Derek, Have you heard Sonny Please?

Has anyone?

The clips are superb!

and

Yes ...

Do you think Sonny picked those with Henry because of his reappearance? He looks so young and sharp in that suit with that same look of concentration in his eyes. Nice treat but how about one circa 1955. Maybe ´Movin´Out.´

Thanks for hipping us to these, Derek - what a great set of clips, even the late ones. Awesome set of drummers in there too, from Higgins (why the hell does his solo fade out?!) via Alan Dawson (outstanding with NHOP) to Foster and Dejohnette. And check out the exchange of fours with Joe Harris on Paul's Pal. Shit I wish I could sit here all day and watch these in eternal loop instead of having to go to bloody work.

Man, I cherish that little bit of Don Cherry, the Thinnest Man In Show Business, popping his 'P's and splintering up those bebop lines in and around 52nd St. The guy never got his due. He was SO much more interesting, so much more happening than Freddie or Woody or any of those post-Clifford guys. (Even Booker Little gets predictable after awhile.) Don was throwing out witty conundrums instead of all that smoothed out shit. (Then he went and discovered The Mysterious East and that was that...) Betcha the conservatory types watch this today and still they go, "He ain't making it."

And yeah Dan, those fours with Joe Harris. Yum.

Don Cherry will be in the conservatories 3-4 decades from now. They need that long to wake up. That's the meaning of conservatory.

P.S. Doesn't Berklee now teach its students Keith Jarrett? Four decades after throwing him out.

Thank You for pointing these Out. Check out that line Henry Grimes plays W. Sonny on the bridge of the 52nd st. theme on the one feat. Cherry and Higgins .. What the Hell is that? That's Jazz. A book could be written about that one. This is not learned in conservatories and you're right they would be dismissed as "not Making it" by the experts. It doesn't get any better then this. That trio w. Alan Dawson is incredible Sonny sounding like he did in 58 but with a rougher edge. I had the honor of playing with Don Cherry back in 1989 and to hear that sound of his 12 feet away is something I'll never forget. Don playing 10 notes while just warming up is some of the best music I've ever heard and what a great person with great stories! He was all about sound and Improvisation not slickness that's for sure..

Thanks Derek. This is like finding a treasure.

Don't worry folks, Don Cherry is being studied at New England Conservatory along with every other great innovator in his league. We also include Derek Bailey, Sei Miguel, Merzbow, Zorn and all the rest. You name it, we teach it. and the students want all of it.

I wonder whose idea it was to include Sei Miguel on the syllabus.. ;-))) Good on ya, Joe. God knows how you TEACH Merzbow though.. "Welcome to Merzbow 101, everybody.. for your next class I'd like you transcribe 'Super Sheep' from "Animal Magnetism"..

Dan: To be honest, some things are easier to explain than others. Considering that it did take way too long to explain Don Cherry we'd better start now on some of the other stuff.

I'm just happy to finally see Sonny's groups on video. Interesting how the older stuff with Grimes, LaRoca, Higgins and Don just sounds better. No amps. Not too loud. Grimes at his very best.

One of the crucial things about Grimes ( and Gary Peacock) that is harder to see now,
is that bass players were not able to play ensemble parts with that kind of strength and precision until amps. Dave Holland was able to do it with Blackwell and Altscul with an amp.
this is especially true of his work on the Don Cherry lps with Blackwell.
There might be a few isolated exceptions like MIngus and a few others but it was not really common until amplified bass was the norm.

"Especially true" of whose "work on the Don Cherry LP's with Blackwell"??

Haden, LaFaro, Garrison, Heath, Grimes, J.F. J-C???

Grimes, but also J.F. Jenny Clark.

In terms of comparable amp-less ensemble power & precision what about Wilbur Ware and Richard Davis? Hell, Ray Brown too.

Derek,

Have there now been enough signs that you need to set up a "Bagatellen Boss o' th' Bass" sidebar, just for Damon and his never-ending bass-geek posts?

all of those guys (except maybe Ray Brown and Richard Davis) played on (mostly) plywood, cheap, maybe even junk, and often borrowed basses with gut strings and really high action with a mic (when there was a mic) stuck in the bridge or set in front of the bass. Some of the gut strings were wrapped in steel, there were no all-steel strings until the mid-sixties.

