mikeweil

Okay now it worked - I was one the amazon victims yesterday. Good luck!

I think Brubeck simply wasn't interested in "swinging" in the conventional jazz sense. He wanted to do different things, rhythmically, inspired by Milhaud and the like. I fyou look at his phrasing this way, it all makes sense, and he succeeded. There are many more ways of rhythmic phrasing than just swinging. But they all hit a groove, if done well.

Wow .... I would take some time to stop being stunned by that place and start doing my job ... congrats!

Samples sound good! I will wait for the CD ...

A bunch of candles for ya!

There was a time when I wanted to get each set, but now ... not enough money, too little time for listening, and the shelves are filled. I abandoned my completist attitude except for a small handful of artists. I will get some more sets, probably when they start running low, the Jamal, the Turrentine, the two Ellingtons ... the Tyner and Hutcherson Selects. Maybe Chu Berry, I dunno. I saw some of them go and found I can live without them. But I am extreme grateful for their work, that's beyond question.

Not single one in Germany either!

Whenever Gonsalves was comparatively straightened out and inspired, he was up there with the best of them. I think the Impulse albums are notch better than the Argos.

I think McFarland is very underrated, but he did a real lot of sessions as aleader, and even more as an arranger for others - that would be a huge set. Limiting it to his albums as a leader would be necessary, but I'm afraid much of it appears too lightweight for mosaic's standards, if only on the surface. McFarland was very sophisticated. Fresh Sound finally started covering McCann's Pacific Jazz output. Similar to The Three Sounds on Blue Note, his music might not be up to Cuscuna's standards. The Fresh Sound discs add bonus material, I can't yet tell about their sound.

While we're at Lytle: Has anyone heard this Pacific Jazz album that's due for reissue in late April: The Dusty Groove website says it's "Just sold out"!

Some give the Dusty Groove staff those liner notes where it is written down that Lytle is supposed to rhyme with title ...

Seems I will have to get the Akiyoshi-Tabackin as soon as funds allow ....

Turns out I do have one of the Salomon String Quartet Haydn discs - hadn't listened to it in decades .... I'm am positively surprised, it is much better than I had remembered. Simon Standage and his companions do produce a lightly silvery, warm sound, very clear, you can hear all four voices clearly, their rhythm is precise and to the point, they do not avoid vibrato, but it is audible only in the first violin, and applied with great taste. Recommended.

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/thelonious-monk/backstage/vinyl/NJF3590703.html

oh, geez .... that would have been somethin' ..... if you take into account that Jaki Byard almost joined Trane ... Byard and Davis with Trane would have left quite a few behind.

Yes, he pops up on quite a few Impulse sessions of the 1960's - he always shines, and displays a stunning versatility. Did he ever play with Coltrane? AFAIK there are no recordings ...

Oh, well ... they just do not want to hear it any other way, and need the exaggerations of modern orchestral sound to get off. Probably the same people who do not want to hear about Wagner's extreme anti-semitism. I could care less about amateurs' reviews on amazon ...

@ J.A.W.: Sadly, there are no other recordings of the Steck/Spaans duo - both are very busy teaching at Trossingen School, look at their agendas for a possible concert in the Netherlands: Marieke Spaans & Anton Steck. An (incomplete) tangent piano discography is found in the French Wikipédia article on tangent pianos.

It's a bit hard to explain ... there are two main differences between a tangent piano and a fortepiano. One is the mechanics, which is less interesting for the listener, but important for the player. The second aspect is the medium that strikes the string. In a fortepiano it is a hammer head, which developped into the modern hammer type covered with felt. The early 18th century fortepianos built by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence had handmade cardboard rolls covered with thin, soft leather, later viennese models had wooden heads covered with leather, replaced with felt over the time for the softer sound. Tangent pianos have wooden rods striking the string, which produces a harder, more brilliant sound resembling that of a plucked string in a harpsichord. Softer sounds were achieved by so-called moderators, thin stripes of cloth and/or felt placed between the tangents and the strings by levers or pedals (a feature of Viennese fortepianos, too). Thus you have a wide tonal palette ranging from harpsichord-like sounds to softest fortepiano-type sounds, depending on the attack and the use of moderators. There is growing evidence that the fortepiano Anton Walter built for Mozart was either a tangent piano or a fortepiano with naked wooden hammers. Furthermore this explains some rather puzzling aspects in Mozarts sonatas which call for a different sound from movement to movement for optimal performance (this was the subject of Siegbert Rampe's book on Mozart's piano music), which can be easily done with a tangent piano with moderators. Dutch pianist Arthur Schoonderwoerd currently explores these things in cooperation with piano builder Bill Juergenson. There is a complete series of the piano sonatas using different instruments, available only as download from a German Clasical Forum (Eroica Klassikforum). Schoonderwoerd records the piano concertos for the Dutch Accent label in similar fashion. The main reason the tangent piano was in use for only a rather short period of time was its rather low volume in ensembles (a problem with early fortepianos just as well) and the mechanics which require a real pro player - if you hit the key too softly the tangent will not touch the string and you have no sound at all! Fortepiano mechanics ensure the hammer reaches the string in any case, so it was playable by amateurs which were an extremely important market at the time. But tangent pianos were obviously in wider use than previously thought and suits a lot of music from the second half of the 18th century perfectly. Hungarian pianist Miklós Spanyi recorded a whole series with the tangent piano for Hungaroton, an many C.P.E. Bach piano concertos for BIS. Just recently, a forgotten tangent piano in perfect condition was discovered in an attic in Germany that should be recorded soon. This all is the result of rather recent research, so recordings are scarce - and since old habits die hard, HIP pianists will not get accustomed to tangent instruments that easily, as they are harder to play. One of the finest discs by Johan Huys with pieces by Mozart, Haydn, and C.P.E. Bach from 1989, which brilliantly shows what the instrument can do is long out of print and the label René Gailly is out of business ... I am working on a thread on tangent pianos and its recordings for my HIP forum, but my time is limited ... Frankly, I find the tangent piano the ideal keyboard for Mozart.

I highly recommend Anton Steck and Marieke Spaans with the K 301-306 Sonatas - I saw them live with some, and here you get one of the all too rare opportunities to here Mozart on a tangent piano. There is more and more evidence that Mozart has owned a piano of this type, and it is perfectly suited to his music. The recording sounds excellent, and you get plenty of interviews (in German) with the two about the music. (There are cheap used copies on amazon.)

If you want to get an ideaof of the original orchestral sound and tempos, try Norrington:

Lester Young! 1942 with Nat Cole - to these ears, unsurpassed, like any of his great ballad performances.

Long live the King! Many happy birrthdays, and plenty music!

I once got a Blue Note that turned out pop, but again, never a Black Lion.