Three Wishes

The Baroness asked Clarence “C” Sharpe what his three wishes would be if they could be granted:

1. “That’s a big thing! Let’s see. My First wish is to have – this is going to sound rather square – love between all men.”
2. “The second is musical success for my wife and myself.”
3. “And for the third, I’d like to be able to leave something of musical validity to the world.”

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

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Requisites

Mood Indigo is an album recorded by saxophonist Frank Morgan on June 26 & 27, 1989. It was released on the Antilles label. It was recorded at RCA Recording Studios, Studio C in New York City.

The altoist contributed two compositions among the twelve he selected among the array of standards by the best in the business. Being members of the quintet that Morgan put together for this date, Cables and Williams were also invited to contribute one song each.

Morgan chose not to drag out the album with lengthy solos, rather opting to deliver an honest and sensitive interpretation of these popular songs. This approach kept the album under an hour.

1. Lullaby (George Cables) – 1:29
2. This Love Of Mine (Hank Sanicola, Sol Parker, Frank Sinatra) – 6:36
3. In A Sentimental Mood (Duke Ellington) – 4:18
4. Bessie’s Blues (John Coltrane) – 8:59
5. A Moment Alone (Buster Williams) – 1:46
6. Mood Indigo” (Ellington) – 5:59
7. Up Jumped Spring (Freddie Hubbard) – 4:58
8. Polka Dots and Moonbeams (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke) – 4:29
9. We Three Blues (Frank Morgan) – 6:55
10. ‘Round Midnight (Thelonious Monk) – 6:55
11.  Lullaby (Cables) – 1:36
12.  Gratitude (Morgan) – 0:35

• Frank Morgan – alto saxophone, voice (tracks 1–4 & 6–12)
• Wynton Marsalis – trumpet (tracks 4 & 6)
• George Cables (tracks 1, 3, 8, 10 & 11), Ronnie Mathews (tracks 2, 4, 6 & 7) – piano
• Buster Williams (tracks 2, 4–7, 9 & 10) – bass
• Al Foster (tracks 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 & 10) – drums

• John Snyder – producer
• Joe Lopes – engineer

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Michael Evans Osborne was born in Hereford, England on September 28, 1941 and attended Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire and the Guildhall School of Music.

From 1962 to 1972, Osborne was a bandmate in the Mike Westbrook band. During this period he also worked with Michael Gibbs, Mike Cooper, Stan Tracey, Kenny Wheeler, Humphrey Lyttelton, Alan Skidmore, John Surman, Harry Miller, Alan Jackson, John Mumford and Lionel Grigson.

During 1974–75, Osborne was part of the saxophone trio S.O.S. with John Surman and Alan Skidmore. They recorded an album, BBC radio and television sessions, and toured extensively in Europe.

Health issues hastened the end of his career in 1982, and returning to Hereford, alto saxophonist, pianist, and clarinetist Mike Osborne, who was a member of Brotherhood of Breath, transitioned while living under care at the time on September 19, 2007, aged 65.

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Three Wishes

Al Timothy and the Baroness were talking one night when she asked him what his three wishes would be and responded with:

1. “There’s one thing I wish I could be is a really great arranger, and a really great singing voice, and I’ll take care of the rest. I’ve been in this business over twenty years, you know, but if I had to start all over again, I’d do all the same things over again.”

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

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Richard Malden Heckstall-Smith was born on September 26, 1934 in the Royal Free Hospital, in Ludlow, Shropshire, England. Raised in Knighton, Radnorshire, he learned to play piano, clarinet and alto saxophone as a child. He attended a York boarding school but refused a second term there, instead enrolling in Gordonstoun, where his father had accepted a job as headmaster of the local grammar school.

Completing his education at Dartington Hall School, before co-leading the university jazz band at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, from 1953, by the age of 15 Dick had taken up the soprano sax while at Dartington. He was captivated by the sound of Sidney Bechet, then Lester Young and tenor saxophonist bebop jazzman Wardell Gray proved to be major influences for him.

An active member of the London jazz scene from the late 1950s, Heckstall-Smith did a six-month stint in 1957 with the Sandy Brown band. He joined Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, a groundbreaking blues group in 1962, recording the album R&B from the Marquee.

The following year, he was a founding member of that band’s breakaway unit, The Graham Bond Organisation. Then in 1967, he joined guitarist-vocalist John Mayall’s blues rock band, Bluesbreakers. He went on to jazz rock with Colosseum until ‘71, then recorded a solo album and ventured into jazz fusion with several groups, which sustained most of his performing through the remainder of his career.

In 1984 he published his witty memoirs, The Safest Place in the World, with an expanded version, retitled Blowing the Blues, published in 2004.

Diagnosed with acute liver failure, tenor, soprano, and baritone saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who also played piano, clarinet and alto saxophone, transitioned on December 17, 2004 at 70 in ​​Hampstead, London, England.

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