Which jazz book are you reading right now?

[BillF]

2 hours ago, sidewinder said:

A very good read. There’s a couple of paragraphs covering 60s gigs at Club 43 with Ernie Garside, during the period he lived in South Kensington (not as salubrious then as now).

I knew Ernie Garside well. The widow of his ex-partner at Club 43 told me a few years ago that Ernie was still with us. I hope that's still so.

Now reading:

Have just finished the chapter on the astounding criminal (and musical) career of Red Rodney! 

[sidewinder]

Never realised that Mark Murphy was on UK TV so much during the 60s. Appeared on the Benny Hill show (!) as well as kiddies TV on the ‘5 O’Clock Club’. Might well have caught that !

Apparently he also featured as the cabaret act on the Miss United Kingdom Show in Blackpool in 1969 and was also on an episode of the ‘Golden Shot’ in 1970. Bernie, the bolt !

Edited April 18, 2022 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

35 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Never realised that Mark Murphy was on UK TV so much during the 60s. Appeared on the Benny Hill show (!) as well as kiddies TV on the ‘5 O’Clock Club’. Might well have caught that !

Apparently he also featured as the cabaret act on the Miss United Kingdom Show in Blackpool in 1969 and was also on an episode of the ‘Golden Shot’ in 1970. Bernie, the bolt !

I'm not sure whether my regard for Mr Murphy has risen or not with this news  got to get a gig wherever I suspect.  I'm a big fan of some of his later recordings too.

[sidewinder]

45 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

I'm not sure whether my regard for Mr Murphy has risen or not with this news  got to get a gig wherever I suspect.  I'm a big fan of some of his later recordings too.

Also apparently on a lot of ‘late night lineup’ type BBC2 programmes as well as lots on BBC Radio. Anything with ‘Midnight’ in the title.

Plus the two ‘Jazz 625’ broadcasts, one with Tubby Hayes Orchestra, which the BBC in their infinite wisdom managed to destroy.

Edited April 18, 2022 by sidewinder

[sgcim]

Just finished Harvey Brooks' autobiography "View From the Bottom" which was a wild look at the 60s music scene in NY and LA as told by a bassist who played with everyone, from Miles Davis (Bitches Brew), The Doors, Richie Havens (MIXED BAG!), Paul Butterfield,The Electric Flag, Mama Cass, Al Kooper ,(Supersession),  Bob Dylan, Fred Neil, Tom Rush, John Cale, John Sebastian, Jimi Hendrix (two jam albums) Jim and jean, and others.

HB, talks in depth about the actual sessions of records like Highway '61 Revisited and Bitches Brew and reveals that no music was used- not even a chord sheet! Miles would just say, "This is on C7", and they'd just jam, and leave it to Teo Macero to edit it, and play around with the three days of sessions. As a result, Brooks is listed as playing on six or seven other Miles albums, because Teo would just shove stuff from those three days of jamming, and put it on MD records made years later!

With Dylan, HB would have to make his own little chord sheets while Dylan would just start playing and singing in the studio.

Brooks was in the band at Forest Hills, when Dylan went electric with Levon Helm, Mike Bloomberg and Al Kooper, having to face the angry folkies rushing the stage, as Dylan was escorted into a limo and went untouched.

Though Brooks lists Scott La Faro, Ron Carter, Milt Hinton, Charles Mingus, Paul Chambers and Ray Brown as his influences, the electric players like James Jamerson, Duck Dunn, Chuck Rainey and Gordon Edwards he also lists are more representative of his recorded output.

Besides the disaster with Dylan at Forest Hills, HB goes into the dark side of his gigs with The Electric Flag, Mama Cass, Paul Butterfield, Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, Crosby, Stills and Nash, David Clayton-Thomas, The Doors, Tim Hardin and tells the true story behind the filming of "The Trip", Roger Corman's B movie about an LSD trip.

In the 70s, he formed his own band, The Fabulous Rhinestones, who made three albums of dynamite funk/R&B/Rock, but never caught on with a wider audience. He wound up leaving the insanity of NYC and LA for Woodstock, and then emigrated to Israel..

[BillF]

[sidewinder]

Just ordered a copy of this fine volume, which seems to be heading towards ‘sold out’. Shouldn’t have procrastinated..

[Chuck Nessa]

Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir by Mercer Ellington.

[mikeweil]

One of the most hilarious reads among all jazz biographies I read. The young pianist, idolizing jazz greats (the big dogs) comes to New York at age 17, finds an apartment one floor below Jerome Richardson, and plays with Pony Poiindexter, Charles Mingus, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz (no relation), Booker Ervin, and tells stories about many more, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Chambers, Tony Williams, Carmell Jones .... This is even more outspoken than the books of Poindexter, Hampton Hawes, or Art Pepper.

Larry Kart adds: Jane Getz was a very good player, too.

[sidewinder]

9 hours ago, mikeweil said:

One of the most hilarious reads among all jazz biographies I read. The young pianist, idolizing jazz greats (the big dogs) comes to New York at age 17, finds an apartment one floor below Jerome Richardson, and plays with Pony Poiindexter, Charles Mingus, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz (no relation), Booker Ervin, and tells stories about many more, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Chambers, Tony Williams, Carmell Jones .... This is even more outspoken than the books of Poindexter, Hampton Hawes, or Art Pepper.

Larry Kart adds: Jane Getz was a very good player, too.

Sounds like a good one and one I would like to read. I remember her featuring regularly at the Lighthouse, Hermosa Beach back in the late 90s. When in town I used to Sunday Brunch there but not sure I saw her. Ozzie Cadena was running the jazz events at the time.

