king ubu Posted January 19, 2013 Report Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) The upcoming Nat "King" Cole/Quincy Jones release has just been in a well-hidden place, but I figured this series finally deserves its own thread, after more than thirty releases, most of which are very, very good! We've discussed some of them in various threads, most recently the Miles Davis, but also the Lionel Hamptons, the Basies, the JATP with Pres etc. etc. Cover art is bad, but the music is great! I enjoy those I've heard so far from the "Jazz Live Trio" sub-series a lot, too - these guys were technicians or something at the radio studio but jammed in their spartime, one of them being drummer Peter Schmidlin, who is the founder and head of TCB Records. TCB 02322 Swiss Radio Days Jazz Live Trio Concert Series - Volume 32 Featuring: Sahib Shihab, bs, recorded 1971 Art Farmer, flh, recorded 1977 Clifford Jordan, ts, recorded 1970 Jazz Live Trio: Klaus Koenig, p Peter Frei, b Alex Bally, dr; or Peter Schmidlin, dr This is Volume 32 of the Swiss Radio Days Jazz Live Concert Series, featuring 3 great musicians of the post Be-bop area and guests of the Jazz Live Trio. The highlights of these 3 concerts were recorded in 1971 (Shihab), 1977 (Farmer) and 1970 (Jordan). The live concerts at the radio studio in Zurich started in 1969 and took place regularly until 1984 and documented the intense situation in Jazz in Switzerland in this period. Source: http://www.tcb.ch/ne...ary 2013&sort=r (News of the Nat/Quincy can be found there, too, that one's Vol. 33) Here's the entire (?) list: ALBERT MANGELSDORFF / FRANCOIS JEANNEAU ART BLAKEY'S JAZZ MESSENGERS LAUSANNE 1960 BEN WEBSTER/DEXTER GORDON BADEN 1972 BENNY GOODMAN BILL COLEMAN - DON BYAS BUCK CLAYTON ALL STARS BASEL 1961 CANNONBALL ADDERLEY SEXTET LUGANO 1963 CLARK TERRY - CHRIS WOODS QUINTET LUCERNE 1978 COLEMAN HAWKINS feat. KENNY CLARK 1949 COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA Basel 1956 part 1 COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA Basel 1956 part 2 DON REDMAN ORCHESTRA GENEVA 1946 GERRY MULLIGAN CONCERT JAZZ BIG BAND ZURICH 1960 GERRY MULLIGAN QUARTET ZURICH 1962 GIANNI BASSO / GUY LAFITTE IDREES SULIEMAN - BENNY BAILEY KARIN KROG - ENRICO RAVA - MIRIAM KLEIN KENNY WHEELER / ALAN SKIDMORE LIONEL HAMPTON LOUIS HAYES / WOODY SHAW QUINTET LAUSANNE 1977 MILES DAVIS OSCAR PETERSON OSCAR PETERSON & FRIENDS OSCAR PETERSON / ELLA FITZGERALD PHIL WOODS/EDDIE DANIELS/STUFF SMITH/LEO WRIGHT QUINCY JONES BIG BAND LAUSANNE 1960 SAL NISTICO & TONY SCOTT STAN GETZ THE THAD JONES - MEL LEWIS ORCHESTRA BASEL 1969 related: BENNY GOODMAN DUKE ELLINGTON & HIS ORCHESTRA LOUIS ARMSTRONG ALL STARS previous thread on the Ellington and Armstrong releases: Edited January 19, 2013 by king ubu Quote
king ubu Posted February 2, 2013 Author Report Posted February 2, 2013 catching up on some "Swiss Radio Days Series" releases from the past two or so years ... this one is in the player and I'm just repeating for the second time the final "All Blues": Sounds is very good here, clearly better than any other version I've heard ... I've got the Jazz Unlimited disc somewhere, might do a straight comparison, but from memory it sounds much duller and less clean, you can really hear the whole band, including bass and all of Jimmy Cobb's drum parts. In this clear new sound, I love it even more! MIght be mellower than Paris, and it's shorter than both Stockholm and Paris ... the audience seems to enjoy it (or at least stay quiet if they don't), there's none of that near-riotous, extremely tense atmosphere of the Paris concert, that might have inspired Trane even more, but restrained Miles, I think - his solo in "All Blues" here is just terrific, he takes tons of times, solos in a way that might just as well suite lush Gil Evans backings, but here it's just the bare-bones of his very, very fine rhythm section. Cobb is very busy, kicking, dropping bombs, but still very fluid, doing that light cymbal thing that seems to foreshadow some of Tony Williams' later playing with Miles ... and Coltrane is in great form throughout, starting with a terrific solo in the opening "If I Were a Bell" ... but I guess you all know the music well. Still, this most recent edition is most welcome. Sound quality makes me readily believe what it says on the cover (I've always had doubts about Jazz Unlimited, no matter it being a sublabel of Storyville). Quote
