26-October-1998 -- Robert Rouda asks:

Anyone having access to early Smithsonian Dizzy Gillespie album, 1940-1944, please contact me at mxcobob@yahoo.com, especially if you have the 1940-1944 part which has Dexter, Billy E., Cab, and Sarah Vaughn singing, "Interlude".

Can anyone help Robert?

25-October-1998 -- Ann Pride writes:

Hello, My search engine brought me to your site. I am looking for a particular version of Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" that has a female performing vocals. I unfortunately know nothing more about the song (except the lyrics!) but as it has sentimental value. I would be quite grateful if you could perhaps shed some more light on this mystery for me. Thank you.

Ann, "Take Five" would get our vote for the single jazz piece that the pedestrian listener could identify. In addition to the many covers, it's been heard in movies (like "Pleasantville") and in television commercials. The recording we suspect you are thinking of is Carmen McCrae's "Take Five" from her recording Don't Misunderstand (Jazz Time 8952 8134). This recording is available and can be ordered on-line from an Internet music store such as CD Universe. It also appears on Pamela Knowles' Love Dance (Larriken 327) but we were unable to find this recording listed with several Internet CD providers. We hope the McCrae recording is what you are looking for, as she was a fine interpreter of Jazz standards.

24-October-1998 -- Drew Horgan writes:

My wife and I very much enjoy your newsletter. We live in The Hague (The Netherlands) which has quite an active jazz scene year-round, not just the North Sea Jazz Festival. There are several clubs and also concerts at different times of the year....something going on several nights a week, all year except August (But even then, in August Ron Goedvolk puts on the three-day Lange Voorhout Jazz Festival, out under the trees in the most beautiful square in The Hague. And nearby (50 minutes by train) is the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, a great place for all kinds of jazz from real improv to funky to more traditional stuff. In fact last night at Bimhuis, we participated in one of the finest jazz gigs we have ever attended. The great Ray Brown was there with Larry Fuller subbing for Geoff Keezer on piano and Kareem Riggins filling in for Greg Hutchinson on drums. It was a great night, and Ray was as warm and friendly as ever. We, and others present, were really taken by Kareem Riggins. Wow! The other great thing about last night at Bimhuis was that Ray drew just an incredible audience of jazz musicians besides jazz-lovers such as us. I don't know how familiar you are with the Dutch jazz scene, but among many young and old were two Bird Award winners, Cees Slinger, piano and John Engels, drums. Some of the young "leading lights" were also there: Peter Beets, piano; Jesse van Ruller, guitar; Joost Patocka, drums; Martijn Vink, drums; Joost van Schaik, drums; Jan Menu, sax; and many more. Tonight Michael Brecker is here in The Hague, and next Thursday, Kenny Barron is soloing at the Bimhuis. What can I say, "Life is sweet!" I have gone on too long, but then maybe AAJ can use more info on the Dutch scene: Beyond North Sea! Thanks again for your hard work and dedication. AAJ is cool and great!

18-October-1998 -- Erik Charas writes:

Hello there,...[I] admire Charles Mingus and his music a lot!! But unfortunately I know almost nothing about him. Can you recommend [any resources] where I can find and learn more about him and his music? Where does he fit in today's jazz existence? Is he as important as Miles, Monk, Coltrane, etc? Why didn't he change to accommodate the modern trend? Why did he sound marvelously different?... anyway, Thanks.

Thank You, Erik! Erik, you have a lot of different questions and we are going to address them somewhat out of order, closing our response with some resources you can access to learn more about this most important jazz figure.

