David Liebman Quartet & Mike Nock "The Opal Heart" 1979, ed. 1982

...His plan had always been to get to the United States, and to that end he applied for a scholarship to Berklee School of Music in Boston. News that Nock had been awarded a scholarship to the school saw The 3-Out Trio sail for England, playing for their passage. They spent a few months performing in the UK and Europe before Nock travelled on to Boston and study...
...Nock quickly established himself on the local scene, working as house pianist at Lennie’s on the Turnpike, where he played with many jazz luminaries including Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims and Buck Clayton. Some of his most formative experiences during the 1960s included playing with drummer Tony Williams, saxophonist Sam Rivers, and multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef.
Playing with such exploratory musicians fired Nock’s musical imagination and left him with a life-long appetite for music that defies category. Lateef invited Nock to join his touring band in 1964 and with the group the pianist recorded the live albums Live at Pep’s, Volumes 1 and 2, and the studio album 1984.
Lateef introduced the young New Zealander to the African-American sources of jazz and was a profound influence on him. He later said, “I don’t believe you can play this music called jazz without first understanding the roots of the music, which come from black America.” Appearances on Lateef’s recordings during that period propelled Nock to national exposure.
Settling in New York, Nock performed with many of the significant names of the time – Stanley Turrentine, Booker Ervin, Art Blakey, Tony Scott – and enjoyed regular touring work with Dionne Warwick.
Despite good opportunities, making a living as a jazz musician in New York during the 1960s was challenging. Nock recalled: “Life was pretty intense; you had no money, you had very little to eat and you were getting paid very little for jobs. The pressures were still there but you didn’t care. You loved it, you played, and that’s all you cared about, playing.”
Nock’s own group, a trio with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Eddie Marshall, recorded Almanac in 1965. Essentially the pianist’s first album as a leader, it also featured Bennie Maupin on reeds and receieved a 5-star review in DownBeat magazine.
One of the most exciting musical experiences he had in the city was with Count’s Rock Band, led by saxophonist Steve Marcus and including Larry Coryell on guitar and Bob Moses on drums. As one of the first jazz-rock groups, they recorded two albums for the Vortex label before Nock left the city for the calmer waters of California to perform with saxophonist and Charles Mingus alumnus John Handy.
Handy’s group enjoyed popularity with young rock audiences and Nock found himself performing in some entirely new contexts, although the experience wasn’t always entirely to his liking. “In San Francisco we used to work the Fillmore opposite all those big [rock] groups, and man, it was like being on another planet. I couldn’t relate to the loud rock and roll; it was tasteless and corny shit to me.”...to be continued... - Norman Meehan & audioculture
traxfromwax:
01 Sunburst 02 Port Ligat 03 The Opal Hearted Aborigine 04 I Concentrat On You 05 Star Crossed Lovers 06 Down Under
…served by Gaius…