Ted O'Reilly Posted February 2, 2013 Report Posted February 2, 2013 "I enjoy those I've heard so far from the "Jazz Live Trio" sub-series a lot, too - these guys were technicians or something at the radio studio but jammed in their spartime, one of them being drummer Peter Schmidlin, who is the founder and head of TCB Records." King Ubu, I think the "Jazz Live Trio" is actually the name of the house rhythm section for an on-going radio series on Swiss Radio. They were all full-time musicians, not technicians. The trio was quite stable for the 15 years of the series -- Klaus Koenig, piano; Peter Frei, bass and Peter Schmidlin or Alex Bally on drums. The guest list was quite deep, and wide-ranging, if you look at the series catalogue. The TCB website says: The live concerts at the radio studio in Zurich started in 1969 and took place regularly until 1984 and documented the intense situation in Jazz in Switzerland in this period. Quote
king ubu Posted February 2, 2013 Author Report Posted February 2, 2013 Yep, I know they're "real" musicians of course! But I think at least of them had a job as a technician at Swiss Radio - that's what I remember from some summer series when in half-hour broadcasts Swiss jazz classics were presented sometime in the mid nineties ... they broadcast an hour or so of Jazz Live Trio tracks with plenty of guests (Tony Scott was among them, singing "Lush Life" - now on Vol. 21 of the series!). They mentioned that back then, so forgive me if my memory has played some tricks with me since that's been a while! I should have chosen my words with a bit more caution though, making clear that these chaps were musicians with day jobs, not the other way 'round! Quote
Ted O'Reilly Posted February 2, 2013 Report Posted February 2, 2013 "...these chaps were musicians with day jobs, not the other way 'round!" Right you are.... Wouldn't it be nice if (jazz) musicians' days jobs were playing jazz music? Most jazz players I know make very little of their income actually playing jazz, even if they can make a living (of some sort) working in pit bands, little studio gigs, in a band backing a visiting star, etc. Or, if you're a trombonist, delivering pizza. (Sorry, bad old joke. You may change it to violist if you want.) Quote
king ubu Posted October 24, 2013 Author Report Posted October 24, 2013 Great news! And note it says "Vol. 1", there'll be a second one! Love this particular Roach group a lot! TOMMY TURRENTINE, trumpetJULIAN PRIESTER, tromboneSTANLEY TURRENTINE, tenor saxBOBBY BOSWELL, bassMAX ROACH, drums01. Announcement02. Lotus Blossom03. Prelude04. Night in Tunisia05. Jodie's Cha Cha Quote
Dan Gould Posted October 25, 2013 Report Posted October 25, 2013 Why do I suspect this floats around the collectors/Dime community? If I'm wrong and I don't already have it, then I'm definitely looking forward to this ... Quote
Rooster_Ties Posted October 25, 2013 Report Posted October 25, 2013 Surely the Roach group is from 1960 (my eyes aren't that good, but that year matches my memory of when that lineup played w/ Max). As much as I too like this lineup, I must confess I was really hoping it would be the Roach quintet with Charles Tolliver, circa 1968. Quote
king ubu Posted October 25, 2013 Author Report Posted October 25, 2013 Why do I suspect this floats around the collectors/Dime community? If I'm wrong and I don't already have it, then I'm definitely looking forward to this ... It IS around since RSR broadcast it after Roach's death ... they did a 3-part-programme with later stuff included, too. Quote
king ubu Posted October 25, 2013 Author Report Posted October 25, 2013 But TCB does such a good job restoring sound, I guess it will be pretty much of an upgrade over the compressed FM or Digisat sources floating around! Quote
