crisp

It's all part of their cunning plan...

Just out of sheer curiosity: What kind of "corny" is this supposed to be if it becomes corny when EMOTIONS are being poured forth? Wouldn't this rather be "schmaltzy"? Tiny Hill was corny, Lawrence Welk was corny (O.K., no pianists, but you know what I mean), but were they so primarily because they dispensed overdoses of emotions? I don't really think so. I'm struggling to think of any decent musicians who don't "pour forth emotions", but then maybe all of the music I like is "corny" (I know some of it is meant to be). Was Mahler corny?

Many thanks for the Cole from me as well. Gradually I am getting these Hip-o sets at decent prices...

Hip-o will be releasing another set of unreleased live Ella recordings, S Wonderful: Ella in Japan, next month: `S Wonderful: Ella In Japan, a new release from the acclaimed Verve Select imprint at Hip-oSelect.com, is a brand-new 2-CD set of previously unheard Ella: on tour in Japan with the Roy Eldridge Quartet in January 1964, she and the band were hailed as American jazz heroes, feted in every city, then recorded over two brilliant nights in Tokyo. She ran through Song Book favorites, a smattering of other classics and Ella's own blues, first at Tokyo's equivalent of Carnegie Hall (Disc 1), then in an invitation-only, late-night gig at a luxury hotel's ballroom, with Japanese entertainers in attendance (Disc 2). Eldridge's Quartet got their own set as well, joined in a jam session with local musicians. (Ella fans take additional note: this album features the first recordings of Ella with her longtime pianist Tommy Flanagan.) Where was `S Wonderful: Ella In Japan all these years? Her producer/manager Norman Granz had made stereo mixes, created album sides, devised separate LPs for the American and Japanese markets, sent detailed memos to his staff and then, owing to the abundance of Ella in Verve's vault, cancelled the releases. Published discographies also had incorrect recording dates, adding to the mystery. After nearly 50 years, not only were the tapes rediscovered: writer Marc Myers made his own discoveries with Japanese journalists and surviving musicians, and in the liner notes he tells the full story of these extraordinary recordings for the first time. Myers' essay in the set's 24-page booklet is augmented with rare photos from the tour as well as tour program reprints, and more. All 26 tracks from both planned LPs are now available for the first time ever on `S Wonderful: Ella In Japan a 2-CD collection equal to Ella In Hollywood and, to some, better than that award-winning set, as it's Ella a few years later, a little more confident, swinging with supernatural ease.

These are the only Aretha discs I own, so I can't say whether they are inferior to her later work. I certainly prefer them to most of her hits.

Damn - sorry to hear that. I thought there was also one on the Western end of Oxford St - Southern side of the Street, towards Marble Arch. There certainly used to be one (since the 1970s in fact) but haven't checked it out so it recently so it may well be long gone. You may be thinking of the Bond St branch's original location, next to the entrance to Bond St Tube. It moved across the road about 10 years ago and now -- gone. HMV has another branch within Selfridges up near Marble Arch, but it's not worth visiting if you like anything beyond the most mainstream Top 40 music.

"If I were a sculptor. But then again, no" Taupin's career should have been over after writing that line, although even more clunky is: "I'd buy a big house where we both can live." It's like a four-year-old child has written it. Nice tune, though. Well, if we eliminated all the popular songs with daft lyrics, we'd not be left with much! The tune is good, I like the whole performance and the romantic sentiment was perfect for a 15 year old at the time and can still give a nice fuzzy feeling. Well, I did say I liked the tune. Sure, the world is filled with bad song lyrics, but they are usually by the composer; Taupin just writes the lyrics, and he has zero abilities in that area. Elton John could easily come up with his own gobbledegook and double his royalties (not that he needs the money). And its the utter laziness of that line that I dislike. It does nothing to take the song forward. Might as well not be there. Rocket Man, I agree, is almost a compendium of nonsensical thoughts. Bernie Taupin is, as I say, a lucky, lucky man.

"If I were a sculptor. But then again, no" Taupin's career should have been over after writing that line, although even more clunky is: "I'd buy a big house where we both can live." It's like a four-year-old child has written it. Nice tune, though.

Very cool.

Or Bob Dylan. I put Tony Bennett in the same category as Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis and Mel Torme; someone who is equal parts showbiz and jazz, but as Larry astutely says above, treating both as two separate worlds that can be used to inform and affect one another. It's rare to find that and great when it occurs. Among instrumentalists I would sort of put Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, George Shearing and Roland Kirk in the same category: there's that love of showbiz that comes through most obviously in the song choices (Evans and Rollins both did a lot of Al Jolson songs for example), but also in the people they work with and/or their approach to music.

He did do a number of soft-rock covers in the late-Sixties, the sort of thing Sinatra did around the same time, although I believe he eventually left Columbia over the issue and started his own label, source of some of the Bill Evans sessions.

I always liked Steve Nieve very much, especially when he was leading the house group on Jonathan Ross's show in the Eighties, working with loads of different artists. Nieve has a knack for creating riffs that breathe life into a tune; the Dancing Queen licks on Oliver's Army are the most famous example, but there are lots of others. I once heard a live version of What's So Funny where he quoted A Summer Place in the outro, kicking the song into a completely new territory.

Saw him in London last summer in a Kind of Blue reconstruction in -- of all places -- the grounds of the Tower of London. Great stuff. His modesty was evident at the end of the set when he said "Thanks for coming. You could have been sitting at home watching television or something" -- and meant it (it was rather cold).

