I'll let you know tomorrow. I got it in but haven't been able to spin it yet. Also got in the Max Roach.
Since we started dating eight years ago we've called each other "the Lucky Ls" (Lon and Lucy) because we were lucky to find each other again and find love again at our age.
Enjoying a Fonè title this evening ... great sound! Rava, Fresu, Bollani, Pietropaoli, Gatto – Shades Of Chet - 2 LP 45rpm (Fonè 2011)
@Robitjazz It turns out that I don’t have this in cd. I have one called One Night in Birdland that has a somewhat similar cover. I recently purchased the one you’re asking about in vinyl but haven’t listened to it yet. The AMG review says the sound is “acceptable,” which probably means it’s not great but, hey, it’s Bird so for him you make allowances.
I think it was @dennis the menace asking about Babs Gonzales. I ran across this program from David Brent Johnson’s excellent Night Lights program that might be of interest. How Professor Bop Paid His Dues: Babs Gonzales | nightlights - Indiana Public Media
Bullard was partly responsible for the migration of American jazz musicians to Europe between the two world wars, and that influence lingered to the 1950's, though he had returned to the USA. He was a hero in France after 1918, and his war actions led to him being granted French citizenship. As he was fluent in French, he stayed in Paris and opened a cabaret, which welcomed American jazz musicians. From a web article: At age 11, after seeing his father have to go into hiding from a lynch mob, Eugene ran away, dreaming, he later said, of a place “where white people treated colored people like human beings.” In 1912, now 16, he stowed away on a ship leaving Norfolk, Virginia for Germany. He got off in Scotland, and found that there, people treated him “just like one of their own.” He gravitated from there first to England and then to France, which he loved. At age 19, in 1914, Bullard joined the French Foreign Legion to fight for his adopted country against Germany in the Great War. He was seriously injured at Verdun. His heroism would earn him the Croix de Guerre military decoration, although he was thereafter unable to participate in ground combat. During his convalescence, he met a French air service officer who promised to help him become an aircraft gunner. In October, 1916, Bullard began his training, but then he asked to train as a pilot instead, and received his license seven months later. When celebrating, he recalled later, “by midnight every American in Paris knew that an American Negro by the name of Eugene Bullard, born in Georgia, had obtained a military pilot’s license.” After America entered the war in April of 1917, Bullard applied to fly for the American Expeditionary Forces but was rejected. Then French military authorities ordered him out of aviation and into a noncombat position in the infantry. The reasons remain opaque but it is not unreasonable to assume racism was behind it. It is clear that Jim Crow had arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Force in late 1917 and early 1918. As Craig Lloyd, author of a biography on Bullard, explains, "American officers believed that the morale of their white American soldiers would suffer if they ‘saw black American troops enjoying freedom from segregation and discrimination, and especially the freedom to associate with white women.’ Measures were taken to disparage black troops; white officers publicly accused them of everything from cowardice to rape.” Bullard, whose wounds entitled him to French citizenship, remained in Paris after the war. He was successful in business and “lived at the starry center of a Parisian post-war society; Josephine Baker babysat for him; Langston Hughes washed dishes at his cabaret; Ernest Hemingway based a character on him.” When WWII began, Bullard once again volunteered to fight for France, and was wounded again. He was forced to flee Europe, and escaped to New York. There, he once again encountered the prejudice he had fled to avoid. The French continued to honor him however. Bullard received 15 decorations in all from the government of France. In 1954, the French government invited Bullard to Paris to be one of the three men chosen to rekindle the everlasting flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe. In 1959, he was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d’honneur by General Charles de Gaulle, who called Bullard a “véritable héros français” (“true French hero”). He also was awarded the Médaille militaire, another high military distinction. Bullard and an unidentified person lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris in 1954. Bullard died in New York City of stomach cancer on October 12, 1961, at the age of 66. He was buried with military honors in the French War Veterans’ section of Flushing Cemetery in the New York City borough of Queens. Thirty-three years after his death, in 1994, the United States Air Force appointed him a second lieutenant. In 1949, Bullard was beaten by a bus driver in New York State for refusing to move to the back of the bus, seriously damaging his eyesight in one eye. He bought a small apartment in Harlem after WWII with a cash award given to him by the French nation.
NP Joāo Gilberto - Joāo (Verve) 1991 Just noticed after all these years that Clare Fischer is the arranger/conductor on the album.