[Gheorghe]

On 19.8.2022 at 1:23 AM, mikeweil said:

One of the most hilarious reads among all jazz biographies I read. The young pianist, idolizing jazz greats (the big dogs) comes to New York at age 17, finds an apartment one floor below Jerome Richardson, and plays with Pony Poiindexter, Charles Mingus, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz (no relation), Booker Ervin, and tells stories about many more, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Chambers, Tony Williams, Carmell Jones .... This is even more outspoken than the books of Poindexter, Hampton Hawes, or Art Pepper.

Larry Kart adds: Jane Getz was a very good player, too.

I think I read somewhere her version of the short gig with Mingus at the Jazz Workshop in June 1964, shortly after Jakie Byard had left the band for a short period. It must have been hard work to carry the load of such a giant. There were many hassles with the boss, and Danny Richmond tried to calm it down, talkin also to the mother of Jane Getz. 
The album Live at the Jazz Workshop "Right Now" is great, but not necessarly for the playing of Miss Jane Getz. The force is from Clifford Jordan (I never heard him play with more power and emotion), the incredible bass of Mingus and above all Dannie Richmond. I´m not sure now, but to encourage her to play again on the record, Mingus bought her some presents, and her mother took her to some "hokus pokus" , I don´t know how you say.....

[mikeweil]

3 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

 I´m not sure now, but to encourage her to play again on the record, Mingus bought her some presents, and her mother took her to some "hokus pokus" , I don´t know how you say.....

It was Dannie Richmond who took her to that magical lady. Read it - lots of detail about that episode and several famous players, Mingus, Stan Getz, Herbie Mann etc. 

The problem with Mingus was that there was no rehearsal before the gig, Mingus didn't explain much besides "play like Duke" which she had not studied by then, and simply shoved her off the piano bench to play some himself to show her the way. Consider she was still 17 yers old when she hit New York and was called by Mingus, who was given her number by Jerome Richardson, who lived a floor above her. Many guys called her when they needed a sub, but made the records with other pianists - their regular players. Surprisingly, she does not write about the only two record dates she actually made, with Pharoah Sanders, and George Braith. What she writes about Freddie Hubbard is not the kind of behaviour that puts him in a favorable light. Stan Getz is two-faced, takes much care on the one side and is totally occupied by his drug habits and sexual obsessions on the other. Herbie Mann pays well but but must keep everything under control and lets no one play more tha two chorusses. When she played some more, she almost got fired. She never tried to fit anyone's shoes but tried to play herself, everybody respected her for that, but the bandleaders, well most of them. 

Edited August 22, 2022 by mikeweil

[Matthew]

Simon Says: The Sights and Sounds of the Swing Era 1935-1955. Nothing earth shattering, but a nice look at a long gone era. 

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

Simon Says: The Sights and Sounds of the Swing Era 1935-1955. Nothing earth shattering, but a nice look at a long gone era. 

A pretty heavy tome to just "pull it out" again.
But interesting enough for repeated reading (piecemeal, of course) for anyone wishing to dive into the Swing Era through period writings. George T. Simon was clever enough to add comments and insights from the 70s (well after the fact) to set the occasional record straight. But I still feel it is most interesting to look at past eras like this through contemporary write-ups. Even though for the life of it I cannot quite understand Simon's obsession with certain demands on the musicians such as playing "tastefully" and "in tune". Not that this is all inappropriate but reading this in such a heavily packed way as in this book it at times this made me wonder what kind of bands really were dear to his heart anyway, and I do wonder how he did bring these criteria of his in line with post-1945 styles of jazz, starting with the honkers and bar walkers and some of the more uninhibited bebop acts through the Lionel Hampton concert caravans of the 50s and up to the freer forms of avantgarde (beyond Tristano and Giuffre).

[JSngry]

Simon was a HUGE Glenn Miller devotee iirc. 

[Matthew]

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Simon was a HUGE Glenn Miller devotee iirc. 

I loved Simon's Glenn Miller bio, Miller comes off as... difficult, not warm and fuzzy by any means.

[sidewinder]

Today’s unexpected amazing find, as-new and signed for £2 !  I’d missed Alyn’s Book launch talk at Swanage this Summer and was really keen to get hold of a copy. Looks like a great read and covers some events of his that I witnessed (e.g the Henry Grimes interview for BBC Radio at Cheltenham).

[EKE BBB]

Revisiting 

[sidewinder]

Picked up an as-new hardback copy of this one for a couple of pounds. Awesome find !

Edited November 4, 2022 by sidewinder

[Big Beat Steve]

16 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Picked up an as-new hardback copy of this one for a couple of pounds. Awesome find !

And a great and entertaining read. Terry Gibbs' candid personal recollections of certain jazz celebrities he worked for and with are priceless and would not be out of place in Bill Crow's "Jazz Anecdotes" either. Watch out for "the Fog " aka "El Foggo"!

[sidewinder]

3 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

And a great and entertaining read. Terry Gibbs' candid personal recollections of certain jazz celebrities he worked for and with are priceless and would not be out of place in Bill Crow's "Jazz Anecdotes" either. Watch out for "the Fog " aka "El Foggo"!

Yeah, I just had a quick skim through and on the basis just of his Buddy Rich stories it is an essential read. A great find. Picked it up at a place where you would likely least expect to find such a volume - right next to the Avebury prehistoric stone circle !

Edited November 4, 2022 by sidewinder

[BillF]

26 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Picked up an as-new hardback copy of this one for a couple of pounds. Awesome find !

Nice one! 

[HutchFan]

On 10/10/2022 at 6:44 PM, EKE BBB said:

Revisiting 

Such a wonderful book!  It's sitting on my desk right now.  

 

[sidewinder]

35 minutes ago, BillF said:

Nice one! 

Yeah. The ‘magic of the stones’ works !

[BillF]