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Last Notes

2026-11-05 22:43:16 GMT

Podcast: Bill Evans Trio, Haunted Heart
This week’s podcast explores the relatively new boxed set from Craft Records called Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings by the Bill Evans Trio featuring Scott Lazaro and Paul Motian. It features the Riverside LPs Portrait in Jazz and Explorations, with 26 alternates and outtakes, including 17 recordings that had never been released before. The show offers a mix of some of the original issues, such as Autumn Leaves and Nardis, with many of the newly released takes.
The post Podcast: Bill Evans Trio, Haunted Heart first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-bill-evans-trio-haunted-heart/
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#billevans #evanstrio #hauntedheart #paulmotian #podcast #craftrecords #scottlazaro #legendaryriverside #riversidestudio #studiorecordings
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2026-11-05 18:42:51 GMT

Podcast: Another “Lovely” Playlist
This week’s theme: Selected items in honor of the birthday of the Lovely Mrs. JC. Featured artists include Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Annie Ross, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Rosemary Clooney, Billie Holiday, Nancy Lamott, Frank Sinatra, Melissa Errico, Gerry Mulligan, Judy Holliday, Bill Evans, Nat Cole, Dexter Gordon, Maxine Sullivan.
The post Podcast: Another “Lovely” Playlist first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-another-lovely-playlist/
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#another #dextergordon #playlist #lovely #podcast #annieross #billevans #billieholiday #ellafitzgerald #franksinatra
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2026-11-02 01:18:14 GMT

Barney Kessel Feeling Free (Contemporary 1969)
Kessel took a U-turn back on the main road to real jazz, Hollywood be damned.
[row-start]
[half]
[/half]
[half]
Personnel
Barney Kessel (guitar), Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone), Chuck Domenica (bass), Elvin Jones (drums)
Recorded
on February 19, 1969 at Contemporary Records Studio, Los Angeles
Released
as Contemporary M3618 in 1969
Track listing
Side A: Moving Up / Blue Grass / This Guy’s In Love With You / Side B: Blues Up, Down & All Around / The Sound Of Silence / Two Note Samba
[/half]
[row-end]
Let’s get wild, let’s get wild, is what Barney Kessel must’ve thought. Let’s check out Elvin Jones, tornado that married a volcano, Bobby Hutcherson, adventurous vibraphonist par excellence, and killer L.A. bassist Chuck Domenica, and break on through to the other side.
Kessel, a guy that seemed to be everywhere at once, as unavoidable as a motel sign on the Interstate, was a master guitar player, poll-winner from Muskogee, Oklahoma (Charlie Christian county) from Hungarian ancestry, Los Angeleno that was featured in the groundbreaking short (Norman Granz-produced) film Jammin’ The Blues in 1944, recorded with Charlie Parker in 1947, was part of the Oscar Peterson Trio and the (Norman Granz-produced) Jazz At The Philharmonic tours.
A busy studio bee, aligned with the famed Wrecking Crew. First thing you’ll hear when you put on the influential Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys is Kessel’s melodic line of Wouldn’t It Be Nice.
Lucrative or not, Kessel got tired of the Hollywood assembly line and wanted to get back in the game and play some real creative jazz shit. In 1969, Kessel released no less than five albums! Feeling Free is the hottest, no controversy.
A wild ride, raw and unfiltered. There are moments that aren’t neat, Kessel in a hurry in the thunderstorm of Elvin Jones like a hare taking to its heels and tripping over a rock during Blues, Up Down & Around. That’s jazz, what jazz has been, what it could be: first or second takes only (as Kessel explains in the liner notes), spontaneity, feeling and energy up front.
Energy abound. Kessel’s sound, like the grit between bricks, has the X-factor. The album’s opening sets the tone, a hip line – Moving Up – some sort of space bossa (super-)nova, developed through the symbioses of Kessel’s fat patterns and sandpaper chords, which in turn contrast with the elasticity of Jones’s time feel, all together now with progressive Bobby Hutcherson, whose notes live by its own offbeat rules, rooted but far out, always tasteful.
They play quirky blues, spice up Burt Bacharach and Simon & Garfunkel with chili pepper and cinnamon. Perhaps in hindsight all these brushwoods and gusty winds are fitting for the era, war across the USA, either way a courageous jump into the deep end by the former Dust Bowl kid, who’d eventually had to stop playing in the early 1990’s because of health issues and passed away at the age of 80 in 2004.
Listen to Feeling Free on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTos1P7IYos&list=OLAK5uy_k0Ba3npCinGv1B3BDGbsIiTg3amL_IeEI
http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/11/01/barney-kessel-feeling-free-contemporary-1969/
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#barneykessel #feelingfree #bobbyhutcherson #elvinjones #contemporary #chuckdomenica #personnelbarney #blues #jazz #losangeles
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2026-10-31 01:26:32 GMT

Roy Brooks: Understanding (1970) Reel To Reel – RSD 2021
Selection: Taurus Woman
Track Listing
A1 Prelude To Understanding (Brooks) 22:08
B1 Understanding 20:12
C1 Billie’s Bounce (C. Parker) 21:04
D1 Zoltan (W. Shaw) 23:20
E1 Taurus Woman (C. Garnett) 17:09
F1 . . . Taurus Woman (Continuation) 15:15
F2 The Theme (M. Davis) 4:28
Artists
Carlos Garnett, tenor saxophone; Woody Shaw, trumpet, Harold Mabern, piano; Cecil McBee, bass; Roy Brooks, drums. Recorded Live at The Famous Ballroom, Baltimore, MD, November 1, 1970 original recording engineer: Vernon Welsh.
Reel To Reel sound restoration by Chris Gestrin; mastered and lacquer cut by Kevin Gray; Producers, Cory Weeds, Zev Feldman.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Vernon Welsh recorded more than 800 jazz performances at The Famous Ballroom. The tapes were stored at the Morgan State University library for years, and were eventually acquired by veteran record producer Joel Dorn, who began reissuing them.
In later life Roy Brooks struggled with health and legal problems, and finally passed away in 2005, age 67
Music
The live performances are of unusual length, each taking a complete side of the LP, sometimes, both sides, grooves right up to the label. “The tempos range from brisk to rocking. and the tone of the music has a wild expressiveness” (The New Yorker) “The playing is intense and demanding, the rhythm is propulsive, Brooks is ferocious behind the drum kit”. (AllAboutJazz)
The album starts out with Prelude to Understanding on Side 1, followed by the substantive composition Understanding on Side 2, in which the band embarks on “a lengthy excursion into the lines, harmony and character of the number”. At this point you begin to understand how this album is going to work. It’s Brooks’ album, and he goes all out to create a “dynamic of rhythm, accents and shapes to move each number forward”, while the soloists embark on their extended excursions.
Side Three introduces Charlie Parker’s bop-classic Billies Bounce (1945) which extends from its original three minutes on shellac to over twenty minutes on one LP side. Woody Shaw’s Zoltan overlaps onto a second side. My favourite however is Carlos Garnett’s Taurus Woman. Harold Mabern maintains an infectious piano vamp, while Garnett flexes his muscular tenor chops, riding high into the upper register and beyond, before coming together with Shaw to reprise the harmonic theme of our Taurus Woman.
The whole set rounds off with a five-minute pastiche of Miles’ The Theme. Whether it is Revolutionary Jazz as the hype sticker claims I’ll let you decide.
This album has been on my turntable all week, it’s great stuff.
Vinyl: Reel To Reel RTR-007
3xLP gatefold, limited-edition 180 gram, “Never-Before-Released material” for Record Store Day April 2021. Copies can be found but are in short supply.
The audio quality is quite acceptable, within the limitations of a one-take live recording. No indications of microphone positioning, none visible in the photos, so a likely a basic setup. Mabern’s piano vamp is a little forward in the mix, Woody Shaw’s fiery expressive solos occasionally sound like the buzz of a demented blue-bottle, with clipping top-end , but the fervour and energy of Brooks and the band carry the day.
Kevin Gray remastered the Brooks’ session from the original tapes, so you are getting the best possible sound out of the source. Gray squeezes the long tracks into the maximum vinyl capacity of each side, his tell-tale initials in the runout.
Kevin Gray @ Cohearent Audio
Gatefold, fold-over
Booklet – another 19 pages of this . . .
Back cover with Limited Edition count, jacket number 317 of 2,000
The Art Director says:
A three-LP gatefold is a complex exercise in Origami, and a game of Guess Where the Third LP is? There is information on the back cover, on the text inside the gatefold, and as if you hadn’t got enough information, there is more information in the 20-page booklet housed inside the gatefold.
The booklet includes interviews with the artists, fellow musicians, and the record producers, mostly biographical detail and Brook’s career progression, but some also about the actual music, rare.
The accompanying portraits of Roy Brooks behind the drum kit, beads of sweat, pouring perspiration, exactly right for live concert performance, does it for me.
Verdict: Value added, thumbs up!
Collector’s Corner
Brooks “Understanding” Famous Ballroom recording may be not previously issued, but the composition “Understanding” is also a feature of Brooks’ 1972 Muse album, The Free Slave (MR 5003), which is also a live recording, this time only ten minutes in length.
The Free Slave is also a recording by the Left Bank Society, engineer Orville O’Brien (of many Strata East sessions), with Woody Shaw and Cecil McBee, but George Coleman on tenor and Hugh Lawson on piano.
Carlos Garnett’s composition Taurus Woman also had a Muse outing of 12 minutes, on Garnett’s album Black Love (MR 5040, 1974). Another not previously issued recording.
Woody Shaw’s track Zoltan appears on Shaw’s magnificent Muse title Love Dance (MR 5074, 1975)
Woody Shaw Love Dance Muse 7074 (1976)
Originals of those Muse albums are very hard to find (set aside the Mosiac Complete). Which leaves us with Charlie Parker’s Billies Bounce: the only actual previously Never-Before-Released material on the RSD Understanding album.
Apart that is from Charlie Parker’s original shellac, which was previously released.
Yes we have no bananas.
I guess it all depends what anyone understands by “Never-Before-Released“. Not that it really matters. Judge it on its merits.
In Other News . . .
Many if not most of the things you own are made in China. Your phone, your clothing, your electricals, home, kitchen and tableware, household items, automotive parts, power tools, Christmas decorations . . .
Chinese Jazz? For a time there was “Shanghai Jazz”, cabaret singers ’40s style . . .
. . . but now, Blue Note Jazz has arrived . . .
In one of those eerie coincidences that turn up unexpectedly in Jazz, the B-Side of Charlie Parker’s Billies Bounce (Savoy 1945) is the tune “Now’s The Time“. That’s what I call a segue.
Now’s The Time, jazz from China!
Don Was and his boys have been racking up the frequent flyer miles. Last year Universal Music Group launched Blue Note Records China. Just when I was getting to grips with Three Blind Mice and 70’s vintage jazz from Japan, along comes Fu Manchu and his Jazz Messengers.
According to their press release, Universal have brought in one of China’s most celebrated pop music producers, Zhang Yadong, and Ren Yuqing, a leading figure in the Shanghai jazz scene, together with Don Was, to steer the new venture. I’ve listened to some of this anthology of Contemporary Chinese Jazz on-line, and I have to say its pretty good New York-style jazz,. No chopsticks or Suzie Wong, and I hear subtle Eastern influences and overall a pleasing freshness.
I could not find imported vinyl copies of Now’s The Time in the usual record outlets over here. Seems Now’s not quite the time, but, maybe some time soon.
BJC, BeijingJazzCollector?
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/10/30/roy-brooks-understanding-1970-reel-to-reel-rsd-2021/
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#roybrooks #tauruswoman #reel #understanding #rsd #famousballroom #vernonwelsh #carlosgarnett #side #shaw
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2026-10-24 01:22:52 GMT

