Eddie Diehl with Al Haig, 1977

[joelf]

This is a record date on Sea Breeze, from back in '77. Eddie was a member of Al Haig's trio, which had a regular night at Gregory's in NYC (Jamil Nasser was the bassist).

Eddie gets some nice space on this half-trio, half-quartet recording. He's featured to good effect on 2 ballads: Strayhorn's My Little Brown Book and Django's Nuages. His swinging time feel, ideas and sensitivity to group interplay are exemplary, as per usual. He sometimes plays quietly (as on Nuages), but when you listen closely you'll hear that every note is a pearl.

The personnel: Al Haig, piano; Jamil Nasser, bass; Frank Gant, drums; Eddie Diehl, guitar (side 2 only). Eddie comes in at 16:54. Side 1 has some very nice trio work from Mr. Haig, et al.

Note: the title tune (Manhattan Memories) was 'misattributed', perhaps by the record company. It actually is Eddie's minor blues, Be Bu. (The error was rectified years later when Eddie recorded the tune with the proper name and attribution on his own date, Well Here it Is, on Lineage records----Ilya Lushtak's label)...

[joelf]

Here's Well, Here it is:

[ragman1]

Actually it was me who put 'Well, Here It Is' on YT. There's some good stuff on that.

I've also got the Al Haig LP but I've never played it! I asked around if people had a record player I could use but no one had. Even shops that sell tons of old second-hand LP's didn't have one which was rather odd but there we are. So I'd never heard it.

Anyway, here it is on YouTube now. Again, some very good playing. Thanks for that.

[Bobbyjr]

thanks for posting this, really great, enjoyed it very much.