Customer Reviews

Max Roach + Dizzy Gillespie - Paris 1989

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just Trumpet and Drums .. Not Just any Trumpet and Drums tho'!!! .. This sounds especially great on a good system .. nice recording .. but it's what's in the recording here .. a succession of musical ideas that keep you interested from start to finish .. wish I had been there to see it , Try this disc along with Diz , Toots Theilemans and Pretty Purdie ' Digital At Montreux,' another great live show on CD .. I like jazz when people dare to be different ! This is different .. two masters playin' off each other . amazing stuff .

How can you make an almost 2 hour concert with trumpet and drums interesting enough to keep an audience attentive all the way through? just add Diz & Max and voila! A succesful experiment of this nature already had occured with Max and Anthony Braxton earlier (recommended also)... but to know that these giants know each other since they were youngsters is a plus, for us and them... you simply can't stop being amazed by the constant flow of ideas. There's an interesting interview at the end of the second cd also. Long live be bop!

~ Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie spent considerable time in Paris during the summer of 1989. Their time together resulted in two entirely different recordings. The most widely available and best known of these recordings is this 2-CD set. The lesser known is the single CD featuring Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie with an all-star big band that includes Jackie McLean, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Percy Heath, Milt Jackson, and Hank Jones among others. See my review of In Paris.
~ This double-CD set is an entirely different story. For this recording the two musicians took the stage with no set plan and proceeded to improvise. This essentially comes down to a long drum solo with occasional trumpet injections. At times it comes off as a series of rambling sketches. The closing 32.5 minutes of the second CD is an "Interview" that also wanders and could have been cut in half.
~ From a historical perspective, the 2-CD set (including the interview) is worthwhile, but this is not likely to be a pair of CD's one would play frequently. I give this a 3-star rating, which is my average rating, because I do occasionally put the CD's on and listen to them as a good example of free improvisation and interaction.