crisp

Both of these are on this boxed set, where I encountered them recently for the first time. I've never seen them recommended before and they are both, as you say, excellent.

I was less than happy with the JSP releases I bought -- both in terms of sound quality and annotation -- and have since avoided that label, especially since that debacle with the Berigan Mosaic. It's frustrating that the law is blocking quality releases, but in the face of the law, I guess we must accept what we can get. We probably need a website listing good and bad PD releases from an audiophile perspective. I'll probably be driven to Lonehill and Real Gone eventually. The only consistently good PD releases I've heard come from Vocalion, which is run by a sound engineer who in any case mostly handles licensed in-copyright material, so he has standards to maintain.

No, I want more restrictions on what enters the public domain and when. Myriad crapola needledrops benefits nobody. There is enough UMG-owned Jacquet for four or five discs.

I don't buy EU PD discs and it's an eternal frustration that the mediocre, second-generation needledrops of Fresh Sound, JSP and the rest make proper releases unfeasable. I would *love* it if EU copyright laws were repealed. Regarding the saminess of The Three Sounds, perhaps this would be a good candidate for Mosaic's first lossless-download-only release, should they ever go down that route. I'm currently ripping all my Mosaics to FLAC and I'm finding that the more repetitive sets (and Mosaic has done a few) are much more palatable as part of a playlist.

I'm aware that Michael Cuscuna is prejudiced against them, but... 1) There isn't much Blue Note material that hasn't been done already 2) It would make money, which is something Mosaic seems to need right now 3) Who else is gonna do it?

Vocalion has a spring sale.

Spring sale. The jazz kicks in around page 15.

Illionois Jacquet Verve/Argo Sonny Stitt on Verve Shorty Rogers on RCA Three Sounds on Blue Note I'd also like a complete Fats Waller. It's all under the Sony BMG banner now and the last masterings are very old. Sadly with all the EU PD editions around I can't see it ever being done properly.

Sony seems to be reissuing a number of the Popmarket boxes for some reason. I've preordered the Paul Desmond one at £21.47 as it's a better price than previously.

The Montgomery is fairly well-priced at Amazon UK (£46.28 right now), but as I have all but one disc of the material I'm waiting for much less than that. If that means I never get it, so be it.

It's worth monitoring the various Amazon sites for good deals on Hip-o jazz boxes. The prices vary dramatically. I've bought all but the Wes Montgomery for reasonable prices that way. Amazon Italy is especially likely to discount.

I recall (I think) Palin saying at the time that he felt that his character and Robert Lindsay's begin as hero and villain respectively then gradually switch places.

I'm also using XLD, but add accurate metadata as well. You've got to be organised and it's fun to use that data to make playlists of particular styles or artists/composers.

It's not just cheapo PD CDs that show haphazard metadata when you rip. I'm currently ripping my Mosaics to FLAC (a big job -- it works out as about 400 CDs) and the metadata can be all over the place. I just did the Berigan, which is a mixture of Sony and EMI-owned material. The first six discs (Sony) had no composer info; the seventh (EMI) did. The artist fields were blank when I wanted the names of the band names and the song titles had the years appended in brackets. A lot of retagging went into that one. It's Venuti/Lang tonight, gawd help me.

Completely unimportant then.

The Complete Haydn String Quartets by Aeolian Quartet (Decca): £30.13 for 22 CDs at Amazon UK.

New releases for March: ACKER BILK & MICKY ASHMAN: THE RADIO LUXEMBOURG SESSIONS: THE 208 RHYTHM CLUB VOLUME 3 ALEX WELSH & MICK MULLIGAN: THE RADIO LUXEMBOURG SESSIONS: THE 208 RHYTHM CLUB VOLUME 4 TERRY LIGHTFOOT & KEN SIMS: THE RADIO LUXEMBOURG SESSIONS: THE 208 RHYTHM CLUB VOLUME 5 MONTY SUNSHINE & KEN SIMS: THE RADIO LUXEMBOURG SESSIONS: THE 208 RHYTHM CLUB VOLUME 6 ALEX WELSH & HIS BAND: IT’S RIGHT HERE FOR YOU & ECHOES OF CHICAGO

Thanks both of you. I was curious why listeners were harking back to something from the Twenties when they had contemporary genres such as rock and roll or bebop to latch on to. It's as if, in order to have its own rock and roll movement, Britain had to recreate all of American music history leading up to it in super-quick time. The whole "dirty boppers vs mouldy figs" rivalry is peculiar also. If I'd been around in the Fifties and had shunned the many fine bop and post-bop players around for the likes of Acker Bilk, I'd be kicking myself now. Re Lark Ascending: I also recall trad bands being on TV when I was a child. I hated them as they seemed kitsch and twee. Of course, they were, but I've grown fond of these bands over the years, especially when they turn up on an old light entertainment show like Morecambe and Wise. There should be room for variations on "serious" music that are purely for fun.

Thanks both MG and Steve. I'm still not sure however why young people latched on to traditional jazz and not something more contemporary. Were the trad bands in place anyway and just capitalised upon the interest in folk? Perhaps it was it the usual interest people in their twenties take in what their parents listened to: I was born in the late Sixties and there were Beatles and easy listening revivals when I was in my twenties. Today people of this age are reviving folk, prog and other Seventies fads. I'm OK on how trad led to skiffle and lots of bands starting which led to the beat boom, but not on why youngsters in the Fifties would be interested in reviving music that was minted in the Twenties.

Anyone here know why trad took off in the UK when it did? It's legacy here is huge -- as I understand it Chris Barber's employment of Lonnie Donegan and Alexis Corner led to British skiffle and R&B and therefore the Beatles, Stones and all the rest. I can imagine why young Brits would have been looking for their own popular movement in the postwar years, but why traditional jazz?

Sadly, Daws Butler died in 1988.

The British trad trumpeter has died at 82: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21700146 http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/mar/07/jazz-trumpeter-kenny-ball-dies Enjoyed his appearances on The Morecambe and Wise Show.

19th Century Masterpieces boxed set (EMI): £19.38 for 17 discs; about £1.14 a disc. Track listing here.

Klaus Tennstedt: The Great EMI Recordings -- £13.73 for 14 discs at Amazon UK.

Fair enough. You are probably right. But since I don't even appreciate Marvin Gaye (although I appreciate he is highly respected), Vandross's music is lost on me. I'm always ready to be converted though