Elton Dean: El Skid (1977) Vinyl
Selection: First In The Attic (long – 12:54)
Track List
A1 Dr. Les Mosses
A2 First In The Attic
B1 That’s For Cha
B2 K And A Blues
Artists
Elton Dean, alto saxophone, saxello; Alan Skidmore, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Chris Laurence, acoustic bass; John Marshall, drums.
Recorded at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London W6, 25th & 26th February 1977, recording engineer John Gill, mastering and lacquer cut in Hamburg, Germany, for the Vinyl Records label.
Elton Dean, British progressive jazz icon, featuring alto saxophone and saxello, spanned the hybrid jazz rock, experimental and free jazz chasm. A leading light of the “London and The Home Counties Scene“, Keith Tippett, and Soft Machine. Dean eventually formed his own band Ninesense with all the leading avant-leaning jazz/rock players of the day, but everybody wandered in and out of each others groups. I’m a dabbler, still finding my way in this genre.
Music
Elton Dean compositions are often in two parts – an opening of abstract sounds, plink plonk squawk, or wild saxophone on fire, leading to a more composed piece with fragments of recognisable melody and harmony, but still punctuated with high energy ferocious improvisations and inside/outside excursions.
My selection is a dark piece, First In The Attic, perhaps the most structured of the four tracks, harking at times to what I imagine to be a Bach Fugue (remember, I don’t listen to classical music, could be way off metaphor here). A serpentine sinuous duet between Dean and Skidmore, delicious harmonies, pitching at times into dissonance, yet maintaining a sense of narrative. The melody is often merely implied, some notes not played, branching of into fiery extended solo runs, why play one note when you can squeeze in a hundred? To my ears it earns the epithet “beautiful”, a word much overused in general parlance, but fitting here.
I’m mindful of the fact some readers found the Keith Tippett British Progressive Jazz album posts “dreadful rubbish”. There is no pleasing everyone in music, it’s the risk of exploration, searching for New Land. Hopefully some may like it, but if not, I’ve got some bad news, there’s more in the pipeline. And the regular stuff, of course.
Vinyl: Vinyl VS 103
Recorded in London, mastered and pressed in Germany by the German label “Vinyl”, whose catalogue included niche British Progressive Jazz. The recording quality is solid, and the pressing, I would say, not bad for 1977.
The Art Director Says:
What can I say? The album title El Skid references the quartet’s tenor player Alan Skidmore, though why the Hispanic form El? Possibly a play on words, on the Charlton Heston movie El Cid (1961), an epic tale of the heroic Castilian knight and ruler of medieval Spain, which has nothing to do with this music or musicians. It is repeated three times in the title, to use up the first line, poor use of precious space.
The cover art is a geometric repeating pattern, like a block-sorting task in an IQ test, that has little or nothing to do with the music. (I took an IQ test once. Fortunately, the results came back negative) The front cover is effectively identical to the back cover, with no useful information about the music or the artists. You either have to already know, or guess what’s in the grooves.
The four artist photos on the back cover are printed as cyanotype, a Victorian-era print process which generated a cyan-tinted monochrome image. Here it is merely a design artifice with no connection to the period. The cyan tint is also used for text, in a small font which makes it difficult to read, especially if you are over thirty seventy like me.
My verdict: the cover doesn’t do justice to the music or the artists. Hopeless.
Collector’s Corner
A vinyl record on the Vinyl label is a conflation worthy of the movie Airplane (1980) Request our vector, Victor, over, we have clearance Clarence, Captain Oveur to Control Tower, Roger, Roger, Over”…
The Vinyl edition of El Skid is the only vinyl edition. The only reissue is on The Evil Silver Disk (Voiceprint, 2001).
Pop-Quiz Trivia:
Globally renowned singer piano-player Elton John (He’s Still Standin’..) fashioned his stage name Elton John (real name Reg Dwight) out of the band he was playing in at the time, Elton from Elton Dean and John from R&B singer Long John Baldry.
In Other News, in my mailbox advises a forthcoming release November 6, 2026: The Tiberi Tapes x4LP (Impulse) release marking Coltrane’s 100th anniversary
Press Release: “ As a saxophonist chasing John Coltrane around Philadelphia and New York clubs in the early 60s, Frank Tiberi set up modest reel-to-reel gear (ie concealed portable recorder and single mic, bootleg quality) and recorded the bandstand to study it.… The sound is raw and close, with none of the polish of a studio date, so the payoff is hearing Coltrane and his band test, stretch and reshape their seminal jazz music as it happens.”
Personally I’m still struggling to find time to listen through Lee Morgan’s three nights Live at The Lighthouse , 12 LP collection with 33 hours of music, , but The Tiberi Tapes may appeal to purist Coltraneologists. Personally I am content with my twenty six Coltrane albums, all professionally recorded.
More music next week. Copy that, LJC, Roger, Over and Out
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/10/23/elton-dean-el-skid-1977-vinyl/
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#eltondean #vinyl #skid #britishprogressive #progressivejazz #vinylrecords #artistselton #alanskidmore #johnmarshall #keithtippett
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2026-10-21 01:03:32 GMT

Podcast: Classic Quartets
This week’s theme. Classic tracks from some of the classic quartets that were mostly together for a time, with a few great random quartet one-offs thrown in for good measure. Featured artists include John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Rouse, Shadow Wilson, Wilbur Ware, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Joe Morello, Eugene Wright, Norman Bates, Jim Hall, Connie Kaye, Percy Heath, John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Art Pepper, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, Art Tatum, Ben Webster, John Ore, Frankie Dunlop, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Henry Grimes, Dave Bailey, Red Callender, Bill Douglas, Larry Bunker, Carson Smith.
The post Podcast: Classic Quartets first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-classic-quartets/
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#classicquartets #podcast #artpepper #arttatum #davebailey #davebrubeck #elvinjones #paulchambers #pauldesmond #redcallender
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2026-10-17 01:12:57 GMT

Booker Ervin: The Book Cooks (1960) Bethlehem/ VMP (2020)
Selection: Little Jane
Track List
A1 The Blue Book (8:35)
A2 Git It (6:56)
A3 Little Jane (6:24)
B1 The Book Cooks (Teddy Charles) (10:42)
B2 Largo (6:15)
B3 Poor Butterfly (John Golden, Raymond Hubbell) (3:46)
Artists:
Booker Ervin, tenor saxophone; Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone; Tommy Turrentine, trumpet; Tommy Flanagan, piano; George Tucker, bass; Dannie Richmond, drums.
Recorded April 6, 1960 (not June 1960 as stated on the jacket), recording engineer Peter Ind, though not credited on the cover. In his time Ind played bass with pianist Lennie Tristano. He once confessed to an unusual recording technique – start the tape rolling, then run up stairs to the band to start playing bass.
Music:
One Discogs Reviewer: “Absolutely fantastic funky groovy album. Yah, you should get it.” There are also other reasons.
This is an ” I already have a lot of Booker albums, do I really need another?” situations. Yes, you need this one. This is a great recording session with A-list musicians that rarely gets a proper recommendation. Also, with The Book Cooks you get several albums for the price of one.
Booker is Booker, you already know him, that unmistakable wailing voice. Zoot Sims was a surprise appearance, an “old school” second tenor? Zoot always amazes me how fast and articulate his tenor is, immaculate cascades of notes with triple summersaults on the way down, a swinging muscular energy which contrasts sharply with gritty Booker himself. There is ample space for these two tenors, their voices complement each other.
Tommy Flanagan, the melodic alter ego of the rhythmic Wynton Kelly, contributes elegant solos and accompaniment. Tommy Turrentine was destined to stand in the shadow of his more famous brother, Stanley, but plays hard in his own right. Dannie Richmond’s percussive armoury flows from a decade of sparing with the genius of Mingus. Where to next, boss? George Tucker likewise comes with decades of experience, having played with just about everyone, swings like hell, just like Zoot.
Forget post-bop, modal and the avant garde for a moment, that’s all still to come, The Book reminds me of the simple pleasure of rhythmic and melodic charts played with surefooted precision and conviction.
Vinyl: VMP 538625001 (2020)
Reissue of Bethlehem BCP 6048 (1961, mono) VMP “Vinyl Me Please” limited edition of 1,000 copies, serial number 00785, on brown vinyl. Credited in the VMP footnotes, remastering engineer John Sigmon, transfer engineers Alex Nappi and Dana Pederson, none of whose names register anything with me.
Vinyl Me Please was a Denver-based record club, modelled on book clubs, issuing club subscribers a “club exclusive” record each month. VMP went into liquidation in May 2025, but has been relaunched following purchase by VYNL, a company who have amassed a collection of record clubs, (perhaps buying one club a month?) The new company uses Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound for remastering, which is a good thing.
This VMP title was manufactured in 2020 by the giant GZ Media, Czech Republic. GZ Media provide a complete service, typically small batch production of 300-1,000 copies, generally from customer supplied high-res digital sources. Small batch production is ideal for enterprising independent producers who spot gaps in the market, such as reissue of classic vintage titles, ignored by majors.
GZ Media vinyl has no etching identifier but their presses produce a distinctive circular swirl in the vinyl area under the label, which is easily recognised ( below, contrast-enhanced for visibility). Small drilled catalogue number.
Booker Ervin The Book Cooks – VMP edition (2020) – labels, brown vinyl. Czech manufacture
Booker Ervin The Book Cooks, VMP exclusive edition (2020) back cover – Czech Republic stamp
The Art Director says:
Title: Hah! An unexpected play on words! Book and Cook, that must have taken all of 30 seconds, over a creative lunch in an upscale NY restaurant. (I recommend the pan-seared scallops, with a glass of well chilled Chablis). Nice chiarascuro portrait of Booker on the cover, pointedly not smiling at the camera. The tenor sax has a strong visual presence, and no other decorative elements, no visual puns – no chef’s hat, cookery books, or kitchen utensils. Great!
The original cover looks laminated, irregular specular reflections from the heated cellulose, an object of beauty, difficult to photograph black due to bouncing reflections, but looks gorgeous. Unfortunately the industry eventually stopped lamination, deemed too costly, in favour of uncoated paper, and later, plastic coating. On vintage laminated covers, collectors can usually carefully remove Sellotape used to repair seam splits without damaging the artwork. Sadly, rarely on uncoated paper, as I have found to my cost.
The original (which I don’t have) is a beautiful work of art. And as a bonus you get music too. Guess I have to settle for this VMP reissue
Collector’s Corner
The original mono 1960 Bethlehem edition is rare, only a couple listed on Discogs, at $500-$700. Beautiful laminated cover, deep groove labels, I think one to kill for (though I am not suggesting you should)
US original Bethlehem edition, 1961
UK Parlophone: mono edition PMC1170 (EMI 1961). From previous experience, Parlophone will likely sound pretty good but not as good as the Bethlehem – Parlophone were EMI remastered from US distribution copy tape, usually resulted in some loss of top-end frequencies – not that anyone at the time would notice.
Parlophone UK original release (early 1960s)
In the ’70s , our friends in Japan reissued The Book Cooks many times. I have had mixed experience of these Japanese reissues, some good, some not so good. If it’s a well-recorded session, you most likely get good results, except when you don’t.
The Book Cooks, Japanese reissues, 1970s
Caytronics (Cayre Industries), New York reissuer of mainly Latin/Hispanic and some jazz, including a five volume Bethlehem compilation. Alternative cover, alternative label design, going out of their way to avoid everything original, I guess for copyright reasons. Looks cheap and uninspiring.
The Book Cooks, Caytronics stereo reissue 1977
Conclusions:
The original vinyl is most desirable, but its hefty price means many need to consider alternatives. The MVP edition seems relatively expensive because it’s in short supply, sellers asking around £125, even up to £200 for a sealed “mint” copy. Copies tend not to travel – I have only ever seen a couple of VMP editions here in UK. For once, no easy answers on the reissue front
LJC: no easy answers
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/10/16/booker-ervin-the-book-cooks-1960-bethlehem-vmp-2020/
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#bookcooks #bookerervin #littlejane #bethlehem #vmp #janetrack #tommyflanagan #poorbutterfly #raymondhubbell #teddycharles
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2026-10-15 22:27:17 GMT

Podcast: Two Nights With Miles and Trane
This week’s theme: The four albums (plus) recorded for Prestige on May 11 and Oct. 26, 1956. Artists are Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. For Jazz Collector Live, part of the centennial celebration of Miles and Trane.
The post Podcast: Two Nights With Miles and Trane first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-two-nights-with-miles-and-trane/
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2026-10-15 22:16:52 GMT

