Buddy Rich
Westwood Regional High School
Westwood, NJ
1986-04-17

Source: AUD > C(x) (XLII-90) via Rob Robles
Transfer: C > Nak Dragon > Tascam DA-3000 (DSF 1-bit/5.6 MHz) > Tascam HRE > PCM @ 2496
Master: Wavelab 11 (tracking, levels, cross-fades, resample, Lin dither) > FLAC 1644

Thanks to Rob Robles for lending his tape to be digitized, and to Scott Sibley for help identifying the performance and song titles

01. Wind Machine
02. Basically Blues
03. Shawnee
04. Best Coast
05. Walk On The Wild Side
06. banter
07. Caravan
08. Birdland
09. New Blues
10. Milestones
11. West Side Story Medley
12. intros

This was one of Buddy Rich's public performances in high school auditoriums throughout the country during the last two years before his death. The players are identified in the last track, but many of the names are hard to make out. Some of them match this list from March, so it's probably the same band:

Buddy Rich (d)
Greg Gisbert, Eric Miyashiro, Tony Kadlek, Mike Lewis (tp)
Rick Stepton, Tom Garling (tb)
Jim Martin (b-tb)
Bob Bowlby, Mike Rubino (as/fl)
Steve Marcus, (ts/fl)
Chris Bacas (ts)
Jay Craig (bar)
Barry Kiener (p)
Mike Boone (f-b)

The tape has a couple of generations on it but this performance does not seem to circulate at all. It is a stealth recording, with mics worn on a jacket or hat, which you can hear rubbing from time to time, unfortunately sometimes at the wrong time. Also the voice of whoever sat next to the taper is crystal clear. When those things aren't happening, though, the music comes through loud and clear.

Buddy Rich was in fine form this night. The audience frequently laughs at whatever is happening on stage and it sounds like he plays the piano at the beginning of Caravan. The backing band is terrific, too.

Enjoy!

--mhg :: 2023-01-29