Curtis Fuller on 26.4. in Vienna

[Gheorghe]

I´m so glad I´ll have a chance to see him again. Last time it was around 2001 I think with Benny Golson.

Curtis Fuller is one of my all time favourits. Of course I don´t know how he plays now, he must be 77 or 78 years old, but just the chance to see him on stage makes me glad.

I didn´t remember with whom he will play, it seems to be a quite international sextet with a tenor player from Italy, a bassist from Serbia and on drums the great Joris Dudli, one of my favourite drummers here.... Anyway I think it was Joris Dudli who arranged that Curtis Fuller play in Vienna....

[Gheorghe]

Well, no replies, okay, Vienna is far away from most of you.

Nevertheless I´d like to say I enjoyed to show very much. Of course, Curtis Fuller at his age can´t be compared with his playing in his prime, it´s like Dizzy in his last years, but his great sound and his nice phrasing using triple notes came thru on medium tempos like "Bag´s Groove".

I was glad my wife went with me.

I also got my CD "Bone and Bari" signed...... Curtis Fuller is such a nice person.

[David Ayers]

Well, no replies, okay, Vienna is far away from most of you.

Nevertheless I´d like to say I enjoyed to show very much. Of course, Curtis Fuller at his age can´t be compared with his playing in his prime, it´s like Dizzy in his last years, but his great sound and his nice phrasing using triple notes came thru on medium tempos like "Bag´s Groove".

I was glad my wife went with me.

I also got my CD "Bone and Bari" signed...... Curtis Fuller is such a nice person.

I would have asked him to sign my Mosaic!

[king ubu]

Vienna is definitely too far away, alas... his most recent CD, "The Story of Cathy and Me", was very good!

[ValerieB]

so glad you got to see/hear him. it's not just his age which has affected his playing but i believe he had part or most of one lung removed some years back. so very happy that he's out there still playing, he is a very good guy.

[Gheorghe]

so glad you got to see/hear him. it's not just his age which has affected his playing but i believe he had part or most of one lung removed some years back. so very happy that he's out there still playing, he is a very good guy.

I heard he was ill a few years ago but didn´t know what it was. If it´s really true, that a part of his lung was removed, it´s remarkable how well he did. He is very thin, I remember I saw a video of him from about 2001-2003 with Benny Golson, Mulgrew Miller and Buster Williams. Then, Curtis Fuller was much heavier, but also seemed to be subdued compared with the other players. I heard from somewhere, that he had suffered of athritis, but I don´t know if it´s true. Anyway it´s wonderful that he is still active. He´s always been one of my favourites and I am glad I saw him at "Jazzland" in Vienna, which by coincident is also the venue where I saw Kai Winding in 1978....

[Michael Weiss]

In 1995 I toured with the Jazztet in Europe with our first concert at the Vienna Volkstheater. It was, I believe, Curtis' first return to the stage after his lung operation. We followed George Shearing's trio. - a great treat.

[Gheorghe]

Yes Michael, it was in 1995 at "Volkstheater".

My hometown Vienna seems to have a special affinitv to the "Jazztet", since all three hornplayers from the original Jazztet performed quite often here: Art Farmer, when he had a time off touring, lived in Vienna and played on many many occasions at Jazzland. Benny Golson also plays her every year, and now Curtis Fuller came back.

1995......that was a time, when they still booked JAZZ artists for the annual Vienna Jazz Festival. Now....if it´s about the festival, there´s no sole musician I´d listen to.