"Is [Charles Mingus] as important as Miles, Monk, Coltrane, etc.?" Scott Yanow, in The All Music Guide to Jazz (Miller Freeman, 1998), lists the six most influential individuals in the history of Jazz as: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. Considering that Mingus collaborated with five of these six (we are not to sure about Louis Armstrong) it is certainly safe to say that Charles Mingus belongs with this group. Yanow, in the same resource, lists Mingus as one of the most significant Bebop bass players (along with Oscar Pettiford, Ray Brown, and Percy Heath). In addition, Mingus, like Miles, Monk, Art Blakey, and most recently, Wynton Marsalis, was an educator, preparing the likes of Jaki Byard, Eric Dolphy, and Mal Waldron, among many others for jazz performance and composition. This ensured that his philosophy and style would be considered and assimilated by those who performed after leaving his tutelage.

"Why didn't he change to accommodate the modern trend?" We think it was because he was helping to set that modern trend. Where Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane expanded Jazz into the Free realm in the early to mid-1960s, Mingus chose to retain a certain order and musicality while still exploring the Free Jazz domain.

"Who were his followers?". Anyone who ever collaborated with him. The Charles Mingus Big Band still exists, just as the Count Basie Big Band still exists. Mingus was not an easy person; he was every bit the iconoclast. Admire him or dislike him or his influence, the one thing that listeners and performers alike could not do was remain neutral about Charles Mingus. That might be the greatest tribute to him. The resources listed below will give you a fuller accounting of those who followed this master.

"Why did he sound marvelously different?" Because he had a musical vision that he did not err from. Part of his iconoclastic makeup was a specific philosophy and sound that he wanted to hear and hear it he would at the expense of everyone. Like Monk, he demanded the listener to pay attention to the art he was creating. He was a demanding band leader who asked a lot of his musicians and pushed them beyond their normal limits. This type of philosophy (in the hands of such a master) can only result in innovation.

There are a variety of resources that you can access whether on the Internet or at the library. http://www.allmusic.com and its print version The All Music Guide to Jazz (Miller Freeman, 1998, ISBN 0-87930-530-4) are good places to start for biographic and discographic information. The All Music Guide is an excellent resource to all elements of music (with the exception of classical). Another Internet resource is The Original Charles Mingus Home Page (http://www.duke.edu/~swn/index.html). We would like to also suggest two superb vignettes of Mingus in Jazz Masters of the 50s by Joe Goldberg (Da Capo, 1965, ISBN0-306-80197-3) and American Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz by Whitney Balliett (Oxford University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-19-506088-1, Paperback). And we would be remiss if we did not suggest that you consult Mingus' own memoir, Beneath The Underdog (Vintage Books, 1971, ISBN0-679-73761-8. Paperback).

Enjoy, Erik. You couldn't have picked a better jazz icon to be interested in.

21-October-1998 -- Jim Smith adds:

It is suggested in a Louis Armstrong discography by Hans Westerberg that Mingus played with Louis on sides recorded during 1943 in Los Angeles. So it appears he was linked to the six major figures, or were they perhaps linked to him.

04-October-1998 -- Andrzej Karwowski writes:

I am looking for [as much information as possible] about Al Foster. Please help me if you can.

Andrzej, we are amazed at just how little biographical information is available on drummer and ubiquitous sideman Al Foster. World Wide Web Searches yielded nothing but performance citations. The AllMusic Guide to Jazz lists an impressive discography that we suspect is not entirely accurate. So, regarding discographical information, we would direct you to http://www.musiccentral.msn.com/Artist/Display/104644 for a fairly complete representation of Foster's work. Otherwise, about the best that we can do for you is to paint Mr. Foster in broad and bright strokes and hope that other readers can aid us in providing you more information.

Al Foster has recorded on in excess of 90 dates. He has most closely been associated with Miles Davis (Electric Period before and after Davis' retirement) and Joe Henderson in the 1980s and 90s.

One of Foster's most recent dates was on Shirley Horn's I Remember Miles (Verve 314 557). He plays on several numbers, but none more critical than the Gershwin/Heyward "My Man's Gone Now". In the liner notes, Horn describes having heard Miles' version from his 1981 post-retirement live recording, We Want Miles (Sony SRCS 9133, Japanese Import) "...It was the first time I had heard that drummer Al Foster. He was playing those rhythm patterns...I listened, listened, and listened. I got stuck on it. [When recording this album...] I thought at the time, "I want to do some of that and I want to do it with Al Foster."