That is why the precision Grimes had was so impressive.
Unlike DJll I prefer to post about what I have studied and listened to.
I think a bass sidebar would rule.
Unfortuntately for Djll a "Lack of Historical Knowledge" or "Cheerleading my friends and passing it off and journalism"
or "I hate improvised music but play it anyway" sidebar would be far less interesting or it would just be ba-newmus.

WIlbur Ware is one of my favorites, but Grimes was faster. There
were bass players playing with that kind facilty for sure esp. the classical guys, mainly it came out in solos. But the way Grimes could articulate in ensemble playing is what is unique.

Definitely not trying to slight Grimes, and point taken on Ware: he wasn’t the fastest technician, but damn could he keep things hopping rhythmically & harmonically. His bass solo on Sonny Rollins' rundown of “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” from the seminal Village Vanguard stand is still the standard by which I judge all others. Just trying to point out that there were other big guns prior to or contemporary with the bassists cited in conjunction with Cherry.

I really like the idea of a Damon-fielded double bass column, coming clean in advance w/ the fact that it’s my favorite instrument. I’m still lamenting hanging up lessons in high school in favor of track.

Speaking again of the bull fiddle... Joe, digging your work on Steve Lantner’s new Skycap disc. When can we expect a pocket trumpet date? And what’s the latest news on Riti? I heard word that there was a disc w/ Ken Vandermark in the pipeline.

Pocket trumpet disc, never, but you might hear me blow it for a minute somewhere. There is a Vandermark, Gray, Morris disc due on Clean Feed. Riti will have a recording with Me. John Voigt and Tom Plsek improvising on Lowell Davidson scores.

Wilbur Ware's intonation and the exactitude of his time, both on full display on the VV recording, are what make him better that just about everyone

And I'll reiterate a thought from the Dewey thread - even though I'm a guitarist, I am very much an enthusiast of the bass and do enjoy all the bass-geek talk. Even learning some things from it, so keep on w/it in the regular threads. NO BASS GHETTO!

Hell, I hope to even start up some guit-geek talk on some of these threads when the time allows (Morris could get in on all of this). Djill - give us some trump-geek talk when the mood strikes you. I like learning about the specific concerns/quirks of each instrument.

As to teaching Merzbow - I actually could envision doing a lesson discussing the various ways different fx boxes and fuzzes interact with each other and how they function differently depending on how you run them in series. This is a specific aspect used in a lot of Akita's pre-laptop work. Sometimes on gigs there's sections where I'll turn the guitar's volume knob off and get down on knees and play the various fuzzes, etc. using rhythmic cycles in the on-off switching for momentum and dynamics. It sounds not unlike Merzbow. The idea of 'teaching' this at first seems strange, but it can be done.

"Softly as Morning Sunrise" is just amazing. It is a kind of pinicale for jazz bass playing. It is actually one of the few standards I still have memorized.
WW just hits everything perfect, you just feel the weight of every note, nothing is wasted.
I stupidly passed on a Charles Moffet LP with WIlbur on bass when I was younger,
I always regret that. Has anyone heard that one?
You can download Karl Siegfried's thesis on Wilbur here:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268910

Glad to read all the Wilbur love.

Damon, that Moffett album is The Gift on Savoy. It's uneven, but a lot of fun, esp. the tune "Avant Garde Got Soul Too". Charles trumps Ornette by featuring 7-year old Cody on some cuts. Currently (& probably indefintely) oop, but I'd be happy to send you a copy. Thanks for that thesis link.

Speaking of amp-less bass players- i have a vivid memory of seeing an Art Davis group(my vivid memory fails when it comes to remembering the the players in the group) and seeing Davis set up his bass; i did not see an amp; i thought to myself- "damn- without an amp i'll never be able to hear Art". Well, my fears were unfounded- his sound was so big he could be heared under every minute of the music, even when the sax(whoever it was) and the other musicians were at full volume- an astounding experiance for me- and the only time i recall seeing bass player without an amp!

Speaking of amp-less bass players- i have a vivid memory of seeing an Art Davis group(my vivid memory fails when it comes to remembering the the players in the group) and seeing Davis set up his bass; i did not see an amp; i thought to myself- "damn- without an amp i'll never be able to hear Art". Well, my fears were unfounded- his sound was so big he could be heared under every minute of the music, even when the sax(whoever it was) and the other musicians were at full volume- an astounding experiance for me- and the only time i recall seeing bass player without an amp!

I hope everyone got a chance to view the Rollins stuff, 'cause it's gone now.