Who's Jack Walrath?

[tranemonk]

I don't know who this is. Does anyone have some background info?

https://jackwalrath.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-smalls?from=discover_page

 

[Rabshakeh]

Trumpeter who was part of the late Mingus crowd. Did some leader records in the late 70s and early 80s that must have sold reasonably because I see them everywhere. I am not sure why he dropped off after that. Other members will know more than me.

[kh1958]

He was the trumpet player with Charles Mingus from 1974 until Mingus' death.

As a leader he has recorded numerous CDs, including a couple on the revived Blue Note. Here is his biography on the Blue Note site.

https://www.bluenote.com/artist/jack-walrath/

I've seen the band on the linked CD at Smalls and ordered it.

Edited March 29, 2024 by kh1958

[JSngry]

Good player. He's from Montana! 

[Ken Dryden]

There's a feature upcoming in the May issue of The New York City Jazz Record, I am not sure who got the assignment.

[JSngry]

Not everybody like the business. 

[clifford_thornton]

He released a good Clean Feed CD quite a number of years ago; not sure how well it sold, but it's strong music.

I had read reports of "personal problems" but don't know much of his story.

[Chuck Nessa]

Jack posts regularly on Facebook.

[mjzee]

I’ve liked Walrath for awhile.  I have his first album, “Demons In Pursuit,” which featured Scofield.  I also saw his quintet in the village (NYC) which featured Kenny Drew Jr. on piano and David Fiuczynski on guitar, I think in the late ‘90’s.

[felser]

Loved his work with Mingus, and when I saw MIngus Dynasty live in the early 90's at the Painted Bride Art Center, he was highly visible, seemed to be leading the gig that night, incredible performance (Walrath, Alex Foster, Michael Formanek, don't remember who the drummer was, and filling in (I believe for George Adams and Don Pullen) were Josh Redman (who was amazing that night) and John Hicks.  I have not been as happy with Walrath's leader work, which gets pretty quirky (and I can't stand David Fiuczynski on guitar).

[BFrank]

He provided a lot of info to the liner notes of the recent "Changes: The Complete 1970s Atlantic Studio Recordings" box

[soulpope]

12 hours ago, felser said:

Loved his work with Mingus, and when I saw MIngus Dynasty live in the early 90's at the Painted Bride Art Center, he was highly visible, seemed to be leading the gig that night, incredible performance (Walrath, Alex Foster, Michael Formanek, don't remember who the drummer was, and filling in (I believe for George Adams and Don Pullen) were Josh Redman (who was amazing that night) and John Hicks.

Hard to go wrong with John Hicks ....

[Gheorghe]

I love his big tone, almost like Fats Navarro on the albums he made with Mingus, mostly "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" , "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" and "Me Myself and I". 
I heard him to much extent with the Mingus Band. Especially on that wonderful 1977 tour his solos on the live versions of the title tunes of those albums was so great. That long latin solo (actually the first solo) on Cumbia .....incredible ! 
I think once there was an unofficial recording of at least one of those dates where I remembered everything I had heard and seen  back then......

Walrath did the most writing and arranging for "Me Myself and I". Too bad that the "Mingus Fake Book" only has old compositions in it, I would have liked to see a sheet of Cumbia or Three Worlds of Drums, I know the tunes but for band members....... 

[HutchFan]

I love Walrath's playing.  I have about ten of his records as a leader, and I love them all. 

Wholly Trinity, in particular, is a stunner:

This LP would be my top pick for Walrath.  It's an Ornette-ish piano-less trio.

 

Unfortunately, most of Walrath's discography isn't available.  All of his albums for Muse and Stash -- some of his best work -- are long out of print.  Aside from the SteepleChases (and a few other one-offs), he's in discographical limbo.  In an age of streaming, I realize that album availability isn't as important as it used to be.  But many (most?) of his best albums aren't even available for streaming.  It's a bummer.

