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| Awesomeness. |
Gigi the movie not only hasn't worn well, it was dreadful in every way on release in '58, the year after Gigi Gryce appeared at Newport. Reminiscin', his last album, is from a couple of years later, and perfectly encapsulates the vibe of 'sixties jazz. It's cool as a frosted daiquiri, swings like a sandal from the toe of a party girl, and it's an orch-tette! Oboy!
Gryce, whose playing was influenced by his pal Charlie Parker, was an academic at heart, an introspective bookish type whose compositions were the product of a formidable theoretical knowledge. He worked extensively as an arranger and session musician, contributing to many great albums (such as Monk's Music) but retreated from the music business into public school teaching - a kind of Bizarro Sting, leaving a relatively slender discography as leader which rewards investigation.
This post authenticated by the Veeblefetzer Homologation Department, U.S. Department of Commerce
Should youse bums be desirous:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/b4eHP5kFmmm
Thanks for this album, cool jazz, listening to it now!
DeleteIf you ask ten different Jazz fans/scholars/writers/musicians about Gigi Gryce's life, you will get ten very different versions. Even from people who knew him.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, the failure of his music publishing company led to his sudden abandoning of a jazz career, but that seems a little too pat?
DeleteI read GGs bio & it was scattered with phrases like "may have" & "rumored" & "no evidence" & "little is known". Not the usual labguage of a bio. Because of his extreme privacy, alleged religious persecution regarding toward is publishing businesses, & hint of homosexual irregularities in his life compounded the mysteries.
Delete"Ask ten different Jazz fans/scholars/writers/musicians about Gigi Gryce's life, you will get ten very different versions" indeed. Thanks Babs.
IMHO Coleman Hawkins & GG on "Epistrophy" from Thelonius with Coltrane is sublime.
Phil Schapp indicated to me, he was under the impression that Gigi was bisexual, and at one point, was close to, but not intimate with Billy Strayhorn. Also, that when Gigi embraced Islam, and became Basheer Qusim, he lived as an asexual, and was devoted to teaching children. Phil was also convinced that Gigi was the source of all the rumors.
DeleteThis is a long time favorite of mine. Art Farmer Quintet's 'Evening in Casablanca' from 1955, re-issued in 1992 as 'Art Farmer Quintet featuring Gigi Gryce'. (I wonder if the marketing dept. thought 'Evening in Casablanca' sounded too much like a Marx Bros. romp, or cheap perfume). Along with Art and Gigi are: Duke Jordan, Addison Farmer and "Philly" Joe Jones.
https://mega.nz/file/pTFTQYJI#e2qYqFlyvlGe1mbpjIRSSlQeOjwWgYTKa6NLIqkTFfM
Larvely. I'e been discovering Gigi is on more albums I have than I was aware of.
DeleteAwesome, Babs.
DeleteSuper sweet.
DeleteGimme dat egghead jazz!
ReplyDeleteGigi Gryce Quintet 1960-1961, with some tasty playing by Richard Williams and Richard Wyands.
Deletehttps://mega.nz/file/cXFyWSwA#Xjv_7didaEo3JkrJDiV8PfWLI7m5vBLXsPtOAt4xBoo
Mmm .. solid, jackson!
DeleteHere's another Art/GiGi from '55
ReplyDeletehttps://we.tl/t-XuJNwK0hA4
I'm a lurker on the West Coast Jazz list, and I thought I saw this many years ago -
ReplyDeletehttps://attictoys.com/gigi-gryce-basheer-qusim/
Noah Cohen wrote the book.
I'm too modest to mention that I helped him for his Art Farmer project by sending him the wrong file from the Horace Silver/Art Farmer box.
Your modesty becomes you, Dave.
DeleteThanks Farq, Babs & Dave for the d/l. Here's the complete (Don Byrd & Gigi) Jazz Lab recordings from 1955 &1957(link active till 12/6): https://we.tl/t-Sgw68ptZ9i
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for all the GG.
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for the smorgasboard of Gigi everyone! I only had a few of these "sides" in the library. Cheers!
ReplyDelete