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I was just looking through the May 2013 issue of the much missed Just Jazz Guitar, and saw a photo of Dennis Budimir. I thought, “Who is this guy?”. Now I’m thinking everyone must know him but me. But just in case, here’s a great track from his album “Sprung Free”. Occasionally I was thinking it was great, other times just borderline doodling, but somehow he kept my attention throughout.
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07-15-2023 01:20 PM
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Probably everyone here is a Dennis Budimir fan, they just may not know it. He was on so many studio recordings and not particularly well identified.
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Yes, I’ve been watching those great videos too. It’s good these old guys are getting some late recognition.
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He put out an album on CD baby about 10 years called The Soul of Dennis Budimir you might like.
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I thought he was making a comeback with that album, but it's just a bunch of studio things he did years ago.
Originally Posted by nyc chaz
I prefer the amazing recordings he did with Chico Hamilton's Quintet with Eric Dolphy. They're all without a keyboard, and DB was able to hold his own with Dolphy, which is really saying something.
One of those CH albums stands out. Instead of playing material composed by members of the band, Chico uncharacteristically hired great composers to write very modern things which IMHO, stand up to the greatest things written for the plectrum guitar in a chamber jazz group.
I previously thought that George Russell's Jazz Workshop album with Barry Galbraith was the best example of this, but DB at least equals BG's reading and playing abilities on that particular album.
The irony was that work like that got DB into the studios, and he spent the rest of his life as a studio player, something he was very bitter about.
You can't have your cake and eat it, Dennis. He played on over 700 Hollywood movie soundtracks, just like Howard Roberts.
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Impressive. I'd like to hear that "great composers" recording. Do you remember what it is called?
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Gongs East! Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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This is a great record -
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Nice comping there, and the solo didn’t disappoint. I was enjoying imagining the trumpet and sax solos on the fingerboard too.
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It’s just a slightly odd blues: Originally Posted by sgcim
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Well, here’s a duets album (1967) with himself…and on two tracks with sax player, Gary Foster. Badly recorded, quite raw, but for the most part just Dennis and his acoustic archtop.
Blues for Ray
Embraceable You
East of the Sun
No Cover, No Minimum
I can’t get started
All the Thing You Are
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I'm just guessing, but it seems like some videos posted by European members aren't available to US members on You Tube. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I keep getting the message:
VIDEO UVAVAILABLE
This video is not available
This only from You Tube posts from Rob and Holger, however I got the last one from Rob, so I guess it's only certain videos.
Any other US members get this?
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All the time Originally Posted by sgcim
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That's a pity. In the future I should provide a link but also the title which you could search for.
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It is a matter of licensing.
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For those who didn't get to hear the "Alone Together" album I mentioned in post #11 it is called "Alone Together [1967] - Dennis Budimir (with Gary Foster)"
Try searching with that info, and let me know if you can find the video.
Oddly, the tune "Alone Together" does not feature on the album.
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Here's 47 minutes of DB live back in the 60s with Julie London and Bobby Troupe.
He does it all here, rubato accompaniments, single string solos, chord solos with minor second voicings in the middle, difficult, written single lines with BT's trumpet and the big band arrangements, written out chordal passages that you thought only pianists could play- all perfectly played and very sensitively.
His left hand just seems to glide across the board in microseconds from chord to chord using very hip voicings.
I got roasted here when I complained about the video of him playing with Bob Bain when they were both in their late, late, late years. DB had quit playing the guitar and was a shadow of himself. What was the point in having him play? Why couldn't they just play some of the Revelations records?
The interview given by the nerd who steps on a different pedal for each note he plays was good enough to educate people about his place in jazz and recording history.
DB was playing 'Trane lines and Bill Evans voicings when he was in his teens, and could sight read anything at any tempo put in front of him, also.
When asked about his amazing sight reading ability, he said that it just seemed to come naturally to him.
He used it to become one of the most recorded players in history, but he left his jazz career behind, and in the DownBeat interviews he struck me as a very bitter man because of that choice, although he doesn't show that side of himself in the aforementioned video.
He could have gone off call like Barney Kessel and others, and played some jazz dates, but he chose to stay buried in that scene for some reason.
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By the time he was making his own albums (1965-1968), jazz guitar was no longer a popular instrument. Studio work at least provided a regular income.
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That was the case with all of them. If you look hard enough, you can find jazz albums by Tommy Tedesco, Bill Pitman, Vinnie Bell, Carol Kaye, Jimmy Bond, Chuck Berghofer, Jim Gordon, Joe Porcaro, Larry Bunker, Chuck Findley and on and on. They stopped playing on non-commercial jazz albums once they were working for the studio contractors. Even the top studio musician of The Wrecking Crew, Hal Blaine, was playing on jazz records before he broke into the studios! Originally Posted by Litterick
Your dates on Budimir's own albums are the release dates; they were all recorded in the early 1960s, before 1965. They were also interrupted by military service.
By 1965-68, he was already making bundles in the studios; his career as a solo jazz artist was over by the time those Revelation albums were released. I don't know why there was the huge delay in the release of those records, but they screwed up DB's jazz career.
He was playing Coltrane ideas back in the early 60s, and working with Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry and other Modern Jazz musicians; he was already past hard bop.
But once you were on call for the studios, you belonged to them. If you turned down a date, they stopped calling you. If you were playing jazz clubs, you were 'branded' a 'jazz musician', and people stopped calling you for rock dates.
Budimir just packed it in after the studio work stopped. Chuck Findley is still making great jazz records with The Metropole Orchestra, and others.
Budimir stopped playing the guitar period. That's why he introduced himself to Frisell with, "Hi, I used to be Dennis Budimir".
Budiimir could have been a 'jazz innovator' on the level of Jim Hall, but the Revelation debacle forced him to go into the studios, and stay there.
This IMHO, accounts for the bitterness he felt about his music career.
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Barney Kessel on working in the studios.....
"the hardest part was finding parking"
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He also said that they were cranking out sausage in the studios. Originally Posted by wintermoon
His best quote though was, "We're just making music that stimulates the glands of thirteen year-old girls".
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Not to get too far from Robs post but this is an interesting read on BK
Barney Kessel
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