Which Jazz box set are you grooving to right now?

[David Ayers]

21 hours ago, Steve Reynolds said:

Great stuff. I’ve been through 4 of the 6 discs twice. The riffs & grooves are terrific. I prefer KV on baritone but he’s come a long way on his tenor. McPhee is a national treasure and he’s superb throughout. Only quibble is Kessler could be slightly higher in the mix.

Bass AND drums could be a bit more forward...

[Steve Reynolds]

2 hours ago, David Ayers said:

Bass AND drums could be a bit more forward...

Maybe as Vandermark is recorded pretty loud - or maybe both KV & McPhee - maybe that’s his they sound live. I do think Hamid’s drums *sound* terrific. 

[mikeweil]

..... from this box set:

[Bluesnik]

A mention in another thread here made me want to pull out this. A wonderful surprise.

[Brad]

On 8/6/2019 at 4:33 AM, mikeweil said:

..... from this box set:

What’s your opinion of the Shearing disc? A review I read wasn’t complimentary. 

[mikeweil]

I couldn't care less about reviews. I like Shearing, I like Wes and his brothers. Their combination is different from what the brothers did on their own, and different from Shearing's quintet of the time - not the typical block chord unisons, more counterpoint. I find it to be an inspired meeting. Not all jazz has to be shouting. This is light but pleasant, and it swings.

[Brad]

I find reviews helpful, especially because I'm running out of room, but to each his own. I don't know if you saw this article but I thought it was pretty good. 

Deep Dive: Giving Pianist George Shearing His Proper Due, With a Look Beyond ‘Lullaby’

[ghost of miles]

[HutchFan]

On 8/11/2019 at 0:03 AM, Brad said:

I find reviews helpful, especially because I'm running out of room, but to each his own. I don't know if you saw this article but I thought it was pretty good. 

Deep Dive: Giving Pianist George Shearing His Proper Due, With a Look Beyond ‘Lullaby’

Brad, thanks for sharing this. Very interesting!

An aside: I wouldn't consider this article a review; I'd be more inclined to call it "scholarly writing about jazz." Lewis Porter knows his stuff!

[Bluesnik]

[T.D.]

[Bluesnik]

A small boxset with only three CDs. The sound is so-so, but the performance is first rate.

[mikeweil]

That Gary McFarland album with Evans is such a gem ....... 

On 11.8.2019 at 6:03 AM, Brad said:

I find reviews helpful, especially because I'm running out of room, but to each his own. I don't know if you saw this article but I thought it was pretty good. 

Deep Dive: Giving Pianist George Shearing His Proper Due, With a Look Beyond ‘Lullaby’

Now that's an article, and a good one, like anything from Lewis Porter I have read. 

And reviews indeed can be helpful - I found out I like many albums that got negative reviews 

[mikeweil]

More Bill Evans - hope to get through the box over the weekend. Listening to disc four right now. I like drummers like Larry Bunker much better with Evans than Elvin.

Edited 21 Sep 2019 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

Listening to the album with symphony orchestra right now. As it turns out I never listened to the whole box, I bought it for the McFarland album because it was the only issue of that one available at the time and the box was priced incredibly low and thus I got a lot of good music along the way. I like the trio with Larry Bunker (a very underrated drummer!) and Chuck Israels a lot. 

Van Gelder engineered the orchestra album - it sounds like he didn*t have much experience with recording a symphony orchestra. Some amateurish faults, like Grady Tate's drums moving from the left to the right when the orchestra comes in . The trio has the whole stereo spread and is placed up front while the orchestra is more or less limited to the left half on some tracks, on others the trio is back in the room with the orchestra. Oh well .... The muisc is nice, Ogerman did a good job. 

Edited 22 Sep 2019 by mikeweil

[sidewinder]

I have that Italian Evans box too - a great way of acquiring the set several years ago at a decent price but have been plagued by some of the disks skipping. Even though bought new, examination of some of the disks shows scuffing. Not great !

[ghost of miles]

[Justin V]

Disc 2, which is the only part of this set I own.  I found it at a Half Price Books clearance sale for $1, with Disc 1 likely dislodged and lost somewhere along the way.  

[Ted O'Reilly]

7 hours ago, Justin V said:

Disc 2, which is the only part of this set I own.  I found it at a Half Price Books clearance sale for $1, with Disc 1 likely dislodged and lost somewhere along the way.  

...and the other 5 discs?

[Justin V]

24 minutes ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

...and the other 5 discs?

They are known to get partial boxes here and there, and unsold items from one clearance sale (held at the county fairgrounds) get packed up (likely hurriedly) and sent on down the road to the next clearance sale.  That's why it might've been dislodged somewhere.  However, maybe Disc 1 never made it from the plastic sleeve to the case (which are kept empty on the shelves) when it made it to the clearance pile.  

At any rate, one disc is better than zero, but the full set would be nice.

[Ted O'Reilly]

16 hours ago, Justin V said:

They are known to get partial boxes here and there, and unsold items from one clearance sale (held at the county fairgrounds) get packed up (likely hurriedly) and sent on down the road to the next clearance sale.  That's why it might've been dislodged somewhere.  However, maybe Disc 1 never made it from the plastic sleeve to the case (which are kept empty on the shelves) when it made it to the clearance pile.  

At any rate, one disc is better than zero, but the full set would be nice.

Aha...now I understand:  you have 1 of 7.

[ghost of miles]

Love this quintet:

[Justin V]

Disc 1: I bought this a few months ago (for $10) and am making my way through it a second time.  This still sounds so modern.  I'm looking forward to hearing the track with Roy Haynes on Disc 2 again.  I need to pick up that Dolphy box one of these days.

Edited 1 Oct 2019 by Justin V

[gmonahan]

I've been reading Eddie Condon's very entertaining autobiography, and that caused me to go way back to this one:

 

[jlhoots]

Braxton (New Haven 2014) - 4 CD set