Post by nicknick on Nov 20, 2017 18:25:28 GMT
On Jaki Byard’s LP Live at the Jazz’Inn (Futura, 1971) he plays with Gus Nemeth (bass) and Jean My Truong (drums). However, on one track called Gerald’s Tune there is another drummer Gerald Byard. A photo on the rear cover of the LP shows very young black guy playing drums, and my guess was that Gerald was Jaki’s son. I’ve made some search on the Web and found this article. It states that in February 1999 Gerald Byard talked about when he was 9 and played the drums with his father in Paris. This means that Gerald had his recording debut even earlier than Ornette Coleman’s son Denardo, who was ten years old at the time of The Empty Foxhole (Blue Note, 1966) recording. Unfortunately, further cooperation between Jaki and Gerald was not as happy as in case of Ornette and Denardo, and the mystery of Jaki’s tragic death at his family home is very likely to remain unsolved.
