Mystery session - Grachan Moncur & Karl Berger

[damonshort]

While dubbing off several decades of cassettes to digital format, I've run across a date that's really frustrating me.

It's an unmarked cassette of a studio date, probably mid to late 60s, that's clearly Moncur and Berger. It's probably Marion Brown on alto, and I'm thinking Beaver Harris is on drums. No idea of the bassist.

I can't find any mention anywhere that Moncur and Berger ever recorded together. Can anyone toss me a clue?

I'm not on here much; is it allowed to attach a sound bite from it? The first tune is pretty familiar, and they nearly all sound like Moncur tunes.

 

[ep1str0phy]

Berger on vibes (and not piano)? That instrumentation is quizzical, since it matches up to the Jackie McLeans and doesn't, to my recollection, recur much elsewhere. There is a Khan Jamal album from 2005 called Black Awareness that matches up, fwiw.  

New Wave in Jazz has a quartet w/Beaver and Cecil McBee + Bobby Hutcherson, but no alto.

New Africa is a quintet date that matches ensemble size, but it's piano and not vibes. 

The Marion Brown Caligs have Gunter Hampel on vibes, but trumpet and not trombone. 

There is the seldom heard/seen Shadows from the late 70's that has both Brown and Moncur but no vibes (just piano, played by Dave Burrell). 

My vote would be that it's either not Moncur or not Berger, the vintage is off, or it's possibly a bootleg of some sort.

[damonshort]

 It's a full album - can't remember where I got it, but you can hear the surface noise so it's an actual release. I would have dubbed it around 1990, and it sounds like a 60s recording

I think it sounds more like Berger than anyone (some of the high-pitched vocalizing, for example) - don't think it sounds like Hutcherson. Maybe the alto is Robin Kenyatta.

Here's a link to an mp3 of the first track: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i2getxu8otpz79p/Untitled%201.mp3?dl=0

 

[ep1str0phy]

I thought I recognized this--it's this:

Turns out it's valve trombone. Good ear on Karl Berger--before I figured it out, I was iffy on the trombone being Moncur--but Berger was unmistakeable. 

[Rooster_Ties]

Moncur, on valve trombone. 

[jlhoots]

I have that album.

[damonshort]

"Turns out it's valve trombone. Good ear on Karl Berger--before I figured it out, I was iffy on the trombone being Moncur--but Berger was unmistakeable. "

Yep. This is funny, I figured this out just before I saw your (ep1str0phy) post.

I was a lot less sure myself that it was Moncur (kind of a muffled sound, a couple of Moncur-type phrases but 'not really'), but I was nearly positive it was Berger.

And the reason this particular tune sounded 'familiar' is that I'd already dubbed this same album off another cassette 4 days before. I've been doing 2 or 3 of these a day for the last 2 months and everything is running together.

Thanks!

 

 

[ep1str0phy]

I'm glad you figured it out! If nothing else, this gave me the opportunity to check out this record again. 

[Gheorghe]

I must admit I don´t really know much about Karl Berger, the only occasion I heard him (mostly on vibes, and some piano at one point) is on Don Cherry´s "Suite for Improvisers", which I dig and see it as a kind of advanced "Complete Communion".

But since Cherry and Moncur were in the forefront of the midsixties avantgarde, I wouldn´t be surprised if they might have played together and mutually using sidemen from their own sessions, as they did on records.