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MathijsQuote
stevecardiQuote
exilestonesQuote
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exilestones
FRANKFURT 2ND SHOW
Exilestones, THANK YOU for posting this! I've always wondered if the Stones flew in the 1981 indoor arena stage for these Frankfurt shows, and now I know.
I wondered if this photo was the Stones since it was an indoor concert but it was confirmed by Alamy:
Stock Photo - Audience in the Festhalle.The Rolling Stones on 29 June 1982 in Frankfurt (Germany). [www.alamy.com]
Yeah, it's weird: whereas 1981 was evenly split between stadiums and arenas, the 1982 tour was almost exclusively outdoor stadium shows, except for West Berlin (an amphitheater gig) and these three Frankfurt shows. Maybe the Berlin Olympiastadion and the Waldstadion in Frankfurt were unavailable.
But this picture does not show the Stones, and wasn't taken at one of the Stones gigs though.
Mathijs
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MathijsQuote
stevecardiQuote
exilestonesQuote
stevecardiQuote
exilestones
FRANKFURT 2ND SHOW
Exilestones, THANK YOU for posting this! I've always wondered if the Stones flew in the 1981 indoor arena stage for these Frankfurt shows, and now I know.
I wondered if this photo was the Stones since it was an indoor concert but it was confirmed by Alamy:
Stock Photo - Audience in the Festhalle.The Rolling Stones on 29 June 1982 in Frankfurt (Germany). [www.alamy.com]
Yeah, it's weird: whereas 1981 was evenly split between stadiums and arenas, the 1982 tour was almost exclusively outdoor stadium shows, except for West Berlin (an amphitheater gig) and these three Frankfurt shows. Maybe the Berlin Olympiastadion and the Waldstadion in Frankfurt were unavailable.
But this picture does not show the Stones, and wasn't taken at one of the Stones gigs though.
Mathijs
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TooTough
According to M. Bonanno a 9.000 sellout. They were selected
from the 36.000 who signed the petition.
btw: about Lee Allen (saxophone)
He played three shows in October 1981 with the Rolling Stones:
on October first at the Metro Centre (Rockford, Illinois), and
on the third and the fourth at Folsom Field (Boulder, Colorado).
According to Ian McLagan,[1] who played keyboards with the Stones
on the 1981 Tattoo You tour, Allen was so bewildered by playing
with the Stones for over 80,000 people in attendance "he [Allen]
completely choked up". Audio recordings of the shows confirm
McLagan. Allen was replaced by Ernie Watts for the remainder of
the tour. wikipedia
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Redhotcarpet
Thank you Exile - keep up the good work. Lovely thread.
Keith Rocks Rockford!
photos Paul Natkin
The Go-Go's Opened in Rockford!
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exilestones
Fans cheer as Ron Wood, left, and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones perform the group’s final number at the Rockford, Ill., Metro Centre, October 1, 1981.
Nine thousand people attended the concert, which the Stones agreed to do after receiving about 32,000 petitions from area music fans requesting an appearance.
(AP Photo/Charles Borst)
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Mathijs
That's one of the first pics I've seen from lee Allen with the Stones.
Mathijs
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exilestones
Ernie Watts Has Had “About Three Lifetimes” in Music
"Ernie Watts is one of the greatest living tenor saxophonists, at the top of his game." - Ian Patterson
Two-time Grammy Award winner Ernie Watts is one of the most versatile and prolific saxophone players on the music scene. Ernest James "Ernie" Watts (born October 23, 1945) is an American jazz and rhythm and blues saxophonist who plays soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone. Watts is one of the most respected jazz saxophonists of his generation.
If you’ve listened to music in the past 50 years, then you’ve probably heard Ernie Watts play his saxophone many times. Being a first-call horn player on the LA studio scene from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s puts you on a lot of historic recordings, and it’s no exaggeration to say that some of Watts’s solos have become part of the fabric of western music. His credit list runs to more than 1,500 recordings, for everyone from Marvin Gaye and the Jackson Five to Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond. The soaring saxophone solo that ends Christopher Cross’s 1981 mega hit Arthur’s Theme – that’s him. Then there’s Quincy Jones, the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, the Four Tops and the Commodores – they’ve all picked up the phone and called Ernie Watts.
But even if he wanted to, Watts can’t escape his illustrious past – something as simple as a trip to buy groceries is haunted by ghosts.
“Yeah, we often hear tunes I’ve played on while we’re in the store,” he says, laughing.