Somebody needs to get on the case at Concord, the current owner of the Muse catalog.  ALL of the Muse releases should be available for streaming.  I realize that none of them would be getting a million clicks (or anywhere near that number) -- but the cost of digitizing & uploading them to various streaming platforms would be negligible.  Heck, they could get an intern to do it!

 

[felser]

7 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Somebody needs to get on the case at Concord, the current owner of the Muse catalog.  ALL of the Muse releases should be available for streaming.  I realize that none of them would be getting a million clicks (or anywhere near that number) -- but the cost of digitizing & uploading them to various streaming platforms would be negligible.  Heck, they could get an intern to do it!

The best you can hope for from stinkin' Concord is a 34-minute 'Jack Walrath Plays For Lovers' CD with cheesy cover art.  They don't care about listeners like us, terrible that they control the catalogs they do as they have no respect for the music.

[HutchFan]

1 minute ago, felser said:

The best you can hope for from stinkin' Concord is a 34-minute 'Jack Walrath Plays For Lovers' CD with cheesy cover art.  They don't care about listeners like us, terrible that they control the catalogs they do as they have no respect for the music.

Agreed.  😡

 

[felser]

Just now, HutchFan said:

Agreed.  😡

 

And Fantasy, after miraculously releasing all those OJC's, was starting to do some very nice multi-disc sets with the catalogs just before the sold out to Concord.  The Miles Quartet box, the three Trane boxes, the Evans VV set, the Monk/Trane 2 disc set, Red Garland, Sonny Stitt, etc.  And the earlier Fantasy boxes of Miles, Trane, Sonny Rollins, Monk, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, Eric Dolphy, etc. were highlights of the early CD era. 

[HutchFan]

32 minutes ago, felser said:

And Fantasy, after miraculously releasing all those OJC's, was starting to do some very nice multi-disc sets with the catalogs just before the sold out to Concord.  The Miles Quartet box, the three Trane boxes, the Evans VV set, the Monk/Trane 2 disc set, Red Garland, Sonny Stitt, etc.  And the earlier Fantasy boxes of Miles, Trane, Sonny Rollins, Monk, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, Eric Dolphy, etc. were highlights of the early CD era. 

Yep.  It was a fun time.  There was an avalanche of reissues.  

These days, I think the best we can hope for from Concord is occasional, potluck reissues -- and the possibility that one day they will actually make the music available on streaming platforms.  If that happened, at least people would be able to hear the more obscure albums in their MASSIVE catalog without having to track down used vinyl.

 

Edited May 24, 2024 by HutchFan

[felser]

9 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Yep.  It was a fun time.  There was an avalanche of reissues.  

These days, I think the best we can hope for from Concord is occasional, potluck reissues -- and the possibility that one day they will actually make the music available on streaming platforms.  If that happened, at least people would be able to hear the more obscure albums in their MASSIVE catalog without having to track down used vinyl.

 

Yep, there's a lot of interesting 70's Muse albums I've never heard, as I couldn't take it all in fast enough in real time and they've never been reissued.

[soulpope]

12 hours ago, HutchFan said:

I love Walrath's playing.  I have about ten of his records as a leader, and I love them all. 

Wholly Trinity, in particular, is a stunner:

This LP would be my top pick for Walrath.  It's an Ornette-ish piano-less trio.

Good one .... btw the Cover Photography by Richard Laird is prototypical for the 80's ....

[Gheorghe]

12 hours ago, HutchFan said:

I love Walrath's playing.  I have about ten of his records as a leader, and I love them all. 

Wholly Trinity, in particular, is a stunner:

This LP would be my top pick for Walrath.  It's an Ornette-ish piano-less trio.

 

Unfortunately, most of Walrath's discography isn't available.  All of his albums for Muse and Stash -- some of his best work -- are long out of print.  Aside from the SteepleChases (and a few other one-offs), he's in discographical limbo.  In an age of streaming, I realize that album availability isn't as important as it used to be.  But many (most?) of his best albums aren't even available for streaming.  It's a bummer.

