Echoes From The Prague Jazz Festival 1964
Various Artists LP
SUPRAPHON (1964, Czech)
It has always been the philosophy of this blog to welcome
and encourage collaborations. I can even
say that without a small but expending group of collaborators - some regular (Paul D., onxidlib), some occasional, this blog
wouldn’t be what it has become. This collaborative effort is the most exciting and rewarding aspect of blogging.
I’m therefore much thankful to El Porco Rojo for sending us this rare Eastern European album featuring Benny Bailey, Leo Wright, Kenny Drew and Andre Condouant a.o. He could have posted it on his own blog but
he thought it would fit better here, in the company of Andre Condouant’s
Brother Meeting and Leo Wright Jazz Studio’s LP (a contribution by Paul D). Thanks my friend, it is much appreciated.
It doesn’t stop here: I’m both pleased and honored
to announce that the next post will be a contribution from the legendary El
Reza! So keep posted!
Recorded:
October 1964 live in Prague,
#B3,4 recorded at the Supraphon Studio,
Issued as issues: 1964 SUPRAPHON ST 55633 (Czech) ; 1964 or `65 SUPRAPHON SUA
15633 ;
Also
released as: Ozveny Jazzoveho Festivalu Praha 1964 SUPRAPHON DV 10166 ;
Czechoslovakian Jazz / Various Artists SUPRAPHON SV 9005
#A1 &
#B1appear also on Baby Douglas And His Negro Jazz
In Europe,
1965 EP
SUPRAPHON SUK 35628 (CSSR) (mono)
Tracks
Side A
1. Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So (Charles)
2. Dobbing The Red Fox (Moody)
3. Yesterdays (Kern)
4. Sonny Moon For Two (Sonny Rollins)
Side B
1. My Blues (Green)
2. I Can´t Get Started (Gershwin)
3. Ain´t Misbehavin´ (Waller/Razaf)
4. Blues For Festival (Camrda)
Credits
DONALD
"BABY" DOUGLAS (voc #A1, B3);
"DR.
BLUES" CANDY GREEN (voc #B1?,4; p);
BENNY
BAILEY (tp #B2);
ZDENEK
PULEC (tb #B4);
LEO WRIGHT
(as #A2, B4) or (as #A2, B1-4; fl #A2) ? ;
KENNY DREW
(p #A3);
ANDRÉ
CONDOUANT (g #A4);
ROLAND
HAYNES (b);
FRED
BRACEFUL (dr);
PRAGUE DIXIELAND
BAND /w K. KRAUTGARTNER (#B3,4);
BABY
DOUGLAS & THE BLACK JAZZ IN EUROPE (#A1-4,B1,2)
Note: Leo
Wright is wrongly credited as Leon Wrighte
 |
| Condouant, Bailey, Wright |
Original liner notes
Towards the end of October 1964, the first
International Jazz Festival took place in Prague. A number of the foremost
European ensembles and soloists participated.
The United States, the cradle of Jazz, was
represented by a group of Afro-American soloists who live at present in Europe
and whom the singer Donald "Baby" Douglas organized into a group for
the express purpose of participating at the Festival.
Douglas, who is 27, comes from LA and is at
present studying the piano and cello at the Royal Academy of Music in
Stockholm. He is the vocalist of the well-known Swedish Jazz Orchestra headed
by Putte Wickman, with whom he visited Czechoslovakia in 1963. It was then that
he promised to revisit Prague in the company of a group of eminent
Afro-American Jazz soloists, and he fulfilled that promise on the occasion of
the Jazz Festival Praha 1964.
Leo Wright, an alto-saxophonist and flutist who
came to Prague from West-Berlin (where he played in a nightclub), was really
the star of this ad hoc group and its virtual leader. Wright was born in Texas
in 1933 and so far has played in several leading orchestras including those of
Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie. His perfect phrasing and easy fluency of
playing won him a multitude of admirers during his stay in Czechoslovakia.
Wright is the soloist (flute) in James Moody´s composition 'Dobbing The Red
Fox'.
The second member of the melody section was
Benny Bailey, the 40-year-old trumpeter from Cleveland/Ohio, who is at present
a member of the Munich Radio Orchestra. Bailey has been a professional
performer for 24 years and has been with such Jazz men as Jay McShann, Dizzy
Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones and Harold Arnold in Sweden. He proves
his extraordinary art in Gershwin´s 'I Can´t Get Started'.
,+Fred+Braceful,+Roland+Haynes.jpg) |
| Baby Douglas, Cndy Green, Kenny Drew, Andre Condouant, (sitting), Fred Braceful, Roland Haynes |
Kenny Drew, one of the most distinguished
personalities in contemporary Jazz, was the pianist of the group. He has played
with Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and other
soloists. Born in New York in 1928, he came to Prague from Copenhagen where he
was playing at the time of the festival. Kenny Drew´s playing is not
spectacular but his well-thought-out accompaniments are highly functional. He
is heard as a soloist in Kern´s song 'Yesterdays'.
Other members of the rhythm group included
André Condouant (guitar) from Martinique [actually he is from Guadeloupe !], a
former partner, in Paris, of the organist Lou Bennett, the young Parisian
bassist Roland Haynes and Fred Braceful, the drummer, who lives in the German
Federal Republic. Singers Baby Douglas and "Dr. Blues" Candy Green
each contributed a song to the programme: Douglas sang Charlie´s foxtrot
'Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So' and Candy Green, who also plays the piano,
'Mr. Blues'.
Since all the members of this ad hoc group live
in different European cities and met in Prague for the first time just before
the opening of the festival, they did not include in their programme any very
complicated arrangements but concentrated instead on individual solo
performances. Two pieces, however, were recorded by Baby Douglas and Leo Wright
accompanied by the leading Prague amateur ensemble, the Prague Dixieland Band.
These recordiings, made in the Supraphon studio, will certainly be a welcome
addition to the record library of any lover of good Jazz.
A variety of groups recorded live at the Prague
Jazz Festival - vocalist Candy Douglas singing with the Putte Wickman band with
solists Leo Wright and Benny Bailey, Kenny Drew with Andre Condouant, Roland
Haynes and Fred Braceful, and several others.
 |
| SUPRAPHON: generic sleeve |
,+Fred+Braceful,+Roland+Haynes.jpg)
