BruceM

I'm sorry, but the proposition that vinyl is having some sort of comeback is ridiculous. Vinyl may survive, but only as an increasingly expensive niche market. Vinyl sales are still less than 0.1% of overall music sales. The reason that CDs have declined has nothing to do with people buying vinyl. People now purchase music digitally from the Internet (or get it for free from the numerous file sharing sites). I sold my 1000+ LP collection 12 years ago and have never regretted it. I live and travel overseas with home moves every two years or so. The idea of lumping around vast quantities of scratchy records does not appeal. I now carry 2000+ albums in a pocket sized hard drive. To these ears, modern CDs also sound better than what I remember of LPs. I do agree that LPs have a nostalgic appeal and are fun to look at. But the convenience, reliability and much lower cost of digital music will always make it it the preference for 99.99% of people.

Finally We may be getting a remastered "Astral Weeks". Warner Music Japan have scheduled it for 25 June 2008.

it is on their website, here. but i'm afraid it's not updated or at least doesn't feature upcoming projects. all those cats, one of their older reissues, which i have, is there. Try here, I think all the new ones are mentioned: http://www.hmv.co.jp/search/index.asp?adv=...&category=1 That clarke/boland sextet looks interesting as well.

I think the idea that Hopkins was just a rural/folk musician was concocted during the folk revival in the early sixties in order to sell records. Unfortunately, most of his recordings follow this trend and can tend to sound alike. Charlie Musselwhite told a story of going to see Hopkins at a juke joint in the south during the sixties. He plugged his guitar in and proceeded to rip the place apart. Musselwhite said it was one of the most dynamic sets he ever saw. The Rhino "Very Best of" compilation gives a pretty good overview of his career. If you want to have one CD I'd go for that.

Just a heads up that Schema are about to reissue two of Sahib's best albums, Seeds and Companionship. Both are classics IMO.

Guess what? Fairyland was released on CD last month.

Well, everyone has their own opinion and I can see why some might think that. I quite like Hahn with John Handy, but with Burton (Country Roads? Throb?) not records I have ended up keeping so I can't have been impressed at the time. Maybe I should revisit them.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned "The Gary Burton Quartet in Concert". A terrific live album from the late sixties and the record that Pat Metheny credits with turning him on to jazz.

Well, Art disagrees with you, but what does he know about that... The suggestion was that Pepper became a lesser musician because he listened to Coltrane. I don't hear that, but maybe you do?

Coltrane influence???? The only thing that came out of Art Pepper's horn was his own experiences. I was lucky enough to see im live late in his career and he played a 20 minute blues that was the most emotionally devasting thing I have heard in 40 years of listening to music. I recommend you listen to a recording that was issued as "Blues for The Fisherman" if you are lucky enough to find a copy.

Well, don't let its unavailability to you build up into a huge anticipatory thing or you'll be disappointed with the session when you do finally get to hear it. It's fine. . . but it's in my opinion the least of his Impulses. . . .I love Teefsky. . .I bought the Japanese Impulse cd some years back. . .but prefer all the other Impulse titles, and all the Savoys, to this one. Agree totally. "A Flat, G Flat and C" is the Lateef Impulse that needs a CD reissue.

This has never made any sense to me. And the majors are sitting on treasure troves of "niche" material that a lot of people would love to be able to hear. An acquaintance of mine spent some time in the EMI Brasil vaults a number of years back, and was just stunned by all the top-notch material that deserves release, but has been more or less allowed to decay on the shelf. (I don't mean to imply that the originals are disintegrating; more like they've been ignored and forgotten and/or are perceived to be of little worth.) When I mentioned a Brazilian music blog where several highly respected artists have contributed rips (from vinyl) of extremely rare, o.p. material - one of the reasons they did that was to allow people to be able to hear some of the great (even unique) material that the majors in Brazil are refusing to reissue. These artists felt (in at least one case) that specific albums were/are hugely important - but that the music and its creators have been unjustly neglected due to label concern re. not being able to make any profits from potential reissue of this material. Good point. Though I doubt the majors would use an ethical argument - they'd stick with a cold, legal one. They only use the ethical one when it suits. This is why I have no sympathy for record companies. They say you can't copy music because they will lose money, and at the same time refuse to release the music because it will cost them money. You can't have it both ways. I will continue to download OOP music from sites such as Loronix. On the original point, I have gone the way of filing my CDs in metal storage boxes with the CD/box booklets (I hate jewel cases). I have also ripped them to Itunes. This gives me three copies, the original CD, the Itunes folder on a HD and the Ipod itself which is another HD.

Some records that are not commercial Afrobeat but retain their sense of "place": Amadou & Mariam - Sou Ne Tile Prince Nico Mbarga - Aki Special King Sunny Ade - Juju Music Orchestra Baobab - Pirates Choice Tony Allen - No Accomodation For Lagos There are many more but the above are some of my favourites.

People should talk about artists they like. Whats the point in discussing how much you don't like someone? I think Cecil Taylor is the biggest phoney of all time, but you won't see me saying it here. Woops.

How is it? Good. Arbee is from the same generation as T-Bone, but a different part of the country, so there are differences. But this has a lot of the same laid back feeling that you get with T-Bone working with some jazz musicians, which he often (even usually) did. His guitar playing is more "primitive" than T-Bone's - but that's only to be expected of a contemporary who didn't make the breakthrough. As an earlier style, Arbee plays well, I think, though I haven't heard much of the pre-T-Bone/Christian styles to be able to judge well. As for Wright, I haven't focused on his playing yet. The little blurb OJC and OBC CDs had on the back call him "John Young" MG MG Are you sure its not John Young, ie the piano player who recorded for Delmark and later backed Von Freeman? I think he was on T-Bone Blues as well. Seems possible. As I said, I haven't focused on the pianist yet. But the personnel in the album notes lists it as Wright. So does the Prestige discography. And it was recorded the day before Wright's own album "Nice n' tasty" (both at RVG's). In the interview with Arbee in the sleeve note he mentions that Wright was one of his favourite jazz musicians, and there are refs to his "South side soul" in the note (by Joe Goldberg - who was probably pretty careful about that sort of thing). Do you mean T-Bone's Atlantic album "T-Bone blues"? Unless there are some additional tracks on a CD release, there are none with Young on my LP copy. One session is with Ray Johnson, another with Lloyd Glenn and a third just says "band accompaniment". MG OK, that sounds pretty definitive. BTW , the Atlantic discography I use lists John Young as pianist on T-Bone Shuffle and Papa Ain't Salty.