Somebody needs to get on the case at Concord, the current owner of the Muse catalog.  ALL of the Muse releases should be available for streaming.  I realize that none of them would be getting a million clicks (or anywhere near that number) -- but the cost of digitizing & uploading them to various streaming platforms would be negligible.  Heck, they could get an intern to do it!

 

The strange thing is, that usually if you have played for a time with a big jazz legend, you made it, you got your own band, your own record contract and everything, like all of the Ex-Miles-Men, and the Ex Blakey Men, and of course dozens of ex Mingus-Men, but it was not the case for the men who played with Mingus when I saw Mingus: Neither Walrath, neither Ford, nor Bob Neloms became big names in jazz, well Muse was a hard to find label in most European contries I must admit..... but my impression was that it concentrated on lesser well paid acoustic jazz men in the 70´s, maybe I´m wrong but that´s how I thought about it back then......

3 minutes ago, soulpope said:

Good one .... btw the Cover Photography by Richard Laird is prototypical for the 80's ....

what etnic background was Walrath ? He looks a bit like a south of the border kind of type..... they said he is white and that black militants got on Mingus´ case why he booked a white player in an all black band, but he looks like he might have had another etnic background....

[Chuck Nessa]

This 32Jazz compilation (selected by Jack) is worth exploring.

[HutchFan]

7 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

... my impression was that it concentrated on lesser well paid acoustic jazz men in the 70´s, maybe I´m wrong but that´s how I thought about it back then......

Gheorghe, 

Muse couldn't compete with the "majors" in terms of paying musicians.  (In fact, Tommy Flanagan refused to record for Muse because of Joe Fields' notorious miserliness.) Regardless, the Muse catalog is full of important records by important jazz musicians: Woody Shaw, Pat Martino, Richard Davis, James Moody, Mickey Tucker, Jaki Byard, Sam Jones, Lester Bowie, Hank Jones, "Fathead" Newman, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams, Louis Hayes, Willis Jackson, Roy Brooks, Don Patterson, "Groove" Holmes, Carlos Garnett, Joe Bonner, Clifford Jordan, Mark Murphy, Barry Altschul, and on and on and on.

I think one could make a solid argument that Muse and ECM are the two most vital labels of the 1970s -- in terms of documenting a wide range of jazz artists and styles.  Just by virtue of the size of their respective catalogs, those two labels played a huge role in capturing the sounds of those years.

 

[mjzee]

41 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Gheorghe, 

Muse couldn't compete with the "majors" in terms of paying musicians.  (In fact, Tommy Flanagan refused to record for Muse because of Joe Fields' notorious miserliness.) Regardless, the Muse catalog is full of important records by important jazz musicians: Woody Shaw, Pat Martino, Richard Davis, James Moody, Mickey Tucker, Jaki Byard, Sam Jones, Lester Bowie, Hank Jones, "Fathead" Newman, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams, Louis Hayes, Willis Jackson, Roy Brooks, Don Patterson, "Groove" Holmes, Carlos Garnett, Joe Bonner, Clifford Jordan, Mark Murphy, Barry Altschul, and on and on and on.

I think one could make a solid argument that Muse and ECM are the two most vital labels of the 1970s -- in terms of documenting a wide range of jazz artists and styles.  Just by virtue of the size of their respective catalogs, those two labels played a huge role in capturing the sounds of those years.

 

I agree.  I worked in a jazz record store in lower Manhattan in the late 70's - early 80's, and most Muse releases didn't sell very well, so perhaps Fields was just paying a fair amount.  I don't know who else would have released so many David Schnitter or Ricky Ford albums.  I thought Muse did a great job in supplying a steady stream of soul jazz and organ jazz albums - music ignored by the New York press but still loved at clubs in Newark and Harlem.

[soulpope]

12 minutes ago, mjzee said:

I don't know who else would have released so many David Schnitter or Ricky Ford albums ....

Or would have given Bill Barron a leader date after a gap of nearly two decades ....