Shrdlu

I don't know how to display them here, but my uncle took me in 1964 to see the Condon group, and the other day, in my attic, I found the autographs of Eddie Condon, Bud Freeman, Dick Cary and Buck Clayton. (Maybe others, but I can't remember.) The one by Eddie says "To Shrdlu, Hooray for you!", so it's very personal. I got to talk to Eddie, Bud and Dick. Pee Wee was also there, but was sloshed as usual and didn't hang with the fans. I wish I had known at that time just how important and good Buck was. I had only heard him on the "Benny Goodman Story" albums.

I don't recall the Miller set, but it almost parallels a Benny Goodman MGM 3 LP set called the "Treasure Chest". That is also a set of air checks, and is not available on CD. I was delighted to find an almost mint set on the Gemm website (www.gemm.com). Maybe you could find a copy of the Miller set there.

I agree with Noj. I used to use Easy CD Creator, which alternately read a bit off the original CD and then burned it onto the CDr. I lost a lot of blanks that way (usually because of buffer under-runs). The problem was solved by using Nero, with which you can put all of the stuff onto the hard drive before burning. I can't remember the last time a burn has bombed out, as Nero has been so reliable. Plus, you can edit the tracks before burning, essential when transferring an LP to a CDr.

Phil Anquill were heard to good advantage, trading fours etc., on a probably hard-to-find Manny Albam LP called "The Blues Is Everybody's Business". You could even call it a Manny Album.

I also like Gilmore with Blakey. He is fantastic on the Freddie Hubbard Impulse album "The Body And The Soul"; there, he plays some very terse solos that are quite brilliant. As has often been said, tenor players are usually long-winded.

Bearing in mind that "too many tone poems" was the reason given by Rabbit for leaving the Duke in 1951 ( ), I'd go for the "Far East Suite". This is partly for reasons of nostalgia, as I got it at the same time as I saw the band live (about 1969, I think). "Ad Lib On Nippon", as Bev mentioned also, is my favorite piece on that album. Great clarinet, and "The Piano Player" has a fine solo, too.

I can't quite fit my comment in with any of your three questions, but I would like to say how important Richard Davis was to those sessions. This is not an original thought, I know, but it's worth saying again. I would not say that Hill brought out the best in Richard Davis, though, as he is always terrific. Although he had been around for awhile, in 1964 he was suddenly on just about everybody's recording date. It was almost as if he had arrived, fully matured, out of nowhere.

Too much Oscar for me, too, Jim. With all the fine pianists that were around in the 50s, it's a shame that Oscar was on so many Verve sessions to the exclusion of others. How about some Teddy Wilson, for starters? Imagine Teddy and Roy together. Anyway, it is what it is. By the way, I am pleased to see the release of the Pearson set. But it would be a lot better if they had done it completely right and made it a definitive set, as this will probably be the last release of this music before the tapes decompose. By right, I mean using a good remastering engineer, putting in all the tracks from those sessions, and listing the instruments properly. These drawbacks now remain forever, and with a little more care they could have been avoided. Perhaps those who work on these sets are pushed for time and unable to smooth out the wrinkles. Our world is like that anymore.

From memory: the Mulligan (of course), a Getz, the O'Day, the Herman, the Basie, and the Montgomery (I really like that one, and have the 2 CD set as well). Perhaps others, but all were from the first set of issues. They were going for $12. I still maintain that this sounds like a warning of their soon disappearance. I've seen it all before, and I have learned that official expiry dates are not always honored. And Ken Druker did tell me that they make just the one production run. I wouldn't pay the full $18 for these, as there always seem to be sales about, if you look around. I have never paid the official price for them. How are the Getz's and that Basie? I have never heard them.

Wow, did I say 1995? I sure was tired when I posted that! '05 obviously. (That makes me sound even older!)

This is a fine collection. Here's the list http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/series.aspx?sid=7 They have little or nothing in common, but most that I've heard have great sound, and I personally love the LP-style covers. The first batch have been around for awhile now, and are said to expire in May 95. But I saw a lot in what appeared to be a closeout sale at Borders a couple of days ago. It was a warning that they may vanish fairly soon. So, ... I do know, from an email from Verve's Ken Druker, that they only made one production run of each CD, and won't be doing more. My email to him was sent to submit some corrections to the personnel on the Cal Tjader reissue (the main point there being that Richard Davis is on all but one track, as the original LP notes said).

Yes, it is, Bob. Amazon, for one, lists it. Depending upon the postage charge, it might be cheaper to order it from the U.K. or Europe, though. But if memory serves, the Amazon U.S. price is about $18, and the set is well worth that amount. Not only is the music very good, but the playing time is very generous. You could rightly call this a "poor man's Mosaic set", meaning that if you are short of funds right now, here is a fairly cheap way to get in on the fun. You get a sizeable chunk of the band's repertoire, and it is from the same period, of course, as the first few sessions for Verve. If you also grab the Vanguard mini-LP CD, you have yourself a nice little package. By the way, that mini-LP CD disappears by May 95, and I sense that it may vanish before then. A couple of days ago, I saw a whole slew of these (at least 8 copies, all stuffed into a bin together) in Borders at a slashed price. It was rather sad to see this excellent release obviously on its way out, and I also felt strangely sad that I already had it - I felt like grabbing it again! They also had several others of the first batch of these mini-LPs, apparently on a closeout sale. You have been warned.

