Taking A Break From My Books

This morning I watched an interview on You Tube with the great tenor saxophone master, Sonny Rollins. Mr. Rollins said that he felt blessed for having been on the scene with so many other jazz masters and greats, with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Lester Young. Indeed, Bud Powell and Jackie McLean lived in Sonny Rollins' Harlem neighborhood.
    So today I've devoted my attention to music, to Ben Webster, Mingus, Monk, Tete Montoliu. Try this from You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqGQh52ZCB8

Happy Birthday Charles McPherson

West End Hotel News - In Walked Charles

Otis “Bu Bu” Turner

At the baby-grand piano,

Sings If You Could See Me Now beneath a triumphal arch,
Separating two rooms of beboppers, night-owls,

‘Players’ who knew what Bu Bu was saying,

Knew what he was playing,

Knew Diz and Dameron.

Blues In The Phone Booth

Alvin Jackson, a double-bass playin’ brother,

Brother of Bags, has completed his phone-call,

Leaves the door wide-open for the trumpet player who,

Prefers to jam sitting down - get down sitting down then.

Roy! Brooks! drummin' man,

Has set up his drummin’ stuff to one side of Bu Bu’s baby-grand.

Trumpet’s in the phone booth - was that Lonnie,
Lonnie Hillyer, inside with his Trumpet,
Pet?

Phone booth action happened on the other side of Bu Bu - at his left hand.

In Walked Charles of the McPherson clan - an alto playin’ Man!

Worst coffee in the world! But the West End Hotel's after-hours' hang,
Provided everything else that this young man’s soul required.

Man!

Teddy Charles - "Coolin'"

St. Mark's Place, NYC -- Five Spot Café and Jazz Gallery -- Summer Evenings 1961.

• I saw and heard Teddy Charles, vibes perform at the Jazz Gallery with Mal Waldron, piano and Ed Shaughnessy, drums. Seated at a table in the front row were three Jazz Messengers -- Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter and Bobby Timmons with two or three women of or from the Orient.
• Outside the Jazz Gallery that evening, a woman was trying to have a chat with Thelonious Monk. Monk in his green suede shoes was dancing 'round his would-be interlocutor. 
• I had met Mal Waltron one evening at the Five Spot Café. I was outside the Five Spot the night of the legendary Eric Dolphy's live recording at the Five Spot, a group that featured Mal Waldron, Booker Little, trumpet, Richard Davis, bass, Ed Blackwell, drums and Eric Dolphy, reeds. 
• The Five Spot, 5 Cooper Square in the Bowery and the Jazz Gallery, 80 St. Mark's Place were owned and operated by the Termini brothers. The Five Spot has a very rich history musically. It was also a favorite hang for New York artists and literati. I lived across the street at 326 Bowery during the summer of 1961.
• Listening to Teddy Charles' recordings today prompted the above.

Ornette Coleman R. I. P.

Ornette Coleman, the master musician, died on June 11, 2015 at the age of 85. In 1958, before Amazon there were neighborhood record stores -- Sears, department stores, appliance stores &c. sold vinyl recordings. In Highland Park, Mi. at that time neither Sears nor any of my vinyl-record suppliers were apt to stock Ornette Coleman's debut recording Something Else. So I had to special order it. There have been only two occasions, prior to the Compact Disc Era, on which I special-ordered vinyl disc: the Something Else!  and David Murray's 1976 debut recording Low Class Conspiracy (Columbia Record Club orders don't count).

