[TR24][OF] The George Duke Quartet - The George Duke Quartet Presented By The Jazz Workshop 1966 Of San Francisco - 1966/2015 (Post-Bop)

The George Duke Quartett Presented by the Jazz Workshop 1966 of San Francisco
It happened on a Monday. We were on a scounting expedition in San Francisco's famous night club district, North Beach, after having successfully wrapped up our recording sessions with the Art van Damme Quintet.
One club, the Jazz Workshop, on Broadway near Kearny, attracted our special attention because we had heard so much about its great jazz policy.
The marquee outside the club that night had said "Playing the Les McCann Trio". But it wasn't Les McCann playing inside. In fact, Monday night was Les's night off, and sitting in was another group. A quartet consisting of piano, bass, drums and bass trumpet. This group turned out to be the George Duke Quartet, a relatively new group featuring very young musicians. Nevertheless, the performance was totally professional.
What we liked most about George Duke's group was the spontaneity of musical expression. Yet this was a disciplined group trying to find new interpretations and new horizons for their sometimes old tunes. This was no gingerbread. These boys had a message. This rang out clearly already when we first entered the club as Dave Simmons's horn was leading them into "Jeannine". It was jazz as its best. Our session was not easy to record. Many technical details had to be improvised because we had to record without much notice (we were due back in Germany), and above all, we couldn't really find a suitable piano for George. For unknown reasons (maybe we were preceded by a violent rock'n-roll group), the studio piano had just broken down and both the piano tuner and a repairman had to work feverishly to reconnect the pedals. But we all had great fun doing this session aside from enjoying the wonderful music which the group was playing.
George Duke, the leader of the group, is a very young San Francisco pianist. He was born and raised about ten miles north of the city, in Marin County. His formal musical education is not quite completed. He studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and plans to graduate sometime this summer. However, he has been playing both concerts and clubs for several years. We mentioned already the Jazz Workshop. He has also played at the El Matador in San Francisco and the Trident in Sausalito. Recently, he spent a short time with the Jon Hendricks group and played with his trio (the quartet minus the bass trumpet) at the Half Note Club in San Francisco. Among his teachers are Sir Jules Hayward, Marcus Gordon and, most recently, Maro Ajemian.
John Heard, a 28 year old Pennsylvanian from Pittsburgh, is one of the many prolific young bassists you will find now in the US. Actually, he started out playing the saxophone in junior high school. Because there was no bass player in his band, the music instructor switched him to bass just before graduation. John has been playing bass ever since. He studied with Herman Clemens, leading bassist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Then he joined the Air Force and was stationed in Germany. He continued to play while in the service, and he even bought himself a German instrument which he has cherished ever since. Back in civilian life, John has played with numerous names in jazz such as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Horace Parian, Booker Ervin, and Jon Hendricks of Lambert-Hendricks-Ross. Among his main influences are Ray Brown, Milt Hinton, Charlie Mingus, and Wilbur Ware.
David Simmons, bass trumpet, is originally from Spokane, Washington. He first became interested in music at the age of 7 when he learned to play the piano. That was in 1944. But he gave up the piano two years later because he wanted to play baritone horn in the local school band. Since the band did not have any baritone horns, Dave had to put up with a tuba. It was ten years later that he decided to play jazz. He didn't think there was sufficient opportunity for a tuba player in jazz and so he got himself a bass trumpet which uses a trombone mouthpiece of the type he was accustomed to and has the advantage of being less cumbersome than a valve trombone. David, too, had the opportunity to stay in Europa while in the service. He has been living in San Francisco since 1962.
George Walker, drums, is a native of Kansas City. Already at the tender age of 5, he played on pots and pans with sticks while his mother played the piano. His father bought him his first set of drums when he was 11. It was on these drums that George taught himself to play. He started playing night clubs when he was 17. In 1946, George came to San Francisco and has since played with many of the Jazz greats: Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Jimmy Witherspoon. In 1964, George toured in Japan.
Dr. B. G. Falk

This was my first album. It came about as a result of playing at The Jazz Workshop, the then famous jazz club in San Francisco. It went on to become a strip joint. (Well they always said that jazz was brothel music)
I was playing on a Monday Night (the off night for Les McCann who had played all the week before). Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, the owner of SABA Records, Baldhard G. Falk and another person came to see Les, and decided to stay and see me upon learning that Monday was Les's night off. I didn't know who they were, so I was kinda loose and having a lot of fun. Besides, the house was light.
The year was 1966. At that time I was studying at The San Francisco Conservatory Of Music. They approached me at the break and asked me if I'd like to record an album. Needless to say, I was in a state of shock. Baldhard asked me to give him a call at his office. As fate would have it, I made an appointment, went to see him, and signed an agreement to record one LP for SABA records.
Without a doubt this is the worst record I've ever made. I was quite nervous and had been studying John Coltrane. For some reason I thought all I had to do was play the head of a tune real nice and then proceed to rattle off myriads of notes at high velocity. This did not make for a pleasing result, but it was all I knew. Actually I have tapes that predate this LP that are far superior, because I was relaxed and not in a studio environment.
The record took six hours to record. We did three tunes a day in three hours. On the record was a young bass player named John Heard (I grabbed him after he left John Hendricks) whom I worked with for many years.Источник: http://georgeduke.com/1960s.html

foobar2000 1.3.9 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-04-28 19:52:04
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Analyzed: The George Duke Quartet / The George Duke Quartet Presented By The Jazz Workshop 1966 Of San Francisco
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DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
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DR14      -1.86 dB   -20.54 dB      5:27 01-The Second Time Around
DR14      -2.20 dB   -19.02 dB      7:36 02-The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
DR13      -2.02 dB   -18.25 dB      5:54 03-Days Of Wine And Roses
DR12      -2.18 dB   -18.01 dB      4:27 04-Jeannine
DR14      -2.17 dB   -20.69 dB      7:06 05-Little Girl Blue
DR13      -1.07 dB   -18.95 dB      7:27 06-Secret Love
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Number of tracks:  6
Official DR value: DR13
Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   24
Bitrate:           1342 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
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