Treacherous 1961 chronology and unreleased material
Treacherous 1961 chronology and unreleased material
In response to Mike on the 1961 chronology,
Here is a good illustration of how we need to be fully aware of the nature and quality of our evidence before we start building on it.
rlc wrote:
There are other nagging inconsistencies, like Bill Fielder's statement
that he and Pat Patrick were rooming together in New York City, and Pat
was there apart from Sunny, when Pat was tapped by John Coltrane for
the Africa/Brass sessions on May 23, 1961.
>
What's the inconsistency? I straightened out dates with Fielder tonight and
here's what he says about 1961:
>
About February 1961, he (WBF) arrived in NYC and moved in with Pat Patrick
at 23 W. 84th St. PP had previously been rooming with tenor player Reuben
Cooper (who Fielder recorded with in Chicago along with Jack DeJohnette).
>
We know that PP made the Africa/Brass date possibly May 23 but
definitely June 7, 1961. Coltrane invited Pat while both PP and WBF were
outside of the Turf restaurant in midtown NYC.
>
PP played Newport Jazz Festival with Quincy Jones Orchestra on July 3,
- WBF says this band played quite a bit and toured (with PP).
>
Right around the time of the Dolphy/Little 5 Spot date (July 16, 1961),
Fielder moved back to Chicago. WBF attended the rehearsals for this gig and
sensed that Booker and Dolphy were not long for this world.
This is much more detail than I knew before. But notice that Bill =46ielder has no recollection of Sun Ra being in NYC during this period, or of Pat working with Ra.
>
Szwed tells us that Pat was in Chicago and got the call from Sun Ra to come
to NYC when Sun Ra hit town after Canada.
With all due respect, John Szwed's sources are no better than mine. In fact, they are the same as mine. Some people (like Lucious Randolph) recall Pat as being in Chicago when Sunny called him from New York (Lucious remembers this in the context of getting a call from Sunny himself). Others do not place Pat in Chicago at the time.
This was late 1960 or earliest
1961.=20
This is where we have to be really careful. The fact that January 1961 is now enshrined between hard covers as the Arkestra's departure date from Montr=E9al doesn't necessarily make it correct. How do we know this date? John has no exact dates for the failed gig at El Mocambo, the gig at St.-Gabriel-de-Brandon, or the gig at The Place in Montreal, etc. In fact, he found the chronology most confusing.
Phil Cohran recalls working for Sunny in Chicago through January 1961.=20 There is an ad from the Chicago Defender that, if not misdated in the anthology, has the Arkestra at a West Side club called 5thJack on May 27, 1961 (this is the same place where they mesmerized the audience with a long version of "Interplanetary Music").
PP showed up a few days later. [whereupon he started living with
Cooper, etc. etc. - certainly plausible.]
Pat left Chicago in late 1959 or early 1960 and was not in the Arkestra at all during Phil Cohran's tenure. The only real question here is whether Pat came back to Chicago for any length of time before the Arkestra arrived in NYC.
>
If Fielder said that PP was "apart from Sunny" I would guess he meant that
he wasn't living with the band and wasn't playing exclusively with them.
That is certainly the case. Szwed tells us the core of the band was living
in the "70's" after moving from the hotel on 45th St. and the room at W.
81st St. I would like to see documentation of PP working with the
Arkestra at that time (early to mid-1961).
See above. Fielder didn't recall Sunny being in town
I've shown that he was working
with others. I will do my best to date appearances by PP with the Duke
Ellington orchestra, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo. The
Savoy session of October 10, 1961 is the only concrete date of Arkestra
with PP. Placement of Bad and Beautiful is only supposition (when last I
checked).
The Willie Bobo is especially important, as we know that John Gilmore had been in New York for some time before he was allowed to sit in with this group.
If Sunny called Ed Bland when he was about to leave Montr=E9al, and asked
for help in getting work (as reported by Szwed), why would the Savoy
session (which Bland obtained for the Arkestra) have had to wait
The placement of
By 1962, Fielder was out of NYC, having moved back to Chicago for about six
weeks, then on to Nashville for about four months - he was with Louis Smith
when Booker Little's death was announced (October 5, 1961). Subsequently he
went back to Chicago and worked for about 2-3 years with Gene Ammons.
During this time PP apparently moved in with the Arkestra in the East
Village at 48 E. 3rd St and became a fixture on Sun Ra records again (not
that he missed much).
And some thoughts about unissued tracks:
>
A brief passage in the Szwed book about a "Magic City"outtake
reminded me of discographical listings of Cosmic Tones andother
records. It seems that there are a number of knownunreleased,
extant recordings from the Chicago and New York periods.Does
Evidence have any plans of trying to issue these, as theydid the
"SITP" soundtrack? Or were these outtakes reallyunreleasable,
fragments, false starts, unsuccessful etc.? Has anyone onthe
list heard these?
John was referring to two tracks called "Flying Saucer" and "Cosmic Machine" that survive on a badly damaged test pressing (really bad--sounds like somebody walked over it with golf cleats. The beginning of one of the two tracks is unplayable.) These seem to be from 1965, and one of them has Harry Spencer on it.
There are a couple of rejected tracks on tapes that Jerry Gordon has heard. Those are truly unreleasable. The other unreleased recordings (such as further material from the session with "Circe," the session at the Tip Top Club, etc.) are known to have been made, but nothing more can be said. Maybe Alton Abraham has some of them. In any case, Evidence has no current access to them.=20
rlc
Robert L. Campbell
Professor, Psychology
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Clemson University
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