Another date that showed up on Muse was a(n unlikely?) meeting of Shaw and Braxton with others (muhal?) where they covered the Eric Dolphy 's tune Iron Man....was the name of the album "The Iron Men"? Yes, Music Inc. was a great co-operative group (Tolliver/Cowell/Cecil McBee/Jimmy Hopps). The albums were on the Strata-East label......never issued on CD (?) Woody Shaw used to make regular visits, with a mid-sized group, to Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society throughout the 1970s. I heard 'em there on a few occasions. A version of that group made an album called Ichi-Ban (also on Muse, I think)....that whole circle of people like Rene McLean, Ronnie Matthews, Louis Hayes. Straight-up unpretentious hard-swinging (pre-wyntonism) new york jazz. --G. C.
I just got a copy of "Brilliant Circles," the Stanley Cowell disc featuring Woody Shaw, among others. I'm really enjoying it and wonder if anyone out there can recommend any other Shaw or Cowell recordings. I have a lot of discs that feature Shaw as a sideman, but this is my only Cowell and I love his playing.
I've always been a fan of Shaw's Columbia records, _Rosewood_ and _Woody III_ being standouts. His Muse recordings are also excellent, such as _The Moontrane_ or _Imagination_. Basically, for me, anything that has his original compositions is of interest, anything post-Wynton when he started to play standards is less interesting to me...
philz