Tatsuya Takahashi & The Tokyo Union – Maiden Voyage (1976) Three Blind Mice
Selection: One Mint Julep (Randolph Toombs)
Track List
Maiden Voyage (Herbie Hancock) 6:34
The Blues 7:11
One Mint Julep (Rudolph Toombs) 6:15
The Preacher (Horace Silver) 5:33
Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder) 4:27
Giant Steps (John Coltrane) 5:45
A Child Is Born (Thad Jones) 5:09
One Mint Julep:
Rudolph Toombs was hired by Atlantic to freshen up the Atlantic songbook with up-tempo R&B. Toombs produced the 1952 hit for The Clovers, a doo-wop vocal group. The song tells the story of a young man who falls for the charms of a young woman,and finds a few years later that he has a ring on his finger, and remembers that it all started with “One Mint Julep“. A Mint Julep, near relative of a Mohito, consists of bourbon, fresh mint leaves and crushed ice, a classic drink associated with Kentucky Derby Day.
Artists: The Tokyo Union – Leader Tatsuta Takahashi
Tokyo Union were one of a small number of Japanese jazz big bands, along with The New Herd, and the Inner Galactic Orchestra, probably others I have never encountered.
Rhythm Section:
Masahiro Kanayama, electric piano; Yoshinori Ishida, bass; Kazuhiro Ebisawa, drums; Ken-ichi Araya, Masahiro Ikumi, guitar;
Reeds
Hiroshi Yagimura, alto saxophone; Seiji Inoue, tenor saxophone; Takemi Ishikane, baritone saxophone; Hiroshi Abiko, Motoharu Suzuki,Tomokazu Saiki,Yoshifumi Tada, trumpet; Eijiro Miyazaki, Kiyotaka Uchida, Koichi Okada, trombone; Ken-ichi Sudare, bass trombone.
Recorded December 4- 5, 1976, Epicurus Studio, Tokyo
Engineer – Yoshihiko Kannari
Producer – Takeshi Fujii
Music
All the tracks bar one are big band arrangements of classic jazz titles, some with prominent use of guitar wah-wah pedal – a sound which dated very quickly. The big band arrangements however are a delight, weaving together call and answer sections, and a fresh look at well-loved compositions, everyone already knows the tunes, Coltrane, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Thad Jones.
The music is not “cover versions” of these jazz standards, but upscaling modest quartet/quintet compositions to a full nineteen piece jazz orchestra, with full-on arranging skills on display.
Vinyl: Three Blind Mice TBM 3001 (1976)
The star of the show is the recording engineer – Yoshihiko Kannari – Japan’s answer to Rudy Van Gelder, and the dynamic engineering which is the trademark of the Three Blind Mice label. The Epicurus Tokyo studio microphone setup is meticulously documented on the insert, included the latest Neuman mics (for 1976) Drums have separate mics for snare, hihat, tomtoms and bass; piano has two mics.
Studio partitioning created discrete instrument sections which can be recorded and mixed very flexibly. (Holes in the baffle-boards enabled musicians to see each other). The result is very dynamic stereo mix, sharpness and clarity in each instrument, with lots of ambient air.
Full credit due also to EMI-Toshiba for the pressing – clean flat, very quiet surface, and full frequency range reproduced. Forget the often somewhat tame Blue Note reissues of the previous decade, Toshiba show what can be done when working with 1st generation tapes rather than distribution copies (that’s my explanation anyway).
Insert
Collector’s Corner
Once again Three Blind Mice define a standard of vinyl reproduction which is near impossible to beat. I have thousands of jazz vinyl albums, including many original Van Gelder. 1970’s TBM is really the best sounding vinyl there is. The music may be artistically limited, but in terms of pure audio engineering, a constant pleasure to listen, the bar is set so high, it’s difficult to go back.
Golden Era modern jazz in Japan, 1972-77. Not to damn TBM musicianship with faint praise – there are some outstanding players, in what was a small niche field. Isao Suzuki (b), Kazumi Watanabe (g), Takeo Moriyama (d) Toshihiko Inoue (as, ts). More piano trios than I would wish, and a few to many cabaret singers, who sing nevertheless in immaculately-pronounced English/American, not a trace of Ingreesh. Two contemporary big bands – Tokyo Union and New Herd – are worthy of your attention.
LJC
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/08/07/tatsuya-takahashi-the-tokyo-union-maiden-voyage-1976-three-blind-mice/
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2026-10-15 22:05:52 GMT

Podcast: Irving Berlin Jazz Songbook
This week’s theme: Jazz and vocal versions of songs written by Irving Berlin. Featured artists include John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Rollins, Ray Bryant, Max Roach, George Bryant, Charles McPherson, Jackie McLean, Rosemary Clooney, Ed Bickert, Scott Hamilton, John Oddo, Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Lamott, Duke Jordan, Walter Bishop Jr., Oscar Peterson, Dinah Washington, Lockjaw Davis, Paul Quinichette, Clark Terry, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, Arthur Taylor.
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2026-10-15 21:55:14 GMT

Charles Tolliver: Live In Tokyo (1973) Strata East
Selection: Stretch
Track List
Drought 12:06
Stretch 10:35
Truth 6:56
Effi 10:31
‘Round Midnight 8:40
Artists:
Charles Tolliver, trumpet; Stanley Cowell, piano; Clint Houston, bass; Clifford Barbaro, drums.
Engineer [Floor] Shigehisa Nagao; Engineer [Recording] Kunio Arai Producer [Concert] Toshinari Koinuma
Recorded: 7 December, 1973 at Yubinchokin Hall Tokyo, Japan. In association with Takafumi Ohkuma and Kuniya Inaoka of Trio Records.
Charles Tolliver, trumpet. The ’60s found Tolliver playing sideman on Blue Note sessions with Andrew Hill and Jackie McLean, probing the outside canvas to which he was most suited. Blue note were obviously happy with their trumpet roster of Morgan and Byrd, no leader opportunity was offered to Tolliver. No need to hang around hoping for a recording deal, Tolliver founded his own label, Strata East, and immediately signed himself up. Tolliver was still recording up to about 2019 (“Connect”, Gearbox Records UK), and is still with us, age 84.
Music:
Discogs Reviewer:
“Masterpiece. Perfection. Don’t sleep on this performance. Cooks all the way through.“
A live session recorded in Tokyo with an all-American line-up, arguably the best of both worlds. Live recordings allow the musicians to stretch out, without the restriction of squeezing in three or four tracks per side. Uncompromising post-bop, no soul jazz or funk-leanings.
All About Jazz offers the musician’s perspective:
“Tolliver is known for a clear, powerful tone that can convey both lyrical sensitivity and fiery intensity, allowing him to navigate complex harmonic structures with precision and expressiveness. He developed highly individual phrasing that emphasizes both melodic invention and rhythmic drive, often incorporating unexpected intervals and dynamic contrasts”
Plagiarism has gotten a bad name recently, and A I is effectively plagiarism on an industrial scale. You can tell a mile away when you read A I generated text. Absolutely. However, if someone else has written an insightful commentary on my topic, better than I could, then I am happy to hand the heavy lifting over to them.
I can also then argue with them. To my ear Tolliver lacks the warmth of my Blue Note friends, Morgan and Byrd, and he doesn’t construct his lines as lyrically as say Woody Shaw. He is post-bop and in some ways post-Blue Note. However he has, as the money-quote says, a fiery intensity and a singular determination to innovate, and not imitate, without falling off the free jazz cliff.
Tolliver also had a desire to dabble in the big band oeuvre with Music Inc, give the hi-fi speakers a good work out, good music, especially in collaboration with pianist Stanley Cowell.
Labels: Strata East (original release 1974)
Gatefold
Harry’s Place
Our intrepid time-travelling paparazzi Harry has blagged his way into Montreux again, 1971, to share with LJC his Charles Tolliver shot, and Tolliver’s Strata East co-founder, Stanley Cowell.
Charles Tolliver, Montreux 1971
Stanley Cowell, Montreux 1971
All photos © Harry Monty
Collector’s Corner
Simultaneously released in Japan by Trio Records (1974 )
Tolliver Live in Japan Trio Records Japan 1974
The Art Director says:
The US gatefold back cover is wasted opportunity. The US gatefold photography is no Francis Wolf, more like family snaps.
I prefer the Japanese cover to the US gatefold, more aesthetic, great picture on the back of the band playing live in Tokyo like the album title says, and the flying bird motif links front and back covers, great.
Trio records was formed by the Japanese hi-fi manufacturer in 1969, perfect timing, and perfect natural synergy, jazz and hifi. Just add Japanese whisky (unfortunately not included)
LJC in oriental mood.
Footnote: Little or no A I was used to generate the content of this post. Which mostly explains why it’s published a little later in the day than usual. The real stuff takes time.
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2026-10-15 21:44:33 GMT

Podcast: Jazz Collector Live, Third Anniversary
This week’s theme: Happy Third Anniversary to the Jazz Collector Live radio show and podcast, featuring the best of something. Featured artists include John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Percy Heath, Connie Kay, Stan Getz, Duke Jordan, Jimmy Raney, Zoot Sims, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, Rosemary Clooney, Warren Vache, Scott Hamilton, Cal Collins, Charlie Parker, Joao Gilberto, Maxine Sullivan, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, John Handy, Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Harold Land, Richie Powell, Charlie Parker, LaVern Baker, Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton and more.
The post Podcast: Jazz Collector Live, Third Anniversary first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-jazz-collector-live-third-anniversary/
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2026-10-15 21:34:11 GMT

Jackie McLean: Vertigo (1963) UA Blue Note (1980)
Selection 1: Marney (6:15)
Selection 2: Dusty Foot (6:51)
Track List
A1 Marney 6:15
A2 Dusty Foot 6:51
A3 Formidable 6:13
B1 Vertigo 8:13
B2 Cheers 4:50
B3 Yams 7:51
Artists
Jackie McLean, alto saxophone; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Herbie Hancock, piano; Butch Warren, bass; Tony Williams, drums, all tracks (except A3) recorded at Englewood Cliffs on February 11, 1963
A3 “Formidable“: Jackie McLean, alto saxophone; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Walter Davis Jr., piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Pete LaRoca, drums, recorded May 2, 1959. (Sneaked onto Jackie’s 1959 New Soil album on CD, as a bonus track)
Music
The Vertigo album combines two previously unreleased session, one recorded just a couple months before McLean’s One Step Beyond, and his avant-leaning journey to The Outside, a destination that is not ATOL protected. It seems Alfred Lion had decided on an avant-leaning direction for McLean, with a roster of like-minded musician such as Grachan Moncur III and Eddie Khan, adding Bobby Hutcherson for texture. Blue Note had many mainstream and dependable soul-jazz sellers and could afford to test the waters with more avant-garde fare.
“Ticket to Far Out please”.
One Way or Return, sir?”
“There’s no returning from Far Out. Make it one way.“
The Vertigo session was quietly shelved to make way for the new direction, but The Vertigo album nevertheless deserves a place in the mainstream Jackie McLean Blue Note catalogue. I count eighteen Jackie albums posted at LJC, now 19.
The title track Vertigo, Jazz Times says “a relatively jarring line with no chord changes”. Not a track by which to judge the whole album. Other tracks offer greater variety including a boogaloo to rival The Sidewinder, an urban chase, and some great swingers. The golden-tone presence of Donald Byrd offers a counterweight to McLean’s sharp-tone alto, great harmonies. Herbie Hancock does his infectious masterful vamping, Anthony Williams characteristic restless hyperactivity, Butch Warren scampers up and down the bass neck. Terrific line up.
Though Van Gelder recorded the session at Englewood Cliffs, he did not go on to master the Vertigo session. The tapes remained unissued in the Blue Note archives until Cuscuna produced it for Liberty, and a UA engineer mastered it for the LT series, see etching “cx”.
Vinyl: Liberty/UA Blue Note LT 1085
Blue label white note, in transition to EMI’s Capitol ownership (1979 and beyond)
Blue label white note, Capitol-EMI Industries, last of the changing identities of Liberty Records
Collector’s corner
Taken as as a whole, Vertigo offers a classic McLean Blue Note album. Purchased for small change back in 2011, when I knew next to nothing, and neglected almost as long, because of my naïve and mistaken notion that blue label white note Liberty/UA albums and the LT Series were somehow inferior to “original Blue Notes”, overlooking the fact many have direct lineage to original Van Gelder tapes and were never issued at the time. This is “the original”.
The 2026 Tone Poet reissue of Vertigo prompted me to rediscover this title, and very glad I did. Right now its giving me great enjoyment, at no cost. The most precious asset we have is our attention, which we sometimes waste chasing novelty (guilty!), or the pleasure of acquiring yet more albums which we lack time to play. But we need to talk Cover Art
The Art Director Speaks:
When the Vertigo session tape was released on CD in 2000, typographic cover art in the manner of Reid Miles was created, based heavily on another McLean title, Jacknife.
The font is from the “Shattered” family, text looking broken into pieces. A slice of each letter is offset from main body, left and right, creating a sense of impact and shock. The splinter can be horizontal or in this case, vertical. The Shattered fonts are a really clever visualisation of distress, violence and danger, that fits well with the ’50’s-’60s Hollywood psychological thrillers. Demons of the Mind: Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho! (1960), Fanatic (1965), Wayne Shorter’s album Schizophrenia (1967) and not forgetting that great loss of memory thriller, what was it called again, Ambrosia … Dementia …Nostalgia … yes, Amnesia!
Vertigo Compact Disc release (2000)
Plagiarism in cover art? Surely not! Any resemblance is pure coincidental. This is a totally different colour for a start. Jacknife Blue Note CD 2002, Italian clear vinyl reissue 2025.
Sure, it was a steal, but who’s goin’ to snitch?
Now Blue Note have had Kevin Gray master the Vertigo session from the original Van Gelder master tapes, for the Tone Poet series 2026. Nice Francis Wolff studio portraits for the gatefold, bring the musicians back to life, if only briefly. Jackie departed twenty years ago, in 2006, and Byrd in 2013, same year as Butch Warren. Tony Williams, in cruel irony, led a band called “Lifetime”, passed away age only 51 in 1997. Of the original Vertigo session players, only Herbie is still with us, comping away, seemingly indestructible at age 86.
Looks great, nice gatefold, I would go for it if I didn’t already have the Liberty/EMI album.
LJC Afterthoughts:
May be you too have albums on the shelf un-played for some time. A brave soul once suggested to me that collectors should play every LP in their collection at least once a year. Logical but for me impractical. Personally, I give most attention to recent acquisitions, to get to know them better.
I reckon you need to play a record at least five times in order to absorb its contents, to understand the musical intent. Of course your mileage may vary. I’m often surprised how my picks change with repeated plays. Some records I took an immediate dislike to, I revisit later for a second opinion, and mostly I still dislike them. Some tunes come back to haunt me over the following weeks, earworms. Some tunes I don’t get at first, but repeated listening unpicks them for me.
It’s a funny thing, music, given we are all mostly consumers of it. Perhaps there is a science of how we listen, and could listen better. No use looking to the music industry, who need to sell us the next record. We collectors have to figure out this listening thing for ourselves. Your thoughts welcome.
LJC
Footnote: my own record archiving system.
After purchase, each record is given a fresh white paper inner sleeve, with a new archival mylar inner bag (Nagaoka-style) to protect it. On the paper sleeve I record the purchase price, source and date of purchase, and the cleaning history (ultrasonic cleaning and demagnetizing date, to be updated with subsequent cleaning history). You think you are going to remember this? I record distinguishing label and runout stamps. Hence I know today the Vertigo album was purchased in 2011 in an Ebay auction for £11, given an IPA alcohol wet clean after purchase, and none since.
I list each track on each side and, after listening, nominate my pick/s of the album. Some “listening notes” I add as comments. Everything is kept with the record itself on its inner sleeve, for future reference. I don’t grade the vinyl or cover, though I probably should, nor the dates on which I have played it, because its too much of a chore. The pick is usually the selection in any subsequent blog post.
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/08/21/jackie-mclean-vertigo-1963-ua-blue-note-lt-1085-1980/
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2026-10-15 21:23:09 GMT