Tom 1960 Posted October 25, 2013 Report Posted October 25, 2013 An opportunity to hear more Tommy Turrentine is definitely a good thing! Quote
Big Beat Steve Posted October 26, 2013 Report Posted October 26, 2013 A belated THANK YOU to King Ubu for highlighting this CD series. I've put half a dozen from that series in my amazon (seller) shopping cart right away last night ... Quote
king ubu Posted October 26, 2013 Author Report Posted October 26, 2013 They're fairly cheap @ jazzmessengers.com, or via marketplace vendors on sites such as priceminister.com I'm a big fan of the series ... striving to have all of it, but in the past few years I couldn't alyways quite keep up the pace. The sub-series with the Jazz Live Trio is very much worth your attention, too! And obvously the new Q with Nat Cole is gorgeous! Mostly, they're not playing together, and the Q material, unlike the early TCB release of a Lausanne set, is not part of the cheapo PD 4CD Q live "Complete 1960 European Concerts" set (which I did buy ... there's another disc in it that was out on Q's Quest, but I guess ripping of Q a bit is rather okay, he's had it coming ) Quote
David Ayers Posted October 26, 2013 Report Posted October 26, 2013 Shovelfuls of this stuff on spotters, for those interested. I started a list a while ago but never got anywhere close... Quote
king ubu Posted October 27, 2013 Author Report Posted October 27, 2013 and here's the missing Vol. 34: Quote
Big Beat Steve Posted December 7, 2013 Report Posted December 7, 2013 Well, I sprung for five CDs from this Swiss Radio Days series and received them yesterday. All of them are VERY nice, and the fidelity and "presence" of sound even for these very old dates is surprisingly good. The two Lionel Hampton volumes are quite striking. Compared to the typical studio/live recordings of the Hampton big band from that period the band sometimes sounded rather "far out" (advanced) during that 1953 tour and those two CDs make a nice addition to the IAJRC LP with recordings form the Paris concert a couple of days after the Basel concert, for example. It is interesting to compare the Hampton band's recording of Gigi Gryce's tune "Brown Skins" with the version recorded in Paris by the "moonlighting" band members a couple of days later. What I found a bit disappointing are the line/booklet notes which are rather "generic" and include relative little info on the context of the concerts/tours that the recordings come from. In the liner notes to the Hampton CDs the scribe actually goes overboard with some odd assertions, i.e. when referring to the fact that Quincy Jones handled the piano in the rhythm section he claims that this was to make up for the no-show Dodo Marmarosa who never appeared to join the band. Howzat?? To the best of my knowledge Dodo never was a candidate for this tour but in fact George Wallington was the regular pianist for the tour but according to Alun Morgan's liner notes to the "Complete Paris Sessions" by Clifford Brown reissued by U.K. Vogue in the 70s, halfways through the tour some dissent arose between singer Annie Ross and Hamp (or probably Gladys Hampton??) and when she split in Brussels George Wallington went along out of solidarity. I have been unable to find the exact date of the Brussels concert from the reports on that 1953 tour in old jazz mags (Jazz Hot, Jazz Podium, Orkester Journalen, Estrad), but the Scandinavian part took up the first part of September, the Paris concerts were in the final days of September, and according to a concert review from Brussels published in Jazz Hot (that does not indicate the exact date of the concert) George Wallington was still on board there for at least one concert so Belgium probably took place between the Scandinavian part and Sept. 24 when they appeared in Basel. In short, the reasons for the lack of a regular pianist were quite different (and well-documented in jazz literature, BTW) and I wonder what made the liner note writer of that CD come up with his assertion... Quote
