What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Tenor Freak]

There was a review on All About Jazz this week regarding a similar set of recordings by a quartet led by Bobby Wellins. I think some of these recordings were made in a similar kind of venue and they also featuee the pinaist Peter Jacobsen who was mentioned in this bored a few weeks back. It is funny how the likes of Tommy Whittle, Spike Wells, Tubby Hayes and Bobby Wellins have gone from musicians who could hear regularly to almost niche musicians who are totally unfamiliar to alot of today's players. More alarmingly, it is noticeable how rate rare gigs seem to be down here these days with the closure of so many pubs. There is a regular gig near the village where I work that is held once a month and I did not realise that a country pub about 5 miles from me puts on blues and jazz once a month, Winchester has never really been a city for jazz as it always strucke as being more concerned with folk. the local BBC station used to run a feature on jazz gigs in the Southampton area throughout the 80s and90s but there has not been any jazz on this station for over 20 years so that live pub gigs are rarely aired in this part of Hampshire. At one point you good easily go to a number of jazz gigs mid-week in Southampton but if it is still happening, the publicity is really low-key. I cannot remember the last time I went to hear jazz in a pub. In the early 1990s I was in Goblets every Wednesday to hear my piano teacher's trio. Strange to think that there were place like Goblets which still had a reputation of live jazz back then. The number of pubs has reduced massively in the last 20 years.

Blimey...that closed pub website took me down a rabbit hole and for the life of me I couldn't remember the name of that wine bar on Above Bar: Goblets. <thanks> Ian. Do you remember the time that Johnny Griffin was there? 1995 or so as he was an acquaintance of one of the local Southampton jazzers Tony Baker(?)

Where I grew up, in west London, there were tons of gigs in pubs here and there and I don't just mean the Bull's Head. You would see ads in free gig guide leaflets for pub gigs by the likes of Bill Le Sage, Duncan Lamont, Don Rendell etc and I saw Stan Tracey at the Turk's Head once. I was too young and naïve to realise what riches were on the doorstep as I was really only interested in American artists at the time, though I did see Jimmy and Alan Skidmore doing a tenor-duo gig at the Bull's Head.

S-A: sorry to hear of Jimmy's passing. RIP. It wasn't that long ago that WOW put on a gig by Tony Kinsey.

[Serial_Apologist]

S-A: sorry to hear of Jimmy's passing. RIP. It wasn't that long ago that WOW put on a gig by Tony Kinsey.

I know - he must have gone downhill really fast. I've been a bit busy today - tomorrow I'll try and find time to look up any tributes.

[Jazzrook]

Stanley Cowell with Tyrone Washington, Woody Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, Reggie Workman & Joe Chambers on the album ‘Brilliant Circles’(Freedom) recorded in 1969:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=BzbkMJsErO0

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

Good afternoon

I saw Johnny Griffin at the old Mayflower theatre with a local big band. The gig in Goblets was an ad hoc session which was not part of the jazz festival and I wa no aware it had happened until it was over. I was really gutted about missing that.

There used to be a big commnity of jazz musicians in Southampton, My piano teacher had a regular trio for years at Goblets and quite a few professionals would sit in with him. I go nor thinkGoblets exists any more. I only go into Southampton to watch the football these days but even the gigs in Romsey and Winchester have dried up.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Sonny Rollins/Max Roach "BBC jazz goes to college" 1966. Reading University no less!!

To an audience including just about everyone from the London scene, Scott, Hayes, etc etc.

Although the tapes were apparently wiped (this is a private recording) there is a video clip from the concert in a Ronnie Scott BBC profile from 1968 on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/B6mjjtC2jiI?feature=shared

[Serial_Apologist]

Sonny Rollins/Max Roach "BBC jazz goes to college" 1966. Reading University no less!!

To an audience including just about everyone from the London scene, Scott, Hayes, etc etc.

Although the tapes were apparently wiped (this is a private recording) there is a video clip from the concert in a Ronnie Scott BBC profile from 1968 on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/B6mjjtC2jiI?feature=shared

Phew!!! - Thanks Bluesie - what more is there to say?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Playing through a box set of Bud Powell's studio sessions from 1957 to 1959 when he's supposedly in decline. I find them full of interest including the two RCA albums which I hadn't heard much before. Brian Priestly somewhat slags these off, ideas beyond his then technical capacity etc, but it's a different Powell, a different feel and I don't get that too much.

Here's Bud playing "She", a George Shearing composition. Unlikely and Lovely.

http://youtu.be/b38NyweUo3o?feature=shared

[Ian Thumwood]

I had to work from home yesterday and dug out the 3CD set of Fletcher Henderson recordings called "A study in frustration." I find this collection to be fascinating and one that compels you to listen to all the discs in chronological order . The pre- Armstrong tracks are curios which make me ponder whether that was actually how the Henderson band sounded in the early 1920s. It almost feels clockwork in it's execution. The addition of Armstong is the shot in the arm the band needed and I find the late 20s and early 30's material to be incredible. The music is historically important yet it is often overlooked how well played this music is. It was a brilliant band . Originally, I loved the recordings from the mid thirties onwards best of all. Now I feel that the band was at its best on the music featured on the second disc. It is weird to think that popular music of that time had the potential to be forward thinking . I am aware that the more "commerical" elements of the band's book were not recorde. What was recorded strikes me as being highly proficient with soloists like Coleman Hawkins imperious.

It was fascinating to read on the Desert island Discs website that Randy Newman is a big fan of Henderson's late 1920's recordings. I was really surprised by this,

[elmo]

Keith Jarrett's tribute to Fats Waller and Jack De Johnette's to Gene Krupa on a sparkling "Honeysuckle Rose"

https://youtu.be/bKBf7cGdEAA?feature=shared

elmo

[Jazzrook]

Charlie Rouse with Paul Quinichette,
Wynton Kelly, Wendell Marshall & Ed Thigpen playing 'The Chase Is On' recorded in 1957:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=S-jtqBE9eMM

JR

[Tenor Freak]

Joe Henderson Afro-Centric from Power To The People (Milestone, 1969).

[Jazzrook]

Roland Kirk with Hank Jones, Wendell Marshall & Charli Persip playing ‘Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year’ from the 1961 ‘We Free Kings’ session but not included on the original album:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=jnh9ef8EhUk

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Roland Kirk with Hank Jones, Wendell Marshall & Charli Persip playing ‘Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year’ from the 1961 ‘We Free Kings’ session but not included on the original album:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=jnh9ef8EhUk

JR

Thanks JR - hadn't heard that although possessing the vinyl LP. I want to speak up for Charlie Persip as he doesn't get a lot of mention in the usual places.

[Padraig]

Still blowing a distant trumpet! Listened to some hot 5/7 numbers today - specifically Hot Butter and Egg Man caught my ear. What a perfect little parcel - straight in ensemble, vocal, vocal 2, cornet solo, vocal ensemble cut, out. 30 - 40 seconds per episode! The cornet solo caught someone else's ear too. It's all here.

Louis Armstrong - Big Butter And Egg Man (1926) [Digitally Remastered] - YouTube

Friday Jazz with Pocket Trumpet - YouTube

[Tenor Freak]

John Klemmer, Intensity (Impulse! 1973)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tvojKiR6qQ