is this an art blakey/lee morgan tape?

[l p]

Supposedly:
Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers 
Nov 19, 1959 Dusseldorf
aka Nov 20, 1959
Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter 
Walter Davis JR.- Piano, Jymie Merrit- Bass
If authentic, then probably a nightclub show.
40min

1.    Prince Albert  4min
2.    Confirmation  7min
3.    Ecaroh   4min
4.    Blue 'n boogie  22min
5.    Midnight Sun  5min

audience recording

i don't see it in any discographies.

last 2min of trumpet solo, and 1st 2min of sax solo from Blue 'n boogie 
http://picosong.com/HX6j/

 

[mikeweil]

Check it here: http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Blakey/chron.htm

According to Michael Fitzgerald's listing there is a private recording from the two performances in Düsseldorf.

[l p]

i've seen that, but it doesn't really help. and neither does this

lee morgan discography www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472115020-Discography.pdf

a couple of those tunes were played by blakey circa 1955/1956 when horace silver was in the band (without morgan). maybe this is from that time period.

 

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

can you upload the whole tape so we can identify  it 

[l p]

this forum doesn't allow that, but this item is on dime right now.

[mikeweil]

Listening and comparing will be the only way to find out - I find the older tunes rather improbable for a 1959 Messengers bandbook. 

[CJ Shearn]

5 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Listening and comparing will be the only way to find out - I find the older tunes rather improbable for a 1959 Messengers bandbook. 

Exactly, if "Ecaroh" would have been in rotation then, would have been interesting for sure, but seems unlikely.

[Hardbopjazz]

I was the one that originally uploaded this on dime in 2005. I was bluenote2005. The person that provided me this tape insisted it was what he claims it to be. I don't want to type his email address here. Len, if you want to reach out to him, send me an email or IM. I don't know if he will reply to you. I did get other rare recordings of other artists that weren't listed on discographies, so maybe it is what he claims it is. 

My ears don't believe it is Lee Morgan on tracks 5 - 9, and not even the jazz messengers.

[mikeweil]

Having a cursory listen after a friendly board member sent me a link - there are more than one version of some tunes, it seems (e.g. Night In Tunisia). Seems like this is inluded (from the Lord Disco):

Live In Europe 1959 : Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers : Lee Morgan (tp) Wayne Shorter (ts) Walter Davis, Jr. (p) Jymie Merritt (b) Art Blakey (d)

"KB-Hallen", Copenhagen, Denmark, November 5, 1959

	Blues march	Landscape LS2-916 [CD]
	The midget	-
	Nellie Blye [Mama "G"]	-
	A night in Tunisia	-

Note:

All above titles also on Royal Jazz (Dan)RJD516 [CD] titled "Live In Copenhagen 1959". The pianist is incorrectly listed as Walter Bishop on both CD issues.

The announcer sounds Swedish to me.

On 7.11.2016 at 0:24 AM, l p said:

Supposedly:
Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers 
Nov 19, 1959 Dusseldorf
aka Nov 20, 1959
Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter 
Walter Davis JR.- Piano, Jymie Merrit- Bass
If authentic, then probably a nightclub show.
40min

1.    Prince Albert  4min
2.    Confirmation  7min
3.    Ecaroh   4min
4.    Blue 'n boogie  22min
5.    Midnight Sun  5min

audience recording

i don't see it in any discographies.

Defintely not Shorter on these tracks.

[mikeweil]

Can't find this tune list anywhere in Lord ...

[Big Beat Steve]

8 hours ago, mikeweil said:

 

Live In Europe 1959 : Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers : Lee Morgan (tp) Wayne Shorter (ts) Walter Davis, Jr. (p) Jymie Merritt (b) Art Blakey (d)

"KB-Hallen", Copenhagen, Denmark, November 5, 1959

The announcer sounds Swedish to me.

 

Well, in Copenhagen they would routinely announce their concerts in Danish, wouldn't they?

But is the date given above correct?

ESTRAD announced the Messengers tour in their Nov. 1959 issue, giving Nov. 25 as the Copenhagen date (see below).

 

 

[l p]

the first 4 tracks of the cd on dime are what's known as
    "KB-Hallen", Copenhagen, Denmark, November 5, 1959.
on this cd the above is listed as 11/18/59 dusseldorf.
the rest of the cd is the mystery tape "11/19/59 dusseldorf".

for chronology and releases see
http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Blakey/chron.htm
www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472115020-Discography.pdf  which is pretty much the same as the info on jazzdiscog

we know that November 5, 1959 is probably not a correct date, but it could still be copenhagen.

>>Defintely not Shorter on these tracks.
>>>
2 people say that it doesn't sound like blakey.

 

based on the track list, maybe it's horace silver group. or blakey from circa 1955.
i found the email for the guy who wrote the lee morgan book. maybe he knows something about this tape.
 

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, l p said:

we know that November 5, 1959 is probably not a correct date, but it could still be copenhagen.

 

Well, as for "probably", I'd venture a guess that the people at Estrad knew their calendars when that tour was imminent. The same dates were named in the November, 1959, issue of Orkester Journalen. And there is not much likelihood that the Messengers toured the country twice within three weeks.

As for the venue, if an anouncer is actually audible, the ACTUAL language he speaks ought to clarify things for obvious reasons (paging Daniel A, if you read this ... )

As for the list of recordings surviving from that period that ar elisted on jazzdiscography.com, the compiler did well to put question marks behind certain dates but got others quite wrong as well. Cf. this entry:

"Olympia?, Paris, France (October 30, 1959) [Jazz Magazine 11/59 p.11] "

I just checked that issue of Jazz Magazine that he gave as a source. Page 11, however,  does NOT list the Jazz Messengers as appearing at the Olympia on 30 October but the MJQ at a yet undetermined venue on that date. The NEXT paragraph of that same notice says the Messengers will be at the Olympia on Saturday, 21 November. He seems to have misunderstood the contents of this French mag.

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2016 by Big Beat Steve

[l p]

here's a better chronology for you

http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/leemorgan_chronology.pdf
 

but the chronology is not the issue here. the issue is the unknown recording, and whether it is blakey messengers with lee morgan. that recording is totally separate from the 'copenhagen' concert.

[Big Beat Steve]

It's still a bit rough for the part of the tour that the purported Danish recordings come from:

There also are:
Nov. 24, 1959: Göteborg, Sweden
Nov. 25, 1959: Copenhagen, Denmark

As for the unknown recording, though I have not heard it, of course, I am a bit puzzled by Mikeweil's post above which I think initially brought up the question of Copenhagen as a possible venue. I am not sure if I got his post right. So it has been established that the subsequent tracks definitely are not 1959?

Refering to this statement, 

the first 4 tracks of the cd on dime are what's known as     "KB-Hallen", Copenhagen, Denmark, November 5, 1959.
on this cd the above is listed as 11/18/59 dusseldorf. the rest of the cd is the mystery tape "11/19/59 dusseldorf".

The first 4 tracks apparently incorrectly listed as 11/18/59-düsseldorf, then, but in fact listed in discographies as 11/05/59-copenhagen (which cannot be the correct date either) should be quite different aurally, shouldn't they, from the mystery tracks, accordng to what others have said here about the period when those tunes were likely to feature in their "book" and who sounds like whom (or not)? Just trying to figure this out ...

 

[l p]

The unknown recording circulates on the end of the Copenhagen aka dusseldorff recording. 
The unknown recording is different sound quality from the Copenhagen aka dusseldorff recording.

>>So it has been established that the subsequent tracks definitely are not 1959?>>
I don't think anything has been established about the unknown recording.

The problem with completely dismissing the unknown recording is because when a u.s. group tours large venues in europe, and during this tour they play some small night club gigs too, then the nightclub gigs would not necessarily include the usual tunes that they perform in the large venues.

[Big Beat Steve]

Does that unknown recording sound more like a club gig or like an after-hours jam session?

I've searched high and low through the Swedish, French and German jazz mags I have from October, November and December 1959 and have found nothing whatsoever about any club dates by the Messengers beyond the major concerts named in the online Blakey discography. No advance publicity, no listings in concert/club tour schedules, in fact very, very sparse advance promo even for the concert hall events for this tour (except in the French mags which did a BIT more promotion) by a major group like this. And no club dates listed anywhere.

Edited November 10, 2016 by Big Beat Steve

[l p]

i think that it sounds like a small club recording. maybe it was not a scheduled gig.

[JSngry]

On 11/7/2016 at 5:24 PM, l p said:

last 2min of trumpet solo, and 1st 2min of sax solo from Blue 'n boogie 
http://picosong.com/HX6j/

 

That tape is running way fast, needs pitch correction. That tune is conventionally played in Bb, this recording is somewhere around C, very inexact.. Get it in the right key, slow it down, and it will sound like Lee & Wayne, and probably Blakey too. At this speed, the drummer sounds more like Klook than it does Blakey, but this tape is faster than what was really played.

[l p]

i don't think that it's lee morgan on this tape. but i'd say that it's the jazz messengers because the ending of blue 'n boogie has:

'ny theme', which in turn ends with a couple of notes of dance of the infidels. and that's how the messengers usually ended 'ny theme', at least circa 1958/1959. on this recording, only the sax plays dance of the infidels, so maybe the trumpeter is not too familiar with the messengers' book yet. the trumpeter sounds pretty weak compared to morgan's usual playing in this time frame, most noticeably on confirmation. 

confirmation
http://picosong.com/HHhm

ending of blue 'n boogie - ny theme
http://picosong.com/HHKG

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2016 by l p

[JSngry]

That "Confirmation" clip is playing in E. Unless everybody's going full-warrior, the tune is usually played in F.

Call me crazy, but that tenor player, even with pitch correction needed, sounds like it could be Dexter? Trumpet does not sound like Lee, agreed.

[Larry Kart]

On "Confirmation," the trumpeter sounds like Blue Mitchell to me, and that might make Junior Cook a possibility on tenor -- in any case probably not Dexter IMO but a Dexter-influenced player. OTOH, that sure isn't Horace on piano.