Looking for "Lost Quintet" concert attendees

[jeffcrom]

Losin has Miles in Central Park on 7/7/69, but curiously does not mention whether or not Allen Lowe was in the audience. Either Chris Sheridan's Monk bio-disco of Robin Kelley's book can tell us if Monk was in Central Park on this date. I have the latter but not the former.

Bertrand.

The Sheridan book indeed puts Monk at the Central Park Music Festival on 7/7/69, with Rouse, Wilbur Ware, and Ed Blackwell in the band. No mention of Allen or Eubie Blake.

[.:.impossible]

Great reading here.

Did I just read that Blackwell played with Monk? And Wilbur Ware no less?

[marcello]

So if Tony's last live show was 12/68, and Jack was unavailable until late February, who played drums at the Club Baron gig? Joe Chambers? Jack temporarily on leave from Lloyd? Denardo Coleman?

According to Losin:

"the Quintet played a week (December 9-14) at the Black Bottom Club in Montreal, where Stanley Cowell was added on acoustic piano. These were Tony Williams's last live gigs with the Quintet. He remained with Davis through the February 18 In a Silent Way session. Although he was originally slated to accompany the Quintet on a Japanese tour in January 1969, the tour was canceled due to trouble with Japanese immigration officials. Jack De Johnette replaced Williams for good in late February 1969."

Is there a recording of the Club Baron gig?

[sidewinder]

There's also the single 1969 performance at Ronnie Scotts - which was even recorded and broadcast by the BBC (and subsequently lost/wiped ) although the audio does appear on the 'Lost Quintet' tree. David Redfern also took some fine photos of this gig.

Edited February 12, 2010 by sidewinder

[brownie]

All the live sessions from the rest of 1969 are the lost quintet.

The Lost Quintet concert I attended in Bordeaux was held on October 29, 1969 at the Théatre français.. It is not listed on the Plosin Miles Ahead chronology or in Jan Lohmann's discography.

The Lost Quintet concert in Bordeaux was held one day after a concert by the Cecil Taylor Unit. I attended both concerts!

[bertrand]

Damn - I wrote two long posts with all the details after talking to Mike Fitzgerald, and I accidentally lost them both.

In a nutshell (it's very late):

1) Tony was at the Club Baron gig up until 2/16/69; this was his last gig with Miles. I got this from an interview with McLaughlin in Jazz Times (11/08). There is also a gig at the Plugged Nickel in late December 1968 (Chicago Defender).

2) Jack was in Europe with Stan Getz in early '69, definitely on 2/26/69 (clip at ina.fr).

3) The Cellar Door gig was 3/10-15/69 with the lost quintet (Washington Post 3/13/69). Rochester was probably after.

So 3/10/69 was most likely the lost quintet's very first gig. What was their last? Losin shows a gig in Rotterdam on 11/9/69, and we know that Wayne left on 3/7/70 (and Moreira was on board by 2/21). Was there anything in between? In any case, this group existed less than a year. More details to follow.

Somewhat related to this, I have yet to figure out how the piece entitled 'Universe' by Wayne Shorter fits into all this. The copyright date is 8/22/69 (i.e. around the time of Bitches' Brew and during the lost quintet's brief existence) and the instrumentation is as follows:

C Flute, Alto Flute, English Horn, two French Horns, two Bassoons,

Tuba, Trumpet (Miles), Saxophone ('me'), Electric Piano, Marimba, Tympani, Hawaiian Guitar, Mandolin,

Guitar, Fender Bass, Drums and Harp.

The trumpet part on the copyright deposit says 'Miles', but to my knowledge this has never been recorded.

Bertrand.

Edited February 12, 2010 by bertrand

[sidewinder]

C Flute, Alto Flute, English Horn, two French Horns, two Bassoons,

Tuba, Trumpet (Miles), Saxophone ('me'), Electric Piano, Marimba, Tympani, Hawaiian Guitar, Mandolin,

Guitar, Fender Bass, Drums and Harp.

An arrangement for a Miles/Gil Evans orchestra collaboration? Looks very much like the instrumentation for that 'Falling Water' session.

[bertrand]

Exactly what I thought when I first saw it. I tried to get more details from Wayne through Michelle Mercer when I put together the appendix to the paperback edition of the Wayne bio, but nothing came out of this.

