David Ayers

Well yeah some people are saying cash value, some rarity/love-of-the-hunt value, some just answering what they like best. Scarcity does bestow a value, though there is nothing you can't get off a blog these days. Also some things that were rare years or decades ago might be commonplace now. But I guess I do have an answer based on what was hard to find at the time and has stayed with me as favorites - Japanese pressings of Mohawk and Consequences (both Fontana). I don't have anything worth much cash-wise, I don't think.

Thank you!

I went for two instead... the first with the Kessel/Ellis & Brown Songbooks, the second with the Brown & Thigpens, the second being official and from Universal Canada and very nice! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Songbooks-Oscar-Peterson/dp/B000SFP7I2/ref=sr_1_13?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1291806077&sr=1-13 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Songbooks-Oscar-Peterson/dp/B00284G370/ref=sr_1_14?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1291806140&sr=1-14 They both should be around cheaper (or were at least considerably cheaper when I got them) Hm yes - I'd likely enjoy both of those, if the price were right... The Songbooks set is certainly inexpensive as a download...

I don't love OP but I will buy the euromosaic next time the price hovers around my designated price point. I guess that was the last of the euromosaics? We did pretty well out of those, I thought. PS I have no idea about sound as I haven't heard it but this Songbooks etc set on amazon.co.uk and elsewhere looks like a plausible purchase.

By the way I am not down on Mosaic or anyone else doing this, it's just that over the decades I heard it all already, so it comes late for me and I can't get excited about it. As for Incus, haven't a lot of key title been released and are mainly still in print? The Parker Incus LPs without Bailey have certainly all appeared on Psi. Maybe not all of the Bailey have been done but would Mosaic collectors really go for a box of the titles never yet on CD? WOuld they go for Bailey at all? I mean yeah there are odds and ends, but not many and these will likely come from Psi and elsewhere. Or who knows maybe we'll just have to listen to the LPs. In any case there is no shortage of Bailey or Parker CDs on the market....

Well I wanted this stuff 25 years ago. I've learned to manage without. Priorities change. It still hasn't been announced, even, so how excited can anyone get? There is no shortage of boots of this period, after all. Should it ever arrive, I'll consider it, depending at that time what I am thinking about. I suppose that I am not thrilled that it is only after the CD reissue wave is basically coming to an end that only now are we being offered the 'avant-garde' of thirty/forty years ago. I mean, if other people want it, that's fine, but I've been through it all once.

I'll be interested to know what is on this set. Some of the trio material has long circulated as bootlegs - let's hope it is not just a belated issue of the same stuff. It's a pity that no-one got around to issuing this material way back when, in the heyday of cd. Same with Braxton and Threadgill sets - it all comes a bit late, to my way of thinking. I'll admit I was one of those calling for this set, but I've waited so long I'm a bit past caring. As for Ellington, fine, but we had 4CDs of this from Sony in excellent masters which cost me $7.50 including shipping. I can't quite work out why I need to spend $200 to get the rest.

The Armstrong Hot 5s and 7s JSP is currently £8.99 on UK amazon.

Two sellers are offering it at a great price. Unfortunately, they don't ship to the U.S. Sorry to see they don't ship to US. UKers should jump on this (£31.99 at this moment, tracking down every day...). The principal difference between the euromosaic and the regular is that these sets are unnumbered, the product code on the spine is different, there is a back cover information sheet describing the contents, and... the booklet paper is maybe a bit shinier.... Works out under £5 per disk at this price.

Hm. Now I know you said you don't really buy it very much, but I don't remember you saying you couldn't? You can't - no space? or? No home = no space. And I don't download - a preference thing. Ohhhhhhhh. By the way I agree with you on supporting live music not least because so much more of what you pay actually goes to musicians. I don't really agree with the idea that buying recordings 'supports music' - not so very much, IMO.

Hm. Now I know you said you don't really buy it very much, but I don't remember you saying you couldn't? You can't - no space? or?

The Gillespie I mentioned is here http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000GYHZWG/ Edited to add: uh, guys, it's a bargain...

The euro-issue of the Gillespie Mosaic keeps cropping up new from amazon.co.uk sellers at around the £35 mark. Evidently a few remainders floating around.

My sincere condolences.

