David Ayers

oh dear - is it a bargain? ... if you tell me what it is I'll try too and let you know..... just being helpful

I saw them on amazon.co.uk - you have to go to the second page here where they are listed in order of release date. They go from page 2 to page 7, in a uniform edition, with a few vinyls thrown in. Here Ah - I found the label: here These are the guys who did the Quadromania jazz series ....

A while ago I mentioned in another thread that TD were flooding the market with about 60 reissues (My link). Now it's not that I care about this band, but I don't know how such a large reissue program can go unmentioned - not even on the band's website. Does anyone know anything about this? I just don't get it...

Thanks Ron. It seems no-one else is following anything!

I don't know why you guys think it's an easy fix? I can see this guy is talking up what he did but - are you saying an easier solution already existed which could have been used? I don't really get what you mean. Certainly that horrid wow is there in the RMM and RVG issues, so neither Michael nor Rudy could have thought that is was fixable - surely?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this! It is strange how the misplaced apostrophe is spreading. I now do it frequently when I type. I know what is correct, of course, but I find I unconsciously imitate this increasingly common error, and I do it more and more often. It isn't just an 'error' therefore. Remember that an apron was once a napron...

I think you two should settle it between you in a kind of semi-final and then the winner meets me in Vegas.

Oops sorry. Let's get back into the comfort zone by posting a list of CDs. Somebody?

Why? I suspect the majority of people on this board (outside those with a parallel interest in classical music) have never heard the Berg violin concerto. Does that mean they are 'falling short of any serious interest in music AS SUCH'? Anyone who knows music history knows why, and I should think that anyone who doesn't suspects that they need to find out. Of course, not knowing stuff is entirely cool too. OK thanks. I'm nearly there on the preceding trios - of course I suppose I could stop but I'm lured by the artificial scarcity.

Hey those mid-70s releases are good! Well maybe not that good. Incidentally I was wondering what Vibrations is like; how worthwhile might the current TOCJ reissue be?

Anyone who like me is partial to a bit of Brötzmann could do worse than pick up this 'new' Atavistic release. Wonderfully engineered studio recording. Liner note by Uuskyla who speaks of the difficulty presenting what he calls 'simple' music to the public, and makes an acid remark about 'genius grants' which he feels foster the wrong kinds of activities and remove music from the people by making it look complex. So, some food for thought and a great listen. I picked it up when new and only just unsealed it - that's how my life goes... Oh and I see the notes are on Uuskyla's Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/peeteruuskyla

There is more to jazz connoisseurship than collecting, and much in it that falls well short of an interest in the arts. In some ways it is more like following sports. I was always put off from early jazz because the people who discussed it on Radio 3 obsessed about personnel and were absolutely inarticulate on any other point. I found them insanely ignorant and concluded (and still would conclude, probably) that music of that kind was for the aesthetically clueless. I'd still say, as one sort of measure, that anyone who doesn't have the Berg violin concerto (say) in her or his head is falling short of any serious interest in music AS SUCH. Jazz connoisseurship is more like following sport. If you support a team you support all the bad performances, and in fact your support doesn't waver even if all the performances are bad. Love of Blue Note which is common to most of us on this board exemplifies this, to my mind. Only a minority of Blue Notes coould remotely be thought of as of genuine historical-aesthetic importance (I'd say none, probably), even allowing for all the exaggerated and bracketted claims of significance that revolve around jazz history (Lee Morgan vs Pierre Boulez, anyone?). Incidentally it would be possible to construct similar histories for many 'genres' of popular music but any 'collector' mostly ignores those histories. Why? Because at root s/he is convinced the other histories are not important, and that kind of means that one's own particular enthusiasm is just that - though, of course, enthusiasm is the real motor that makes these things a pleasure. But to think clearly about what that pleasure is or has been - that's complicated

Well I have objections to needledrops. I want to know it is an LP dub before I buy it and if I buy it at all (unlikely) I certainly won't pay full price. I suppose for me it's simple. I don't need all music. If I want to listen to an LP, I'll accomplish that by playing an LP. If I buy a CD I want to know it has been taken from proper sources, otherwise I'm not buying. It's kind of ridiculous listening to an LP on a CD. Note on Jazz View: bleurgh. FLACS and mp3s of those free jazz albums are all over the internet. I'm surprised that you can restrain youself. Sure, they are not legal, but how many of the CD issues, when they exist, are legal?

