Jim R

Sally Linus Lucy

Success. Now it's just a matter of whether I'll have time to listen before we leave for a short vacation...

Beautiful thread for a beautiful musician. RIP, Mr. Thompson, your music will continue to inspire...

Tom Rathman Dan Rather Basil Rathbone

Interesting- I knew I could find good scans at the gokudo.co.jp site, but the old scans seemed to be gone (I tried to access them using Google as a shortcut, and the cached images were inaccessible). So, I went to the site, scrolled down, and noticed all the back cover scans and knew something had changed. These new scans are about 50% bigger, I think! Re the sessions with Mobley (A DATE WITH J.S., VOL'S 1 & 2), there's another example of J.S. releases that should have been out on CD in the U.S. ages ago. I've got TOCJ's- ditto for AT THE ORGAN.

I'm amazed that so many people still don't know about these, but I guess it's because they haven't been released on CD individually in the US.

Carlton Williamson Dwight Hicks Eric Wright

Wow, Noj (SoCal) got his on Monday ... that's impressive. The best I (in NorCal) can hope for is Wednesday (tomorrow)...

As Lon (I think it was Lon ) pointed out, the poll only reflects people's first choices. I thnk Burton probably would get a lot of 2nd's and 3rd's (or at least fairly high rankings) from quite a few people here. So... anybody heard that Kenny Barron / Joe Locke? Tell me it's terrible- please!

Jimmy Doolittle Eric Idle Reggie Workman

Thanks, Chuck

This has been mentioned recently in a few other threads, but I thought it should be listed here: Rifftides: Doug Ramsey on jazz and other matters

That definitely would have bothered me too, but it's cool that you at least got your hands on the recording. I can recall seeing that cover before, but never paid very close attention... I've never been too crazy about Hall (though I respect him highly). I've gotten pretty interested in Larry Goldings, though, so I may grab it if it pops up in front of me again.

Has anybody heard this?... If so, please describe. I remember seeing it in a store some months ago, and I didn't pull the trigger (and it's one of those things that's been eating at me ever since...)

I think it's Max on "Salt Peanuts". My guess is Sid came out for "Hot House" & got such a big hand that he stayed on to finsih the set w/the brief "52nd Street Theme". The crowd wouldn't let him go, he needed to go, the set was probably about over anyway, so somebody probably said, "Just finish up, it's just a few more minutes", and he agreed. That still gives him two tunes as per the tray card, just not the two it says. ← Thanks for weighing in! Sid (Big Sid, that is) would have been a bad mo-fo to pull all the stuff on "Peanuts" - but then "Hot House" is proof enough that he *was* a bad mo-fo... From what Symphony Sid says, though, I rather think Sid was gone before 52nd Street Theme was played - but we'll probably never know... ← Well, I wrote that before reading Ira Gitler's liner notes, and I see that he reaches the same conlcusion as to what probably happened, fwiw... Here's a couple of additional things - [*] Although the tray card does indeed credit Catlett on "tracks 5 and 6", maybe they meant songs 5 & 6, since Track 1 is just the introductory chatter. ← I recognized this confusion the minute I popped the disc in and read the data on the booklet and tray card... "Don Byas, ts (track 1 only)". Of course, they meant track 2 (song 1). Anyway, just crossin' the t's and dottin' the i's regarding this little detail, since this hadn't been more fully discussed- there's NO way I'm going to complain about anything related to the release of this material. This CD causes me to laugh and cry. Unbelieveable. Thinking back to an earlier comment here (by Jim S, I believe) about how relatively "new" these guys were at the time, I get a kick out of hearing Torin pronounce Dizzy's last name as "Jillespie".

Frederick Loewe Alan J. Lerner Fred Allen

Not long ago I caught Marian McPartland's interview with her on Piano Jazz (already a couple of years old at that point, as I recall), and although her singing on that program wasn't as bad as this Jazz Legends show, it still didn't sound anywhere near as good as her '60's recordings. But what really struck me was her ego. Not the most humble artist to come down the pike. I think she has a right to be proud of her accomplishments, but she can go a little overboard. I think she's more appealing on something like Jazz Profiles, where she's talking about somebody else instead of herself. I think this should have been (and actually was, to a degree) just a show about celebrating five jazz artists/personalities. I didn't get a strong sensation that this was all about "selling" jazz or trying to overtly attract young people (or non-fans in general) to the music. Maybe I didn't focus enough on Lewis' opening statements (he's difficult for me to take too seriously), but most of the show seemed to me to be sincere as a straightforward homage to the guests. I taped it, so I'll have to watch it again. The Olmstead portion, as I said, was another matter, and probably should have been left out for the sake of adding more time to the primary topic at hand. I'm trying to recall the last time I saw Moody on television, and I think it was the "Club Date" series of the late 1980's. It's been awhile, so this was a treat- especially since he played well. Hendricks turns up on the tube a bit more frequently (just saw him again on that Bob Newhart tribute from a couple years back), but I'll take all I can get.

