Tons of great stuff on offer here, from Jaki Byard and his big band at the Blue Note, which opened in 1981, to David Murray with Richard Davis and Joe Chambers at Carlos I, to Roland Hanna, Johnny Coles, Ray Drummond and Terri Lyne Carrington (who was only 21 at the time) at Sweet Basil. Really an embarrassment of riches.
A pretty good selection of jazz on offer in the city almost a quarter of a century ago this week - not very extensive, but varied. Given my choice, I'd have headed over to the Knickerbocker to catch the Roland Hanna and Steve Kuhn engagements.
Stephen Scott's 1992 record Aminah's Dream gets a (misspelled) plug in the Bradley's listing. Scott isn't too visible these days, like many of the hyped young musicians of the early 1990s. He got his start with Betty Carter (he appears on her excellent 1988 record Look What I Got!), but when your debut album is called Something To Consider but features Roy Hargrove, Justin Robinson, Joe Henderson, Craig Handy, Peter Washington, Christian McBride, Lewis Nash and Jeff "Tain" Watts, well, you better have a lot for people to consider. According to Wikipedia, Scott hasn't recorded as a leader since 1999. Still, he was on Joe Henderson's Lush Life...
There's a nice dig at the Blue Note here, too - "jazz, mirrors, and a gift shop." What would they have made of Dizzy's Club Coca Cola?
