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Barney Wilen Quartet ??


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Saw a Barney Wilen Quartet '59 (Fresh Sounds) sitting in a NY shop yesterday. Not familiar with this one but it looks like a live recording, part of which was recorded in Newport...and part in Germany with Wilen & a Freiberg rythm section. Is the recording quality any good? ....worth doubling back to pick up?

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Weizen, don't let this get away! It's really good.

Three sides from the Newport 1959 Barney Wilen appearance there (with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Tommy Bryant and Roy Haynes). Sound is a bit muddy but acceptable.

Then two sides with a quintet that consists of Clark Terry, Bud Powell (BUD POWELL!), Eric Peter and Kenny Clarke, I think comes from a live French TV show also from 1959. Sound is a bit better.

Then a version of 'Round Minight' with a strings ensemble recorded in Dusseldorf in the late '50s. Sound gets better.

Music is outstanding.

Just once more: get this!

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I've seen the two of these available over and over on websites and in a few stores so I don't thnk they're in danger of being rare quickly; they're among the most easily available of Wilen's recordings.

Some blistering bebop on the "Quintet"---quite French in its jazz way, quite nice stuff.

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Jazzbo, those Wilen Fresh Sounds seem to get wider distribution over your side of the Atlantic. I rarely see these over here.

couw, Weizen clearly refered to the one at top of the two discs whose covers you attached, the one that includes sides from the 1959 Newport appearance.

The Wilen Quintet is a very, very rare album that was recorded in 1957 (with Huber Fol on alto, Nico Buninck (excellent Dutch musician, and a very nice guy) on piano, Lloyd Thompson on bass and Al Levitt on drums. This came out on La Guilde du Jazz (the French equivalent of the Jazztone label). I have never seen an original copy of this and grabbed the Fresh Sounds reissue as soon as it came out.

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Jazzbo, those Wilen Fresh Sounds seem to get wider distribution over your side of the Atlantic. I rarely see these over here.

couw, Weizen clearly refered to the one at top of the two discs whose covers you attached, the one that includes sides from the 1959 Newport appearance.

The Wilen Quintet is a very, very rare album that was recorded in 1957 (with Huber Fol on alto, Nico Buninck (excellent Dutch musician, and a very nice guy) on piano, Lloyd Thompson on bass and Al Levitt on drums. This came out on La Guilde du Jazz (the French equivalent of the Jazztone label). I have never seen an original copy of this and grabbed the Fresh Sounds reissue as soon as it came out.

While I don't have either of these - brownie, is this Nico Buninck the same Nico "Bunink" that appears on some of the larger group tracks of Mingus' Candid dates?

Didn't know he was european! Don't know anything about him, in fact.

ubu

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They're interesting discs.

I confess that I like Wilen the mature player better than his prodigious and powerful young self. . . but I'm a Wilen competist and find enjoyment in all his work I've found so far. Still need to find some of the seventies rock/Indian/jazz fusions. . . .

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I believe that is one and the same Nico!

I am sure there is only one Nico Buninck. I heard him a couple of times in Paris clubs in the late '50s when he was hanging around the pretty active jazz scene here.

I know he also plays on a Phil Woods Philology CD I've got somewhere...

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Neat poem:

for nico bunick (et al)

before the 33 1/3 spinning song --

one of petroleum's finest moments,

there were opening acts:

shrink wrap crackling like blakey's traps

after pee wee marquette's half falsetto,

then the player's names, my basement mantra --

the closest i ever came to cool

this side of san fran:

melba liston, fred katz, carmell jones,

jamil nasser,

and the one i may have whispered more

than christian pals whispered jesus.

tough-tender as a half decent steak.

played with mingus --

could have played with the cleveland browns.

"now swinging his ass off for the delight of too damn few

folks, NICO BUNICK!!!

didn't record much, a friend snipes

upon hearing of his death.

but i am still in love,

and learning from

a distant spring.

reuben jackson

2/20/02

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Most referrences I have seen on American issues say Nico Bunick. Most European referrences seem to be for Nico Bunink.

I knew him as Nico Buninck, or was it Bunink?? Definitely not Bunick.

A google search has three different versions: Bunick (which was how it was spelled on the first album he recorded when he tried his luck in the States -the 'Mingus' LP on Candid), Bunink and Buninck.

Bunink seems to be the accepted spelling!

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I would have posted earlier, but my system has been on the fritz, and in the shop since last Monday :angry: Damn XP....

Brownie, you were right about not letting this one get away. I went back and snagged it, and am very pleased with it.

So thanks to you and others for the recommendation. :tup

I also wound up picking up a copy of the Dorothy Donegan Trio on Fresh Sounds that isn't too bad. While I was there a guy standing next to me in the store said that he was a friend of Roswell Rudd, and handed me a copy of the Archie Shepp & Roswell Rudd Live in New York on Verve, and told me he was actually there when it was recorded. It is surprisingly good as well. And that is coming from someone who is stuck in the fifties-sixties jazz time warp.

Off again to chew out Microsoft/MSN/Comcast whoever (someday they will figure out). ;)

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