Oscar Moore Quartet

[paynow]

YouTube Video

[hot ford coupe]

Two great cuts. I've always liked Oscar Moore.

[monk]

I love this album.

After years of searching, I finally found a copy of Oscar Moore and Friends. There are two LPs on one CD. The first is Meet Inez Jones with the Oscar Moore Quartet recorded in 1957, the second is A Tribute to Nat King Cole by the Oscar Moore Trio recorded in 1965. The Quartet on the Inez Jones Lp is the same as on the cuts paynow posted.

Good stuff.

[hot ford coupe]

I've got to go searching for that CD. It's worth finding.

[paynow]

The only place I can find online is Fresh Sound Records but they say it's out of stock:

Oscar Moore And Friends - Oscar Moore - Blues Sounds

[randalljazz]

Originally Posted by paynow

The only place I can find online is Fresh Sound Records but they say it's out of stock:

Oscar Moore And Friends - Oscar Moore - Blues Sounds

something against amazon?

Amazon.com: Used and New: The Oscar Moore Quartet with Carl Perkins

[Drumbler]

Carl Perkins was a very fine jazz pianist too.

[Drumbler]

Oscar Moore only made a couple albums of his own in his life.

However he played with Nat King Cole Trio 1937-1947 so you could get the Nat King Cole albums he was on.

This was a period when Nat King Cole was known as a piano player and had not yet become the heartthrob vocalist we are most familiar with. Some good jazz there.

According to lore, Oscar Moore had such a hard time making a living in jazz after the Cole years he left music entirely and worked as a bricklayer. This might be a warning to those of us with designs on making a career of playing jazz for a living.

Let's see, Oscar Moore, bricklayer. Tal Farlow, housepainter.

[monk]

Capitol Records has been very good about releasing the King Cole Trio sides from 1937-1947. There are also radio transcriptions, V-Discs and Soundies available that feature Oscar with the Trio. Most are fairly easy to find.

By the way Drumbler, Tal Farlow was a sign painter not a house painter.

Randall, The OMQ with Perkins is not the same CD as OM & Friends although Perkins does play on the Inez Jones cuts.

[Drumbler]

Originally Posted by monk

By the way Drumbler, Tal Farlow was a sign painter not a house painter.

My bad.

[randalljazz]

Originally Posted by monk

Capitol Records has been very good about releasing the King Cole Trio sides from 1937-1947. There are also radio transcriptions, V-Discs and Soundies available that feature Oscar with the Trio. Most are fairly easy to find.

By the way Drumbler, Tal Farlow was a sign painter not a house painter.

Randall, The OMQ with Perkins is not the same CD as OM & Friends although Perkins does play on the Inez Jones cuts.

ah, yah, i see. didn't look close at the track listings...only that the cover on amazon is the same as the youtube in post #1...

[paynow]

Originally Posted by Drumbler

This was a period when Nat King Cole was known as a piano player and had not yet become the heartthrob vocalist we are most familiar with. Some good jazz there.

He actually appeared in the first Norman Granz "Jazz At The Philharmonic" concerts. I think he may have even won the Down Beat poll for jazz piano at some point. Some great playing here:

YouTube Video

Originally Posted by monk

Capitol Records has been very good about releasing the King Cole Trio sides from 1937-1947. There are also radio transcriptions, V-Discs and Soundies available that feature Oscar with the Trio. Most are fairly easy to find.

By the way Drumbler, Tal Farlow was a sign painter not a house painter.

Randall, The OMQ with Perkins is not the same CD as OM & Friends although Perkins does play on the Inez Jones cuts.

I have some of the King Cole Trio material. It's great.

Tal was a sign painter from a very young age, around 16 or 17. From what I remember of the "Talmage Farlow" film, the options in Greensboro, NC in the 1930s were limited to farming or working in a textile factory, so his father got him apprenticed to a sign painter. It's not like he was already well known and had to go work at that profession because the bottom fell out of the business. No one thought you could make a living at music, then he was discovered and was able to, especially since he was an original and an innovator, on a completely different level. When he first got to NYC he used it for monetary support while he waited for a cabaret card. Then, later on, he tired of the business and moved to Sea Bright, on the Jersey shore, and played limited gigs and did sign painting. Early in the film they show him playing and doing the lettering on someone's boat. It's pretty cool actually; he's great at it. I have a hard enough time playing guitar; forget about painting.

[hot ford coupe]

Thanks guys for the help in finding the CD. Of the two players that worked with the King Cole Trio, Oscar Moore was the better one. His solos had a lot more interest to them and were more varied.

[monk]

Barney Kessel said that Oscar Moore almost single handedly created small group jazz guitar.

He was, in many ways, the creator of the "King Cole Trio sound" in that most of the trio arrangements were done by Moore rather than Cole.

In the late 30s, he was a real jazz guitar "star" in the same sense as Django Reinhardt and George Van Eps.

Charlie Christian's arrival on the scene in 1939 with his electric guitar pretty much over-shadowed everyone for a couple of years. But Moore did win several Downbeat, Metronome and Esquire magazine poll awards in the early 40s.

I have three all instrumental King Cole Trio CDs, a couple of vocal CDs, a boxset of radio transcriptions and a DVD of Soundies with both Oscar Moore and Irving Ashby playing with Cole. Great stuff. I also have some Illinois Jacquet sides that Moore played on.

I never cease to be amazed how players like Moore and Van Eps who were so accomplished, so influential, so innovative and so well known have become so neglected by history.

[randalljazz]

a "new" recording, available nov 15:

Amazon.com: Presenting Oscar Moore: Oscar Moore: Music

[ronjazz]

Tal Farlow painted signs because he enjoyed it. He was very much in demand, but didn't like the jazz lifestyle, and he was comfortable by himself, without all the hustle and bustle of big-city jazz clubs, etc. Playing jazz for a living has, of course, never been easy. Playing guitar for a living is a little easier.

[monk]

Originally Posted by ronjazz

Tal Farlow painted signs because he enjoyed it. He was very much in demand, but didn't like the jazz lifestyle, and he was comfortable by himself, without all the hustle and bustle of big-city jazz clubs, etc. Playing jazz for a living has, of course, never been easy. Playing guitar for a living is a little easier.

That's the thing that tends to get obscured or jumbled when the stories get passed around. Tal chose to remove himself from the rat race for personal reasons just as Johnny Smith did. Lack of work was never the issue for either of them.

[Drumbler]

And Oscar Moore enjoyed laying bricks!

[paynow]

YouTube Video

From this record:

Amazon.com: Nat King Cole Trio: Instrumental Classics: Nat King Cole: Music

By Rachmaninov. Some interesting guitar work by Oscar.

[monk]

My copy of Presenting Oscar Moore featuring Leroy Vinegar arrived in today's mail. I'm listening to it as I write. There are only three players on the album, Oscar Moore, Leroy Vinegar and Oscar Moore.

This is a guitar-bass set with OM overdubbing rhythm guitar. It's good being able to clearly hear Oscar's backup which sometimes was difficult with the King Cole Trio recordings. Lots of good ideas.