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gmonahan

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Posts posted by gmonahan

  3. Michael Cuscuna has died at 75

    in Artists

    Posted

    Oh my, this is dreadful news. So very, very sad to hear this. From the first Monk set on, I feel like much of my jazz listening life has consisted of following in his wake as he birthed beautiful album after beautiful album, set after set, opening me up to so much wonderful music. I will be forever in his debt.

     

  8. Great albums from the classic jazz and Dixieland revival (1939 onwards)

    in Recommendations

    Posted

    7 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

    No doubt these records sold reasonably well compared ot the more purist forms.

    The Wyndham site with its "plethora" of articles and stories is a hard one to digest evenly but from what I've glanced at I'd say that to him these "Dixie bands within the band" were neither flesh nor fowl. Unjustified but understandable from a purist stance. (Though, OTOH, who within the overall Dixieland/Revival/latter-day Traditional Jazz artists would objectively have been entitled to calling himself a "purist" - beyond the "Bunk Johnson adulators" fraternity? 😁 And even then ...  )

    Actually I often am not quite sure where to file records by some of the artists from your latest post. My Bobby Hackett leader LPs sit in the "White US Traditional Revival Jazz" corner but (by personal majority vote ;) as to its musical contents) all the Bud Freeman LPs are filed in the (much, much larger) "Swing" section. And I cannot see why I should separate the small group spinoffs from their Big Band homes.
    But the Jimmy Dorsey LP you showed would be worth the price of admission for its Jim Flora cover alone! :D

    That IS a cool cover!

     

  13. So, What Are You Listening To NOW?

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

    I loved John R.T., nicest guy ever - and he was able to transfer music in the best possible way - and the key, other than his expertise, was the sources he had. He and Brian Rust were able to  acquire test pressings and metal masters from sometimes mysterious sources (meaning someone spirited them out of certain places), clean sources in mint shape. The tragedy of American music is the loss of masters, from Victor, Okeh, Columbia - though some still exist, clueless engineers have no idea how to handle them (and also, note, that Davies, by the time of the above transfers, was using CEDAR digital noise reduction; he was no Luddite).

    And the losses of the Deccas too. A real tragedy.

  19. Which jazz book are you reading right now?

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    I've had this one sitting on my shelf longer than I've had shelves, and I know I've read "in" it, maybe through it, though if so, longer ago than I can remember, so I've decided to read it through...again?! I find myself wishing I had the original 1955 edition with the discography that they decided to omit from the later editions. It would presumably have been mostly 78s.

     

     

     

    71DJ6FH78ML._AC_UY218_.jpg

  21. Sarah Vaughan Centenary

    in Artists

    Posted

    I like the live Tokyo date from Mainstream. Picked that one up in a Jazz Heritage edition. For some weird reason, Jazz Heritage reissued a bunch of Maintream jazz things from that period.

    I also prefer later Sarah, especially the Ellington song books on Pablo.

     

  25. Frankie Laine Didn't Give A Damn

    in Artists

    Posted

    1 hour ago, JSngry said:

    Jackie Paris seems to me to be more of a Billy Eckstine (on his most stretchy vocals) or ballad/early Sinatra than Frankie Laine. But I don't consider myself to be an expert. I do know that I like Jackie Partis quite a bit, that I can say with certainty!

    One thin I it seems like though, is that most white pop/jazz vocalists were doing is, in fact, more of a Eckstine/Sinatra ballad style. In fact, Laine was the only one I can think of (off the type of my head) who was engaging in all-out/overt swing material to any meaningful degree in the early 1950s. Sinatra came along and switched all that over a few years later, but the records show that Laine was there first and quite comfortably there at that!

     

    1951:

    Hey, that's just good, period.

    I think a big thing to consider is that Laine was very influenced by Black pop music, especially in his earliest days. Once stardom  came (and Mitch Miller) came, he would record literally anything. But something like this (and there's a good (enough) amount of it) show a certain bounce that the other guys - including Sinatra - had to figure out (if they ever did).

    Nice record, but what's the story with the super old-style Columbia label on that 78?!

     

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