Podcast: JC Live Anniversary 3, Part 2
This week’s theme: Continuing the celebration of the third anniversary of Jazz Collector Live and Jazz Collector Radio. Featured artists include John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Arthur Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Jacki Byard, George Tucker, Roy Haynes, Dexter Gordon Tommy Flanagan, Larry Ridley, Alan Dawson, David Burns, Stanely Turrentine, Wynton Kelly, Tal Farlow, Eddie Costa, Rosemary Clooney, Sonny Rollins, Jake Hanna, Scott Hamilton, Bill Berry, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Dorham, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Smith, Karrin Allyson, James Carter, James Williams, John Patitucci, Lewis Nash, and more.
The post Podcast: JC Live Anniversary 3, Part 2 first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-jc-live-anniversary-3-part-2/
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2026-10-15 21:12:56 GMT

Introducing Lee Morgan (Savoy 1956) Craft 2026
Selection: Nostalgia
Track List
A1 Hank’s Shout (Mobley) 7:03
A2 Nostalgia (Navarro) 8:53
B1 Bet (Watkins) 7:56
B2 Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise (Hammerstein, Romberg) 2:29
B3 P.S. I Love You (Jenkins, Mercer) 4:22
B4 Easy Living (Rainger, Robin) 2:49
B5 That’s All (Alan Brandt, Haymes) 2:43
Artists: The Hank Mobley Quintet
Hank Mobley, tenor saxophone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; Hank Jones, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, November 5 and 7, 1956.
Music
Morgan had a couple of “debut ” albums for jazz labels, Introducing Lee Morgan for Savoy (1956) and Here’s Lee Morgan for Veejay (1960), during which interval Blue Note catapulted him into the leader position.
On this Savoy debut, an impossibly young Lee Morgan, age 18, climbed on board the well-seasoned Hank Mobley Quintet. Hank has the measure as leader, but the fledgling Lee Morgan already shows star quality, launching complex rapid-fire triple-tonguing excursions that take your breath away. It’s still Hank’s album, but only just.
I have read comments that Lee’s early playing shows the influence of Clifford Brown, though I am not as well versed in Brownie as I probably should be. Fats Navarro is another trumpet I should know better. Apparently its all in the embouchure, buzzing the lips around the instrument mouthpiece and engaging the facial muscles. I think it’s a miracle getting any sound at all out of a bent brass tube, let alone the rapid articulation achieved by Lee Morgan. Truly analogue sound, with dynamic high volume output, which must be a challenge to record.
The 1956 repertoire is solidly bop, with an emphasis on light breezy swing tunes taken from show tunes and standards, just the one Mobley composition. Introducing is not as strong as the Here’s Veejay album, on which Morgan was given more space for his own compositions, which stand tall and memorable.
(Still in Lee Morgan mode, I recently acquired the 12xLP Live at the Lighthouse box set, something for a future date.)
Vinyl: Savoy MG 12091 (1956) reissued Craft CR00967 (2026}
Collector’s Corner
The original 1956 Savoy release, a beautiful artefact, a collector’s trophy. Open the sleeve and smell 1956 New York- cigarette smoke, car exhaust, back-alley garbage, Eau de Cologne, and somewhere in the distance, fried onion from a hot dog stand.
Ebay auctions have reached a quite modest sum, of a little over $1,000, no where near the stratospheric prices of Morgan’s trophy-status Blue Note 1500 series titles. (Pictured, 2nd pressing, later maroon Savoy labels)
In the years that followed, the record collector was not so well served…
The Art Director interrupts…
A ’60s music industry entrepreneur specializing in sound-a-like copy records, Ed Chalpin, offered this art work for the complete “Introducing Lee Morgan Sessions” retitled “Hank’s Shout”, issued on the evil silver disc in 1989. Lee Morgan was shot dead by his partner Helen in 1972. Note the typography, the “O” in mOrgan and mObley, bullet-holes on theme. What possessed the Art Director to choose a handgun, with what looks like a police evidence tag attached, to represent jazz’s greatest trumpet player.
Is this a Mel Brooks’ The Producers Spring Time for Hitler, moment?
The French BYG jazz label licensed the Savoy Jazz catalog, and repackaged the recording in 1969 as Hank’s Shout, Lee having been “Introduced” a long time previously.
Discogs has 42 entries for the Introducing Lee Morgan album, many reissues in Japan, most if not all of which are faithful to the original art work. Faithful and respectful, as I would expect of our jazz-loving friends in Japan.
In Other News – Blue Note London announced
As a source for all things Blue Note, I note the forthcoming opening in September of Blue Note London, an addition to the international chain of Blue Note Entertainment Group jazz venues. Opening night Robert Glasper is already sold out. Blue Note London will put on performances from contemporary artists, sadly, none of whom listed appeal to me. It’s hard enough trying to keep up with the legacy of the deceased giants, but who knows, one day Blue Note London might rival the historic home of visiting jazz greats, Ronnie Scotts of Soho. But they will have to hurry as we are rapidly running out of Giants.
By way of background, the Blue Note Entertainment Company was established in Greenwich Village NY in 1981 by David Bensusan, and is run today by his son Steven. The now international business operates jazz clubs in major cities around the world (NY, LA, Tokyo, Beijing, São Paulo, Milan among others), a record label – “Half Note Records” – (no connection with Blue Note Records), travel/management services, and Blue Note branded concert programs. The Blue Note name is a merely a marketing wrapper, which makes just two common words – Blue and Note – work very hard. Legally, simple words can not be copyrighted.
Personally, I’ll stick to spinning vintage vinyl, but I wish them well. Keep swinging! More music next week.
LJC – an A I free zone.
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/08/28/introducing-lee-morgan-savoy-1956-craft-2026/
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2026-10-15 21:02:30 GMT

Chris Hazelton In Rotation (Cellar Music 2026)
NEW RELEASE – CHRIS HAZELTON
Oscillations and vibrations on repeat.
[row-start]
[half]
[/half]
[half]
Personnel
Chris Hazelton (organ), Brett Jackson (tenor saxophone, bariton saxophone), Peter Schlamb (vibraphone), John Kizilarmut (drums),
Recorded
on February 1 & 2, 2024 at Massive Sound Studios in Shawnee, Kansas City
Released
as Cellar Music in 2026
Track listing
A Sound For Sore Ears / Summer In Central Park / Voodoo Village / Paris Of The Plains / First Snow / Brisk Breeze Through The Streets / A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing / Speedball / On A Misty Night
[/half]
[row-end]
Quite a challenge to come up with something fresh in the organ field. Chris Hazelton from Kansas City meets demands and couples his Hammond organ not only with the customary tenor of Brett Jackson but also with the vibraphone of Peter Schlamb.
A strong effort, original to boot, for predecessors are rare, perhaps aficionados will remember Big John Patton’s Let ‘M Roll with Bobby Hutcherson, the Johnny Lytlle / Milton Harris or Johnny Hammond Smith / Lem Winchester albums, or, very recently, Peter Johnstone’s excellent Resistance Is Futile with Joe Locke.
Hazelton makes sure that his organ does not overpower the vibes, giving it plenty elbow room, while their sounds gel like tea and honey. Covers from Horace Silver, Duke Ellington, Tadd Dameron and Lee Morgan (cookin’ take on Speedball, Jackson on husky and bossy baritone) alternate with strong originals, no filler, with all soloists thoroughly engaged.
Paris Of The Plains is the sort of contagious melody that one keeps humming afterwards for days on end, obviously referring to Hazelton’s home base, warm but cold in the wintertime, the subject of First Snow, a lovely lullaby-ish piece that’s all about snow flakes falling on the branches, daddy checking in on the kids early in the morning, getting ready for work and staring out of the kitchen window with a hot steaming cup of coffee in hand, contented and slightly melancholic.
It’s tailor-made for the organ and vibes mix. To be sure, the combination is tasteful throughout In Rotation, a most welcome expansion of the B3 format.
Find In Rotation on Bandcamp here:
https://chrishazelton.bandcamp.com/album/in-rotation
http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/08/03/chris-hazelton-in-rotation-cellar-music-2026/
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2026-10-15 20:42:26 GMT

Podcast: A Side of Sonny
This week’s theme: Sonny Rollins as a sideman, starting with his first recordings as an 18-year-old. Featured artists include Sonny Rollins, JJ Johnson, Kenny Dorham, Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Philly Joe Jones, Babs Gonzalez, Thelonious Monk, Julius Watkins, Percy Heath, Willie Jones, Bennie Green, John Lewis, Roy Haynes.
The post Podcast: A Side of Sonny first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-a-side-of-sonny/
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2026-10-15 20:31:52 GMT

Introducing Wayne Shorter (1959) VeeJay (Craft re. 2025)
Selection 1: Down In The Depths
Selection 2: Mack The Knife
Track List
A1 Blues A La Carte 5:35
A2 Harry’s Last Stand 5:25
A3 Down In The Depths 10:00
B1 Pug Nose 6:50
B2 Black Diamond 6:02
B3 Mack The Knife (Weill, Blitzstein) 6:15
All compositions Wayne Shorter (except B3) – the one standard, Mack The Knife, is given a feisty reading. Sample lyric, sing along if you like
Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear, and he shows them pearly white . .
.. .You know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread…
.. . Now on a sidewalk, ooh Sunday mornin’, uh-huh, Lies a body just oozin’ life. And someone’s sneakin’ ’round a corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife? . . .
The Three Penny Opera (Weill, 1928)
This sort of lyric nowadays requires a Parental Advisory trigger warning – predatory fish threat, knife violence, injury detail . . .
Artists
Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums
Recorded at Bell Sound Studios, New York City, November 9 and 10, 1959. Recording supervision: Sid McCoy, jazz A & R director for Vee Jay Records.
Bell Sound was at the time New York’s largest independent recording studio, home to countless R&B and popular song hits. It operated three recording rooms with various engineers, including the best known, Sam Feldman (signature sf). No-one is credited with this particular recording. Whoever it was they did a fine job, the recording quality is outstanding.
Day Two of the Introducing Wayne Shorter session, Tuesday November 10, saw Shorter and Morgan moving on to join the front line of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Englewood Cliffs, recording the album Africaine (later released in 1981 as LT1088). Busy busy boys.
A reminder: Wayne Shorter passed away in 2023, at the ripe old age of 89.
Music
Surrounded by the Kind of Blue rhythm section (LJC reader’s improved description), and the dazzling Lee Morgan, Shorter was gifted a stellar team. His bitter-sour tone and downbeat phrasing is instantly recognisable.
The compositions mostly follow the usual formula, an opening theme, followed by a sequence of solos, so the album offers a generous helping of Lee Morgan and Wynton Kelly, as well as introducing Wayne.
In his early recordings, Shorter seemed to focus on speed, almost as if it were the standard for measuring up against other tenor players. As he progressed through the Blue Note years, growing more confident, his playing became sparser, notes placed more dramatically and carrying a darker hue.
A description of Shorter’s voice is borrowed here from Wiki:
“Wayne Shorter’s tenor saxophone style is characterized by its concise, questioning, and dramatic approach. He often suggests more than he states, using unexpected harmonic motion, memorable fragments, and a sense of narrative mystery.” (Wiki).
The UK Guardian newspaper, home of the best jazz obituaries (often by John Fordham), delivered a more evocative description of Shorter’s tenor voice:
“a restrained and epigrammatic style based on oblique melodic angles, a porous tone and an instinct for dramatic understatement”
Shorter’s discography marks out a Jazz Messengers phase, kicking off with VeeJay and then into the limelight with Blue Note (1960-64). Miles Davis Second Quintet saw a move to Columbia, defining post-bop, then ’70s fusion, to Weather Report, from where I moved on. Jazz moved in a different direction, I have more than enough 60’s Shorter on my shelves today.
Vinyl: Craft CR00958 (released 2025)
Stereo mastered and lacquer cut by Kevin Gray . The rip histogram shows a forward sound with fast attack and decay, forceful left and right channel source, crisp articulation of each instrument on the soundstage, a pleasure to listen.
Collector’s Corner
Original 1960 mono release by VeeJay:
1960 VeeJay original mono, captures some manufacturing runout clues (Side 1)
The Shorter VeeJay albums:
Oddly enough, I had not come across the other two VeeJay titles, Second Genesis, or Wayning Moments, so can’t comment on the music here, but I have a high opinion of the engineering based on the Craft Reissue. Until now, the main US labels have simply ignored these VeeJay titles. Welcome any comments from readers who have any of these other early Shorter titles.
VeeJay early 60s Shorter albums
Wayning Moments has been reissued a half dozen times – in Japan, of course.
Wayning Moments Reissues- Japan 1962-81
Second Genesis has seen a similar number of vinyl reissues – likewise, in Japan
Wayne Shorter Second Genesis Japan reissues
Introducing Wayne Shorter was repackaged in the ’80s under the title Blues a la Carte, though the edition below appears only in Spain, and a niche UK reissue label Affinity.
Capitalising on the presence giants Shorter and Lee Morgan with Wynton Kelly, we are introduced now to the Wayne Shorter Quintet. The evil silver disk even crammed in a complete bonus album, Wynton Kelly’s Kelly Great:
The recovery of original tapes from the golden Blue Note years is gift, all kudos to Craft, rivalling Tone Poet quality.
Sadly a lot of poor quality “enthusiastic amateur” tape recordings of important sessions are also finding their way to market. I have had some real disappointments recently. It’s all down to the quality of the original recording. 180gm is just a lump of plastic, however much “restoration” work is applied. More thoughts on that at a future date.
LJC your friend in jazz
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/09/04/wayne-shorter-introducing-1959-veejay-craft-re-2025/
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2026-10-15 20:21:35 GMT