Yes but the lyrics. What is he on about??? I was a major fan of Costello's up to and including Spike, after which I lost interest. After getting into the Great American Songbook, I find it had to listen to Costello's songs because the lyrics are so obscure and overwritten. When he gets angry -- or even worse, sinister -- while singing lines like "somewhere in the quisling clinic there's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes" I feel like laughing. It's such balls. Terrific tunes though.

An excellent compilation and the box that got me into his music. I've only seen Bennett live once, in the early Nineties at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Apart from a lot of enforced clapping (of the band, the theatre, dead composers, ourselves), I recall being disappointed to the point of boredom for the first several numbers (all past hits), then being totally floored by a mesmerising Body and Soul. It was pretty amazing, transcendent almost.

Individual songs are ok with me, but on the whole, I've always thought that he marked one of the turning points in American history (musical and otherwise) when we decided to look back & celebrate instead of move forward and build. I know that's not at all what he's about (at least not lyrically, not usually), and I give him a little credit for backing out rather than trying to stay in, but still... "Born To Run" (the song and the album, but especially the song) is about as perfect example as I can think of of how loving something but not understanding it can kill it even worse than hating it. Besides, John Cougar/Cougar Melancamp/Melancamp has rocked harder and written better songs that share the same basic concepts as Springsteen. And he dances better. Thanks -- and for making me laugh to boot. I've always sensed that Springsteen was somehow beyond criticism and could never figure out why. He's always struck me as about as authentic and interesting as Dire Straits, yet while the latter gets a mixture of respect and ridicule as the sort of thing salesmen and IT guys listen to, Springsteen is revered as if he were Leonard Cohen or something.

JSngry nails it for me. Interesting that you compare him -- accurately -- to McCartney, who nevertheless has the capacity to be annoying as a person in a way that Joel never does. Maybe McCartney cares too much, but Joel doesn't care enough? You are right on Elton, too, although many of his ballads are pretty and the uptempo ones are fine for the gym. Bernie Taupin, his lyricist, is the luckiest man in the history of pop, though: ZERO talent -- a computer could come up with lyrics that scanned, rhymed and made more sense than his illiterate scribbles. JSngry: what's your take on Springsteen? He's one that I could never get the point of.

You mean the Bond Street branch? It shut down last weekend. The main Oxford Street branch is still going, though. There used to be lots of branches of Record and Tape Exchange (showing my age there) along Notting Hill Gate; don't know if that's still the case, although the Book Exchange is definitely still in business.

That's good. I'll only get Giant Box, though, as I have the others in the previous editions.

A much-maligned artist, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. I imagine that his great sin in the eyes of punk fans was to aspire to a degree of craftsmanship. At least he never wound up selling butter. I liked him very much when I was a young teenager, before I became self-conscious enough to reject that sort of polished, well-crafted pop, and although I've never returned to his albums, I have a hits collection and enjoy it. I even saw him in concert at Wembley Arena during my period of liking him (around the time of The Bridge) and remember it as a very good gig; he's quite zany and very approachable live. Of his later songs, I most like River of Dreams, which comes across as sub-Paul Simon world music, but lyrically is a very thoughtful, metaphoric account of loss of religious faith. It's tempting to dismiss Joel as selfish and superficial -- and he can be complacent, it's true -- but that can also blind you to the depth he often displays.

This thread has inspired me to get the Savoy box from Amazon UK. After all these years. It works out as £7.25 per disc, which is OK for me.

There's a sequel on the way: Amazon link. Release date is June 6. Album listing from this page: #1 Duke Ellington/ Ellington Uptown #2 THE Dave Brubeck QUARTET/ Jazz Goes To College #3 Louis Armstrong/ Satch Plays Fats #4 Miles Davis/ 'Round About Midnight #5 Various Artists/ The Sound Of Jazz #6 Charles Mingus/ Mingus Ah Um #7 Paul Desmond with Strings/ Desmond Blue #8 Sonny Rollins & Co./ The Bridge #9 Thelonious Monk/ Underground #10 Freddie Hubbard/ Straight Life #11 George Benson/ Beyond The Blue Horizon #12 THE Mahavishnu Orchestra/ Birds Of Fire #13 Clifford Brown/ The Beginning And The End #14 Chet Baker/ She Was Too Good To Me #15 Gerry Mulligan & Chet Baker/ Carnegie Hall Concert I, II #16 Herbie Hancock/ Trust #17 Wayne Shorter/ Native Dancer #18 Jim Hall/ Concierto #19 Return To Forever/ Romantic Warrior #20 Stanley Clarke/ School Days #21 Weather Report/ 8:30 #22 Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucia/ Friday Night In San Francisco #23 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack / Round Midnight #24 Carmen McRae/ Carmen Sings Monk #25 Wynton Marsalis/ Standard Time Vol.3 The Resolution Of Romance

That's why I say, although most of this is probably easily obtainable, it's a good box to have. With an artist as important as Coleman Hawkins, it's good to have the various bits and pieces corralled into one coherent set.

*Extremely* pleased to hear this -- thanks, Ghost of Miles. Unlike some posters, I don't have any of this music since I don't buy PD releases or compilations, and that's where it all seems to have ended up over the past 20-odd years. I was worried that sets like the JSP, which I've heard is very good of its kind, would have prevented a Mosaic. I needn't have worried.

The Mobley and the Django are two I've been procrastinating over ever since I bought my first Mosaic more than 10 years ago. Their time has come at last. Also threw in the Lloyd and Witherspoon singles, the remaining two that I don't have (aside from the Helen Merrills). And to think I was just getting on top of my backlog...