mikeweil

How's the sound on this reissue? I remember having one of the Columbias and being annoyed by the rather harsh sound - although Blythe stated he wanted it this way - a "hard cut" to appeal to popular music listeners of the day. I'd prefer a more "natural" sounding remastering - if anybody has had a listen, please report..

Any early Stereo release from the Atlantic label - I wish I had kept my mono pressings of the Modern Jazz Quartet's European Concert and The Comedy, The most awkward example is the Jazz Messengers's LP with Thelonious Monk: Piano on one channel, trumpet, tenor sax, bass, and drums on the other - what were they thinkin'?

Thanks for the link - not the way I would have preferred/done it, but a remarkable piece of work that helps. (I just wish all discographers would go for working with BRIAN, as the end result gives you all information in one place. But I won't complain - a Cole discography is a mountain of work.)

Bob van Asperen's Froberger edition was finally completed for the 400th anniversary of his birth, eleven discs in eight volumes, excellently played, beautifully recorded on instruments from Froberger's lifetime. The label lowered prices and offers "bundels" of the CDs, too, so I can finally complete my set. Just ordered the new volume 8 and the four still missing in my collection, now listening to volume one, on which one hears harpsichord suites in perfect rhetoric diction, played on an original 1640 Ruckers harpsichord preserved in a North German castle that belongs to the same family that ordered the isntrument back then. It was only slightly altered in the 18th century ("petit ravalement"), keeping the original case and soundboard untouched. For anyone seriously interested in Froberger, this is the recording to get. Here's a link to the label's page of the edition, with complete contents andsound samples for each disc: https://www.aeolus-music.com/Alle-Tontraeger/Bundles/AE80004-Complete-Froberger-edition

Thanks, I completely forgot about that Capitol disco.

PM sent re: Various - Swing That Music (4xCD Smithsonian Swing Vocals, fantastic) $15

Fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up again they just played one of his video clips from 1999 - incredibly perfect show with great musicians and sexy singers. I always thought Prince had more real sexiness in the tip of his little finger than Michael Jackson had in his whole body. In his genre he was a complete musician.

Oh, no ... R.I.P.

Long live the King!

YEAH!!!

Fully agreed - I think a tool of documentary character, like a discography, has to stay free of such evaluations. I, too, prefer music that rewards contemplation, of course. Nat Cole's music rewards contemplation, that's for sure, and it's enteratining just as well. That's all one can ask for.

One afterthought about the jazz police: It reminds me of the highbrow attitudes of classical music lovers that thought their music was "better" than "popular" music ... when I think about how "popular" some classical music is today that gets played to death ... I remember the times when jazz lovers over here thought the music of their preference was "better" than pop music - which was easy to do considering how bland most pop music is. Justification maneuvers, nothing more. Like Duke said: There are only two kinds of music, good and b... ehm the other one.

Of course I get the message, I just will not follow their path! Listening through the box I hear many tracks with big band accompaniment that swing enough to pass for jazz. Bet these jazz policemen never heard them ... That said - many errors in jazz discographies occur because the compilers simply never listened to the music but relied on other sources than their ears.

While typing the tracks from the box into my personal database in the Tom Lord online discography I noticed he does not list some items as they are lacking jazz content - considering the popularity of a track like Mona Lisa this seems ridiculous to me. I hate that jazz police attitude. If an artist has played jazz, list all of his recordings. There are plenty other items I would not consider to be jazz that he lists. That said, many recording dates in the box book are not identical with those in Lord - is there some reliable King Cole disco?

The Lord Disco has nothing with Hampton, FWIW.

Picked up my copy. today, checked the DVD - it cuts out back to the main menu at exactly the point Fer described. Will try the shrinking software. How long is that documentary supposed to run? Two of the CDs were pushed upwards in that fegging cardboard slip display - was fearing the worst, but got them out by gently rocking them from side to side. One of them was clean, the other (CD 2) showed some glue residue, which I was able to remove with some Scotch tape. Okay ... Watching the documentary showed me how little I actually knew about Cole's biography and his importance as an artist. Just for this it was worth getting the box.

Ellington small groups, starting with disc one - let me see how far I get today.

Already deleted? Geez ... ordered a copy, will check the DVD first.

The sound of his voice was the kind that you never forget - R.I.P.

I have two of his LPs, both are excellent music - where can you hear Hancock and Abercrombie on one record? Words fail me - a terrible way to get killed. What strange times we live in ... R.I.P.

Last night we went to the local town theater to see Jan Garbarek. With him were Rainer Brüninghaus, Yuri Daniel and Trilok Gurtu. My wife wanted to see him once in her lifetime, Since Gurtu was one of my first teachers forty years ago it was easy to make me buy some tickets. It was good, excellently rehearsed and played, but not very jazzy. Sometimes it reminded me of early Weather Report (as did Oregon, to my disappointement, when I saw them ten years ago). It didn't really touch or convince me, Gurtu was the only one who took some chances and try to interact spontaneously. It was best when he and Garbarek duetted, which ranged from free style à la Coltrane/Ali to Indian world music; the many unacompanied solo features were technically more than musically styled. Brüninghaus seems to be the un-funkiest pianist on the planet, he plays those fusion type patterns but does not really groove, nor does he swing. I had the thought of locking him in for a week with half a dozen Jimmy Rowles albums, who uses a tenth of the notes Brüninghaus plays, but swings twenty times as much ... It was all correct, but didn't really groove, only in a European, intellectual sense. The compositions were all structured like collages - are these guys all listening to film music? They knew where they wanted to go, but all the different elements of the music didn't really feel connected to me. Screaming saxophone passages, without preparing the emotions belonging to them, just technically styled. It was almost like they avoided to swing. I wonder who will take Gurtu's torch when the time comes - the only Indian drummer to really fuse in funky off beats into Indian rhythm. I don't know of anyone else doing it this way. He encouraged me to trust my own ideas, whatever I heard in my head, I will always be grateful for that. Maybe that's where I got the idea of fusing whatever rhythmical inspiration I hear, no matter where it comes from, just like he does.

Before that one, Grusin recorded two trio LPs with Milt Hinton and Don Lamond for Epic ... The second seems to be with strings and was reissued on Blue Moon, who say it was Osie Johnson playing drums - Lord does not mention the strings and has the wrong drummer (Lamond):

If I scroll further down on the page linked I find this item, which spurs my interest as Thad Jones plays on it - anybody heard it? The Koch reissue of Poindexter's album, btw, did not include the alternate of Lanyop. So that's an improvement. The new CD still misses the great rendition of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer recorded for the Jingle Bell Jazz LP. Lord lists an unissued alternate of Cattin' Latin they could have checked if it's worth inclusion.