Hatfield & the North - Lady Mitchell Hall, Cambridge, England 5/10/74
I remember reading somewhere that Hatfield & The North would often open shows with strange keyboard experiments or perhaps I didn’t read it right, heard this weird experiment and thought that’s what I had read. It sounds to my ears, with some difficulty through the murk, like a sort of tapes and keyboard thing and it lasted about half an hour before the band comes on and starts doing album material. I’m wondering if most of the one discer shows just have this part cut or if it was only Rotters Club era or whatever. Nevertheless it was about the only point of interest here because of the quality which is definitely pretty poor. Musically, these guys were always good.
Horace Silver Quintet - Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria 11/3/68
There’s quite a few Silver shows from this European tour floating around, including, if I remember right, a video from Amsterdam. I couldn’t easily find the line up, but I’m sure Billy Cobham was the drummer and Bennie Maupin a sax player and really, for Silver’s post Jazzmessengers period, this was a good era for him after Serenade to a Soul Sister. Just about all the recordings sound good and this is at the better end of that range, like a lot of other period recordings filmed for TV or radio at the Konzerthaus (I’m thinking straight off of Miles Davis band). There’s a slight era influence and long tracks for the band to riff on. It all gets a bit worksmanlike at times and they weren’t over the moon inspired here, but it’s quite enjoyable.
Jimmy Smith - The Mercury Club, Austin, TX 11/6-7/98
Two nights of comfort food from the master organist, these are two fine sounding shows, either extraordinary audience recordings or solid soundboards with what sounds like a guitar, organ and drums trio, almost the ultimate souljazz line up. Even towards the end, Smith’s fingers moved like lightning up and down the keys and whoever’s playing the guitar has all the classic Green and Montgomery influences and has a fabulous tone. Both shows have a nice selection of varied material from the laid back blues to grooving barnstormers, hell I could listen to this kind of stuff all day.