Kenny Clarke & Francy Boland The Golden 8 (Blue Note 1961)
Klook defined the evolution from swing to bop and, in 1961, was already in business for twenty-five years, off to a good start with his European clique in Cologne.
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Personnel
Dusko Gojkovich (trumpet), Derek Humble (alto saxophone), Raymond Droz (alto horn), Karl Drevo (tenor saxophone), Chris Kellens (euphonium), Francy Boland (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums)
Recorded
on May 18 & 19, 1961 at Café Campi in Cologne
Released
as Blue Note 5001 in 1961
Track listing
Side A: La Campimania / Gloria / High Notes / Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise / The Golden Eight / Side B: Strange Meeting / You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To / Dorian 0437 / Poor Butterfly / Basse Cuite
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The Big Bang needed the inexplicable to erupt. What is revolution but a unique string of occurrences, a gelling of spirits and ideas that leads to wars or new cultures – artistically speaking, new music, new painting, new forms of artificial art? Is there such a thing as progress anyway?
Did Kenny Clarke invent bebop drumming just by himself just like that? Most of the time, this has been the message given to general lovers of jazz. Of course, Clarke is the main man of modernist drumming, but let’s not forget that all major innovations, even those of Galileo, Einstein, Bach, Van Gogh, Parker, happen within a context of ideas.
Clarke shifted the emphasis from the bass drum to the ride cymbal, changing the small ensemble feeling by playing quarter notes, widening the spectrum with syncopated ‘bombs’ that interacted with horns and piano. His ideas perfectly suited Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and the other experimenters at the famous Minton’s sessions in Harlem in the early 1940’s, relieving the tensions that younger musicians felt existed in swing music.
Note the cymbal rhythm and accents on Stompin’ At The Savoy in 1941, a session with Charlie Christian, Hot Lips Page and Don Byas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxL7LU21l6A&list=RDzxL7LU21l6A&start_radio=1
In 1941, Clarke was already 27-years-old and had matured in the swing era, a period that as rhythm goes, was defined by the likes of Papa Jo Jones. Clarke had played the even 4/4 time in the band of Edgar Hayes in 1937/38, although the Pittsburgh-born drummer laid down weird off-beats here and there, according to Hayes.
Listen to Klook’s snare on Hayes’s Queen Isabella from 1937: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_r3VeX8LM&list=RDg4_r3VeX8LM&start_radio=1
Bandleader Teddy Hill didn’t like that crazy stuff he heard in 1939 and called the accents ‘kloop-mop’ or ‘klook-mop’. It seemed to be one of the inspirations for the term ‘bebop’. (Oop Bop Sh’Bam, a klook a mop…) and Clarke’s nickname ‘Klook’.
Clarke said that he had already developed ‘bebop’ patterns in the mid-1930’s, cautiously in the band of trumpeter Roy Eldridge, then in the group of saxophonist Lonnie Simmons. In the Downbeat issue of December 5, 1963, Clarke says of his time in Simmons’s band in late 1935 in New York City: “Freddie Green (future Basie guitarist!, FM) and I got something new going with Lonnie’s band at a Greenwich club long before the new rhythmic approach to playing drums was noticed. We’d come to the job early, at least 45 minutes before the other players, and work out patterns. The results were swinging; you could tell. Even the waitresses enjoyed what we were doing.”
It should be mentioned, nonetheless, that fellow figureheads of drumming, such as Big Sid Catlett, who had experimented with breaking through even beats in swing music, and Papa Jo Jones, who had switched from the omnipresent hi-hat to the ride cymbal now and then, sensed that something in the rhythmic department needed to be challenged.
Note Papa Jo’s switch to cymbal behind Lester Young, not to mention his bass drum accents, on Count Basie’s Shorty George in 1938: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0aMTntG_EA&list=RDa0aMTntG_EA&start_radio=1
Revolution is evolution plus new insights. In the early 1940’s, Clarke had actually fully formed his new style, a unique way of playing that involved not only cymbal time and ‘bombs’ but immaculate detail of tone and exquisite, melodic tinges. Young lions like Max Roach, Tiny Kahn, Stan Levey and Art Blakey expanded on Clarke’s inventions, Roach and Blakey making particularly full use of the drum kit.
The innovation was done, the stylist remained. Oh boy, Klook was a hell of a stylist. After the recording ban in World War II from union leader Petrillo, instigated as part of a beef over royalty payments, Clarke was off to the races, engaged in pure refinement and deepening of his ‘bebop’ skills.
His work with Milt Jackson on Savoy is a prime example. He was a giant with the brushes. Both Hank Jones Trio (1956) and the whole B-side (!) of Miles Davis’s influential Walkin’ (1954) are typically suave, fluent and melodic. (More ‘brushes’ below) Let’s not forget Dexter Gordon’s Our Man In Paris (1963). This is Clarke all-out, mingling with fellow émigre and old friend Bud Powell. And for our Dutch fans, there’s his backing of singer Rita Reys on Jazz Pictures At An Exposition, a live one-off that is marked by tasteful playing by Klook, who bonds remarkably well with bass player Ruud Jacobs.
After his emigration to Paris in 1956, Clarke became one of the American benchmarks for European jazz musicians and eventually founded the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, which recorded about two dozen albums between 1961 and 1975, a mixture of European class acts and American visitors/expats, somewhat the (popular) European counterpart of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Here’s the embryonic debut of their big band, a meeting between Clarke and the Belgian pianist in café Campi in Cologne, the place of avid jazz fan Gigi Campi. A Blue Note album, engineered by Wolfgang Hischmann, mastered by Rudy van Gelder, true to the label’s high standards, a record that sounds full like Spring blossom, balanced like a Maui surfer on the waves, crisp like French toast.
Crisp and propulsive Clarke and Boland lead a top-rate band through bop-oriented tunes, suavely mixing the unusual sounds of euphonium and alto horn with the customary tenor and trumpet front line. It’s very tasteful, to be expected from the king of understatement and subliminal messages. It’s the economy, stupid. It’s like Klook’s in the act of action painting but instead of coming up with the expected abstract image with many contrasting colors, turns in a perfectly realistic ton-sur-ton landscape.
It features no less than three short solos on snare drum with brushes, all fine examples of meaningful simplicity. Dorian 0437 is a highlight, a suggestive title and sublimely swinging tune that encompasses the mutually inspiring atmosphere of Club Campi, finding the European soloists on fire, notably the late trumpeter Dusko Gojkovich, already a force to reckon with at that time, blending well with our supreme drum innovator and stylist and his Belgian piano pal, who could’ve done worse that debuting with the The Golden 8 as a ‘big band’.
Listen to The Golden 8 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJoRyRgdcRQ&list=RDfJoRyRgdcRQ&start_radio=1
http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/08/11/kenny-clarke-francy-boland-the-golden-8-blue-note-1961/
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2026-10-15 20:11:23 GMT

Podcast: Another Side of Sonny
This week’s theme: More of Sonny Rollins as a sideman. Featured artists include Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Ernie Henry, Oscar Pettiford, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Richie Powell, George Morrow, Abbey Lincoln, Kenny Dorham, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Hank Jones, Horace Silver, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Art Farmer, Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, Tommy Potter, Roy Haynes, JJ Johnson, John Lewis, Gene Ramey, Shadow Wilson.
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https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-another-side-of-sonny/
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2026-10-15 20:01:03 GMT

Bruce Cale: Live At The Opera House (1978) 44 Records
Selection: Kuri Monga Nuie (Big Black Dog)
Track List
A1 L.A. Trajectory 4:53
A2 Black On White 5:40
A3 Lauri Ann 6:34
A4 Rolling Thunder 4:42
B1 Kuri Monga Nuie (Big Black Dog) 6:28
B2 Red Bean 5:29
B3 Spectrophone 5:48
B4 Massachusetts Blues 4:10
Artists
Bruce Cale, acoustic bass, Alan Turnbull, drums; Bob Bertles, flute, tenor saxophone; Paul McNamara, piano;
Producer Horst Liepolt; Engineer, Max Harding
Berlin-born Horst Liepolt migrated to Australia in the early ’50s, working as a jazz producer, impresario and founder of the 44 Record label, a number chosen apparently for the year Liepolt first heard jazz in wartime Germany. He moved to the US in the early ’80s, where he managed artist bookings at New York’s Sweet Basil and Lush Life jazz clubs, and organised Greenwich Village Jazz Festivals. He later retired from jazz production to follow his artistic interest in painting.
Bruce Cale, bass player, one of several Australian jazz musicians who moved to London and the British jazz scene in the 60s. Cale played with Tubby Hayes and was a founding member of John Stevens’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble. From England, Cale moved to the U.S, recording with prominent artists including Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, John Handy and Ernie Watts. He subsequently returned to Sydney to lead a small ensemble which included Bob Bertles, and recorded this album live at the Sydney Opera House. Bruce Cale is so far still with us.
Bob Bertles – Australian saxophone player who emigrated to the UK and joined Ian Carr’s Nucleus (1970-4). He recorded in a number of other settings, including his own group Bob Bertles Moontrane, quartet, quintet and big band. Bertles departed only recently in 2024 age 75.
Music
Cale’s session At The Opera House was recorded while his band was supporting Ella Fitzgerald’s grand world tour. His repertoire consisted mostly of original compositions with an emphasis on melody, lending it a European rather than American jazz flavour.
Australia has Discogs sellers, and Cale’s records are found almost only in Australia, on account of problematic shipping time and cost. Australia’s main musical exports have been in the pop world, songbird Kylie Minogue and falsetto-on-the-dance floor, The BeeGees, now mostly deceased. Their small band of dedicated jazz players have left behind a worthy legacy.
Vinyl: 44 Records 6357 724
44 Records – an Australian jazz record label in the 1970’s, founded by Horst Liepolt
Back Cover:
Collector’s Corner
Australia has Discogs sellers, and Cale’s records are found almost only in Australia, on account of low artist familiarity, problematic shipping time and cost. This record turned up out of the blue from a UK seller, a “blimey, look what’s suddenly turned up on Discogs!” moment, Bruce Cale Live at the Opera House! I expect the seller was as surprised to suddenly find a buyer as I was to find a seller.
The “Big Black Dog” track was featured on the Pyramid Pieces Compendium of Australian Jazz 60s-70s a couple of years ago, which showcased what excellent music our friends from down under had produced, of whom we had never heard.
However I remember with some fondness the invasion of England by Aussies in the ’70s, over-land by camper-van via Afghanistan, domiciled in London’s Earls Court area. I spied from my passing motorcycle a wag had mounted a large signboard on the A4 expressway, with an arrow pointing in towards Aussie bed-sit land, bearing the legend “FREE SHEILAS”.
Their high mileage campervans would be parked each day across from the Australian Embassy on The Strand, with the asking price steadily dropping as the flight home drew nearer. What became of the free Sheilas remains to this day unknown, hopefully they found their own free Bruces, now all Professors of Philosophy at the University of Woolloomooloo, Melbourne (reference Monty Python)
LJC (Tie my kangaroo down, sport!)
More jazz next week.
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/bruce-cale-live-at-the-opera-house-1978-44-records/
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2026-10-15 19:51:01 GMT