George Jefferson Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington Oscar Madison

SAFE AT HOME (Just A Memory JAM 9160) I just stumbled onto this the other day at a local Tower store. This was recorded at a December 6, 1959 concert at The Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, BC, Canada. It's a trio, but the identities of the bassist and drummer are unknown. Very good sound quality, to my ears, and excellent playing by the late Mr. Freeman, who stretches out here on ten tracks (average length is about 6 minutes each). Track list: the party's over sweet and lovely lush life billie's bounce with a song in my heart fan tan safe at home yesterday's gardenias fungo backfield in motion The notes by Len Dobbin, rather than trying to describe the music, focus on outlining Freeman's career. Although brief, they form a respectful tribute to an undersung artist. Certainly can't compare to Bird & Dizzy at Town Hall... or Trane & Monk at Carnegie Hall, but to me, this is still a little treasure, recommended for Freeman fans. BTW, "Just A Memory" appears to be affiliated with Justin Time (http://www.justin-time.com)

I finally came across this the other night on one of our cable-only PBS channels. I agree with most of the comments already made... First of all, I always cringe a bit when I see Ramsey Lewis hosting something like this, after seeing him for years on various BET-produced programs. He's a pleasant enough guy, elegant and dignified, with a nice calm and cool manner as a host... but he rarely demonstrates any great intelligence or insight about the music and its history. I don't know how much control he has over the production of a show like this, but as Mike said, the "where is jazz going" kind of thing is pretty pathetic... especially when the question has to be put to five different people. I forget Moody's response, but Hendricks just said "To the next gig!", and left it at that- which I thought was a great response. Some of Lewis' questions were intended to draw out obvious answers for viewers with little jazz knowledge, which brings me to the subject of one of the previous comments here about how the show should have been set up. Obviously, not all viewers are going to understand all that's being said if the discussion had been aimed more toward jazz buffs, but I think it would have been better to go that route- especially with people like Moody, Hendricks and Wein on the panel. It could have been worse in this respect, though, IMO (there could have been more dumb questions designed to educate the casual viewer with no established interest in jazz). Also, I disagree slightly with the complaints about the absence of references to some of the greatest legends in jazz (the title of the program notwithstanding). Trying to squeeze in too much history into this particular program would have been unnecessary, I think. The focus was on these five, and that's how it should have been, IMO. In fact, I was under the impression that this was just one installment of what's to be a series of shows like this (I could be wrong), so there should be more opportunity for more references later. I do think that some video clips relating to the history of these five would have been a good thing, though (maybe instead of including the high school girl's segment). It's kind of ironic I should be agreeing with the comments above regarding Nancy Wilson, because I've been on a mini "kick" lately, picking up a few of her Capitol albums. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of hers anyway, and part of my motivation has been to hear vocal treatments of certain tunes that I like, but I have enjoyed some of her work from the '60's. But THIS... wow, awful is an understatement. Painful, yes. Sad. I think if she just relaxed and sang without trying so hard to include all her little tricks, she could still present a moving performance. It just wasn't natural at all, and for a veteran singer to approach a performance that way... well, sad is the best word I can come up with. I thought Moody was great. His musical performance was controlled and beautiful- in direct opposition to what Nancy Wilson had done. Not only that, but I laughed out loud a couple of times during his interview. He displayed a sharp mind, I thought, and I was just plain entertained by him. Hendricks' performance was also entertaining, but I agree that the decline of his voice took away from what might have been, to a degree. Still dug it, though, and I could sit and listen to the man talk for hours. He seemed a tad tired and less than thrilled by the setting at times (understandably, when being asked things like "where is jazz going?"), but he's nothing if not a class act. Paquito was wonderful, I thought. I'm less familiar with him than the others, but I knew he was a virtuoso player, and he didn't change my opinion by his performance. Wow, talk about fluency. Liked his quote of rhythm-a-ning, too, which J.H. had just performed. He was classy, funny, and showed both knowledge and humility. I need to check him out further. I thought Wein came off very well also. He showed plenty of enthusiasm, humor and warmth. I too would have liked to have heard him play something. I thought miss Olmstead was okay. No, nothing remarkable musically, but I have to give her props for her courage, and who knows- she might develop into something special someday. I agree- another song might have suited her better. She was very poised, I thought, when she went to sit down with the panel. All in all, I was glad I caught this.

Yeah, but that was almost 3 years ago, can't we continue a discussion here? ← The thread that Guy linked was active recently (last month), and even the older one is still full of good info. No need to start another one and bury those, IMO. Read them and join the discussion.

Of course, it was released in Japan (TOCJ-1611). ← And some years before that, on Japanese vinyl (BNJ 61006)- HANK MOBLEY / SONNY CLARK QUINTET (w/same cover art as BN 1560)

Larry Darryl Darryl

I missed this post, but fortunately I stumbled onto the Flanagan CD at a local store yesterday. 20 delicious tracks recorded in 1974 in Zurich. There was no way I was going to leave the store without this. I noticed (and was tempted by) the Roland Hanna disc as well, but I'll have to go back for that one.

I offer my condolences as well, and just wanted to echo what Soul Stream said. I lost my Dad to cancer in 1983. He was a physician, a clean-living person, early to bed, rode his bike to work, an avid backpacker... quite a healthy specimen of a man at 62 years of age. He was diagnosed in late February and was gone in early June. It was so hard to deal with that... but time does heal.