Tina Brooks

[Chuck Nessa]

Thanks Chas.

[Tom Cat]

yeah, thanks Chas!! not the best of tina but he was giving a chance to fathead ha ha

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i will not win the tina brooks record on ebay right now

[djcavanagh]

the infamous article I reposted a while back. We concluded that Jack Chambers made a lot of gross accusations about Brooks carer, Blue Note and other Blue Note musicians and music being unreleased due to drug habits.

Does anyone have the Michael Cuscuna response to the original article (and the Jack Chambers response to that)?

[MomsMobley]

Tina Brooks, Utica late-January to early Feb 1969; Rick Montalbano (misspelled ad), organ, is alive--

 

http://rickmontalbano.com/about/

 

Ron Jackson, drums, who is almost certainly Ronald Shannon Jackson, is not. I do not have the Mosaic booklet at hand but Tina played Birdland in Utica regularly since at least February 1962, not long after coming off road with Ray Charles? Also not the first nor the last time J.R.  Monterose misspelled. May 1966 with belly dancer Mari-Jay (who?!). There is more.

Edited May 4, 2020 by MomsMobley

[Dan Gould]

Quite cool. I'd like to know how often Tina played there, if this guy was the organist thru out, and particularly what was played. Were there Brooks originals that (probably) had been recorded at that point but not released until the Mosaic set? Was it a lot of grits n gravy organ standards?

[clifford_thornton]

Whoa.

[bertrand]

A poster also popped up on Facebook of an all-night tenor extravaganza in 1969. Tina was one of the 12 tenors listed, along with other heavy hitters. Michael Weiss checked with the organizer Jim Harrison - Tina did not make the gig, alas.

So it would be great to get a hold of Rick Montalbano to see if Tina made those gigs. Maybe they were even recorded on the sly...

[Gheorghe]

Incredible. I didn´t know Tina Brooks still played that late in his live. I thought after the BN Albums in the early 60s he stopped since there was no other recording evidence. 

I wonder how he might have sounded…...

[MomsMobley]

7 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Incredible. I didn´t know Tina Brooks still played that late in his live. I thought after the BN Albums in the early 60s he stopped since there was no other recording evidence. 

I wonder how he might have sounded…...

Utica 10 Feb 1964, during Birdland gig of (at least) late Jan through mid Feb.

Presume the same quartet too, Lefty Simms, piano; George Scott; drums; Hassan Abdullah; bass.

Anyone know Lefty or the bassist Hasaan Abdullah? George Scott we "all" know from Mingus "Pre-Bird"

 

the 1969 trio with Ronald Shannon Jackson is likely among the last of Tina's known engagements; that Shannon was himself then "sick" too adds extra dimension to the whole thing; were their connections in Utica that solid or were they bringing stuff up from the city, etc?

[clifford_thornton]

I know of a saxophonist by the name of Hassan Abdullah who worked with William Parker in the 70s; not sure if it's the same dude.

[bertrand]

I contacted Rick. I will share this thread with him. I think we should ask him all our burning questions:

1. How did Tina hook up with Utica? How did he even get up there?

2. How did he sound?

3. Was it I just standards or did he bring some new originals?

What else?

Edited May 5, 2020 by bertrand

[Justin V]

For anyone curious about Rick Montalbano's playing, I recommend guitarist Paul Kogut's Know It?  I Wrote It!, a nice trio record with Montalbano on organ.  IIRC, Montalbano is Jane Monheit's father-in-law.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Justin V

[bertrand]

I will be having a phone call with Rick soon, post any questions here.

[Dan Gould]

I think the questions you had are good ... maybe whether he was using at the time or completely professional, on time etc.

[Niko]

Some more: What is the time frame, so for how long did this go on? Did Tina Brooks play elsewhere at the time, too, or was he basically a local player in Utica over several years? What was the development of sidemen over time (e.g. "Ron Jackson"), was anybody there for longer times, what were the major shifts?

Thank you!

[bertrand]

(updates made to my original post)

Had a great conversation with Rick today, and I will be speaking to him again in the future. Here is some additional information.

1) Although Tina had played in Utica before, Rick only played with him during his extended 1968 residency at Birdland, apparently almost the whole year, six nights a week! Rick was a Senior in High School!

2) Tina did live in a hotel in Utica during this time, so he was apparently out of NYC completely.

3) Drummer Ron Jackson was from Detroit, so not the same as Ronald Shannon Jackson who was from Texas. Rick did not stay in touch with him.

4) Tina was playing wonderfully that year, still in full force. I am guessing these may have been his last gigs, we know he cancelled the 1969 tenor battle due to illness.

5) In terms of repertoire, it was mostly standards and blues. It is possible that  some of the blues could might have been Tina originals, and Rick thinks he remembers Tina giving him a piece of hand written manuscript. Rick said 'I think it was just a plain old piece of scrap paper, with hand written staff lines. I don’t remember any chords so it might have been a blues or rhythm changes, or some other song form'. Whether these were new heads or something already previously recorded may never be known.

