Promising Music in trouble

[king ubu]

They've put out so few discs but made quite some questionable choices, it seems to me... too bad they're drawn that much to the prog and jazzrock side of the MPS catalogue.

Anyway, glad to know they're doing better, and yes indeed, the Jazz Meets India will be most welcome!

Btw, I have sealed spare copies of the Pork Pie and Mariano discs - both pretty good!

And both overpayed of course... make an offer if you're interested!

[clifford_thornton]

Got those on vinyl also but they are recommended.

[dova]

I just caught on to the Promising Music MPS series and immediately ordered:

John Tchicai: Afordisica

Charlie Mariano: Helen 12 Trees

Wolfgang Dauner: Free Action

Pork Pie: Transitory

Zbigniew Siefert: Man of Light

Alphonse Mouzon: Virtue

I'll stop at this point till I receive them and check them for sound. Anybody else have comments on the above or any others?

I also ordered the 4CD Universal Music set by Peter Herbolzheimer: Big Band Man, supposedly funky German Big Band group with excellent side men.

[sidewinder]

Wolfgang Dauner: Free Action

That's the only one I have and it is pretty good.

Have my eye on the Herboltzheimer too !

[shaft]

I also ordered the 4CD Universal Music set by Peter Herbolzheimer: Big Band Man, supposedly funky German Big Band group with excellent side men.

That's a great set! Highly recommended. Good sound Q too.

/Shaft

[king ubu]

I just caught on to the Promising Music MPS series and immediately ordered:

John Tchicai: Afordisica

Charlie Mariano: Helen 12 Trees

Wolfgang Dauner: Free Action

Pork Pie: Transitory

I got those and enjoyed them all. The Barney Wilen (Dear Prof. Leary) is great as well!

Then I've got the Dave Pike Set and the Sugarcane discs... I think that's all I've bought so far.

They're way over the top as far as price is concerned, and the liners are a bit... dilletant, but nice. The reproduction of the album covers are done very nicely though, and sound has never bothered me in any way (I'm no audiophile so I won't say it's "great" or "good" or "ok" or whatever... as long as nothing bothers me, I'm happy...)

Ah, got the Hammer, too...

The weirdest choice of them all is the George Duke, since there's a (very enjoyable) 4CD set done by Universal music... why duplicate anything when they have such a limited catalogue at Promising Music's?

And I do want to get the Don Ellis, eventually, and mostly I want "Jazz Meets India"!

[Chalupa]

The latest email(edited)from Promising Music...

as new MPS re-issues from promising music will come not before March next year, we like to focus on our partner labels:

We proudly present three new HGBS recordings

We start off with two 180 gram vinyl releases. One is „Tribute To The Past“, a new solo piano album by Wolfgang Dauner, that we offer in CD DigiPak format already. The vinyl is strictly limited to 750 copies and each LP is hand signed by Dauner himself. The other is somewhat of a sensation, and solely available as 180 gram vinyl LP: When "Mr. Black Forest" Horst Jankowski recorded "Swinging Explosion" in 1971, MPS planned to release it as MPS 15310. Due to reasons beyond our knowledge this did not happen back then. The tapes were now found in the MPS vaults. They were in such a good shape that the HGBS label decided to release. As said: not on CD, but solely on vinyl. It's fully analogue, meaning: not only the old recording, but also the new mixing and mastering were done analogue. Truly "triple A".

When the MPS Rhythm Combination & Brass, the big band led by Peter Herbolzheimer, toured in 1970 and 1971, MPS released a live double album entitled "My Kind Of Sunshine". HGBS augmented these recordings with selections of the "40 Years Of Bossa Nova" program that the German BuJazzO (National Youth Jazz Orchestra), again led by Herbolzheimer, played in 2005, and releases it as a double CD in DigiPak, with a 32-page-booklet.

[clifford_thornton]

Whoa.

[king ubu]

good news!

EDDIE LOCKJAW DAVIS / JOHNNY GRIFFIN QUINTET - Tough Tenors Again 'n' Again

“Not the most publicised, but one of the most productive” - that's how Mike Hennessey puts it in his liner notes for this CD when he comes to describe the partnership of Eddie Davis and Johnny Griffin. Their original teaming-up dates back to 1960, when they discussed the idea of forming a group at Birdland. With Norman Simmons (p), Victor Sproles (b) and Ben Savannah (dr) their first quintet (which underwent some reshuffles later) started working the very same year and would release six recordings until 1962.

This is all the more astonishing as the two personalities of the “Tough Tenors” were considerably different: Eddie was said to be a conscientious man, a worker who knew about his obligations, whereas Johnny rather lived for the day and was a notorious latecomer. After that short, but most prolific period, their quintet disbanded, “Lockjaw” returned to the Count Basie Big Band for which he had been working since 1952, Griffin tried his luck in the Paris jazz scene. However, having been separated for a couple of years, another opportunity for a musical pairing of Eddie and Johnny arose at the beginning of the Seventies.

Davis was playing with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band at that time and had already recorded the “Sax No End” album for SABA which was to become MPS. Since then it was producer's Gigi Campi's dream to bring Griffin to the band to ignite a reunion of the unequal sax wizards. In April 1970 Campi grouped the two of them together in Cologne and decided not to record the whole big band as a backing, but to go back to the proven quintet line-up which now consisted of Francy Boland (p), Jimmy Woode (b) and Kenny Clarke (dr).