“But it’s like another life, you know. It’s like, oh yeah, and then I’ll remember the session and I’ll remember that day and what was going on. Most of them anyway.
“Sometimes I don’t remember the record, but I still know it’s me. And I say, holy cow, that’s me playing, but I don’t remember who this is.”
Watts started playing saxophone at age 13 in Wilmington, Delaware. He went with a friend who was joining the local school music program, and found himself carrying home an instrument too. He wanted a trombone back in junior high, but thankfully his band teacher handed him a saxophone! Ernie Watts was given a bari sax for band because he was a big kid. “The band director thought I was big enough to carry the bari for marching band,” Watts says. It was only 6 months before an alto sax became available and young Watts took off, running with the sax. "I was a self-starter; no one ever had to tell me to practice," remembers Watts.
“I guess after a while, my parents realised I wasn’t going to quit, so my mother bought me a record player, and she joined the Columbia record club. The very first record she got was Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. That’s when I heard John Coltrane, and it changed my life.
“I would take my lunch money every week and I would buy a John Coltrane record. The record player had one of those stackers on it, and at night before I went to bed, I would put three or four records on the stacker, and I would turn it on very low, and listen to Coltrane while I fell asleep.”
His discipline combined with natural talent began to shape his life. He won a scholarship to the Wilmington Music School where he studied classical music and technique. Though they had no jazz program, his mother provided the spark by giving him his own record player plus a record club membership, for Christmas. That first record club promotional selection turned out to be the brand-new Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. "When I first heard John Coltrane play, it was like someone put my hand into a light socket," Watts says. He started to learn jazz by ear, often falling asleep at night listening to a stack of Coltrane records. Although he would enroll briefly at West Chester University in music education, he soon won a Downbeat Scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, renowned for jazz.
When Gene Quill quit Buddy Rich's Big Band in Boston, trombonist Phil Wilson (a professor at Berklee), was asked to recommend a student as temporary replacement. A young Ernie Watts was referred, and left Berklee for that important spot. The student stayed with Buddy Rich from 1966-1968 and toured the world, also recording two albums with the band-Big Swing Face and The New One.
During the 1970s and '80s, Watts was immersed in the busy production scene of Los Angeles. His signature sound was heard on countless TV shows and movie scores, almost all the early West Coast Motown sessions, and with pop stars such as Aretha Franklin and Steely Dan. Though the pop music genre placed narrow confines on his performance, the studio sessions allowed Watts the chance to constantly hone and refine his tone. After years in the studios, Watts' passion for acoustic jazz never left him. At the end of a long day of sessions, he could frequently be heard playing fiery jazz in late-night clubs around Los Angeles.
Much as he might want to, it’s impossible for Watts to tell his own story without dropping some of the biggest names in music history. There’s the playing with Frank Sinatra at the Sands in Las Vegas in the late 1960s. There are recording sessions with the Jacksons, “when Michael was a kid”. There are the 20 years with Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show band. There’s playing on soundtracks for films such as Grease and Fame, and all the Motown records with the Temptations, Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin.
In the 1970s, Watts became particularly associated with Marvin Gaye, appearing on some of the singer’s most famous recordings, including the classic "Let’s Get It On."
Marvin Gaye said, “He was a beautiful singer and a beautiful man. He knew what he wanted but he also knew how to share. He had his own studio on Sunset Boulevard, and we would go there and work on his tunes together. He had a concept, you know? He had a sound. Most great artists have a sound in their mind that they want to bring through.”
Ernie Watts added Much to the Rolling Stones Sound on their 1981 tour including their big hit single "Going to a Go-Go."
But in his own mind, Watts remained a jazz musician, always practising, always writing his own music. Then in the mid-1980s, he met bass player Charlie Haden and found himself drawn back towards a pure jazz career. A tour with Haden and guitarist Pat Metheny was the catalyst that finally made him quit the session work.
Ernie Watts remarked, “Being with people like that on a full-time basis, it creates a different kind of energy. It’s a more intense energy that goes into creating the music, and I wanted to get to that level. Life has chapters in it, and you know when you get to the end of a chapter, and you have to turn the page.