My Eugene Bullard story continues: There is a more detailed biography on Eugene Jacques Bullard (1894-1961) - Find a Grave... His NYC grave is in a section for French citizens. My guess is that France paid his funeral costs. His grave is not far from that of Louis Armstrong (in Flushing, NYC, not far from Louis' home) Eugene had worked for Armstrong as a French and German translator on several of Satchmo's 1950's tours. From that bio: Eugene Bullard was a highly decorated African American soldier and combat pilot who fought with the French during World War I. One of ten children with only a 4th-grade education, his father was descended from Haitian slaves and his mother was a Creek Native American. At a young age, he witnessed his father's near lynching and decided to leave the US, eventually stowing away on a German ship bound for Aberdeen, Scotland. He worked his way to Glasgow, Scotland and Liverpool, England, where he was employed as a longshoreman and trained as a boxer at a local gym, soon becoming a fairly successful prize fighter. He then joined a travelling act that entertained audiences across Europe and Russia with singing, dancing and slapstick comedy. He decided to leave the travelling act and settle in Paris, France, where he worked in a music hall and as an amateur boxer. When World War I broke out in July 1914, he enlisted three months later in the 1st Foreign Regiment of the French Foreign Legion, and saw combat on the Somme front, at Artois, and the Second Battle of Champagne. He then transferred to the 170th Line Infantry Regiment, nicknamed "The Swallows of Death," and in March 1916 he was seriously wounded at the Battle of Verdun. In October of that year, he volunteered for the French Air Service as an air gunner and later trained as a pilot with the Lafayette Flying Corps, one of only a few Black combat pilots in World War I and first Haitian American military pilot. In June 1917 he was promoted to the rank of corporal and was assigned to the Escadrille SPA 93 at Beauzée-sur-Aire south of Verdun and flew around 20 combat missions and is thought to have shot down at least two enemy aircraft. After the US entered World War I, he applied to join the US Army Air Service but was rejected on account of his race. He continued to serve with the French forces until his discharge in October 1919. He remained in Paris, married a French countess, and worked as a musician and nightclub manager and became the owner of his own affluent nightclub, "L'Escadrille" as well as an athletic club. After World War II broke out in September 1939, he joined the French underground and resistance movement. Because he was fluent in German, was recruited to spy on Germans who frequented his nightclub. When Germany invaded France in May 1940, he quickly left Paris and joined the 51st Infantry of the French Army in defense of city of Orléans. After being wounded, he fled to Spain and in July 1940 he returned to the US where he was hospitalized in New York to recover from his injury. He then found work as a security guard, perfume salesman, and interpreter for jazz musician Louis Armstrong, but was physically limited due to his injury. In the 1950s he worked as an elevator operator at the Rockefeller Center in New York City, living virtually unknown and alone in a small apartment. He died of stomach cancer at the age of 66. Among his French military awards and decorations include the Legion of Honor, the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre (with bronze star), the Croix du Combattant Volontaire (1914-1918), the Combatant's Cross, the Insignia Medal for the Military Wounded, the Victory Medal (1914-1918), the Verdun Medal, the Somme Medal, the World War I Commemorative Medal, the Commemorative Medal for Voluntary Service in Free France, and the World War II Commemorative Medal. His medals are on display in the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. In 1972 his exploits as a pilot were included in the biography, "The Black Swallow of Death." In August 1994 he was posthumously commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the US Air Force.
Some days ago, this album was mentioned by an Italian jazz blogger on an article. I knew something about it but not the details in particular the quality sound. The previous cd reissue has been criticized by some web reviewers relating the sound. Perhaps the more recent Japanese reissue represents an important improvement.
I will try to listen to the record today and give you my impressions. Although I’m not a sound engineer, I doubt there is a lot you can to do to improve the sound, the caveat being it depends whether it was recorded off the air or whether there were master tapes and if the latter, what condition the tapes are in. This record was part of Columbia’s Contemporary Masters Series. I have two in this series, I Remember Bebop, which is a studio recording (terrific, by the way) and Clifford Brown and Max Roach Live at the Beehive. Great music but horrible sound.
The Young-Holt Unlimited* – The Beat Goes On Label: Solid Records (6) – CDSOL-5815 Series: Brunswick Favorite Collection Format: CD, Album, Reissue, Remastered Country: Japan Released: Apr 15, 2015 Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul Style: Soul-Jazz
SAMBA de MARACATU | JOE CHAMBERS (Blue Note) CD Bass – Steve Haines / Drums, Percussion, Vibraphone – Joe Chambers Piano, Synthesizer – Brad Merritt / Vocals [Rap] – MC Parrain Vocals – Stephanie Jordan Released 2021 in a gatefold cardboard sleeve. Playing time is just under 45 minutes. I'm loving the rhythms & general vibes on this fine album. A totally refreshing listen. "All the shimmery vibes vibrato, hooky themes and soft Latin grooves could have erred toward the soporific, but Chambers has always known how to hold attention without ostentation". — Jazzwise, April 2021
LINGER LANE - BOBBY HUTCHERSON (Blue Note) CD Bass – Chuck Rainey / Drums – Harvey Mason / Guitar – John Rowin Horns – Ernie Watts / Marimba – Bobby Hutcherson Percussion – Bobbye Hall Backing Vocals – Julia Waters, Luther Waters, Maxine Waters, Oren Waters Recorded Idylwild, California 16 January 16, 1975. A pleasant sounding (but short) 'marimba' led offering from the ever reliable Mr. Hutcherson. The Japanese limited edition CD (apparently remastered) was issued 2021. Playing time is just over 31 minutes.
