Ted O'Reilly

Yeah, I'm beginning to get that feeling -- and well they should. Ed Bickert is starting to get the attention he deserves, but never sought. And I'll say the same about Don Thompson, just about the only musical genius I've ever known. Piano, bass, vibes, drums, writing, arranging, producing, teaching... He's really something!

It has to be incomplete...Thompson told me just last Friday that he's still waiting on the return of some of his tapes from A&M/Horizon who (inadvertently?) took them after mixing the original releases. I'm not on TJD but they can't be right as of yet. Unless Thompson, who's producing this release, in fact knows just what he wants from the missing tapes...

As an overall music experience, I've always liked the genre. Top-shelf compositions and arrangers, to say nothing of the performing musicians and engineers. Tracks recorded in the early '50s still shine brilliantly on a good sound system. (May I say "hi-fi"?) You're right about Music For TV Dinners...delightful stuff represented here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf1MXAWUDUeA7FGVTWIEPjA/feed

Maybe search under British Light Music. If you want the best of it, Robert Farnon, such as

David Piltch is indeed a bassist, originally from Toronto, and that's his father Bernie Piltch playing the flute in the video's freeze-frame. David's older brother Rob is a great guitarist, and his sister Susan is a flutist, pianist and music teacher who was once married to the drummer Terry Clarke. They formed a terrific 'family band' before Bernie's early and sudden death. Is this too much Entertainment Tonigh territory? He also has reels and reels and reels of many other great musicians. Don always had good mics and an 8-track reel-to-reel recorder, often seen on gigs where he loved the musicians he worked with. (Maybe the Dean Benedetti of Toronto, but with wider taste and newer equipment.)

I'll bet Don has hours and hours of such material, though I've never asked him about it. He used to record a LOT of stuff, and there are also things in the vault at the CBC and my old station that feature Ed. If one wanted to search through it all they'd find gold for Bickert fans, of whom I'm one... Have you ever seen this? -- it's Ed, pre-Fender yet even more beautiful, featured with a Toronto band led by the late pianist Jimmy Dale.

I think mostly-all if not all. There are of course different performances of the same compositions, and my cursory look at the paperwork (too busy listening!) didn't indicate any such information. One of the great things will be the issue of tracks where Rob McConnell substitutes for Bickert, who was away for his father's funeral. Yeah: valve trombone for guitar?!? But Rob's arranging chops have him creating backgrounds for Paul, and Desmond does the same for Rob, who plays as well and as appropriately as I ever heard him. Something I should add -- I was in attendance at most of the Quartet's performances at the Bourbon St. club where these were recorded, and the overall ambiance of the selections I heard really seemed to capture the mood of the room. Just like being there!

Yeah, it was me who 'suggested' that it was underway The material was all recorded by the bassist Don Thompson, at the request of Desmond who had heard some earlier tapes Don had done. (Thompson has LOTS of similar recordings). I was at the studio when Don and a great engineer, Chad Irschik, were mastering some of the music. Curiously, I was very much taken with the great improvement of the sound of Jerry Fuller's tasty drums, which I always thought were too far back in the original releases. Don explained that some of his tapes were erroneously taken from him when the original 2-LP set was released, and he's now waiting for their return to finish disc 7 of the project. So, 6 are ready, 1 to go... There's terrific listening to come. This was a special group, and the imminent release will offer further proof of the special interplay of especially Desmond and Bickert.

How do you get them to stay on your Kindle?

I recorded a solo piano performance by Albert at Cafe des Copains, Toronto on April 4, 1984. 13 tracks...nice stuff -- think I'll take it off the shelf right now. I haven't listened to it in a while. Albert had a real depth to his playing.

I could indeed name all the players...would you like me to? There's a whole dang bunch of them no longer with us. (But the garb and hair live on...)

"Sorry, but looks and aesthetics have EVERYTHING to do with music." Yeah, that's why I have NEVER just listened to it....always waited until the DVD came out. Which was a long wait from 1952 when jazz first appealed to me. ...anyway, John Sumner was a very fine jazz drummer, and had a vast music collection, especially knowledgeable about the '40s through '60s West Coast era, when he was growing up and learning. He was originally a Californian, latterly Canadian and a welcome addition to the Toronto music scene.