Bertrand.

[sidewinder]

Maybe it was orchestrated for that Miles Davis/Gil Evans Berkeley performance in 1968? ('Falling Water' was from that year I think) - too bad that no audio evidence has been found in the vaults for the Berkeley performance (I believe Bob Belden has confirmed this).

[marcello]

1) Tony was at the Club Baron gig up until 2/16/69; this was his last gig with Miles. I got this from an interview with McLaughlin in Jazz Times (11/08). There is also a gig at the Plugged Nickel in late December 1968 (Chicago Defender).

2) Jack was in Europe with Stan Getz in early '69, definitely on 2/26/69 (clip at ina.fr).

3) The Cellar Door gig was 3/10-15/69 with the lost quintet (Washington Post 3/13/69). Rochester was probably after.

So 3/10/69 was most likely the lost quintet's very first gig. What was their last? Losin shows a gig in Rotterdam on 11/9/69, and we know that Wayne left on 3/7/70 (and Moreira was on board by 2/21). Was there anything in between? In any case, this group existed less than a year. More details to follow.

I believe it's been acknowledged that Jack's first gig was at Duffy's Backstage in Rochester.

Maybe that's why a remember a rehearsal during the day when I had to clean up the place.

During that run (which was at least a week, maybe two), I started working at Duffy's as a busboy and bar back after school and on the weekends. I can't say I remember much about the music, but Miles himself did cause a stir! I was 13 at the time.

[AllenLowe]

"Losin has Miles in Central Park on 7/7/69, but curiously does not mention whether or not Allen Lowe was in the audience. Either Chris Sheridan's Monk bio-disco of Robin Kelley's book can tell us if Monk was in Central Park on this date. I have the latter but not the former."

that's because I was sitting far away.

this is the concert that Kelley mentions, citing how well Monk played (from an interview with an audience member), but what I remember is that people were just somewhat shocked at how inert Monk was. He barely moved, much less soloed.

The Davis band, as I think of it, was an interesting mess, especially to a 15 year old who had only really heard the '50s quintet. It's funny that, though my ears were attuned to Ornette and Dolphy, both of whom I was listening to already, I had much more trouble understanding Miles' methodology. Would that I could go back - my feeling about the Fillmore band the next year was that 2 minutes of beauty was generally followed by about 15 minutes of ponderous wandering. But once again, this was 40 years ago and I was just starting to shave; don't remember what kind of razor I was using. Maybe Betrand can ask Mike Fitzgerald about that. Or Michele Mercer.

[Guy Berger]

So 3/10/69 was most likely the lost quintet's very first gig. What was their last? Losin shows a gig in Rotterdam on 11/9/69, and we know that Wayne left on 3/7/70 (and Moreira was on board by 2/21). Was there anything in between? In any case, this group existed less than a year. More details to follow.

There's the Feb 1970 gig at Ann Arbor with McLaughlin and Airto onboard. An interesting lineup though my recollection is the music is disappointing.

[bertrand]

Jack's first gigs could well be at Duffy's if these took place in the first weeks of March. There would still have been time for Jack to fly back to the U.S. after a 2/26 gig in Paris.

So the lost quintet's first gig was probably at Duffy's in early March 1969.

As for the last gigs, I had previously missed this:

'While larger groups were recording new compositions in the studio, the Davis Quintet (and, after the addition of Airto Moreira in mid-December, the Sextet) was booked at several venues on the east coast: Colonial Tavern, Toronto (December 2-9: Sonny Greenwich is alleged to have joined the Quintet on at least one of these nights!); Village Gate, New York (December 12-13, 19-20, January 2-3, 6-10); Cellar Door, Washington (January 12-17); Spectrum, Philadelphia (January 18).'

Mid-December seems to imply that Airto joined the band either for the first or second December gig at the Village Gate. So the band ended in early December 1969.

So this band probably lasted about 9 months, from early March to early December 1969. There is no evidence that they played any gigs at all in either 1968 or 1970.

Bertrand.

P.S. But did Airto really join as early as mid-December? If not, the above falls apart.

Edited February 13, 2010 by bertrand

[GA Russell]

I saw Miles at the Cellar Door twice - March, 1969, and early 1970 (I thought it was February, but bertrand says it was January).

