The old dinner party question

[suethesax]

I would invite:

Harry Connick Jnr and Michael Buble but not for dinner 😛

 

[Bobby G]

SueTheSax wrote:
I would invite:

Harry Connick Jnr and Michael Buble but not for dinner 😛

There's always someone isn't there. A sensible discussion has been dragged into the gutter 😛

Cheers, Bob

 

[suethesax]

I know it's always me - I should be old enought to know better but don't.

For dinner I would invite Billie Holiday and Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster

 

[Bobby G]

Even if they were really dull people the after-hours jam would be wonderful!

Cheers, Bob

 

[quercy]

Peter Fitton wrote:

I'd go for Frank Zappa, Peter Hammill & Cathal Coughlan (ex of Microdisney and the Fatima Mansions).

None are sax players or even jazzers (well, you could make a case for Zappa up to a point). If the list could be stretched to four or five I'd definitely invite both Rollins & Coltrane.

I'd also like Scott Walker there but I gather he wouldn't exactly be the life & soul of the party. And Laura Nyro too...

No other reasons for the above other than they're pretty much my favourite musicians and are/were all fascinating people.

Peter

I have actually had dinner with Laura Nyro. I had the pleasure of promoting her last ever UK gig at the Union Chapel in London. She was delightful- witty, charming and unassuming. She was a bit taken aback by the intensity of her UK fan base though, and I don't think she had realised quite what an iconic status she had here. I don't think she would have got on well with Mr Walker....

If I were to bring a saxophonist back from the grave it would have to be Ronnie Scott. A great raconteur, and as someone who had played with most of the great jazz musicians of the last half of the twentieth century he would no doubt have some terrific stories to tell. Maybe fellow guests could be Fidel Castro and Johnny Cash, though that would be a bit of a macho event....The wine would have to be a good Margaux.

 

[disco_volante]

I think my three would be Jean Sibelius (I really love his music, although I probabley have to invest in a Finnish phrase book), Wes Montgomery (I'd ask to have a good look at that thumb of his), and Les Dawson (It takes skill to play the piano that badly).

 

[Bobby G]

Les Dawson's piano playing is the best! Most people outside the uk have no idea who he is I bet 😉 If you had Les, wouldn't you need Roy Barraclough as well?

D'you think it took a lot of continual practise to play that badly?

Cheers, Bob

 

[disco_volante]

Bob Green wrote:

D'you think it took a lot of continual practise to play that badly?

Cheers, Bob

Must of done - I remember that show when he was doing Grieg's piano concerto with Murray Pariah......absolute genius!

 

[Bobby G]

They are all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.

Oops, wrong bloke.

Cheers, Bob

 

[disco_volante]

ohhh thats right - that was Morcombe and Wise wasn't it? I was getting a bit mixed up there....must have been the Shiraz I was sampling when I wrote that last one. 😉

 

[robaldo]

SueTheSax wrote:
I would invite:

Harry Connick Jnr and Michael Buble but not for dinner 😛

I'd take care of Mrs Harry Connick Jnr for you!

 

[peter_fitton]

Disco Volante wrote:
I think my three would be Jean Sibelius (I really love his music, although I probabley have to invest in a Finnish phrase book), Wes Montgomery (I'd ask to have a good look at that thumb of his), and Les Dawson (It takes skill to play the piano that badly).

I toyed with the idea of Sibelius too, as I'm a huge fan of his music, especially the symphonies and the 7th symphony in particular. In the end I decided I'd have to keep too close an eye on the drinks cabinet all night. He was rather fond of the sauce by all accounts :erm:

Also from the classical world, I think Erik Satie would be hard to beat for amusing eccentricity. Of course, he was a noted boozer too.

 

[peter_fitton]

[/quote]

I have actually had dinner with Laura Nyro. I had the pleasure of promoting her last ever UK gig at the Union Chapel in London. She was delightful- witty, charming and unassuming. She was a bit taken aback by the intensity of her UK fan base though, and I don't think she had realised quite what an iconic status she had here. I don't think she would have got on well with Mr Walker....