In 1985, Foster was also on hand for the recording of the two disc Joe Henderson set, State of the Tenor (Blue Note 28879) with Ron Carter on bass. These performances can be considered a rollicking update of the Sonny Rollins saxophone trio dates recorded at the Village Vanguard (A Night at the Village Vanguard, Volume 1 (Blue Note 46517), A Night at the Village Vanguard, Volume 2 (Blue Note 46518). With these two sets as bookends to John Coltrane's The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (ImpulseIMPD4-232), the evolution of both the tenor saxophone and jazz drumming are uniquely documented. Al Foster is a logical element of this jazz drumming evolution. With such anemic luck in trying to find biographical information on Al Foster, we challenge our readers with this conundrum. If any Al Foster buffs reading this can help out our inquirer, please write to HREF="mailto:akarwowski@businessman.com.pl">Andrzej Karwowski.

01-October-1998 -- S. Currie writes:

In the 1950s, I owned 2 discs (78 rpm) of W.C. Handy songs by an artist described on the label as "Al Bernard, Singing Comedian and Hot Orchestra". These were lost many years ago and I can find no reference to them in any discography. Has anyone ever heard of them..

Mr./Ms. Currie, the short answer to your question is, "no". We conducted a keyword search of the World Wide Web using the key phrases "Al Bernard" and "W.C. Handy" and came upon only a single recording listed in the catalog of the Rolling Stone Network (http://www.tunes.com). The recording (compact disc) is entitled "75th Anniversary, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band" and is available on the RCA label, recording number 61098 with a publish date of 1992. A little further digging found another compact disc with Al Bernard as vocalist entitled "Comic Minstrel and Ragtime Songs By Al Bernard and Ernest Ware, Volume 1" at a WWW site called Vintage Recordings (http://207.227.211.170/ventcat1a.html).

Having expired our humble search capabilities, we open this question up to our readership. This is a tough one. Al Bernard is not listed in John Chilton's "Who's Who of Jazz" or Leonard Feather's "The Encyclopedia of Jazz". If any cyberjazz buffs reading this can help out our inquirer, please write to S. Currie

23-September-1998 -- Bill Moree writes:

I was hoping you knew the answer to this question or could point us in the right direction. We are thinking that we are going to name our son "Thelonious", [who is] due in a week! Which brings up the question: Where did his [Thelonious Monk's] mother get the name? Where does it come from? Is there any history there? Your help would be sincerely appreciated!

Bill, we thought we had this question pegged with some highly informed drivel about early Roman or Hellenic derivations. But the origin of Thelonious Sphere Monk's most unique name is a simple one: Monk's mother named him after his father, Thelonious Sphere Monk, Sr. Thelonious Sphere Monk, Jr. was born on October 10th, 1917 in Rock Mount, North Carolina. He was christened Theilous Junior Monk, according to John Chilton ("Who's Who of Jazz", 1972), the origin of Theilous and Thelonious being assigned as a family from Monk's father's family (Nat Henthoff, The Jazz Life, 1985). The famous pianist, in turn, named his drummer son T(helonious) S(phere) Monk, III.

In our research, we did find a beautiful and philosophic musing of Monk's name from Bob Blumenthal in his superb liner notes for "Thelonious Monk: The Complete Blue Note Recordings" (Blue Note 30363): "...'Thelonious' announces imposing complexity and originality with roots in tradition, 'Monk' signals abrupt angularity, and the rhythmic impact of the two in juxtaposition is indelible and unique... Most revealing of all though, is "Sphere" with its intimations of rounded three-dimensional completeness, of a self-contained planet pursuing its own course in the musical universe."

We wish the best for you and your new son. Congratulations and good luck.