king ubu Posted December 7, 2013 Author Report Posted December 7, 2013 The notes aren't that great indeed, but I was never really bothered by that. That Hamp story is weird though ... I assume the notes are by Kurt S. Weil? He died quite exactly a year ago (on Dec 12, 2012), so there's no way to find out, I'm afraid. He was respected and had his well-woven network, I think (at one time he led GRP Europe) ... would be interesting to find out if that was just some lapse or if there's any actual story behind it. Quote
Big Beat Steve Posted December 7, 2013 Report Posted December 7, 2013 (edited) Yes, that's the author of the liner notes. I had no idea of his credentials so did not state his name. I doubt there is another story behind it, at least not in the way Kurt S. Weill made it seem. George Wallington definitely was on the first part that tour (pictures of him on stage and backstage are in reports on that tour in Swedish magazines), and the split of Annie Ross and George Wallington in Brussels is reported in several sources. It is also said that the trio date that George Wallington did for French Vogue in September, 1953, was done to raise money for his return trip to the States and that several other band members would have split during that tour as well, had it not ben for the fact that they would have been stranded without sufficient funds for their return fare. And even if George Wallington HAD been a last-minute substitute for Dodo Marmarosa BEFORE the start of the tour, the reason why there was no regular pianist at the Basel concert would not have been connected to Marmarosa. Which is why I wonder why the tensions that apparently existed inside the band during that tour would have been glossed over like that TODAY, after all these decades ... If it had been some post-tour promo blurb for the Hampton band - yes, but now?? Edited December 7, 2013 by Big Beat Steve Quote
king ubu Posted June 18, 2014 Author Report Posted June 18, 2014 jazzmessengers has a few of those for € 7.99 right now: http://www.jazzmessengers.com/en/3064-tcb-swiss-radio-days-at-799 Mulligan CJB, Jones/Lewis (some badass JoeHen!) and Adderley come with hightest recommendation, further the Basies are very much worth getting, too .... With others (Q, Mulligan Quartet, Blakey, Hamp) I guess it depends how much you already have/need by those groups. The Hawkins I've not played all that often yet, would have to re-visit (same for the Goodman). The Clayton, Ella/Peterson and Terry are all good but not great ... the one that I found a bit of a let-down (but that applies to the band in general, don't think the other disc on Steeplechase is much better) is the Don Redman. Lots of promise (Don Byas!), but somehow it's all not that terribly good. Quote
bertrand Posted July 2, 2015 Report Posted July 2, 2015 On the Shihab/Farmer/Jordan, which track does each of them appear on? Quote
king ubu Posted July 2, 2015 Author Report Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) 1-2: Shihab (17 min, 1971)3-4: Farmer (15 min, 1977)5-7: Jordan (23 min, 1970)Klaus Koenig (p) and Peter Frei (b) are on all tracks, drummers are Peter Schmidlin (1971 and 1977) and Alex Bally (1970). Some of the sessions have Pierre Favre, but Schmidlin (who has recently died and was the founder and boss of TCB records) was the longest standing drummer of "Jazz Live Trio". Edited July 2, 2015 by king ubu Quote
Ted O'Reilly Posted July 3, 2015 Report Posted July 3, 2015  Schmidlin (who has recently died and was the founder and boss of TCB records)I had heard of Schmidlin's passing... Have you any idea of how that might affect the label? Was is pretty much a one-man show, or does it have a future with some other leadership? I met him once, and found him to be a very nice man, and much involved in jazz in all aspects. Quote
king ubu Posted July 4, 2015 Author Report Posted July 4, 2015 (edited) Wouldn't know anything I'm afraid. But on the outside the label looks too large an undertaking for a one man show. But from all you find on the website, it WAS a one man show, so I do hope it will somehow go on! Edited July 4, 2015 by king ubu Quote
_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.