[/quote]

I am green with envy, Quercy. That is a very impressive claim to fame in my book :whistle:

One of my great regrets is that I couldn't get to that gig 🙁

Peter

 

[peter_fitton]

nachoman wrote:
I love this forum- sax players who are up for discussing other music genres outside jazz (a rare thing) and also seem to have the same cultural frames of reference as myself (Hammill, fatima mansions etc). Cathal Coughlan- now there's one very scarey frontman. I'm sure Peter hammill would be a good one- interesting, erudite guy - can't actually imagine Coughlan or Elvis Costello being that much fun to hang around with.
Linky lee's Miles Davis and Sinatra- that could well prove amusingly volatile!!!

I would guess that most people who take up the sax these days have come to the instrument via rock rather than jazz, hence our musical backgrounds are as likely to be Costello or Hammill or whoever, as they are Coltrane or Dexter Gordon or whoever.

Personally I've been listening to rock, in its various forms, for 30 odd years (I'm 45 now) but only started really enjoying jazz about 4 years ago.

Probably more people are inspired by Abi from the Zutons to take up the sax these days than by Coltrane or any of the great jazzers. And nothing wrong with that 🙂

Peter

 

[Jules]

fair comment, though Peter Hammill is pretty obscure even in rock circles. Cathal Coughlan too for that matter... methinks we're not just from rock backgrounds but there's a touch of 'High Fidelity' going down here.... I'm the first to admit it "High Fidelity, read it, I've lived it!".

 

[Bobby G]

Yep me too. I've always been aware of jazz - when I first started listening to music at about age 5 the trad boom was still happening, so Kenny Ball etc was still on the radio because they were getting hit records; later I remember seeing Peterson etc on TV, then later still jazz spilled over into the rock music of the day, and I first dipped my toes in the jazz ocean in the 80's, and have been listening to it, and buying it, and loving it for 3 or 4 years.

Having said all that, my main frame of reference has always really been pop & rock; I can remember the Beatles first record in '62 (I was 6) and I definitely grew up on all the 60's music. What was happening was that the changes and developments in society were being reflected in changes and developnents in music; the idea then seemed to be to have some sort of originality, so your next record didn't sound like the last; recording technology, ideas and lyrical content were allowing the use of new and different sounds and textures, and it seemed anything might be possible. At about age 12-13, I became aware of the 'underground', and some records by these bands started to appear in the charts, and so on the radio. This progress, for me personally, seemed to me to be central in music - that it could be new and chalenging, so when I started going to gigs (once the brief obligatory 14-year-old's flirtation with Metal was past) it was the more progressive bands that attracted me, even at 20 punk appealed to me because it offered new ideas, as did a lot of music in the post-punk era.

So much for my formative years, musically. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, what I think I'm trying to say is that I've always liked the idea of hearing something new, even if that means going back several decades, so yes, I love jazz (and many other other styles of music) but it's all stemmed from the experimental and explorative atmosphere of the 60's. I was only a small child then, so took no real part in the revolution, but as a listener I knew 'something' was going on.

Cheers, Bob 'Nick Hirnby' Green

 

[quercy]

Peter Fitton wrote:

I have actually had dinner with Laura Nyro. I had the pleasure of promoting her last ever UK gig at the Union Chapel in London. She was delightful- witty, charming and unassuming. She was a bit taken aback by the intensity of her UK fan base though, and I don't think she had realised quite what an iconic status she had here. I don't think she would have got on well with Mr Walker....

[/quote]

I am green with envy, Quercy. That is a very impressive claim to fame in my book :whistle:

One of my great regrets is that I couldn't get to that gig 🙁

Peter
[/quote]

We did (very naughtily, and close your ears Pete) run a DAT of Laura's concert through the sound desk...purely for our own listening pleasure and definitely not for any illegal money making purposes...but her manager was very street wise and pinched it at the end of the evening. It may turn up as some form of legal release one day - some other Union Chapel gigs we did have appeared - Townes van Zandt for example. (Now I bet that's the first time that Townes has had a mention in a saxophone forum.)