6) The person who brought Tina to Utica was the owner of Birdland, Dick Frank. At some point he was the dean at Utica College, although I am not sure if he was in that position as early as the 2/10/64 gig mentioned above. Dick picked Tina up in NYC and brought him up to Utica and even bought him a horn.

7) Dick had been responsible for Tina coming up to Utica in the earlier years, he was a huge fan, but Rick was too young for those gigs. So who was in the trio for the earlier gigs, e.g. the one with the Belly dancer and the tenor battle with Monterose? And if Tina was in Utica as early as 1962, that was before Ray Charles (the Brazilian DVD is from 9/22/63).

8) Dick is in a Nursing Home in Florida. Is it possible to ask questions? I don't know. I would sure like to know how he met Tina. Did he just become aware of him through the Blue Note records (The Sermon) or could he have met him before? Tina did a summer in Syracuse in the early 1950s with Freddie Redd...

Much more to come, I hope.

Bertrand.

PS: I was up at Yale in February 2018 for a Lee Morgan tribute. I was able to visit the Pearson dining hall where Tina and Herbie Nichols did a gig. There was a piano in the corner... The Mosaic Nichols booklet suggests there may be an acetate but I have not found anything...

Bertrand. 

Edited November 9, 2020 by bertrand

[bertrand]

Update: we are now 100% sure the drummer is NOT Ronald Shannon Jackson, thanks to Mark Stryker. Rick mentioned he was from Detroit. Mark found a drummer who had Detroit connections, although originally from NYC. The photo is below, Rick confirmed it is him. Here are more details per Mark's Facebook post:

There was a drummer named Ronald (Ron) Jackson on the Detroit scene, but I never knew him. In the reference book "Detroit Jazz Who's Who" by Herb Boyd with photos by Leni Sinclair, published in 1984, there's a listing for drummer named Ronald Jackson, born in New York, September 23, 1939. Entry reads: "Grandfather and mother played piano. Attended William Taft HIgh in the Bronx, NY. Has performed with Sammy Davis Jr., Lonnie Smith, Marcus Belgrave Rufus Harley, Irene Reid, Donald Towns, Kim Weston, and many others. Recorded an album with Harold McKinney." (Note: The record referred to hear is McKinney's "Voices and Rhythms of Creative People" that was taped in 1974 and issued on the Tribe label. The Tom Lord Jazz Discography lists the drummer on this LP as Ronald Shannon Jackson but that is a mistake.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

Excellent info Bertrand.

It's interesting that Tina needed a horn to make this gig, yet he was playing so well apparently.. Wonder if he was a bit rough at the start of this long-term gig. Needing a horn suggests that he wasn't very active before getting hired.

I would not assume that it was his last gig just because he cancelled out of the later one. Getting the later one in and of itself would be an indication of recent or fairly recent activity at the time.

 

I have a question or two now ...

What was the club like?  Was it for listeners or for drinkers and the owner booked jazz cause he liked it?

How attentive were patrons? Did he ever see copies of True Blue brought in for autographs, or other Tina recordings? How much did Rick know about Tina before getting the gig, since he was in High School? 

[clifford_thornton]

Fascinating!

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Dan Gould said:

 Needing a horn suggests that he wasn't very active before getting hired.

Or that it was in hock, or that his horn was in a bit of disrepair (it happens), and the guy wanted him to have a good horn for the gig.

Now the question is - what kind of a horn did he buy for Tina? If it was a Selmer, wow. But even if it wasn't, that's a really nice gesture and a sign of pretty high respect for a player.

[bertrand]

That is a good point. They definitely had a good relationship. I really wonder of it goes back to that Syracuse gig with Freddie Redd. It might be worth trying to find out. I have not talked to Freddie in 6 years and he is in a Nursing Home now.

Edited November 9, 2020 by bertrand

[soulpope]

@ "bertrand" : thnx for sharing ....

[bertrand]

So in addition to the September 1963 Brazilian tour, this places Tina at Georgetown U. in DC in early November 1963. Even more intriguing, he may have contributed a tune to the repertoire. Or could it be the Fred Jackson tune? Someone named Fred Jackson played alto with Ray in 1968.

http://raycharlesvideomuseum.blogspot.com/search?q=tina+brooks

Grachan Moncur was in the band in 1961. The date was never clear to me before.

Edited November 15, 2020 by bertrand

[mjazzg]

I've decided it's time for me to sort out Tina Brooks on vinyl.

So do I buy the Mosaic box or with the arrival of the two Tone Poets i'm now wondering whether the best move is to buy them and hunt down the best sounding versions of 'Minor Move' and 'True Blue', probably the Kings.

Interestingly the cost of doing either is roughly the same.

anyone out there with the relevant versions wish to advise...thanks