Sorry, but since I only vaguely know what Mr. Wilson looks like... Seeing as how that has nothing to do with the music, please look again and maybe refer to the performance, perhaps referring to the drummer, who had a hard task moving along some 5 dozen musicians.

It's good to see my old friend John Sumner playing drums there (best seen around 4:55). John died here in Toronto, where he had lived for the last three decades, just a couple of months back. There were some wonderful stories told about John--a totally interesting man--at a lovely memorial service for him.

Here I go again.... That's a wonderful image, but Ruby told me that picture is a mash-up,and he had no idea of who the woman was. He said his image was taken as a promo shot for a Broadway show he was in. Details of his 9 months on the stage in 1955-56 (a show called Pipe Dream, with music by Rodgers and Hammerstein) are in chapter five of "Born To Play" by Thomas P. Hustad,

I have TheDukeBox2 and don't see it there.

Dang, YES!

I'm assuming that THIS is the same session. It's on Mainstream rather than Time. Which came first? I'm guessing the Mainstream. I just got the Time-copy from CD Japan, and it spells, as does the original, the tenor man's name as Nestico...gotta confuse a lot of guys with Sammy Nestico.

Pray it's not fake stereo. (Is CT a typo, or something to do with Clark Terry? ;-))

Steve has since had additional/second thoughts, Berigan... I may have been a bit unfair to Ted Simmons earlier. In 2001, Bill James ranked him #10 all-time among catchers, which is impressive. James also said Simmons was underrated defensively early in his career, mainly because he came up at about the same time as Johnny Bench and like every other catcher then he suffered in comparison. He did develop defensive issues later on though, in particular throwing. Remember, the mid-seventies to mid-eighties were a time when there was a lot of speed and base-stealing, so not throwing well was a problem. I think that’s mainly why Herzog got rid of him – Whitey was obsessed with running on offense and stopping it on defence. Also I think Simmons was a bit “modern” and “independent” in his outlook to suit a hard-ass like Herzog. I’m going to edit the Yogi blog to include Simmons – he deserves to be there, my oversight. Steve Wallace got back to Yogi, in a way... (Ex-catcher/manager Buck Martinez calls the Toronto Blue Jays on TV, as you may surmise here): On a Jays telecast the other day Buck Martinez told a funny story about Charlie Silvera, who was the backup catcher to Yogi Berra with the Yankees 1948-56. Talk about being the ultimate caddy, his sole function was to give Yogi a day off every once in a while so he didn’t get to play much. It was a pretty cushy setup though, because he got to cash a World Series winner’s cheque like everybody else – in 1949- 53, and 1956. I looked him up, and the most at-bats he ever had in a season was 130 in 1949. He was adequate defensively and hit for a decent average - .282, but had zero power, hitting 1 homer in his whole career. In spring training of 1957 the Yankees traded him to the Cubs and as Buck told it, Silvera was dejected at the news. He was sitting slumped over in front of his locker and Mickey Mantle tried to cheer him up – “Charlie, this is great for you, you’ll get to play a lot more games.” And Charlie said, “Mick, I can’t play more games!” And he was right – after 26 games and 53 at-bats with the Cubs that year, he called it quits at 32. I doubt if there was ever a player so marginal who got to experience more glory and cash more WS cheques than Silvera.