The result of the Comet Studios sessions in the metropole on the Rhine river are compelling for every tenor lover as Davis & Griffin tie in with their Prestige legacy easily. The infectious groove of the opening “Again 'N' Again” with the double lead line marks a breathtaking prelude. In the epic “Tin Tin Deo” some darker – and very manly - moods are displayed, adding an exciting new perspective to the version divulged by Dizzy Gillespie. You may also notice Francy Boland's inspired rolls in the middle section.

The first surprise comes in shape of “If I Had You”, when Davis withdraws to a languishing late-night ballad in Ben Webster style. “Jim Dawg” is a brilliantly swinging classic written by “Lockjaw” himself – and a great chance for the listener to study the different styles of improvisation of Eddie and Johnny, as he can do in “Gigi” which delivers a bit more raucous undertone. Anyway, the biggest revelation to the audience could be the second ballad of this album: With “When We Were One”, Johnny Griffin, the wild man, unexpectedly shows his well-hidden romantic trait.

CECIL TAYLOR - Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!

It would be far too limited to say the legacy of the MPS label only built on its exquisite, world-famous studio sound. Indeed, the “secret weapon” of the Black Forest team in many recordings was the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand piano which is still located – and played! - at the very same corner in the recently new-opened studios since the day it was hoisted into the building for a Friedrich Gulda session. On Sunday, September 14th 1980 however, the Bösendorfer saw a definite moment of glory.

With this recording, MPS added an otherworldly gem to its impressive stack of solo piano outings. Without the intention of belittling the great releases by Oscar Peterson, Friedrich Gulda, Wolfgang Dauner or George Shearing, “Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!” has to be seen and listened to in a category of its own. At this point of his long career Cecil Taylor had reached a level of expression which couldn’t be measured by any comparison - since on the one hand the man had developed a completely unique style of playing and on the other embedded his art into a philosophy which was strongly nurtured on the history of such exotic cultures as Ethiopia, Mesopotamia and Tibet.

When Cecil Taylor arrived in Villingen for this intense week-end of practising, listening and recording it was very rapidly clear that all those clichés – or “the myths” if you like – which the press had constructed around him could easily be refuted. As Joachim Ernst Berendt expounded in his liner notes Taylor was not difficult but disciplined, not anarchic but soft and in his playing dwells order instead of chaos – which is ready to be explored by the eager listener. Being inspired by Duke and Bird, Bud Powell, Herbie Nichols, Art Tatum and even Bessie Smith, Taylor was grounded on a wide range of jazz and blues vocabulary and showed a breathtaking capacity of turning this foundation into a playing which is at the same time vigorous and elementary as well as highly elaborate and – unconsciously or not - follows the principles of classical compositions. These recordings are a splendid showcase of his incomparable artistry.

“Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!” is more than an album, it is a complex interplay between freedom, form and content. The original side one of the LP is conceived as a suite. Listening to the boisterous intro “T” you understand what Taylor, deeply interested in ballet, meant by saying he aims to depict a jumping dancer on his piano. After a full stop this leads into a pensive portray of the Phoenician sun and moon, war and harvest goddess Ishtar or “Astar” (Ethiopian version of the name), which is then confronted by a very physically “Ensaslayi” inspired by the Tibetian “layi” song tradition. In this suite Taylor, with his tremendously inventive craft, uses blues licks and bop phrases but never rests more than a few bars with one idea, rapidly changes from virtuoso rolls to brutal clusters to silence taking the motives and figures with him, working with them in an abstract way. Which can also be said about side two, where he takes us again on a journey, telling a story about the Mesopotamian King Akkad and throws himself into a dedication to an Ethiopian rock named Amba which he forges into an epic and obstinate piece of music.

Freedom, as Taylor’s recordings show, has nothing to do with arbitrariness. The real artist, as erratic his works seem to be from the outside, never loses track of the paramount order within. It is only then that he is able to ““Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!”, as the artist wrote into Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer’s guest book. And this is why – in the words of Alex von Schlippenbach - you can “breathe the air from another planet” by listening to Cecil Taylor.

Both mighty fine albums, will gladly go legal

[Chalupa]

Thanks for posting that info.

[romualdo]

finally a Promising release I've been really hanging out for!!!

[mikeweil]

That Lock & Griff album is very nice! Boland did know how to comp!

[Chuck Nessa]

That Lock & Griff album is very nice! Boland did know how to comp!

Nice indeed. I purchased a German cd of this many years ago. The Taylor has not been on cd as far as I know. The other Taylor MPS recording was issued in Japan about 9 years ago. That is my second favorite Taylor band - other recordings on New World and Hat.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Chuck Nessa

[colinmce]

Oh great! I always thought this was a solo Taylor session. Doubly excited to own it now (though I obviously love solo Cecil as well)

[Chuck Nessa]

Oh great! I always thought this was a solo Taylor session. Doubly excited to own it now (though I obviously love solo Cecil as well)

No, no, no!

It is a solo taylor session. You misread or I led you wrong.

[colinmce]

Or wait, are you talking about the Black Forest LP?

Edit: You are. Got it.