Big John Patton Let ‘Em Roll (Blue Note 1966)
Blue Note’s most consistent organist since Jimmy Smith pairs with guitar and vibe greats.
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Personnel
Big John Patton (organ), Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone), Grant Green (guitar), Otis Finch (drums)
Recorded
on December 11, 1965 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Released
as BST 84239 in 1965
Track listing
Side A: Let ‘Em Roll / Lacona / The Shadow Of Your Smile / Side B: The Turnaround / Jakey / One Step Ahead
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Lif is a string of coincidences. You’re eating your breakfast after a night into town, some pipes of beer and then some, it’s eggs and sausage, it’s rough on the stomach and you let rip on the toilet. You’re in there for ten minutes off and on and you hurry to the train to get to work. On your way you drive your bike into another bike and a human being and you fall into a ditch full of magnolias. You think, wow this is heavenly. This is the day you decided to become a gardener.
Happenstance steered the career of Greg Lewis, a pianist that was sent by mentor Gil Goggins to sub in a New York club, where the only keys belonged to a Hammond organ. Lewis was thrown into the abyss. He grew fascinated with the organ, learned the ropes and became Organ Monk, playing compositions by Thelonious Monk on a Hammond C3 organ.
A similar thing happened to Big John Patton. The Kansas City-born Patton was a pianist that lived in Washington D.C. and was part of the band of r&b star Lloyd Price from 1955-60, writing some of Price’s hits, notably Where Were You On Our Wedding Day. Price and his gang played The Flamingo in D.C. but there was no piano, just the organ. A friend showed Patton some of the basics. Patton was drawn to the organ and liked the music of Jimmy Smith.
Patton moved around a bit, staying in New Jersey and Pittsburgh, both bonafide organ towns. He was picked up by tenor saxophonist and Blue Note A&R man Ike Quebec, who paired him with alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson. He was on Papa Lou’s first popular organ combo record The Natural Soul and contributed Funky Mama.
Donaldson’s Signifyin’ on Argo from 1963 was a winner. Patton also played on superb records as Harold Vick’s Steppin’ Out (Blue Note, 1963), George Braith’s Laughing Soul (Prestige, 1966) and Grassella Oliphant’s The Grass Is Greener (Atlantic, 1967). Did he play on Grant Green’s Iron City (Cobblestone, 1967/72) or was it Larry Young? A strong debate that has been going on for ages and will probably never be resolved. Right?
Patton re-appeared on avant-gardist John Zorn’s The Big Gundown and Spillane in 1986/87. Way to go, man!
If anything, his string of albums on Blue Note in the 1960’s is remarkably consistent, both in the way Patton keeps a fiery groove going in the r&b, hard bop and funk bag and in the way his sound is orchestrated by maestro Rudy van Gelder. It sounds as if everything was no sweat, Big John sitting down at the console, pushing some knobs, pulling some drawbars, yup this is it, you ready Rudy, okay let’s go… Afternoon session, along came John. Not so, of course. RVG had developed an innovative Hammond engineering process from the start with Jimmy Smith.
Superficial but unmistakable aside: they say Hank Mobley looked great on a record cover, no mistaking, but Big John Patton’s a strong contender.
Up until Let ‘Em Roll, Patton had recorded with Grant Green (talk about someone who looked good on a record cover) and Ben Dixon, forming one of the most excellent soul jazz trios around. Now, Lion & The Wolff added vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson to the equation, who was making his mark as a young promising gun in Blue Note’s avant-garde roster.
An intriguing collaboration. The Hammond – vibraphone combination is rare, Johnny “Hammond” Smith with Lem Winchester and Johnny Lyttle featuring organist Milton Harris comes to mind. It’s a successful combination, a solid but breezy sound, Big John making sure Hutcherson isn’t overpowered, Hutcherson laying out at times. Grant Green is aboard, his strong rhythm a driving force, his sparkling solos a big asset, inspired by Hutcherson, both of them had worked together on Green’s classic Idle Moments, with sassy drummer Otis Finch rounding out proceedings.
Damn, this record sounds good. And there’s a lot of saucy music, if you don’t count The Shadow Of Your Smile (A rare Patton let-down). Greasy shuffles, nice ‘n’ fast cookers, a catchy line in 5/4, Hank Mobley’s The Turnaround, all good. The sauciest, no doubt, is the Latin-tinged Latona, a hip melody, Green and Patton hitting it off like twins, Hutcherson all smiles, watching a kid on the corner taking a big bite from a melon.
Well on his way into a string of top-rate Blue Note records, Big John. Somehow, Patton hasn’t played a big part in the Hammond / acid jazz resurgence in the 1990’s like Jimmy McGriff or Lonnie Smith, a shame because he was up there with the greatest, inherently locked into the pocket like few in his time.
Patton passed away in Montclair, New Jersey in 2002.
Listen to Let ‘M Roll here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVP1BLFKbKI&list=PL7S3cM4jfwATC69Sa_HmhEoFW6Nsve1Fk
http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/08/30/big-john-patton-let-em-roll-blue-note-1966/
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2026-10-15 19:41:00 GMT

Ella, Lost, Found, Live
This week’s theme: Ella Fitzgerald, Live in Helsinki, 1963 and 1965, The Lost Recordings. This show features Ella Fitzgerald in two concerts recorded live in Helsinki. The music had not been available but was “rediscovered.” We purchased the record to get a sense of the quality of the recordings on this relatively new French label that specializes in finding live performances that have never appeared on vinyl and music that was often never heard or heard once. The label has been primarily focused on Europe. In any case, the quality of the recording is excellent, as is the music, so we devoted this entire show to the album. And, we plan on purchasing more. Any recommendations from our readers here at JazzCollector.com. Personnel on this album is Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Flanagan, Les Spann, Jim Hughart, Keeter Betts, Gus Johnson.
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https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/ella-lost-found-live/
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2026-10-15 19:30:49 GMT

Charles Tolliver: Music Inc. (1971) Strata East
Selection: Abscretions
Track List:
A1 Ruthie’s Heart 6:12
A2 Brilliant Circles 4:48
A3 Abscretions 6:58
B1 Household Of Saud 6:38
B2 On The Nile 9:48
B3 Departure 5:00
Artists: Music Inc.,15 piece jazz orchestra
Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Heath, Wilbur Brown, reeds; Howard Johnson, tuba, baritone saxophone; Charles Tolliver, Danny Moore, Larry Greenwich, Richard Williams, Virgil Jones, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, Dick Griffin, Garnett Brown, John Gordon, trombone; Bobby Brown, flute; Stanley Cowell piano; Cecil McBee, bass; Jimmy Hopps, drums.
The line up features some leading players, Clifford Jordan, Curtis Fuller, but mostly submerged into the ensemble.
Recorded November 11, 1970, engineer [mix] – George Klabin, engineer [recording], Joe Jorgensen.
George Klabin’s Resonance Records continues to put out “previously unissued” vinyl from historically interesting original tapes, many through Record Store Day distribution. Unfortunately despite best efforts and fancy artwork, often of “borderline” passable sound quality, due to enthusiasts use of domestic quality recorders (speed 33⁄4 ips, limited microphone quality, numbers and placement). At least you can find an RSD release, once the scalpers have put them up on Discogs. Or you could queue up from six am outside your local Record Store, hoping to bag one copy from the tiny allocation of each title made to each store.
Music
Rollicking urban big band sound that would fit perfectly behind a 1960s TV series, adventures of a street-wise private eye who’s also an emergency room surgeon and a high-flying lawyer. In the pilot episode our hero hunts down a criminal mastermind, corners him in a warehouse deadly shoot out, tends his bullet wounds, then successfully defends him in court after realizing he failed to read him his rights.
All Music awarded Music Inc. a remarkable 4½ stars
“The Music Inc. big band remains the apotheosis of trumpeter Charles Tolliver’s singular creative vision. Rarely if ever has a big band exhibited so much freedom or finesse, while at the same time never overwhelming the virtuoso soloists on whom the performances pivots”
“Tolliver in particular plays like a man possessed, summoning an energy and clarity that slice through the big, bold arrangements”
Well there you go, today’s new word is “apotheosis“, reaching the highest point in the development of something, derived from Greek/Latin “god-like, divine”, as in: LJC is the apotheosis in vinyl jazz blogs.
According to Tolliver and Cowell’s liner notes, “The music speaks for itself“” Well that saves paying someone to write about it. The main text is simply Stan and Charles praising the rest of the band. Not really the apotheosis in album covers, or liner notes.
Vinyl: SES-1971
Original edition, white label – not a promo, but predecessor to the more familiar black and white Strata East design.
Original cover 463 West St address
Art Director holds head in despair, white unlaminated paper cover art designed to show show dirt, ring-wear, and yellowing with age. Not great LP cover art.
Collectors Corner
Music Inc. was not very expensive for an original Strata East. Big band obviously doesn’t have the same caché as their more afro-centric titles. Strata East reissues – Pure Pleasure, Superfly, and others – are more affordable but don’t match up to the originals, a bit wishy washy in comparison, lacking excitement.
The Jazz Beach-comber update
One of my favourite record stores in Soho has added a “Japanese Jazz” section in its Jazz shelves. Just a handful of records but nice to see some recognition of this niche in the second-hand market. Anther store across the road has a most unusual Blue Note on the wall, one which I have never seen in the flesh: Palo Congo, Sabu Martinez (1957), Blue Note BLP 1561, asking a modest £800. Bongo-driven Latin jazz, another specialist niche. Ay, Caramba!
For some reason, this all quite cheered me up.
LJC
Footnote: “Abscretions” – doesn’t seem to be a proper word, though it might just get you out of a tight spot in Scrabble. The word’s only known usage is a song title by Music Inc.
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/09/18/charles-tolliver-music-inc-1971-strata-east/
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2026-10-15 19:20:27 GMT

Jackie Ivory Soul Discovery (Atco 1965)
Obscured in the soulful clouds.
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Personnel
Jackie Ivory (organ), Paul Renfro (tenor saxophone), Bill Nicks(drums)
Recorded
in 1965
Released
as Atco SD 33-178 in 1965
Track listing
Side A: High Heel Sneakers / Freddy The Freeloader / So What / I Left My Heart In San Francisco / The Monkey Woman / Side B: Lonely Avenue / Do It To Death / Sister Sadie / Thank Heaven
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No doubt, the name Jackie Ivory and monicker ‘soul discovery’ sounds good. Fits seamlessly into the list of soul singers like Joe Tex, Arthur Conley, Al Green, Jackie Wilson, Don Bryant. And, so, Jackie Ivory. Appearing on Atco, Atlantic’s subsidiary, which spawned more than a few r&b and soul legends.
But Jackie Ivory is not a singer. He’s an organist. At that time, ‘soul’ was already tossed around like confetti and suffering from the inflation blues. Let’s be honest nonetheless, if you ain’t got it, you got no business on stage.
Presumably, label boss Ahmet Ertegun and/or producer Jerry Wexler wanted to step on the organ bandwagon, trying out with soulful Mr. Ivory. Soon after, the soulfullest and screaminest on the scene, Brother Jack McDuff, would record four albums for Atlantic. Like-minded labels like Blue Note, Prestige and Argo cornered the market with plenty organ or sax-organ outings.
To Ivory’s loss, Soul Discovery was the end of the line for him on Atco. Ebony and Ivory, living in perfect harmony, but the piano had been drinking and the organ was asleep, out Ivory went, in came Brother Jack.
Who actually was Jackie Ivory? Demands a bit of online research. Born in Blytheville, Arizona in 1937, Ivory was raised in South Bench, Indiana. Never heard of those places, sorry guys. Ivory was a pianist who after the customary stint in the Army started an organ combo. After Soul Discovery, Ivory freelanced with saxophonists Junior Walker and Willis Jackson.
Ultimately based in Oakland, Ivory settled in the club scene and released Live At Jack’s Bar (Orchard 2001) and Laying In The Cut (Honeycomb 2003). Mr. Ivory passed away in 2013.
Cooperations with Walker and Jackson stroke with the idea of his mid-sixties album. It is the world of juicy, accessible riffs, gritty organ sounds, laced with supple jazz phrasing. The people’s music. The Ivory style is somewhat reminiscent of maestro Jimmy McGriff.
Jackie is bringing us a mixture of pepper and sweets, in sync with the hot sax of (one) Paul Renfro on original cookers The Monkey Woman and Do It To Death – pre-James Brown-ish message clear – and blues-drenched classics like Miles Davis’s Freddie The Freeloader and Horace Silver’s Sister Sadie, not to mention Mr. Davis’s modal So What, throwing in the meaty ballad I Left My Heart In San Francisco for good measure. Then there’s perennial r&b favorite Lonely Avenue by Doc Pomus. Fun album.
Listen to Soul Discovery here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9rrus-g-bM&list=RDM9rrus-g-bM&start_radio=1
http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/09/28/jackie-ivory-soul-discovery-atco-1965/
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2026-10-15 19:10:18 GMT

Podcast: John Coltrane Centennial Celebration
In celebration of John Coltrane’s Centennial birthday, this edition of Jazz Collection Live focuses on Trane’s ballad playing, featuring performances from Prestige, such as I See Your Face Before Me, Violets for Your Furs and more; Blue Note, I’m Old Fashioned; Atlantic, such as Naima and Every Time we Say Goodbye; and Impulse, including Alabama, After the Rain, Lush Life, I Wish I Knew, In a Sentimental Mood, and several more. Featured artists include John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Arthur Taylor, Wynton Kelly, Roy Haynes, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Drew, Red Garland, Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Johnny Hartman, Tootie Heath, Steve Davis, Duke Ellington, Aaron Bell. The sub-title for the Podcast is “Coltrane Plays Pretty.”
The post Podcast: John Coltrane Centennial Celebration first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-john-coltrane-centennial-celebration/
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2026-10-15 18:30:59 GMT