“The whole time I was doing commercial music it was interesting to me and I learnt a lot. All those artists are very sincere about their music, no matter what it is, but I got to the point where I wanted to get back to my original plan”
Watts worked in the big bands of Oliver Nelson and Gerald Wilson, recorded with Jean-Luc Ponty in 1969, and became a staff musician for NBC, performing with the Tonight Show Band on a regular basis. His own records of the 1970s and early '80s were generally pop-ish (1982's Chariots of Fire was a big seller), and Watts played frequently with Lee Ritenour and Stanley Clarke, in addition to recording with Cannonball Adderley (one of his idols) in 1972. However, Ernie Watts' work became much more interesting from a jazz standpoint starting in the mid-'80s when he joined Charlie Haden's Quartet West and started recording no-nonsense quartet dates for JVC.
In 1983, the film composer Michel Colombier wrote an orchestral piece entitled "Nightbird" for Watts. That led to Watts performing with Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and to tours with Pat Metheny's Special Quartet in to the late 1980's.
Ernie Watts 1983
Watts' touring with Metheny's group in the late 1980s was a turning point for him. Watts' charter membership in Haden's critically-acclaimed Quartet West, continued for almost 30 years until Haden's death. Watts' work for the audiophile Japanese label JVC Music, and now his growing catalog of original music for Flying Dolphin continue to express his joy in the power of jazz. His four recordings for JVC Music are some of the finest of his extensive career.
Two-time Grammy Award winner Ernie Watts is one of the most versatile and prolific saxophone players in music. It has been more than fifty years since he first picked up a saxophone, and from age sixteen on he has been playing professionally, initially while still attending school. Watts has been featured on over 500 recordings by artists ranging from Cannonball Adderley to Frank Zappa, always exhibiting his unforgettable trademark sound. He has worked with Charlie Haden's Quartet West and toured with the Rolling Stones. On Frank Zappa's album The Grand Wazoo he played the "Mystery Horn", a straight-necked C melody saxophone. He played the notable saxophone riff on The One You Love by Glenn Frey. He was featured in the Windows XP edition Jazz preview. The song he was featured in was "Highway Blues".
Because he was involved in many commercial recording projects from the mid-'70s through the early '80s and on an occasional basis ever since, some observers wrote Ernie Watts off prematurely as a pop/R&B tenorman.
Watts' eclectic mix of career activities has included work with vocalist Kurt Elling in a tribute to Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane, Dedicated To You which won a Grammy Award.
A typical year finds him touring Europe with his own European Quartet in spring and fall, and working as a feature artist with other artists he admires.
He gives back to the music by conducting clinics and master classes, both on the student and professional level. There is the occasional "hometown gig" with the Ernie Watts Quartet in California, where he is still based.
Summing it all up, Watts describes his ongoing journey: "I see music as the common bond having potential to bring all people together in peace and harmony. All things in the physical world have vibration; the music I choose to play is the energy vibration that touches a common bond in people. I believe that music is God singing through us, an energy to be used for good."
Ernie Watts 2016
As Watts approaches 73, the original plan is going very nicely. There have been two Grammys, critically acclaimed recordings with Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, and a starring role alongside jazz vocalist Kurt Elling.
Then there is his own record label, Flying Dolphin, on which he releases his own recordings. At this stage, he reckons he has had “about three lifetimes” in music.
Ermie says, "“Do what you love,” he says decisively. “Even if you have to drive a bus to make money, take part of your day, every day, and do something that you really love. It keeps you strong. I think we all evolve that way, and as you grow and as you learn, you find out that there’s a simple core in the centre of everything, and you want to get back to that.”
credits: Ian Patterson, ErnieWatts.com, Greg Vail
Personal Management: BATES MEYER, INC.