Mike, there is only ONE previously unissued track (unless there is one from that Christmas carol session, which I have always deliberately avoided - soon, the stores will all be pumping that junk out again; ugghh!). The new track is "Dialogo". I am also sad to see that an old error in the instrumentation listings still persists. On "Canto Ossanha" (a great track, by the way), Frank Foster does not play an alto clarinet. He plays the Eb clarinet an octave below the alto, which is best described as an Eb contrabass clarinet. It's pitched a fifth below the regular Bb bass clarinet. With an extension down to its low C (which Frank's horn definitely has), it can get down to Eb (concert pitch) a half-tone below the bottom E of the bass fiddle. On the track, which is in E minor, you can hear Frank playing the bottom E of the bass fiddle. That's how you can tell that he's not playing the usual bass clarinet (much less the alto, which also doesn't have a low C). This horn sounds very similar to the Bb bass clarinet. The manufacturers sometimes call it an Eb contra-alto clarinet, which is a stupid name in my opinion. I went into this with Michael Cuscuna a few years back, when I emailed him to ask for the release of the three unissued Pearson tracks. It took several emails back and forth to convince him of this, including a link to the French Leblanc website, which has details of the horn in question. But I do understand how busy Michael is, and I guess he forgot about it. It is not exactly a major world issue. As a side note, there is another superb version of this Baden Powell tune on Cal Tjader's "Hip Vibrations" album, arranged by Benny Golson. On that album, they play it in Eb minor, for some reason. I wonder who knows the original key, and why someone shifted it a half-tone.

I did not mean to suggest that I thought that you were complaining, Mike. I'm sure that you do enjoy this session. Your question about the missing trumpeter was quite reasonable, though. Trane was nowhere near his best in 1956, as he was still strung out on heroin. A lot of his playing before he went cold turkey is rather muddled. This Dameron session is a major exception to that rule, and is outstanding by any standard. It is also much better than a lot of those rather shallow blowing sessions that Prestige recorded.

The Pearson is a disappointment to me, though, setting aside the likelihood that Ron messed up the sound again. Only one previously unissued track ("Dialogo"). They left out the other two unissued tracks from those sessions (B and C), namely "Come On Over My Love" and "Is That So", as Michael Cuscuna does not like them. I guess he changed his mind about "Dialogo". I'm not paying $39.00 for this box. However, if you have never heard this music, then grab it - there's some terrific stuff here.

I think it's an excellent session as it is, too, John. I guess Bob Weinstock could answer this question, but who would want to bother him with it?

Here's a funny court ruling that WAS made by the judge. In England, a guy was fined after a roadside random safety check on his car discovered that his windshield washer fluid reservoir was empty. He got three points on his license! Tut, tut! What a road menace!

I duly and dutifully bought the Jack Johnson LP when it first came out, and I hated it. This, plus listening, dutifully again, to the extra tracks in the Bitches' Brew 4 CD set, sure puts me off getting this new set. Basically, I only enjoy the B.B. tracks that were on the original two LPs, and even then I don't play them much. Now, the 3 CD "Silent Way" box is another thing again. I love that, the highlight being the shattering uncut version of "Shh, Peaceful", which was a shock to hear after knowing the cleverly edited LP version for 30 years. I am amazed at what Teo did with the raw material. It was basically a re-composition, and the results are outstanding. Who, in 1969, could have realized what had been done?

Sulieman is an excellent guess, Jim. Better than my Byrd suggestion. Tadd would have gone for someone connected with the bop days, probably, and Idrees was in Diz's big band, wasn't he?

Thanks, Mule. That's the first time I've seen these covers. I used to have this music on some French Musidisc LPs, which, for some reason, were very cheap (but were not inferior pressings).

Going back a tad (or even a Tadd) earlier, how about the early Art Blakey session(s).

I think Donald Byrd would be a likely candidate. He probably missed the date because he had two others that day.

Getting back to the level of American culture, have you watched Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" recently? I don't know whether they deliberately pick the most stupid and ignorant people; I hope not. The funniest one that I recall was a girl who was asked what the Canadian term for "president" is. She said, "Oh, I don't think they have a president. They just have a mayor."

Hey, Jacman, you forgot a turkey call in your codger kit - which I enjoyed, by the way. That's very pertinent about "cultured" people usually not liking jazz, David. I have liked jazz since I was a toddler, and have had to put up with it being looked down upon by many classical music lovers all my life. I was thinking again about this a few days ago, when the issue came up in the notes for a Benny Goodman set. It is ridiculous for anyone to dismiss jazz as supposedly low-class music. Granted, some performances stink, notably a lot of fifties and sixties "trad", but obviously the vast majority of jazz recordings are musically excellent. They are not inferior, just different. The classical snobs who dismiss jazz apparently fail to notice that most famous jazz musicians are masters of their instruments, and a lot are superb arrangers, too. Arturo Toscanini was a notable exception, who told the trombone section to listen to Tommy Dorsey to hear a fine player.

This is good news. Thanks for posting, Mule. Where is this store at? I guess Google will link to it. My first purchase, depending on price, will be the Milt Jackson sessions with Lucky Thompson (1956, I think). Someone sent me a dubbing from a 2 LP set of these delightful recordings, and a decent CD version would be very welcome.