Touching on People and Places 
   In the summer of 1961 I went to New York City to stay with a former high school friend who, with another artist, had an artist loft located at 326 Bowery. This address was across the street from the famous and fabulous Five Spot Café. When I went out on my  first evening in NYC the first person I ran into was Barry Harris, the renowned Detroit piano master. We were both on our way to hear Ornette Coleman at the Five Spot. I returned many times to the Five Spot during Ornette Coleman's engagement there. The trumpet chair in the Coleman group was held by Bobby Bradford, Charles Moffett, was the drummer. The bassist was, I believe, David Izenzon. I had never heard Ornette Coleman in person before. The music was, needless to say, breathtaking. I had a number of talks with Bobby Bradford, who was very kind to me.
   The next time I heard Ornette Coleman in person was on a very hot June 1973 afternoon at the Strata Concert Gallery, 46 Selden St. I was there with my friend Jim Murphy and I recall the artist Ellen Phelan being there too. It was a trio setting this time with Charlie Haden on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums -- totally sublime music making.
   In the fall of 1980, I heard Ornette Coleman with the Pat Metheny group at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit. I don't remember much about this event -- that's the way I am with guitars, usually.
   February 18, 1982, my friend, the writer Bill Harris, and I heard a performance by Ornette Coleman's Body Meta/Dancing In Your Head/Prime Time group -- Charles Ellerbee and Bern Nix, guitars, the amazing Jamaaladeen Tacuma, bass guitar, and two drummers. This fantastic music took place at the Power Center at the University of Michigan.
   The last time that I heard Ornette Coleman in person was March 19, 2004 in Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan. I was with Peter Fylonenko and Jim Murphy. The group consisted of two basses, one of whom was Greg Cohen and Mr. Coleman's son Denardo on drums. The music was very lamentation-like, a hymn to the all the artists; rather like Ornette Coleman's pre-Skies of America writing for his group and a small set of strings. A beautiful evening of music.
   Ornette Coleman appeared many times at the Minor Key in Detroit in 1961. I don't recall hearing him there. I think I was in New York at the time.
   Ornette Coleman's music has meant a great deal to me during the past 50+ years of listening to his wonderful music. Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk were the record holders at the Five Spot Café for the number of weeks of continuous performances. Charles McPherson who had performed at the Five Spot as a leader and with Charles Mingus told me something that I didn't know about this venue's policy: performers were able to perform at the Five Spot as long as the audiences supported the musicians, i. e., Ornette and Monk were all-time drawing cards at the Five Spot Café.
   Let's listen to this music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sAuMPhFt8
 

Mozart - The Physical and the Mental

I've been pursuing Mozart's music lately, especially his music for wind instruments. Charles Rosen directed me to Hermann Albert's massive 1515 page biography, W. A. Mozart. I bought my copy a few years ago at a great price. Today for $29.00 plus $3.99 for shipping it can be yours.
    There are two problems for me. (1) I hurt my left wrist by frequently grabbing onto Cook & Morton's 1725 page The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. (2) Charles Rosen had a photographic memory; something I haven't got!
    I shall press on though. I'll let you know about my wrist and memory.

On Neglecting My Music - Johnny Hartman

Between surgical procedures, followups thereto, college basketball, reading too much; I've neglected my music. When I neglect my music, I get irritable - of course the US and world situations increase one's crankiness.
    Thirty(?) years ago, when the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit was a quasi-going concern, Johnny Hartman with a trio sang to my wife and me for a couple of hours - there were at most eight people in the room. Mr. Hartman's recordings with John Coltrane's quartet are among the very few sublime vocal recordings in the jam session aesthetic. I'll drop a few names in this tradition: Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Kay Star, Rosemary Clooney, Fred Astaire, The Divine One - Sarah Vaughan, and Herb Jeffries.
    This evening I've rediscovered Johnny Hartman's Songs From The Heart that features Howard McGee, trumpet with the Ralph Sharon Trio - sublime music.

http://rayesti-thoughtmatters.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-proof-is-in-jam-part-5-jukebox.html

Bloggy-Block? Not Really • Dennerlein & Gulda

This morning I'm listening to the music of the Hammond B-3 virtuoso, Barbara Dennerlein • See YouTube links below if you must know visually. On her Junkanoo CD she performs with "King" David (aka David Murray) and other fine musicians. It's groove-music all the way down.
   I discovered Miss Dennerlein's music through the work of my main piano-man, the late Friedrich Gulda. Mr. Gulda died on January 27, 2000. The Austrian pianist's devotions were Bach, Mozart and Jazz; his Beethoven swings too. Lame connoisseurs of That Music would have us remain in the dark about Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as improvising musicians - they kicked it too. Friedrich Gulda was a member of the very heavyViennese trinity of pianists, the other members having been Jörg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda. Gulda's recordings of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, especially the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Pierre Fournier, swing. Compare Gulda's recording of  Mozart's Sonata in F major k. 332 with that of Mitsuko Uchida, a pianist I also admire. The Gulda has pulse and swing; the Uchida not at all.
   It took me a long time getting next to Mozart's art. His string quintets, clarinet quintet and concerto, and a few of the piano concertos were about all I could take of the Great Mozart. Papa Haydn was my man. He was the Duke Ellington of his day, a musician's musician - no fluff, not dainty. What I disliked about Mozart were the performances of Mozart's music -- the music ain't on the page. Mozart was a violist himself, but not many recordings of his wonderful string quartets and quintets reveal his swinging viola writing. When one hears the viola part articulated properly we have a Mozart we can feel.
   Have a taste of the YouTube Barbara Dennerlein and Friedrich Gulda linked below -- especially the 1st and 2nd items.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ8QtEzZuoI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmeYEMwrkZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGVXr4Ji49o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hy_dc8UOjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcrvnwckKGI