BillF

Shorty Rogers and His Giants, Portrait of Shorty (RCA) Another roaring Rogers band, this time from 1957. Featured soloists include Frank Rosolino, Bob Enevoldsen, Pepper Adams, Richie Kamuca, Herb Geller and Conte Candoli.

Saw them, too, along with Johnny Griffin, Ronnie Scott and Dusko G. (can't spell his surname!) Are they all on the record? Kenny Clarke and Kenny Clare, too?

"Look What I Got: Betty Carter" on Night Lights archived on WFIU.

Yes, there was a bit of misunderstanding here. I didn't realise at first that the thread was originally limited to discussion of vinyl only. But what has been said seems accurate and useful.

You seemed so surprised by what I said that I've been to the amazon.uk site and used Jimmy Heath CDs for a random check on prices. Here are the most expensive OJC Heath CDs. Nearly all are used and almost all offered by U.S. firms that specialize in shipping to the U.K. The few U.K. firms included here are asking the same sort of price. On the Trail 1 copy available at £54.58 Swamp Seed 7 copies available from £39.47 to £63.46 Triple Threat 4 copies available from £23.73 to £25.99 Of course, another factor here is the relative expensiveness of U.K. retail prices compared to their U.S. equivalents. You can get $40 for £20 in currency exchange, but are likely to find that a £20 item in a British store costs $20 in a U.S.store, which is why wealthy Brits fly over to New York for the weekend and load up on shopping! (P.S. I am not among their fortunate number!)

In a thread which I started called "Record Prices for Records", I said that I was noticing an escalating rise in the price being asked for used copies of OJCs which were no longer available. £30 ($60) is not unusual for these on amazon.uk.

Shorty Rogers, BluesExpress (RCA) Two sessions, from 1953 and 56. Some of the greatest modern big band tracks ever, IMHO. Love the titles, too: "Pink Squirrel", "Coop de Graas", "Infinity Promenade", "Tale of an African Lobster", "Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud", etc.

Years since I heard it, but I do recall it lived up to its title!

Appalling Chancellor - redeemed by his liking for jazz. A frequent habitue of Ronnie Scotts, back in the day I believe. Yes, often at Ronnie's "after late sessions at the House", but so was John Prescott, so perhaps it was more a matter of being blokes of a certain age than of party!

Ken Clarke's Jazz Greats online from BBC Radio 4. British Conservative politician and jazz fan (strange, but true!) Kenneth Clarke discusses the life and music of Max Roach with altoist Peter King.

Have you checked out Steve Lacy? This is not tongue-in-cheek (I originally intended it that way though, I confess) - he did some marvellous and very accessible things, not just freakishly out solo and duo improv albums. "Work" on the defunct Sketch label is a great one, in trio with Jean-Jacques Avenel and Daniel Humair, and maybe "Morning Joy", a live recording from the 90s on hatOLOGY, which adds fellow alto/soprano sax player Steve Potts and has John Betsch in Humair's place. There are of course also his early three albums for Prestige/New Jazz, one with Wynton Kelly ("Soprano Sax", with Buell Neidlinger & Dennis Charles), one with Mal Waldron ("Reflections", their first Monk album, with Neidlinger & Elvin), and one with Don Cherry ("Evidence"), plus the Candid album with Charles Davis ("The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy", with John Ore & Roy Haynes). These are not regarded as being among Lacy's best, but they might be to your liking. The other name you should check out on soprano is Lucky Thompson - but him being a doubler I assume you have some of his albums. There's marvellous soprano playing on that disc on Freshsound which teams him with Tommy Flanagan, and also on half of "Lucky Strikes" (Prestige/Fantasy, with Hank Jones, Richard Davis and Connie Kay, I think). To me, I think these are the two greatest, but then I still need to dig deeper into Wayne Shorter's works (his early recordings most of which I have, are tenor only...). There are others, I'm sure, and maybe that statement about "greatest" is stupid, it just reflects my current opinion anyway. I would just add Steve Lacy's work in 1957 on Gil Evans and Ten. Lacy's sound is just right amid Evans' orchestral textures.

Yes, a great man! He's been devoted to jazz ever since he bunked off school to hear Louis Armstrong in the thirties!

I can strongly recommend the Emily Remler show - one of the best Night Lights has done, IMHO. I'd never heard of Emily before (her records seem to have disappeared) and was astounded by her powerful Montgomery-influenced playing and moved by her personal tragedy. My appreciation was further enhanced by looking at the quite plentiful YouTube clips which exist of her. (Makes up for what's happened to the records, I suppose.)

Supersax, Chasin' the Bird (MPS) Recorded 1977. Solos by Blue Mitchell, Conte Candoli and Frank Rosolino.

The Best of Jazz online from BBC Radio 2. 86 year-old trumpeter, Humphrey Lyttelton, who has presented the show for 39 years, announced that next week's will be his last. As this week's included records by Clark Tracey, Lew Tabackin, Roland Kirk, Helen Humes, Woody Herman, Junior Mance and Dave Tough, I shall certainly miss him!

I have always had wish lists. Often they came about through hearing items on radio shows that were no longer available. Recently, though, the lists have greatly declined in length, probably because of the huge amount of stuff available nowadays and the ability to track and purchase it which the internet affords. So my current wish list only contains two items: long out-of-print albums by Supersax and Maynard Ferguson's A Message From Newport, which Niko very obligingly pointed out to me on eBay, but at a cost that he rightly called "pricey". There's another kind of wish list: the "if-only-someone-had-recorded-something" kind. I used to wish that my favorite artist - Bird - had recorded with my favorite orchestra - the Herman "Four Brothers" Herd. Years later I discovered, and immediately bought, Bird with the Herd, which, although featuring a later Herman band, is a pretty good near miss!

A quick look through my record collection has so far revealed only one mention of Lorraine Geller - on Lighthouse All Stars: Sunday Jazz a la Lighthouse, Vol 2 (OJC/Contemporary). Even then, there seems to be some difference of opinion as to whether she actually was the pianist on the album's three last tracks. Ted Gioia in West Coast Jazzthinks she was; Claude Williamson is also mentioned in the album's liner notes. Robert Gordon in Jazz West Coast describes Lorraine as "an important musician" and notes her "tragically early death in 1958." He includes a photograph of the Red Mitchell Quartet in 1957 with Lorraine on piano, James Clay on tenor and Billy Higgins on drums and describes their Contemporary album at some length.

For me, cello in jazz means Fred Katz with the Chico Hamilton group and Oscar Pettiford. EDIT: I now see they've been already been mentioned in this thread - but a couple of years ago, so they're due for a recall!

Archived shows from Jazz From Studio Four from WGBH Boston.

"......and whiskers on kittens....." Ah, yes, Frank is back. I didn't recognize him at first!

Art Farmer & Hal McKusick Quintet: Complete Studio Recordings (Lonehill) As usual with Lonehill, something of a mixed bag, but begins with 11 superb tracks where the leaders are backed by a sterling rhythm team of Eddie Costa, Milt Hinton and Gus Johnson.

Sonny Rollins &The Contemporary Leaders With Hampton Hawes, Barney Kessel, Leroy Vinnegar, Shelly Manne and Victor Feldman in 1958. Wonderful album!

Thanks. I was having the same problem. Now it's O.K.

Herbie Hancock, Empyrean Isles (Blue Note)

Joe Henderson, Inner Urge (Blue Note)