Berigan, I sent your reply to Steve, and he's replied, via email to me... (Don't shoot the intermediary!): Yeah, he’s right, I totally forgot about Simmons, but thought about him later along with a few other guys. Without a doubt, he was one of the best-hitting catchers of all time, and he walked more than he struck out, which you have to like. But he never led his league in anything either, which surprised me. Well, like a lot of other catchers, he led in GIDP once, but that’s a negative. Simmons was universally admired as a hitter but I get the definite sense that he left a lot to be desired as a receiver – defense, throwing, handling pitchers, blocking the plate, etc. Also that he was somewhat polarizing in the clubhouse, not very disciplined. That may have been partly a racist perception as Simmons, known as “Simba”, was part, if not all, Native American. Baseball is hardly immune to that sort of thinking. When Whitey Herzog took over the Cardinals in 1981 he soon came to the conclusion that he’d have to get rid of Simmons, he just didn’t think he could win with him behind the plate. Herzog dealt for Darrell Porter and Gene Tenace to do the catching, which set up a huge trade between the Cards and Brewers in February of 1981. The Brewers got Simmons, Rollie Fingers (by way of the Padres) and pitcher Pete Vukovich, and the Cards got outfielders Sixto Lezcano, David Green, and pitchers Lary Sorensen and Dave LaPoint. At first it looked lopsided for the Brewers, but Herzog was that happy to be rid of Simmons. In truth it helped both teams, who faced each other in the 1982 Series, the Cards coming out on top in seven. This guy [Berigan} makes the point that Simmons played on a bunch of mediocre St. Louis teams in the ‘70s, which is true – sort of. I would make the point that catchers are very impactful and if Simmons was that good the Cardinals wouldn’t have been so mediocre. Or to put it another way, he was part of the reason for that mediocrity. To underline that, as soon as they got rid of Simmons, they became a winning team in the ‘80s, with pennants in 1982, ’85, and ’87. To be fair, it wasn’t just Simmons, they made a lot of moves. I think Ted Simmons was a terrific hitter playing out of position – he should have been an outfielder – he ran pretty well - or a first baseman. I should have remembered him, though. Feel free to pass this on to Organissimo if it doesn’t break any rules.

That's right, about being lazy... There was some re-issue or another where they couldn't find the master of a hit, of a George Avakian production. He told me they simply never went to him in his office down the hall to ask...he happened to have the master sitting there, as it was re-used for the 45 version. They didn't bother to either ask him, or even look for it in the 45 masters. (Coulda been 'Mack The Knife', but I'm not sure...) I've gotta admit though, the first issued CD version of the Handy was an interesting listen to the sessions... I wonder how often the masters differ from the Mono and the Stereo versions of the supposedly-same item. As an example, Bobby Hackett's wonderful "Jazz Ultimate" on Capitol, with Jack Teagarden, has 3 or 4 tracks that show different takes between the two. One wonders why?, unless there was some technical reason...

Ah, yes...those lovely "Living Stereo" releases... I have a couple of box sets of them from a decade or so back. Haven't taken them off the shelf lately, but should do so. Maximum mic positioning, minimal processing. Mercury's efforts in the same period were Fine (pun intended) too. And weren't some of them recorded on film rather than tape? And somewhere, I have/had a tape of a CBC radio broadcast of Phil Nimmons' band Nimmons 'N Nine in a single-point 'kunstkopf' recording. Effective with a stereo headset. One more re-creation thought: didn't someone mate some Charlie Parker recordings from the St. Nicholas arena in the same manner as the 1932 Ellingtons? Same moment in time, two separate recordings, mated...

As was pointed out in the original post, that Ellington recording was likely not thought of as a 'stereo' recording, but as a difference in microphone placing. The binaural result was the same moment in time captured differently, and assembled. The same technique gave us the stereo version of the Newport '56 Ellington, notably the Gonsalves marathon. Jerry Valburn's Marlor-Meritt label put out a special release for the 1986 Ellington Conference in Newark NJ, "A Stereo Excursion With Duke Ellington" with 15 tracks. The first three, in true stereo, (multi-mic'd, if not multi-tracked) were done in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho on October 4, 1953. And back to the '32 Ellington, I think the version that was included in the Complete Victors was superior, using masters and newer techniques.

There are those Hollywood film recordings of such as Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey that were released (some by Rounder I think it was), about 20 years ago.. They date from the early '40s, but were not originally intended as records. A bonus from film-making's ability to multitrack. (Wasn't Disney's Fantasia presented in stereo in some major markets on original release? I think I've heard that soundtrack in stereo. Stokowski was a bit of a 'sound nut', wasn't he? I have a Les & Larry Elgart CD "Ain't We Got Fun" (A&M/Drive Entertainment DE2-41068) recorded in stereo at the Hollywood Palladium in February and March 1955. Credit is given to Gerry Macdonald for original recording. The issue comes from Les Brown, Jr., and the liner notes indicate the Brown band and Harry James also were taped in the same period by Macdonald, who in the 1970s started the Choice jazz label.