Ron S

Well, I've now given a first listen to all 8 discs in this set, and these are my first quick impressions: The standout for me was Disc 7, which is devoted to 3 Herb Ellis-led sessions from 1962. These are uniformly terrific, and include great soloing by Herb, Frank Assunto and Roy Eldgridge on trumpet, Buddy Tate on tenor, and Ray Bryant on piano. I also really enjoyed the Kenny Burrell-led sessions on Disc 6, followed by (in no particular order) the Ben Webster/Harry "Sweets" Edison session on Disc 8, the Buck Clayton/Marlowe Morris session on Disc 3, and the Illinois Jacquet, Coleman Hawkins/Clark Terry, Marlowe Morris (as sole leader) and Buck Clayton (as sole leader) sessions. One interesting artifact in this set is a pair of sessions from 1955 led by Buck Clayton and featuring vocals by Jimmy Rushing and Ada Moore. These are a series of 15 short vocal tracks that amount to a kind of humorous boy-wants-girl, boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl mini-operetta. The only sessions that didn't really grab me on first listen were those led by Ruby Braff, which sort of struck me as being of the Al Hirt/Pete Fountain genre. Unfortunately, they take up the entirety of discs 1 and 2. In fairness, I wasn't paying close attention while listening to them, and they may make a better impression the next time I listen (and if I pay closer attention). Sorry I don't have more (or ANY) detail, but this is all I have time to post right now. On the whole, I'd recommend this set for anyone who enjoys this kind of jazz from this period. There's nothing earth-shaking here, but it's all uniformly well-played and enjoyable music. I'd be interested to hear what others think.

Out of the mouths of babes . . . .

It looks like the "Discovery Sessions" CD has all the tracks on "Surf Ride" plus alternates it doesn't have, plus 2 of the 6 tracks ("Deep Purple" and "What's New") from "Two Altos." So, it looks like the way to go is to get "Discovery Sessions" and "Two Altos," although, unfortunately, that means giving up this cover:

So you're going to make me search for Pepper titles on Savoy. Here are a few details of Pepper's Discovery recordings that were issued on Savoy. Thanks! This title isn't even listed on Savoy's web site (which is why I asked jazzbo about titles).

So you're going to make me search for Pepper titles on Savoy. I have both Bird and Diz on Savoy.

Any spelling classes going on there? Doubt it, or he's skipping them... Speling is soch a noosents.

Any particular Savoy Pepper title(s)? Or just all the Pepper stuff?

Until the late John R.T. Davies got ahold of them--then, no more hiss! Just pure silence!

I went with the compilation, Tape Hiss for a Rainy Afternoon. The problem with the compilation is that you don't get the newly remastered individual CD's (Tape Hiss for a Rainy Afternoon, Tape Hiss for a Sunny Day, Tape Hiss for a Mellow Evening, etc.). You really haven't heard tape hiss until you've heard it in glorious 20-bit K2 or 24-bit sound.

Finally--Columbia Small Group Swing Sessions, Disc 8--Ben Webster and Harry "Sweets" Edison. Great so far.

Oops - I just quoted myself. Well this does keep coming up. At least you don't suffer from cognitive dissonance. Oops, sorry--for a second I was thinking I was on the "Psychology Today" bulletin board.

You're going back to number 4? Good catch! But wrong guess. For some reason, I posted in the general "What are you listening to right now" thread when I was listening to Disc 4. Next up is the last but not least Disc 8. Incidentally, the Herb Ellis-led sessions I'm listening to now on Disc 7 are outstanding. This may end up being my favorite disc in this set.

Columbia Small Group Swing Sessions, Disc 7--Herb Ellis. Guess which disc is next.

Columbia Small Group Swing Sessions, Disc 6--Kenny Burrell/Illinois Jacquet sessions--still swingin'.

Columbia Small Group Swing Sessions, Disc 5--Illinois Jacquet sessions. Not surprisingly, these REALLY swing, and include some great solos from the likes of Roy Eldridge.

FINE I'M SHUTTING IT DOWN!!! OBVIOUSLY SOME PEOPLE CAN'T HAVE FUN!!!1 IT TURNS OUT YOU ARE THE ONE WHO BRINGS THE BOARD TO CHAOS. Raging adolescent hormones.

An Inside-the-Beltway question, if ever I've heard one.

Looks like Jazz Kat gets no respect. We've totally trashed the premise of his thread.

Including Texas: "It's a whole other country!"

Sounds like it's time for some East Coast gigs. B-)

[Notice how in the above 3 posts, the Southwest and West Coast boys like the East Coast labels, and the East Coast boy likes the West Coast label.]

Contemporary.

I have many of these recordings on two Japanese Toshiba "Super Bit Jazz Classics" mini-LP CDs, The Art of Pepper (TOCJ-9311) and Modern Art (TOCJ-9407), which were remastered by Ron McMaster. I'm guessing that, for economic reasons, Mosaic decided to use those remasters after all, rather than have Malcolm Addey remaster the recordings again. But would that be consistent with the following statement from the Mosaic web site? "For each of these exceptional sessions, we have returned to the original master tapes and remastered them in 24-bit with greatly improved results from all previous issues. " [bold added] The McMaster remasters I'm referring to are also in 24-bit, and were done in 2002. But you're right, my guess doesn't seem to be consistent with that statement... . . . unless they meant to say "improved results from all previous DOMESTIC issues."

indeed it is! can i change the thread title? this stuff is so so so hip... -e- . . . and cool. B-)

I have many of these recordings on two Japanese Toshiba "Super Bit Jazz Classics" mini-LP CDs, The Art of Pepper (TOCJ-9311) and Modern Art (TOCJ-9407), which were remastered by Ron McMaster. I'm guessing that, for economic reasons, Mosaic decided to use those remasters after all, rather than have Malcolm Addey remaster the recordings again. But would that be consistent with the following statement from the Mosaic web site? "For each of these exceptional sessions, we have returned to the original master tapes and remastered them in 24-bit with greatly improved results from all previous issues. " [bold added]