hi everyone...
for my first blog post, how about a rediscovered live recording with the late great jazz violinist Billy Bang? My old friend/ mentor Giorgio Gomelski arranged in 1984 for me to lead "The House Band" on Monday nights at the Bitter End. Each week we had a special guest, and I would write some charts from their records. We'd have a rehearsal at Giorgio's house on Sunday, and then play on Monday.
I recently befriended Anthony Barnett, a poet in Britain, who is the top authority on the history of
jazz violin: see his amazing record label at http://www.abar.net/. Anthony is a fan of Billy's and so I searched for the old Bitter End recording.
The band includes Billy Bang and me on violins, Roy Campbell trumpet, Geoff Blythe sax, Fred Reed guitar, Paul Taylor keyboards Richard (Dickie) Dworkin drums.
Billy, Jason Hwang, and I were the violin section for when Butch Morris was first working out his improvised "conduction" style around 1982 at the Shuttle, and we all got to spend some interesting times together trying to figure out what to do... Sun Ra loved Billy and featured him heavily, and they recorded material associated with Stuff Smith, who Sun Ra also played with, and I believe Billy idolized, as he did Leroy Jenkins
Billy called this number "Up Tempo Free Jazz". He played the melody at the top and later had us trade violin licks like a tenor sax battle.
(the mp3 should be below, but it appears to be blocked here on Amtrak)
No comments:
Post a Comment