Phone: 909-547-0504 / Fax: 909-547-0901
www.batesmeyer.com
Discography (not including guest appearences)
As leader:
Planet Love (Pacific Jazz, 1969)
The Wonder Bag (Vault, 1972)
Look in Your Heart (Elektra, 1980)
Chariots of Fire (Qwest, 1982)
Musician (Qwest, 1985)
Sanctuary (Qwest, 1986)
The Ernie Watts Quartet (JVC, 1987 [1991])
Afoxe with Gilberto Gil (CTI, 1991)
Reaching Up (JVC, 1994)
Unity (JVC, 1995)
Long Road Home (JVC, 1996)
Classic Moods (JVC, 1998)
Reflections with Ron Feuer (Flying Dolphin, 2000)
Alive (Flying Dolphin, 2004)
Spirit Song (Flying Dolphin, 2005)
Analog Man (Flying Dolphin, 2006)
To The Point (Flying Dolphin, 2007)
Four Plus Four (Flying Dolphin, 2009)
Oasis (Flying Dolphin, 2011)
Wheel of Time (Flying Dolphin, 2016)
With Karma
Celebration (Horizon/A&M, 1976)[4]
For Everybody (Horizon/A&M, 1977)[5]
As sideman[edit]
With Billy Alessi and Bobby Alessi
Words and Music (A&M, 1979)
Long Time Friends (Qwest, 1982)
With Gene Ammons
Free Again (Prestige, 1971)
With Paul Anka
Walk a Fine Line (CBS, 1983)
With Willie Bobo
Tomorrow Is Here (1977)
With Brass Fever
Time Is Running Out (Impulse!, 1976)
With Kenny Burrell
Both Feet on the Ground (Fantasy, 1973)
With Lee Ritenour
Stolen Moments (GRP, 1989)
With David Axelrod
Earth Rot (Capitol, 1970)
With Donald Byrd
Caricatures (Blue Note, 1976)
With Stanley Clarke
Time Exposure (CBS, 1984)
With Randy Crawford
Secret Combination (Warner Bros., 1981)
With Donna Summer
Donna Summer (Eponymous Quincy Jones Producer 1982)
With Kurt Elling
Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman (Concord, 2009)
With Marvin Gaye
Let's Get It On (Tamla, 1973)
I Want You (Tamla, 1976)
With Dizzy Gillespie
Free Ride (Pablo, 1977)
With Charlie Haden
Quartet West (Verve, 1986)
The Private Collection (Naim, 1987–88 [2000])
In Angel City (Verve, 1988)
The Montreal Tapes: Liberation Music Orchestra (Verve, 1989 [1999])
Haunted Heart (Verve, 1991)
Always Say Goodbye (Verve, 1993)
Now Is the Hour (Verve, 1995)
The Art of the Song (Verve, 1999)
Sophisticated Ladies (EmArcy, 2010)
With Bobby Hutcherson
Head On (Blue Note, 1971)
Linger Lane (Blue Note, 1975)
Montara (Blue Note, 1975)
With Milt Jackson
Memphis Jackson (Impulse!, 1969)
With J. J. Johnson
Concepts in Blue (Pablo Today, 1981)
With Carole King
Music (Ode, 1971)
With Charles Kynard
Charles Kynard (Mainstream, 1971)
With Eric Martin
Eric Martin (Capitol, 1985)
With John Mayall
Moving On (Polydor, 1973)
With Carmen McRae
Can't Hide Love (Blue Note, 1976)
With Blue Mitchell
Vital Blue (Mainstream, 1971)
With Helen Reddy
Reddy (Capitol, 1979)
With New Stories
Speakin' Out (1998)
With Moacir Santos
Carnival of the Spirits (Blue Note, 1975)
With Lalo Schifrin
Gypsies (Tabu, 1978)
No One Home (Tabu, 1979)
With Bud Shank
Windmills of Your Mind (Pacific Jazz, 1969)
With Gábor Szabó
Faces (Mercury, 1977)
With Gino Vannelli
Brother to Brother (A&M, 1978)
Inner Conflicts (Atlantic, 1978)
With Gerald Wilson
Eternal Equinox (Pacific Jazz, 1969)
Lomelin (Discovery, 1981)
Jessica (Trend, 1982)
Calafia (Trend, 1985)
With Torsten de Winkel and Hellmut Hattler
Mastertouch (EMI, 1985)
In Groups:
Andreas Pettersson Quintet, Buddy Rich Big Band, Charlie Haden Quartet West, Doc Severinsen And His Big Band (The Tonight Show), Ernie Watts Quartet, Ernie Watts Quintet, Friendship (3), Gerald Wilson Orchestra of The 80's, GRP All-Star Big Band, Jasper Van't Hof's Face To Face, Karma (9), Leonard Feather All Stars, Liberation Music Orchestra, Love Unlimited Orchestra, Nat Adderley Sextet, The Bruce Eskovitz Jazz Orchestra, The Ernie Watts Encounter, The John Dentz Reunion Band, The Meeting, The Mothers, The Night Blooming Jazzmen
Buddy Rich, "Get Me to The Church" featuring Ernie Watts
VIDEO: [www.youtube.com]
Ernie Watts featured at 2.08
Ernie Watts VIDEOS: [www.youtube.com]
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shattered
Exile! He is all over. I didn't see anything mentioned that he is on "My Old School" off Steely Dan's "Countdown to Ecstasy".
Candlestick Park