I have been disappointed to learn that the two new Mosaic sets will include needledrops for at least one LP.

Anyone care to save me from myself by reporting on Heaven on Earth or Vibrations, whether in any previous version or the new CD versions? Thanks.

oops pi≠psi - kill me now π≠ψ - ἀπoθaνει̑ν θέλω [sorry couldn't get the diacritical mark to stay over the i - spoilt it a bit really - don't know why I bovvered...]

Oh there are *many* I don't like but why should that stop me?

So.. apart from Reinier, has anyone *else* got a complete run of TOCJ 4000s yet?

Agreed on the McMasters. I said years ago that one day we'd look back favorably on the RMMs! By the way, I don't know what the original masters sound like, but I do know what instruments sound like and I do know what a good two track tape *can* sound like, and these are my reference points. On the subject of creating the sound of the original LPs, it is worth bearing in mind that these recordings were always intended for LP, so recording decisions are closely related to the technology of reproduction. I'd hesitate over the issue of separating the two, without nostalgia. Anyway I don't want to get into a thing, I'm not that audio-minded. My basic thought is that we have been lucky to have so many titles around, but it's a pity we always have to work around the commonly available issues to get more plausible sound (anyone got a complete run of TOCJ 4000s yet? ).

Analogue Productions and Music Matters are trying to rectify that. Analogue Productions is releasing select classic Blue Note titles on hybrid SACDs (SACD & CD combined). Music Matters is releasing select classic Blue Notes that are not part of AP's program on XRCDs. I have heard several of both and to my ears, they are doing justice to the original masters. yes, and these are very welcome, I agree - I just wanted to say that it is a pity that not many of the RVGs etc really hit the mark.

There are still a lot of titles in print compared to those showing in the 1995 Capitol/Blue Note catalog I have here, which shows the first Connoisseur series (beginning of a long line) and just handfuls of titles by each of the BN stalwarts. There's a lot to celebrate about how much has been brought back and circulated, some of it quite inexpensively. I still regret though that the CDs have never done justice to the Blue Note LP sound or to the original masters. The RVG series, in particular, was a huge missed opportunity to do it properly, or at least as well as could be done for CD. Despite that, though, even these deletions from what has been a huge list kept on the market for a smallish number of collectors shouldn't make us go all doom and gloom. There are still more titles out there than 15 years ago and many of the deleted titles will be turning up pre-owned forever.

No I'm not a member of JJA - but I'd still like to know what we think counts as current and new - if anything. Is this just a permanent list of 'greats' as long as they are still alive and turn up and do the same thing year after year, plus a few novices (people with only 15-20 year careers behind them) who are let in to make it seem that jazz is anything other than a museum music? Oh sorry I forgot, I am supposed to think they are 'improvisng' and therefore it is different and 'new' and 'surprising' every time. Hm. Strange how you can always tell who's playing, then. Noting that one or other 'great' is missing this year doesn't seem like such great sport. Ever seen the Country Music awards? Ouch. Um, that's not aimed at you Allen, but at the World. Yes! Respond, oh World!

So according to you guys the main features of this list are (1) 'Chuck lost' (2) Cecil Taylor, who to my knowledge released no new recording in the last year, was unfairly not even short-listed as pianist of the year and (3) otherwise nothing to see here. Well, maybe we have all spent too much time on this board, but I'm not sure Chuck lost and Cecil was stitched up get to the heart of it. In some ways what makes these awards conservative is not the attention to mainstream styles but the fact that there is no 'new' jazz modernism. So in a list that includes Evan Parker and his wonderful Pi label as winners, as well as mentions for Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Carla Bley, Wadada Leo Smith, Ornette Coleman, Fred Anderson, Billy Bang, and even the marginal Charles Tyler, only Matthew Shipp for the 'avant-garde' has not long qualified for his free bus pass. So this 'avant-garde' is really very staid and safe and in truth has been doing more or less the same things for forty years. What I would be interested to hear from board memebers would be who we think should have been considered for these awards and why. Or to put it another way round, what should the considerations have been in making these awards (this to prevent just listings of names, as if these spoke for themselves). As it stands the list reflects (1) the record collections of old duffers like many of us brought up on a sort of Rollins/Threadgill model (2) new artists working in a promotable 'jazz' idiom. Is another approach possible?

In your dreams? Funny how these missed purchase opportunities come back to haunt you, isn't it...