where around when we used to buy LPs during that "era" , but I fear that during that period (1978)  I was too much interested in Bird (who was something for me like let´s say James Dean would have been for the generation before me )  and since Spotlite was very much a "Bird-Label" (all those "Bird in Lotus Land" "Bird in Paris", '"Bird in Sweden" etc.) I overlooked the Haig albums under his own name, I think I "listened" to pianists only as Bird and Dizzy´s "sideman", but that was the situation, I was just a bit too dumb then to dig the whole thing......

I think I saw "I remember bebop" once or twice but didn´t buy it, maybe I feared it might be a sampler, but I think this was Henry Renaud´s thing, always trying to gather the bop pianists who had survived. On this cover I could recognize very easily Duke Jordan . Barry Harris, John Lewis, I´m not sure but the man next to John Lewis could be Walter Bishop ? Is Al Haig the first one? Or the one in the middle ? then, I don´t have no idea who is the first one .....

Al Haig is the one exactly in the middle, obviously (see the "Al Haig Meets the Master Saxes" LP series on Spotlite for easy comparison, the one on the right, then, is Jimmy Rowles, the only other white pianist on the set). There was MUCH more on Spotlite than just Bird (whose LPs were even a bit earlier than the others, so you seem to have passed over a lot of their releases). To me Spotlite LPs were a safe bet most of the times so I picked up a lot (whenever I was able to find them at all).

This "I Remember Bebop" LP has me intrigued now. I saw it in the record store racks I don't even begin to know how often "at the time" (and afterwards) but never picked it up because ACTUAL bebop-era recordings had priority with me and funds weren't endless. (I might give it a try now if a cheap 2nd hand copy comes along now, though.) For this and other reasons I have never been attracted a lot by those latter-day recordings by the old bebop masters (my loss maybe, I know ...), including those by Al Haig (of whom I think I have all his 50s and 60s leader dates). The only later one by him I own is "Strings Attached" co-featuring Jimmy Raney which is nice enough but again there are moments there where the droning, resonating bass with his "hey let me in too" mannerisms ruins the overall sound pattens for me. "It just dont fit" to my ears. But given Hutch's endorsement I mght try his Spotlite LPs eventually.

[sidewinder]

Those Spotlites were fairly ubiquitous over here during that period (well, so much as that term can be applied to jazz LPs) and are still to be found. My favourite is probably the Howard McGhee ‘Trumpet at Tempo’. ‘Bird in Sweden’ was the first one I bought.

[Gheorghe]

35 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

 

There was MUCH more on Spotlite than just Bird (whose LPs were even a bit earlier than the others, so you seem to have passed over a lot of their releases). To me Spotlite LPs were a safe bet most of the times so I picked up a lot (whenever I was able to find them at all).

 

Yes, more than just Bird......, well at least I had purchased the fantastic Billy Eckstine "Together" and the "Afro-Cubop" (Machito, Howard McGhee ), and once I purchased a Red Rodney with some "Bebop Preservation Society" but this..... didn´t appeal too much to me, maybe the same thing like you say "latter-day recordings by old bop master"

[BillF]

23 hours ago, BillF said:

And you can't forget the late Roy Hargrove:

 

Of course, for my generation the Bud Shank hairstyle was pretty cool:

[Kevin Bresnahan]

On 5/28/2019 at 2:28 AM, Gheorghe said:

Did he change his style in the 70´s ? And strange, I have heard he had a very rough time in the 60´s, there are stories I wouldn´t like to mention, but on that photo he looks so straight, much more like a lawyer or a banc director than a bop verteran.....

The stories I heard about his lack of playing time in the late 50's to early 60's centered around the color of his skin.

[HutchFan]

6 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

. . . But given Hutch's endorsement I mght try his Spotlite LPs eventually.

Credit where credit is due: A few years back, soulpope hipped me to that Spotlite LP!   

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, bresna said:

The stories I heard about his lack of playing time in the late 50's to early 60's centered around the color of his skin.

Crow Jim?

Personally, I do like his "Al Haig Today" LP of 1964 on the Mint label.

Even though his 50s records have more "bite", so to speak.

[mjazzg]

Heiner Stadler - Brains On Fire, Volume1 [Labor]

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, bresna said:

The stories I heard about his lack of playing time in the late 50's to early 60's centered around the color of his skin.

otoh, the guy had a really dark side that has only recently been brought forth to the general public. but I'd be shocked if nobody knew about it, or at least suspected. People have a way of "keeping their distance" from people with "issues" that are outside the normal community practices, and that can certainly affect employability.

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

otoh, the guy had a really dark side that has only recently been brought forth to the general public. but I'd be shocked if nobody knew about it, or at least suspected. People have a way of "keeping their distance" from people with "issues" that are outside the normal community practices, and that can certainly affect employability.

i do think I know what you are alluding to (Allen Lowe mentioned it more than once here) but was under the impression this happened quite a bit later than during the late 50s/early 60s.

[JSngry]

Maybe. But the point is just that people sometimes give off a vibe.

Not saying that was the case with Haig, but it could have been. "Race" is certainly an issue (still!), but it's also any easy blanket-blame that can be used to deflect closer scrutiny of an individual.

Besides, where/with whom did Haig want to work that he couldn't because he was white? Did he want a gig with King Curtis or Miles or who, exactly? The Club Baby Grand? House gig at the Apollo?

"Crow Jim...." a construct created by Stan Kenton and Leonard Feather. Proceed accordingly.

[Niko]

now playing: Jon Eardley / Al Haig - Stablemates (Spotlite, 1977)

easily recommended, they both sound so pretty... (and Art Themen sounds pretty good, too) 

[HutchFan]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

"Crow Jim...." a construct created by Stan Kenton and Leonard Feather. Proceed accordingly.

Amen to that.

Not sayin' that it didn't happen.  I'm just sayin' . . .

Besides, lots of jazz musicians -- bebop musicians -- were on the outs during the 60s.  I've been listening to Duke Jordan today. He didn't make ANY records from 1962 to 1973. He was driving a taxi to support himself. 

Lots of factors at play in that.

I'd be cautious about simplifying it as a race issue -- especially in Haig's case.

My 2 cents.

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by HutchFan

[Niko]

Quintet Boy Raaijmakers

He may mostly be remembered as a Free Jazz trumpeter but this album is straight hard bop from Nijmegen 74 with a Fender Rhodes in the center

[Clunky]

Franz Koglmann——-Opium————(Blackmonk)

 

excellent reissue of Pipe Records seventies LP

[mjazzg]

5 minutes ago, Clunky said:

Franz Koglmann——-Opium————(Blackmonk)

 

excellent reissue of Pipe Records seventies LP

And that is definitely on my 'to buy' list

[jlhoots]

8 minutes ago, Clunky said:

Franz Koglmann——-Opium————(Blackmonk)

 

excellent reissue of Pipe Records seventies LP

Since I don't have a turntable, I bought the CD.

[sidewinder]

[clifford_thornton]

On 5/29/2019 at 2:10 PM, Niko said:

Quintet Boy Raaijmakers

He may mostly be remembered as a Free Jazz trumpeter but this album is straight hard bop from Nijmegen 74 with a Fender Rhodes in the center

I have that one kicking around somewhere; can't recall very much about it, sadly.