So you constantly assert. I see no evidence of that here in Tokyo where jazz CD's have maintained their prices in used stores. Well here you can hardly find a store that would take your CDs. Many RVGs sell new for £3-5 ($5-8). Sometimes even Mosaics go unsold on ebay. Not many CDs attract collector's prices on the market or anything like. The Japanese market does seem different. But don't you think that changes in the Penguin Guide (which we are discussing here) seem to reflect a contracting market and a changing demographic for music? Maybe I am wrong but it seems to me that in the main CD collecting is in decline.

To stop anyone else having it? It's very good, and odd it hasn't had a life on CD outside the Mosaic.

The 'Clickin with Clax' which is available as a download on amazon is not that album, just a faceless compilation.

Steve Yes I was pushing the point in order to argue, in a way, that it is hard now to generate a coherent conception of such a guide - too many formats, too much that's offically OOP easily findable, too much that's OOP full stop etc etc. I recently saw a Gramophone review that stated an older, reference recording was 'only available in a box set or as a download.' He might just was well have said 'or maybe on amazon or ebay' and in fact it was on my streaming service. He meant, not in the current UK catalogue, but the whole idea of 'not in print' according to the catalogue (which in any case depends on country) is obsolete. Claude I agree that in some ways it is comments on little-known albums that are the most interesting - AMG has covered a lot of that ground though, mostly all you want to know is basically OK/short measure/reissued on x/poor recording/etc. And there's always this board to keep us all informed!

But why review CDs (I'm reading this from your "70s and 80s" dates, so correct me if I'm wrong)? Why not just review recordings, give catalogue information on the original issue, and leave the consumer to search around for whatever format is preferred and can be found? Morton's book reviews 'albums' which is not relevant for collectors of 78s. And why not single out important tracks, since this book is supposedly aimed at the download generation (a passing generation, I believe, as streaming slowly takes hold). Really the CD collector is a specific demographic - and, as I'm always saying, a deluded one, since nearly all CDs are basically worthless although LPs are still collectable.

Well you guys know how I think by now so I won't go on. To my mind, a list of albums is no more a history than a list of kings and queens. For us collectors and enthusiasts, it's fine, but for the rest of the world hardly essential.

It's a defective model, and the idea of 'owning' the recordings seems very dated. So will it appeal to a 'beginner'? Maybe only to the older and established collector as a point of reference. The Penguin Guide as was reflected older tastes, and personally I distrust the aspects of 'collecting' and of a stabilised history on a large scale, in which the bit-players (who originated little or nothing) loom much larger than they ought. Touted as a guide to jazz for the iTunes generation, this book is still said to focus on albums. Hm.

I'm hoping that my point hasn't got lost. This is a good record and people should try to get past what elements of ECM-iness they may feel they detect, as to production or aesthetic, and give it a serious listen. When you listen to the first track it seems it may be more standard fare than it turns out to be. On a related topic, I am looking forward to hearing the new Roscoe Mitchell. The following blurb is from amazon.

Well I think those of us who've heard it are all agreeing it's pretty good. Just a question of whether long, repetetive modal vamps, fragmented pastoral solos, and softened-by-mist percussion have ever before been found on an ECM record. Such as Eventyr.

: I see the price sadly reverted to $99.99 I think they realised that two boxes of entire evenings wouldn't really make sense - people might not feel they need the second box when it came out. The way they did it each box has its own concept and the second box has tunes not in the first at all. That said, I don't think anyone should ever follow this pattern again!

Symphonie Fantastique - of course! There's a magnificent Boulez recording on DG and several by Colin Davis, most recently on LSO Live. The Boulez is in fantastic sound and comes with a generous filler. Of his operas and other large scale works the obvious thing is to go for Les Troyens (The Trojans) which is the biggest of the bunch and the best. Again, two Colin Davis versions, the more recent on LSO Live. Davis did most of Berlioz for Philips and then more recently for LSO Live. The Philips stuff might be harder to come by now; the LSO Live is all in print, many works are in a Centenary Box, and others are on SACD. Not everyone gets on with the LSO Live acoustic from London's Barbican and I suggest sampling before making a big commitment. The Philips sound is good but dated. Berlioz is very rewarding and once you start you'll want to push on!