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Yes, “Tales from Topographic Oceans” Atlantic 2 LP set, LP 2 Getting ready for tomorrow’s big ass box set. 400×305 18.1 KB

I do see your points - which goes to show that approaches and expectations are different. That Vol. 1 does have its merits and like I said, I usually find his thoughts interesting and useful "food for thought" when listening to the music. Beyond this, however, my point just is that - to put it bluntly - "if you name facts, get the facts right." Not caring enough about factual accuracy is not the way to do it IMHO because some readers may just take incorrect facts as the real thing and then these errors risk getting carved in stone through repetition elsewhere (and become doubly hard to straighten out from then on). Happens all the time, alas ... Better not to mention facts than to mention wrong ones or go out on a limb with assumptions or speculations that don't hold water because it has long been shown that things are not that way. And of course the requirement of factual accuracy applies to the "Listening to Prestige" label history too (in fact to any such book). I didn't take it to be one, either. Maybe the sales blurb for the book and certain endorsements did the purpose of the book a disservice in unduly stressing the "virtually every tune from every session" angle and the resulting "reference book" claim. As for the individual session chapters as stimulants for revisiting the recordings - see my statements above.

The comments from Big Beat Steve were helpful in pointing to errors and omissions. However, I don't believe the book was intended to be a complete discography of every Prestige recording. I am reading the book with the understanding that it is the work of a person who truly loves jazz, especially that which is on the Prestige label. Though my opinion of various recordings may not always agree with that of the author, I nonetheless always find it interesting to see the opinion of others. My personal collection of Prestige recordings is very extensive, but this book inspires me to listen to many I have not heard in a long long time.

So do I. It just is a regrettable case of "missed opportunities" when subjects like these that are interesting and do fill a gap are marred by largely avoidable flaws. As was the case with his "Jazz With a Beat" book that I also feel covers new ground and tackles the subject from a long-overdue angle IMO. Which made me regret its unncecessarily weak spots even more. Yet I did not regret buying this as well as Vol. 1 (1949-53) of the four session books.

Well I have all three - the Ruppli, the Swing Journal (alongside those for many other labels) and now these interesting 4 volumes and I find them all helpful and interesting. What I find I enjoyed was Tad's writing and input - not facts - I have the Ruppli etc for those (and many of the LPs/CDs also) I never saw this as a discography but as a blog (which I happened to have completely missed online - now in print) - a document about "listening to" Prestige with yes - some facts missing or lack of access to all the music available - that was never the point for me.

When this thread came up I checked the four volumes and the subsequent volume of essays on Amazon. I read the sample material of the new essay volume and picked up the Kindle edition of Vol 1 of the session volumes. I must say that though Listening to Prestige is a dandy title, he probably should have called the book of more general essays by a different name. Anyway I have picked at that first session volume a bit, by no means as extensively as Steve. Notwithstanding the defects pointed out by Steve, which I suppose stem from compiling a blog, which are by nature a sloppier and less rigorous enterprise than a book, I found the 1st volume interesting and worth the five bucks or so it cost on Kindle. I'm not sure about investing $60 on the four paperbacks. I'm going to keep referring to vol 1 as I listen to Prestige recordings it covers and possibly pick up other volumes later. As regards the latest book of essays - Chronicles - I read the introduction and first chapter in the sample provided on Amazon. Those were pretty worthwhile and I'll probably get the book.

I didn't know about his age, although I am aware there are different levels of research in every generation. I too have the first Ruppli Prestige edition that has quite a few omissions, and get the newer ones from a local library. There is no discography without errors or omissions, mine included. You should verify any information with a second independt source, if you can find one. In the end I would admit that enthusiasm and engagement are more important than doing nothing. As I said, I appreciate his efforts.

Mozart Piano Concertos No.16 & No.18 Walter Klein

I had the same thought when I listened to disk 1.

Yes it is. Over the years I've become a bigger Woody fan than ever. I have wanted to revisit the Mosaics I have. . . need to get to it.

According to one person with access to “inside information”: ”Understand that the eventual release in September will not include all the Tiberi recordings. I was told by someone that some of the recordings are technically not of the best quality. Some are just excerpts, for example.” BTW: here's the expected cover for the "April teaser":

Disc 1 of 3

thanks, just ordered this. Thanks all for the info. Great community here!

That first disk of Woody Herman is dynamite stuff, isn't it?

Schitt's Creek is one of those shows that gets much better as it goes. The first episode is too close to Arrested Developmnent, but the show chnages into something really sweet and funny. You have to see O'Hara's winery ad filming and her Serbian horror movie.

My listening to this yesterday got interrupted so I'm re-playing this first disc. Classic V-Disc Big Band Jazz Sessions” Mosaic Records disc 1

I hope for a box with the best recordings. I’d say it would be fair to put out the rest as an additional download?

Thanks for your feedbacks, everyone. But I am very far from knowing everything about every Prestige session. It just is so that these "early" Prestige Sessions are particularly well represented in my collection and I have owned a fair share of these recordings for a very, very long time. So you may be able to imagine my surprise at seeing some statements fall back behind what seemed like long-established "state of the the research art" knowledge to me. @Mikeweil: I am afraid you missed a little detail: From what I have learnt from personal remarks about his background, Tad Richards is of a generation BEFORE yours and mine. Which made it doubly difficult for me to understand and to find the right words, because as you say I would have expected a heavy reliance on online sources from a (much) younger generation. As for Michel Ruppli's label discography, I do own it and did it consult it repeatedly (as well as "The Prestige Book" from the (Japanese) Jazz Critique series (No. 3, 1996) while reading the Listening to Prestige books. And they were useful for checking a number of facts before posting too. However, the Ruppli discography needs a bit of careful use too. My copy (another of those occasional finds in the music book corner our our local shop) is the first edition of 1972 and I have a hunch there were later updated revisions. The 1972 edition, for example, understandably does not list the non-Prestige 1949 Serge Chaloff session (that I had singled out in my "review") in its "reissues from other labels" section. But OTOH it did list the 1944/45 Joe Davis sessions reissued in the 7500 series much later (PR7584). Not plausible either ... A great compilation of sessions but the links to Prestige are tenuous at best.

I've been dealing with members of older generations for quite a few years by now, the vast majority of older people sucks at discographical research, or any type of research for that matter - which is fine I guess..., still I don't think that there's much of a downwards trend in the quality of research that is being produced... Listening to Prestige was born in 1940 btw

Reading Big Beat Steve's thoughtful comments makes me wonder if Listening to Prestige ever bothered to take a look into or even buy Michel Ruppli's label discography - which he definitely should. I already had such thoughts when reading his posts. I have full respect for his intentions and enthusiasm, but think for such a book you have to dig in a little deeper. I guess that's the new generation, content with what they find on the web, or even think that's all there is. While reading many Wikipedia articles I often wonder if they are allergic to libraries.

Ken Peplowski - Maybe September (Capri)

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Enoch Light And The Command All-Stars – Persuasive Percussion - Vol. 4