Naosuke Miyamoto: Step! (1973) Three Blind Mice
Selection: A New Shade Of Blue
Track List
A1 Step Right Up To The Bottom (Harold Land)
A2 One For Trane
B1 A New Shade Of Blue (Harold Land)
B2 Where Do They Go?
B3 Blues
Artists: Naosuke Miyamoto Sextet
Takashi Furuya, alto saxophone; Takeshi Goto, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone; Kunji Shigi, trumpet, flugelhorn; Masayoshi Yoneda, piano; Naosuke Miyamoto, bass; Shoji Nakayama drums
Recorded at AOI Studio, Japan on August 25, 26 1973
Producer Takeshi Fujii, mixed by Yoshihiko Kannari
Bass player Naosuke Miyamoto was in his late 30s when he recorded this debut album Step! in 1973, his sextet mixing a few young bloods with some relatively “old hands”. While Japan’s most important jazz bass player Isao Suzuki continued to turn out album after album, Naosuke withdrew from the Tokyo Scene after this album, playing provincially and not returning to the studio, so Step! is something of a one-off.
As you would expect of Three Blind Mice, the engineering is superb, recorded by Yoshihiko Kannari (Japan’s answer to Van Gelder) at AOI studios, one of Tokyo’s finest. Though there were some later editions to be found, this first generation pressing by Toshiba-EMI was my preferred choice, but with a hefty price tag attached, despite the OBI and booklet missing. There is often unique information in the booklet, such as a diagram of the microphone choice and placement (at least five on the drum kit alone). These things are educational.
Music
By 1973, America had effectively dropped the ball on acoustic small group modern jazz. Luckily for us, the Japanese picked up the the ball. And ran with it.
Nothing in the music is especially Japanese, no bamboo flute or Kyoto Tea-room. To my ear, Step! firmly in the Modern Jazz idiom, sitting somewhere between hard bop and post-bop. The fast and energetic Sextet draws on several compositions of Harold Land, the most East Coast of the West Coast horn players, the album title a reference to the Harold Land track, “Step Right Up To The Bottom” Step lively!
Vinyl: Three Blind Mice TBM 20
Original pressing: Three Blind Mice TBM-20, EMI Toshiba (1973)
The Art Director speaks
Black and white collage, 1970s period mood and tone, perfect, love it.
Collector’s Corner
We need to talk about album titles. There is a world of difference between just “STEP”, and “STEP!” The emphatic exclamation mark ties it to a particular Blue Note naming style: Lee Morgan Indeed! Bottoms Up!, Look Out!, Goodness Gracious!, Steppin’ Out!, Good Move!, Out To Lunch!, It’s Time!, Reach Out!, Think! Wahoo!, Preach Brother!, The Sermon!, Go!, and of course the triple exclamation mark: Jubilee Shout!!!, and Andrew!!!.
Exclamation marks work best with short titles, just one or two words, commanding attention. Interestingly, when you add an exclamation mark to a long title, it completely changes the tone: Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World! is threatening, even sinister rather than a casual meet you for lunch.
To top it all we have the double punctuation prize – Harold Vick’s Steppin’ Out!
There is probably a Blue Note coffee-table book to be written about ’50s – ’60s record album punctuation and naming conventions, with chapters on Exclamation Marks, The Practice of G-Droppin’, from ing to in’ , as in Finger Poppin’, Cool Struttin’, Soul Stirrin’, Doin’ The Thing, Doin’ Alright, Hootin’ And Tootin’ , Leapin’ And Loppin’, and Movin’ And Groovin’.
There is some jive-talk: Here ‘Tis, and the truncation of the conjunction “And” at both ends, to In ‘N’ Out, Rough ‘N’ Tumble. They work those apostrophes hard! And briefly, Blue Note featured The Hyperbole Collection – The Magnificent (Thad Jones) …, The Incredible (Jimmy Smith) …,and The Fabulous (Fats Navarro)
Read It!
The Amazing LJC!
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/09/25/naosuke-miyamoto-step-1973-three-blind-mice/
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2026-10-15 17:48:34 GMT

Clément Trimouille & Jack Kinsella Jazz In 110 V (Zoot Records 2026)
NEW RELEASE – CLEMENT TRIMOUILLE & JACK KINSELLA
Two guitarists bond over vintage voltage, vintage gear, vintage jazz.
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Personnel
Clément Trimouille & Jack Kinsella (guitar, Ties Laarakker (bass), Stéphane Chandelier (drums)
Recorded
on May 23, 2026 at Zoot Studios, Paris
Released
as Zoot Records 15 in 2026
Track listing
Moonlight Becomes You / Billy’s Beanery / The Party’s Over / All Through The Night / Say It Isn’t So / Our Waltz / Fat Feet
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Invigorating! No diarrhea of notes. Lines clean as the silver wings of angels. Easygoing but not demure. Jazz In 110 V is thé relaxed record of the year – return to equilibrium after a hard day’s night.
Guitarist Clément Trimouille and Jack Kinsella share a passion for classic (guitar) jazz, supported by bassist Ties Laarakker and drummer Stéphane Chandelier. Sounding together a bit like John Pisano/Billy Bean, says (ace guitarist) Vincent Koning in the liner notes. Burrell. Green. No complaints. All great.
Perhaps also Jimmy Raney/Doug Raney, telepathic family affair.
At any rate, Kinsella lets his lines ring like jewels, Trimouille’s timing is laid-back, his lovely tone slightly spunky. Both are Gibson aficionados – Jack owns a 1937 copy, Clément 1948 (!) and a 1961 Ampeg amp on 110 V is used throughout, hence the title – ) and both gel with subtle counterpoint, their patterns connect tastefully like the threads of handwoven tapestries. This becomes immediately clear when the soft and sweet opener Moonlight Becomes You kicks off.
Bean (aha) is represented twice – Billy’s Beanery and Fat Feet, somewhat reminiscent of that time on the West Coast when talented boppers created tightly arranged, airy gems. The quartet swings fiery on the fast-paced All Through The Night, softly on Our Waltz. It acknowledges the value of a good groove, courtesy of The Party’s Over, which some might remember was defined firstly by Nat King Cole, then by Brother Jack McDuff featuring George Benson.
Songs from the vaults! Most welcome. The essence of Jazz In 110 V is the absence of spectacle, humility built on healthy confidence. A refined renewal of the age-old changes, unfit for stadium glamour, instead a perfection of the archetypical intimate club atmosphere that you are going to enjoy very much, no doubt about it.
Listen to Jazz In 101 V here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs4ufXfW_Gs
Buy Jazz in 101 V at laudable Bandcamp here: https://clmenttrimouillejackkinsella.bandcamp.com/album/jazz-in-110v?search_item_id%3D885208246%26search_item_type%3Da%26search_match_part%3D%253F%26search_page_id%3D5820066977%26search_page_no%3D0%26search_rank%3D1=
http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/10/03/clement-trimouille-jack-kinsella-jazz-in-110-v-zoot-records-2026/
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2026-10-15 16:55:36 GMT

Podcast: ‘Tis Autumn
?
This week’s theme: Jazz versions of songs that celebrate the autumn season, inspired by the beauty of the leaves changing here in lovely Berkshire County, Ma. Featured artists include Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, Hank Jones, Sam Jones, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Johnny Hartman, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, Anita O’Day, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Phil Woods, Billie Holiday, Flip Phillips, Oscar Peterson, Barney Kessell, Ray Brown, Isaiah J. Thompson, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Sarah Vaughan, Roy Haynes, Rosemary Clooney, Scott Hamilton, Nancy Lamott, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Karrin Allyson, Tal Farlow and many more.
The post Podcast: ‘Tis Autumn first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-tis-autumn/
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2026-10-15 16:01:04 GMT

Woody Shaw: Song of Songs (1972) Contemporary/Craft re.2026
Selection: Love: For The One You Can’t Have
Track List
A1 Song Of Songs 11:37
A2 The Goat And The Archer 7:33
B1 Love For The One You Can’t Have 10:03
B2 The Awakening 8:44
Artists
Woody Shaw, trumpet; Emanuel Boyd, left channel flute, tenor sax; Ramon Morris, right channel tenor sax (A1,B1); Bennie Maupin, right channel tenor sax (A2); George Cables, piano, electric piano; Henry Franklin, bass; Woodrow Theus II, drums, percussion.
Recorded at Contemporary Studio, Los Angeles, CA, September 15 and 18, 1972, session engineer Michael Denecke (unknown), Roy DuNann nowhere to be seen.
Artist Spotlite
Woodrow Theus II/’Sonship’ Theus: a drummer whose name I had overlooked, played with Horace Tapscott, Charles Lloyd , McCoy Tyner, Harold Land, Woody Shaw and many others. Theus would not look out of place riding the Spaceways with Sun Ra.
Woodrow “Sonship” Theus II
The second oddity in Woody’s line up is Ramon Morris, a relatively unknown soul/funk tenor player featured on two of the four tracks. Apparently Woody Shaw, Ramon Morris, Emmanuel Boyd and George Cables all played together in a late Art Blakey Messengers line up in 1972, recording the album “Child’s Dance” for Prestige.
Ramon’s only album as leader, “Sweet Sister Funk” reaffirms his funk credentials. On this album, Ramon is joined by several other alumni of Art Blakey’s 1972 line up.
Perhaps Bennie Maupin was only available for one of the two Song of Songs session dates, and Ramon stepped in.
Music:
Concord Music make their pitch on this new release under their Jazz Dispensary banner, Woody’s follow-up to his debut as a leader, Blackstone Legacy. In Song of Songs, Woody builds a bridge between post-bop and the avant-garde.
Comprised of four extended original compositions, each with its own intent, it brings together five musicians of different standing, resulting in a loose canvas, perhaps a lack of cohesion, but structural freedom.
Song Of Songs is the opposite of polished smooth jazz, and quite unlike Shaw’s mid ’70s lyrical Muse albums. The music rarely stands still, and rarely repeats itself. It is a bumpy ride. First play left me uncomfortable, not what I was expecting. Disjointed, lacking in swing, Shaw had a different outcome in mind.
In his autobiographical liner notes, Woody give a few clues as to his composing thoughts. Love: For the One You Can’t Have, Shaw says, is personal history, his separation from his wife, the title; Song Of Songs, his reflections on the war in Vietnam, and the other songs also have some particular meaning to Woody. I am not sure I would make any of these connections simply listening to the music.
Opening the album, the avant garde element is up front. Scampering piano, piercing trumpet shrieks, lumbering discordant chord sequences, irregular beats. In the middle of a trumpet run Shaw’s will pause on a long note, his trademark melancholy vibrato, instantly recognisable Woody. Briefly, the avant-garde resolves into a tune: dry land! – which quickly disperses back to asymmetrical flurries. At times it reminds me of Cecil Taylor: melody, rhythm, harmony? Nope!
Some tracks lean closer to the mainstream, but the melodies are short repetitions of a handful of notes, angular, discordant, barely a tune at all, and give way to a grinding bass riff over which Shaw’s trumpet performs free acrobatics, relentless exploration while the horn players sit out. Emmanuel Boyd’s flute introduces a steamy primitive element.
George Cables gives the electric piano a demonstration of the effects suite: echoes, phasing, waves and pulses. At one point the tenor players gets some empty space for an improvised solo, the background filled with percussion effects.
I expect, after several plays, the tunes on Song of Songs will appear more coherent, because memory and familiarity does that. Sometimes the first play is a more authentic reaction. Musically, it is an adventurous patchwork quilt. Whether you like it or not rather depends how comfortable you are with the uncomfortable. And how often you play it.
Vinyl: CR00971
2026 reissue of Contemporary S 7632, cut AAA from the original analog master tapes, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing.
Just one minor quibble. The hype sticker clearly states the album was cut by Kevin Grey at Cohearent Audio. Which does not explain why the vinyl is clearly etched BG, Bernie Grundman, not KG@CA. Does Kevin subcontract his commissions to Bernie now?
In the runout next to Bernie’s initials is a triangle, no doubt a sly insider reference to the delta prefix of ’70s original Monarch pressings, which included this 1973 release The delta catalogue numbering system was a hallmark of Monarch’s long time partner plant, Alco Research & Engineering, which Bernie would know.
Woody Shaw Song Of Songs – Craft 2026 reissue labels
The Art Director Speaks
Verdict? I like it. On the cover, Woody looks pensive, serious, fitting with the piece. On the back cover, black and white photos of the musicians, not quite Francis Wolff, but add context to the recording session.
One picture is worth a closer look, drummer Woody Theus II.
My goodness, Theus was an oddball. Music is a good place for oddballs. A theatrical white domino mask covers his eyes. The domino mask was a feature of Carnival Masquerade, adding mystery and intrigue to participants. Paired with a white neckerchief, and a hat-with-attitude, it completes the look of a complete oddball. But I like it.
Collector’s Corner
Contemporary S7632, the 1973 original release is very rare. Discogs currently list one seller in Australia, a near mint copy, asking around £160 plus postage (no doubt overland via Bali by kangaroo).
Song of Songs Contemporary original release 1973, labels
If you want an “original” but can’t afford the original, there is the OJC reissue from 1984. OJC were mostly remastered from original tapes, by good engineers, scarce but more modestly priced – £50 to £130. Many copies claim to be near mint, which is often a sign of a record hardly played, because the owner didn’t much like it. Pure speculation.
Song of Songs 1984 OJC edition, labels
Or, dig the Walkman out the loft, possibly this “original”, CR02 Chromium Dioxide cassette tape. At least it’s an Original!
I’m not minded to chase the Discogs Aussie original. The best value in vinyl, readily available around £38, is the Craft Jazz Dispensary edition (2026).
The Music Business Primer
Musicians make Music. Businessmen makes Money, from selling Music, some of which Money returns to Musicians (or sadly, their Estates).
Music is protected by time-limited Copyright, and distributed through Licensing. (Not to mention the spectre of Public Domain now hovering). Sometimes, somebody, somewhere, has physical possession of the original recording tapes, a subject of interest to almost no-one except a small community of Record Collectors and Audiophiles. We have to accept that some times the only practical mastering source is a modern high-resolution digital copy. However original vinyl remains the best sounding recording (or reel to reel tape, but we won’t go there)
The Contemporary label music catalogue, including this Woody Shaw title, was acquired by Fantasy Records in 1984, and OJC was created to reissue selected titles. The whole of Fantasy music assets, including the catalogs of Contemporary, Debut, Riverside, Prestige, and Milestone, was sold to Concord Records in 2004. The previous year, 2003, Concord also acquired the rights to the Muse catalogue from Savoy Jazz.
Concord ‘s collection of music catalogs, which also includes Fantasy, Vanguard and Vee-Jay, (not forgetting the vastly under-rated Uncle Tom Cobley Jazz), are actively managed under the Craft Recordings banner. Hence the steady flow in recent years of excellent “audiophile quality” reissues from Craft, who have taken to commissioning Kevin Grey for remastering, and it seems, inadvertently, Bernie Grundman.
I think it’s good for vinyl enthusiasts to have the option of readily available modern audiophile quality reissues, which deliver much higher sound quality than claimed “audiophile” reissues of five to ten years ago. Originals still sound the best, and the rarest originals remain prized trophies, hidden away on desert islands, accessible only by the collector’s submarine.
I’ve had my say. Over to you.
LJC
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2026/10/02/woody-shaw-song-of-songs-1972-contemporary-craft-re-2026/
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2026-10-15 15:07:47 GMT