It is my recollection that Keith Jarrett sat in on the 1970 gig, making it a sextet with two keyboards.

[bertrand]

Yes, there are Washington post reviews for both these shows that Mike found that confirm the dates. The second one is 1/12-17/70.

Now I hope you can answer a key question: were both of these gigs the lost quintet, or was Airto on board for the one in 1970? The post review does not mention Airto in 1970 and does make a point of lisiting all the others and specifically commenting on the performance of each. I would lean towards thinking Airto was not there unless you remember otherwise.

Edit: somehow missed the second half of your post. If you say usual group + Jarrett = sextet, that must mean no Airto. Did they specifically announce that Jarrett was there for that night only? The post review published on Wednesday 1/14/70 is of the opening night (Monday) as far as I can tell; Jarrett is not mentioned. Going out on a limb: do you happen to remember which of the 6 nights you were there (Monday-Saturday)?

Bertrand.

Edited February 13, 2010 by bertrand

[GA Russell]

Bertrand, I don't remember the night of the week, but it was most likely Friday or Saturday.

Airto was definitely not there.

After the set I interviewed Chick and Dave in the dressing room for my college radio show. DeJohnette was also present, but not in a mood to talk.

The one thing I remember about the interviews was that I asked Holland who on the European scene we should watch for, and he said John Surman.

[bertrand]

Thanks so much for this.

So it now appears the lost quintet was still in existence as late as 1/17/70, and Airto had most likely joined permanently by the Ann Arbor gig (2/21/70).

Tangentially, this is a rare occurrence of Wayne Shorter and Keith Jarrett playing together. Are there any other documented meetings? Perhaps I am forgetting the obvious.

Bertrand.

[J.A.W.]

Up for some air.

[bertrand]

We established that the earliest gigs were March '69, yet a new call for attendees shows up still talking about late '68.

When someone comes on to the board and starts a thread, then never reads the further postings in that thread, I call that spam.

Bertrand.

[J.A.W.]

We established that the earliest gigs were March '69, yet a new call for attendees shows up still talking about late '68.

When someone comes on to the board and starts a thread, then never reads the further postings in that thread, I call that spam.

Bertrand.

I've sent the original poster a PM about this thread and locked the new one.

[AndrewHill]

Man, some of you guys are pretty lucky catching this quintet in action.

I've been really enjoying the lost quintet stuff lately (mostly through Youtube vids), but especially after I just scored a copy of 1969 Miles Festiva De Juan Pins, which hasn't really left the player for a full day now. While looking around on Youtube, I also found this pretty amazing clip of high quality:

http://www.youtube.c...B18F63&index=41

I've also been trying to look around for other stuff to read on the board too, but not with a whole lot of luck. Can anyone direct me to where I can read more on the lost quintet?

Thanks in advance.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Holy Ghost

[medjuck]

I remember a Village Voice article from many years ago. First time I'd read reference to "The Lost Quintet". Probably by Gary Giddens so it may be in one of his books.

[brownie]

While looking around on Youtube, I also found this pretty amazing clip of high quality:

http://www.youtube.c...B18F63&index=41

Great to catch a glimpse from that concert (at Salle Pleyel) which I attended!

Thanks for posting it! The video has been recently added, it was not available when I did a search for the Lost Quintet clips a couple of months ago!

[Rooster_Ties]

Some lost-quintet footage I'd never seen before...

Miles Davis Ronnie Scott's November 2nd 1969

Footage of the band begins about 1-minute into the clip. Multi-camera, interesting stuff.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Rooster_Ties

[sidewinder]

Some lost-quintet footage I'd never seen before...

Miles Davis Ronnie Scott's November 2nd 1969

Footage of the band begins about 1-minute into the clip. Multi-camera, interesting stuff.

Wow - thanks for posting that, didn't think that any footage of this show still survived. It must be from a Ronnie Scotts compilation show they broadcast around the time. The original full show seems to have been wiped from the archive ('Jazzwise' had an article about this some time back).

I was actually under the impression that only a couple of David Redfern photographs of that gig survived to document it, so this is a real bonus.

Nice also to see Ronnie Scott and the Club at its peak !