Three Wishes

When Al Haig was asked to respond to the Baroness’s three wish request he stated via telephone:

  1. “Coitus! Hurry over to the Algonquin and I’ll tell you what two and three are.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats – Complied and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

THE WATCHFUL EYE

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Requisites

The Prophetic Herbie Nichols Vol. 1 is the debut album by pianist Herbie Nichols in 1955. The album, released as a 10 inch LP on the Blue Note label, features six performances recorded by May 4th – 13th in the bop, hard bop and post bop styles.

Nichols begins his statement with Dance Line, then Step Tempest, The Third World, Blue Chopsticks, Double Exposure and Cro-Magnon Nights all follow to make up the complete album and were all composed by Nichols.

An interesting note, from 1947 he spent half a decade trying to get a contract with Blue Note and his persistence finally paid off when he finally inked a three album deal. The art was conceived by New York School abstract expressionist painter Martin Craig providing a rare and befitting cover for the purveyor of art piano music.

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Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie recorded the live bebop album Jazz At Massey Hall on May 15, 1953 in Toronto, Canada. With him on this date were bassist Charles Mingus, drummer Max Roach, pianist Bud Powell and saxophonist Charlie Parker who is billed as Charlie Chan for contractual reasons, an allusion to the fictional detective and to Parker’s wife Chan. It was the only time these five men recorded as a unit and the last recorded meeting of Parker and Gillespie.

The session was produced by Charles Mingus, and was originally released on Mingus’s label Debut, from a recording made by the Toronto New Jazz Society. Due to under-recording of the bass lines, Mingus took the recording to New York where he and Max Roach dubbed in the bass lines on most of the tunes, exchanging Mingus soloing on All The Things You Are. However, a 2004 reissue, Complete Jazz At Massey Hall contains the full concert without the overdubbing.

The original issue was as a two 10” LPs, 46:54 in length and and the cover design had five playing cards, with Gillespie as the Joker. The set on Volume 1 contains the tracks Perdido, Salt Peanuts, All The Things You Are and 52nd Street Theme. Volume 3 has Wee, Hot House and A Night In Tunisia. Volume 2 consisted of the trio recordings of Powell, Mingus and Roach from the same date all but I’ve Got You Under My Skin and one track by Billy Taylor with Mingus and Roach from a later date.

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Three Wishes

The Baroness requested three wishes from Randy Weston and he offered the following answers…

  1. “Complete freedom throughout the world.”
  2. “More emphasis on art, music and painting.”
  3. “Elimination of poverty and disease.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats – Complied and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

THE WATCHFUL EYE

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Requisites

In Town is the 1965 release by Romanian-German pianist and vocalist Eugen Cicero. Recorded for the MPS label, the cover design was by Grafisches Atelier C. Revellio and the photograph was taken by Sepp Werkmeister.

Three songs made up Side A: It’s De-Lovely, Autumn Leaves and Und Bach?. Side B has Hello Dolly, Little Niles and Por Favor. The album is 29:36 long and gives a great representation of his talent.

The trio was comprised of Eugen Cicero on piano, Peter Witte on bass and drummer Charly Antolini. The session was produced by Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer.

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