Prophet’s Mood
RICHARD SLATER “PROPHET” JENNINGS –
Full-blown post-humous exhibition of paintings by artist and jazz scenester Richard “Prophet” Jennings, currently in New York, is long-awaited.
One of the nicest things about running Flophouse Magazine is collecting cherised memories. Certainly one of my fondest experiences was making an overview of the life and career of painter, journalist and jazz buff Richard “Prophet” Jennings in cooperation with his daughter Dominique, nicknamed “Pistol” by her dad.
Read the article here: http://flophousemagazine.com/2016/04/21/pistol-speaks/
The adventurous life and career of Richard Slater Jennings (1922-2005) reads like a cross between a chapter of a Jack Kerouac book and a scene from John Cassavettes’s Shadows. Jennings was a dancer, journalist, hustler and painter, a key underground figure in black cultural life in the 1940s-00’s, friend of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Cannonball Adderley and other assorted legends, nicknamed “Prophet” because of his sage-like counseling. Prophet Jennings by Freddie Hubbard and The Prophet by Eric Dolphy were written in his honor.
Prophet made paintings for jazz covers of records by Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk and Max Roach.
Dominique spent many years looking for missing paintings of her father, which along with perennial favorites are on view at Ceysson & Bénétière in New York during a Prophet exhibition that runs till October 24. Ceysson & Bénétière is located at 956 Madison Avenue. Step on it.
See here: https://www.ceyssonbenetiere.com/en/exhibitions
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http://flophousemagazine.com/2026/10/07/prophets-mood/
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2026-10-15 14:19:07 GMT

Podcast: Quintessential Quintets
This week’s theme: Quintessential Quintets. Highlights from some of the quintessential jazz quintets from the 1950s and 1960s. Think Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Clifford Brown/Max Roach and a few others. Interesting insight during the show related to my father. If you’ve never read it, would recommend the article Song for My Father here at JazzCollector.com. Hard to believe I wrote that nearly 20 years ago. Featured artists on this podcast include Art Blakey, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, George Morrow, Richie Powell, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, Bobby Timmons, Sam Jones, Louis Hayes, Johnny Griffin, Lockjaw Davis, Junior Mance, Larry Gales, Ben Riley, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Horace Silver, Junior Cook, Blue Mitchell, Gene Taylor, Roy Brooks, Lee Morgan, Jymie Merrott, Harold Land, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, Charlie Parker, Duke Jordan, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw
The post Podcast: Quintessential Quintets first appeared on jazzcollector.com.
https://jazzcollector.com/podcast/podcast-quintessential-quintets/
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2026-10-15 13:40:35 GMT

Yusef Lateef: Yusef Lateef’s Detroit (1969) Atlantic/re 2023 (post updated, extra track and photos)
Selection 1: Livingston Playground
Selection 2: That Lucky Old Sun
Track List
A1 Livingston Playground 3:37
A2 Eastern Market 4:15
A3 Belle Isle 3:12
B1 Russell and Elliot 4:47
B2 Raymond Winchester 2:35
B3 Woodward Avenue 2:11
B4 That Lucky Old Sun (Haven Gillespie, Beasley Smith) 7:25
Artists
Reeds: Yusef Lateef, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, oboe, vocals; Thad Jones, Danny Moore, Jimmy Owens, Snooky Young, trumpet;
Rhythm: Eric Gale, guitar; Hugh Lawson, piano; Cecil McBee, bass;
Chuck Rainey, electric bass; Bernard Purdie, drums, Roy Brooks (B4), ride, congas ; Albert Heath, percussion.
Strings: Selwart Clarke, James Tryon, violin; Alfred Brown, viola; Kermit Moore, cello.
Lateef recorded at Century Sound Studios, New York City, February 4-5, 1969, and “Lucky Old Sun” (B4) recorded previously, June 1, 1967
Music
All-Music say: ” Lateef chose his old stomping grounds of Detroit for an evocative musical study of the landscape, people, spirit and terrain. . . On “Lucky Old Sun”, he blows a beautiful tenor, using a motif from Sonny Rollins’ version of the tune and slides it all the way over to Benny Carter in its sheer lyricism“
“Lucky Old Sun“, originally recorded in 1949 by Frankie Laine, contrasts the hard life of work with the carefree life of the natural world.
“Up in the morning, out on the job
Work like the devil for my pay
But that lucky old sun got nothin’ to do
But roll around heaven all day”
To conclude an album full of grinding urban beats and rhythms, a lyrical piece, and a useful reminder that, away from his trademark ethnic instruments, Lateef was also a gifted craftsman on the tenor saxophone.
Vinyl: Atlantic SD 1525
The Peterson edition claims to be the first re-issue on vinyl since its original release in 1969, reissue by ARC Records (Gilles Peterson) for Record Store Day April 2023. Limited edition of 2,000 copies, re-mastered by Bernie Grundman from Atlantic original tapes”. Here’s a screen grab in Audacity of the left and right channels: on “Lucky Old Sun”
The original mixing engineer, one Steve Schaeffer, has placed more emphasis on the rhythm section in one channel, but the horn is centred. This kind of lop-sided mix was common in stereo recordings in the ’60s, where the recording engineer’s mixing console options had only left, right, or centre. Some records, even one channel “empty”.
Insert:
Liner Notes by Maxine Gordon (wife of the late Dexter Gordon)
ARC reissue 2023 back cover
Harry’s Place
Harry M, The Jazz Paparazzi, had a busy few years around 1970. Some superb and rare picture of Lateef and his merry men to share, my thanks to Harry, who always delivers the goods.
Yusef Lateef, Montreux 1970, (The Miracle-Gro hair rejuvenator has no results yet!)
Thad Jones, Ronnie Scotts, 1969
Albert Heath, Montreux 1970
Chuck Rainey, with Larry Coryell, 1971
Bernard Purdie, Montreux 1971
All photos ©Harry M
Detroit, Motor City graphic
On loan from the Internet
The Art Director’s Verdict
I am not convinced that the album’s subtitle: Latitude 42º 30′ Longitude 83º helps anyone locate “Motown”, but the map image does lend a sort of authenticity to the track list, which consists of district names in Detroit. The album is a polyrhythmic tribute to the city, so thumbs up to Atlantic.
Collector’s Corner
The original 1969 commercial release of Yusef Lateef’s Detroit, stereo, with biographical liner notes by Saeed Lateef, Yusef’s wife.
Atlantic Stereo commercial release (1969)
By 1969 Stereo was the primary (and rapidly becoming the only) commercial format. However mono format earned special status as a DJ Copy and Promo, as most radio stations still broadcasted in mono, and promotional copies were not charged sales tax, as they were not “sold”. At least not until later.
Mono DJ Copy (1969)
The Atlantic Records catalogue is currently owned by the Warner Music Group (WMG), whose flagship catalogues include Atlantic, Elektra, Parlophone and Warner and their respective sub-labels. Not much of the jazz legacy apart from Atlantic, in which management seem to show little interest, unlike UMG (Blue Note/Decca) and Concord (Craft) Bravo!. The licensing trail of this Atlantic recording leads to Gilles Peterson, UK D.J., record producer and radio music host.
I happened to bump into Gilles in a Hackney vinyl record store in 2024. We chatted a while, this and that, and being in a vinyl record store, I opined about the superior audio quality of vinyl. Him being a famous DJ, and me being a mere punter, he challenged me. What was the best sounding record I have ever heard? A Fool’s Errand.
I forget my nomination, probably Columbia’s Kind Of Blue (white label promo 1959, recorded by Fred Plaut, at The Church.). My nomination may have changed in the last couple of years especially since discovering 1970s jazz from Japan. “Good sound” is important but not the only attribute that matters. Music consists of Melody, Rhythm and Harmony, got to get it all right.
Peterson recommended his Yusef Lateef album, Lateef’s Detroit, which he had just released. Detroit was Yusef Lateef’s home town. Gilles Peterson, (who is actually French) is something of an authority on the Detroit music scene, undertaking a week radio residency actually in Detroit (2024). Peterson pictured here with his Detroit radio station host.
“Gilles will host a next generation showcase featuring Deon Jamar, Meftah, Ahya Simone, Kesswa, Khadijah, Tammy Lakkis and WDET’s own Shigeto“
Not a lot of common ground here, perhaps it’s a different Detroit
About a year after the encounter with Peterson I stumbled on a copy of his Lateef’s Detroit ARC reissue in a London store. I felt duly obliged to buy and take it home. With expectations running high, Lateef went on the turntable.
Hmmm. It’s OK, but I would struggle to put Detroit even in my top twenty for sound quality. I have a cruelly revealing audiophile-build hi-fi system, not a DJ rig designed to get people moving on the dance floor, so we may each have different definition of “best sounding”.
However it is entirely possible that Lateef’s Detroit was “one of his best sounding recordings”. A DJ who listens mainly to acid jazz, hiphop and dance beats, is listening to sampled and digitally processed “music”, likely bass-boosted before transfer to CD or 12″ vinyl. Then along comes an original analogue tape from the Sixties, all acoustic instruments, recorded by close-positioned condenser microphones, then mastered to vinyl on a Scully or Neumann VMS lathe, mixed for listening, beautiful sound, on a totally different level. I think I had the same reaction hearing my first vintage Blue Note, I was simply blown away.
Classical music devotees say 1960’s violin and piano recordings, with those richly toned acoustic instruments, demonstrate the superior quality sound capture of vinyl. I fear they may be right. Just one problem, it’s my loss, but I don’t much like classical music.
On occasional visits to high-end hi-fi shows, most self-described “audiophiles” reference album is still Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon (1973), which A I tells me “remains one of the top reference albums for audiophiles testing soundstage, dynamic range, and clarity.”
Tick tock clink…. “Money, get away
Go get a good job with more pay, and you’re okay
Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash”
Music industry estimate Pink Floyd’s net worth at $800m.
Seems there is no consensus on what “sounds great” actually means, apart from “I like it”. Judgement on sound quality, unhelpfully, seems to depend on what type of music you like, or don’t like, and comparison with what you are used to listening to, which might be be anything from actual live performance to low resolution digital tracks through earbuds.
Gilles left the store with an armful of hip hop albums, destined for his music programme for BBC Radio 6. We were both on a different wave length, but he seemed a nice chap. Especially for a DJ.
Now, I’ve got the glasses, but, it’s important, cap backwards or sideways?
DJ London
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