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Eddie Bert fans?


BERIGAN

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I have to admit to not being familiar with him(might have seen the name somewhere, but never heard his music)

I just got around to listening to a used cd I bought awhile ago at Media Play. Encore, recorded in 1955 from Savoy. Kenny Clarke and Hank Jones are on hand as well. Very nice! I won't say he is the most innovative player in the world, but he doesn't need to be, very good. Just surprised I haven't heard much about him, he worked with everyone from Charlie Barnet to T.S. Monk. A search here didn't seem to pull up much.

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I have a couple of his Fresh Sound vinyl reissues which I have yet to give an extensive listen to.

'I Hear Music - Modern Music' (originally on Concert Hall)

'Let's Dig Bert' (originally on Trans-World).

What I've heard so far sounds pretty good indeed. Very nice 50s modern-mainstream sessions.

Richard Williams' Miles Davis book also has a great photo of Eddie chatting at a club gig with Miles.

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Yeah Bert sounds great on what little I've heard--with Mingus & Melle. Incidentally another underrated trombonist worth checking out: Willie Dennis. He's on a few Mingus albums but barely gets a solo on those I've heard; the one spot I've heard him solo at length is on Ronnie Ball's All About Ronnie, another obscure Savoy worth picking up (it was cut out about 5 years ago & maybe copies are still floating around).

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  • 2 years later...

I must have missed this thread last time... "Musician of the Year" is indeed fine, it was the first Bert I had (a reissue LP).

The date with J.R. Monterose is possibly even better, though... all of that material for Savoy has been collected on a great 2CD set by Fresh Sound, recently:

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Eddie Bert Quartet & Quintet - Crosstown (2CD)

Fresh Sound in addition offers a single disc with very, very good 1953/54 sessions by Bert with bands including Vinnie Dean (as), Sal Salvador (g), Duke Jordan (p) and Sal Mosca (p - on one session only):

c4281.jpg

Eddie Bert Quintet - Kaleidoscope

Definitely an underrated musician here that many more jazz fans ought to hear!

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One of the finest saxophone-influenced (specifically Lester Young) trombone players, along with Willie Dennis. Jimmy Knepper, too, but Knepper is so Knepper that he strikes me as being more in a zone of his own; with Bert, Dennis, and a few others, the kinship seems clear. There's also Earl Swope (1922-68), who kind of took one part Lester and added two parts Dickie Wells (easy to do, at least conceptually, given the great Basie recordings where Pres and Wells both solo). Swope was very influential but not, I'm fairly sure, on Bert, who also was born in 1922 and was soloing on record with Red Norvo as early as 1941-2. Getting back to Bert's playing in itself, the melodic continuity/rhythmic fluidity and overall freshness of his playing on "Crosstown" and "Kaleidoscope" is something else.

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I have a couple of CDs on Fresh Sound by Eddie Bert that I believe have not been mentioned.

Eddie Bert - The Human Factor - FSR 5005

with Jerry Dodgion, Carmen Leggio, Duke Jordan, Ray Drummond & Mel Lewis

Recorded in November 1987

Eddie Bert & J.R. Monterose - Live At Birdland - FSR 198

with Ben Aronov,Bill Crow, & Eddie Locke

Recorded in September 1991

Both these CDs are worth getting if you like these musicians.

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If someone can help me find a CD of Eddie's Savoy album Encore that would be greatly appreciated. :)

It's part of the "Crosstown" 2CD package, as are Bert's two other Savoys. Mighty fine stuff! I think the date with Monterose is spread over "Encore" and the third (besides "Musician of the Year") album, so getting that package is good anyway, to have it all in one place.

Larry, how about Urbie Green, wouldn't he fit in there with Dennis & Bert, too?

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Larry, how about Urbie Green, wouldn't he fit in there with Dennis & Bert, too?

I like Green, who was reputed to be (and certainly sounds like) a genius instrumentalist as well as a very tasty player, but I don't think he had as much saxophone conception going as Bert and Dennis did. Also, a certain rounded-off shapeliness of phrasing seems to come so readily to Green (as did just about everything else on the trombone) that I feel that he often rested content at that admitttedly elegant level, while for Bert and Dennis it was more like ever onward. BTW, Green fans should look for the Fresh Sound reissue (on a single CD) of his two (or two of his, don't recall which it is) ABC-Paramount albums, a small group date with Jimmy Raney and a big band album with John Carisi charts, including "Springsville," which features Green and is treated as a kind of walking ballad. The big band date is not as adventurous as one might wish -- the goal seems to have been to produce a musically superior version of Les Elgart -- but within those limits the playing and writing are very good.

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If someone can help me find a CD of Eddie's Savoy album Encore that would be greatly appreciated. :)

It's part of the "Crosstown" 2CD package, as are Bert's two other Savoys. Mighty fine stuff! I think the date with Monterose is spread over "Encore" and the third (besides "Musician of the Year") album, so getting that package is good anyway, to have it all in one place.

Wow, thanks a lot! I somehow missed this compilation. Yeah, it's from our Andorran friends

once again but since Savoy still can't be bothered to release their stuff in complete form

(the Montage compilation contained the rest of the Crosstown material and some other

tracks from various artists that I've been waiting for them to issue on CD as well).

So the sound quality of the Fresh Sound set is good then?

There's a store in Pittsburgh that has, I think, two copies of the Bert Savoy. They're used at $8 a piece. PM me if you're interested.

Thanks a lot for the offer, I really appreciate it and if it wasn't for ubu's post I would've gladly

taken you up on your offer. But that compilation makes more sense for me after all. :)

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If someone can help me find a CD of Eddie's Savoy album Encore that would be greatly appreciated. :)

It's part of the "Crosstown" 2CD package, as are Bert's two other Savoys. Mighty fine stuff! I think the date with Monterose is spread over "Encore" and the third (besides "Musician of the Year") album, so getting that package is good anyway, to have it all in one place.

Wow, thanks a lot! I somehow missed this compilation. Yeah, it's from our Andorran friends

once again but since Savoy still can't be bothered to release their stuff in complete form

(the Montage compilation contained the rest of the Crosstown material and some other

tracks from various artists that I've been waiting for them to issue on CD as well).

So the sound quality of the Fresh Sound set is good then?

There's a store in Pittsburgh that has, I think, two copies of the Bert Savoy. They're used at $8 a piece. PM me if you're interested.

Thanks a lot for the offer, I really appreciate it and if it wasn't for ubu's post I would've gladly

taken you up on your offer. But that compilation makes more sense for me after all. :)

No problem ^_^

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