Mark J

The Impulse studio box is a waste of money when the albums are available individually, in their proper tracking, with added material. I regret buying that box when it came out - I was too excited to think, plus it was on sale for a good price. I never listen to it and it's a mess dealing with the CDs in the box - lousy packaging. The VV is the box to get. That stuff is amazing. I can listen to it over and over. Plus the packaging is great.

I've had the Embers box for about 5 years - excellent material. Arguably the best live Bird available, although the Roost material is also excellent as well as some of the many single CDs of live material from various sources and times. Mostly complete songs in good sound on Embers (at least as good as these radio airshots can be). Good variety of settings and sidemen, even some of the 'with strings' songs. Bird even does a little talking. Well worth seeking out, whether on Embers or Charley (if indeed Charley has the same mastering). If you like Bird this is a no-brainer.

Very nice selection of RVG titles. I have all of these one way or another except the Cherry, and I'm not interested in Cherry. I'm happy with most of these how I have them. The Connection is one of my least favorite BNs, just not very interesting. The Blue Mitchell is part of the Mosaic, and I don't really like the Mosaic. That's one of the Mosaics I bought when I was on a Mosaic kick back in 1999, buying a variety of Mosaics to experiment with different sounds. Many were successful experiments like the Jackie McLean and the Eddie Condon, but I consider the Mitchell a failure - same with the Jimmy Smith Mosaic. I liked it once, not as much the second time, six years later there hasn't been a third time and it's now a dust collector. Fuego is excellent, but the sound on the old BN CD is fine for me. Lonnie Smith Think! is a great album - very funky. Glad to see it back. The Blakey is good, but not outstanding for me - when I want to hear some Blakey it's not usually the one I put on. Sunday Morning was one of my first Grant Greens and I still like it. The only one in this batch I would consider for an upgrade would be Oblique - that's one of my favorite BNs. I was just listening to it last week, and my old Collectors Choice version sounds awful. An upgrade to RVG would be good.

Hi Lon! 25 bucks is too much for that. Sometimes they come up around 10 dollars, which is well worth it. This Commodore series is definitely before Verve bought Commodore, all the CDs are from 1988 or 1989. I have 6 of them - none say Columbia, they all just say Commodore, copyright "The Special Music Co. and Pair Records, division of Essex Entertainment Inc. 87 Essex Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601". The ones I have are: 7007 Jammin' at Commodore - Eddie Condon and Bud Freeman, which has the classic 1938 recordings which started Commodore records. 7008 Jess Stacy and Friends, which has 8 Stacy solos, the two classic tracks with Lee Wiley, and 6 tracks with Stacy and Specs Powell. 7009 Jazz in New York, the Miff Mole CD 7012 Willie "the Lion" Smith Piano Solos, which has 14 Smith solos and two with a small group - these are my favorite Lion recordings. 7014 Teddy Wilson Piano Solos, which has 10 Wilson solos and 8 quartet tracks with the Edmond Hall Quartet. 7015 Ballin the Jack - Eddie Condon and his band featuring Fats Waller, Joe Bushkin and Joe Sullivan, 14 excellent Condon tracks from 1939-1942 with the usual gang including Pee Wee, Max Kaminsky, Marty Marsala, George Brunis and George Wettling. These CDs all have nice black & white photos on the covers (they look like Mosaic boxes) and have great sound, especially for their time. Their only problem is they are CD versions of LPs so they run short and have no alternates. Most of these recordings are probably available on the French Classics series, but the sound on these CDs is probably better and the notes, mostly by Gabler, are interesting. Back to Miff Mole - his 1944 recording of "Peg o' My Heart" on the Jazz in New York CD is amazing. His solo is very advanced and it's unfortunate he didn't make more records.

I have Sticky Fingers and Exile in the limited edition gatefold editions from the mid 90s - the sound is excellent. Better than the earlier issues of these albums. The packaging was also a treat - exile had shrunken versions of the postcards from the original double LP issue and Fingers had the real zipper, like the LP!!!

I forgot about his Commodore sides as mentioned above - I have them on a great CD that is unfortunately OOP from a great OOP series, back before Commodore's catalogue was owned by the Verve group. The CD "Jazz in New York - Bobby Hackett/Miff Mole/Muggsy Spanier", Commodore CD CCD 7009 from 1988, has 5 1944 Hackett tracks, 4 Muggsy Spanier & His Ragtimers (with Miff) from 1944, and 4 Miff Mole & His Nicksieland Band sides, also from 1944. All are excellent Condon-style tracks featuring Condon and the usual gang, including Pee Wee Russell on all sides. If you can find this CD (try half.com) it is a keeper.

In case you don't know, the photo I posted above is Miff in the 20s from the redhotjazz website.

The Frog CDs are definitely the way to go, possibly the only way to hear concentrated prime era Miff. Miff was an excellent trombonist, his sides with Nichols are great as are many of his other recordings. He was the premier New York trombonist for a while until Teagarden broke on the scene and I guess Miff seemed old fashioned. Eddie Condon kept him going in the 40's and you can hear Miff on some of the Condon radio program transcriptions which are available on a big series of double CDs.

Hi Lon!!!! Good to see you! Good to be here with the old BNBBers and some of the real old JCSers!

I see my old friend Weizen has a good memory!!! Florida is correct!

"Hey....you're a newbie!" anyone who remembers me as birdistheword knows that I am not a newbie! Only a newbie to this board. I speak from experience.

This is excellent music in great sound. Much better than the Classics CDs versions of the same material which is dubbed from old 78s. My favorite is Ammons - very inventive and more of a light touch than Lewis. If you are interested in how Blue Note became a label take a listen to this music. The early BN 78s were all excellent - Lion gave these guys freedom and time. He put out mostly 12 inch 78s which could hold more than 4 minutes of music. Quite a revelation in 1939 when most records were tightly arranged 2-3 minutes and basically only Commodore was using this size for jazz releases (also the occassional big label side like Berigan's I Can't Get Started on Victor which was a large 78). Lion also recorded Pete Johnson soon after these recordings - these are also great piano sides and you should seek them out. They are on the French Classics CDs of Johnson and the old Pete Johnson Mosaic.

Nice batch - I've had all of these for a really long time so once again I'll be skipping these, but many of these have been OOP for years, so it's a good batch for the newbies. True Blue is one ot those CDs I spent years searching for, finally picked up a TOCJ about 4 years ago. Good set, not as good as all the hype was about this session. Hi Voltage is an excellent Mobley album. The Johnny Coles is better than I expected. My favorite here is Heavy Soul. Possibly the best Ike Quebec album. This was one of the Connoisseurs that made me a Blue Note fan. The cover is classic Reid Miles and the music is primo.

I'm back from a loooong vacation to add my 2 cents. I haven't bought a Blue Note in about 2 years because they keep reissuing titles I've owned for years. How about Art Hodes? Most of his material has never been out on domestic CD. Even Bechet, although I have it all I would re-buy some kind of quality RVG reissue. How about Lou Mecca? That has NEVER been re-issued in the US. The Ike Quebec small group sessions from the 40's? More gold that should be available. And George Lewis!!!!!!!