mikeweil

For most it's harder to do, as it requires excellent timing and control ... Mel Lewis solo on Brushes was the first that came to my mind, but I will look for more. It's on this CD:

Read the article Mark Stryker linked:

Saw him live with Hutcherson many years ago, he hit a nice, energetic groove. He fit well into that band, and into Fourth Way. Sad news - R.I.P. and many thanks for the rhythmic spirits.

With all due respect, I think Carter deserves organ and drum players of a higher caliber than Gibbs and King - saw them live a couple of years ago and thought, he needs to be challenged more to play his best beyond displaying his talents on the verge of saxophone gimmickry. That's a style of organ combo playing stuck in the 1960's, somehow. I really like Carter, and they have a ball, but he can play a lot better than that. That album with Medeski is nice - a far more modern conception than with Carter's own trio. These guys get along very well!

I always thought Priester was one of the very greatest. At least he's always been my top favourite trombonist ever since I heard him for the first time, which I think was on the Mwandishi LP. He certainly has come a long way .... the way Max treated him is a shame. Master improvisor, that's what he is, for sure.

Count me in! Wanted to hear these for some time. The John Handy albums are rather commercial - I'd say have a listen before you buy. Nice, good-natured music, he plays well, but clearly products of their time.

Thanks for posting the obits - didn't know he was living in Mannheim - still one of the more active scenes in Germany. That Heidelberg Jazz Club they mention - Cave 54 - I played there, a legendary place like Frankfurt's Jazzkeller, and it still exists! Those were the days .... Cave 54

Those two Bear Family CDs are well done. I wish there were more reissues of 1950's German Jazz like these.

Nice tracks - remarkable how much they show influences of the Modern Jazz Quartet as well as Shearing. Sounds a lot like Cal Tjader's early quartet tracks. But Fritz Hartschuh is not nearly as accomplished a player as Tjader, or Fats Sadi, or Wolfgang Schlüter.

I do not sympathize with Scientology, but think it served Chick well to stabilize himself at a certain point in his career, when he was hitting the New York scene with its tough competition of modern piano/keyboard conceptions: Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, and Keith Jarrett were the other keyboarders drifting in and out of Miles band at the time, setting the pace in modern jazz and fusion. He followed quite a remarkable path from sidemen gigs with Mongo Santamaria, Herbie Mann and the like (with his background the Latin jazz scene was a perfect starting point, then on to Miles and Stan Getz, which led to the first Return To Forever with Flora and Airto. I hear quite a bit of his pianistic conceptions in players of the generations after him, and his Spanish tinged compositions are more popular than anything Hancock or the others wrote. I think he didn't dvelop any further after he started the fusion Return To Forever, but who really did (at least in the sense of creating something entirely new)? The stuff I like best in his career is the trio with Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes (early on and later), and the latin tinged stuff with Herbie Mann and Hubert Laws. I think it is very interesting that many of his musical buddies that I respect and like a lot - like Lenny White, Herbie Hancock - don't seem to have the slightest problem with his association with Scientology. I wonder what they think about it ...

Now that's a Mosaic set I'd buy in a second!

The Budd Johnson is really very good - and for my taste, it sounds better than the Prestige/Swingville recordings Van Gelder made. I'm tempted - I have only the Strayhorn on CD, and two or three on LPs. I wonder where the Japanese got the tapes for their CD reissues - and where Affinity got theirs - they reissued the whole series on LPs, and those I have do not sound like needle drops.

This was on a Lonehill CD, if I am not mistaken: http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/the_stanley_dance__sessions-cd-4014.html

That's the one aspect that probably everybody agrees on. I don't say I have the perfect solution. If everything was included I would buy the set and prgram my player, or burn my own sequences. But I am not a fan of post-production, especially not when live recordings are concerned.

Back to Wes: I looked into the data of the Half Note recordings and it's a discographical mess. Obviously Creed Taylor was dissatisfied with the sound of the live recordings, that may have been the main reason why he had Wes and the Wynton Kelly Trio record three studio tracks a couple of months after the club date. The first LP Smokin' At The Half Note released these three and only two live tracks. The next LP Willow Weep For Me released four more, but with overdubbed orchestra to veil the inferior sound, and four unreleased studio tracks from previous sessions. More unreleased live tracks and the first two and the four without overdubs later appeared on the Verve twofer The Small Group Recordings and two Japanese Smokin' At The Half Note LPs (vol. 1 & 2 - the four studio tracks from the Willow Weep For Me LP plus four more unreleased tracks were on another Japanese LP release Just Walkin'). All of these plus a re-edited version of The Surrey With The Fringe On Top (radio announcements were removed etc. on the initially released version) were included on the Verve double CD The Verve Jazz Sides. Listening to the Half Note tracks it is not hard to understand why Taylor was not happy with the audio quality ... often the guitar is too low in the mix, etc. To me, the best solution would have been one live CD with the complete Half Note tracks, and five with all studio material in recording order, or if in LP sequence, at least with the sessions intact on one CD. IMO sequencing CDs after LPs is pure nostalgia, which often results in not using some capabilities of the different medium. Some day the old fans remembering the LPs will be all gone - what then? Just my opinion, of course.

I'm simply disappointed. I listened to the missing tracks, and they're good - like anything Wes recorded live. The music I still do not have is the more commercial stuff that I won't listen to very often. I have Movin' and rarely play it. I think I'll rather ask forsomething else for Xmas ...

What can I say when I cannot listen to this? Sure would like to hear it - Ted Dunbar in particular could be interesting.

Yes, and it's waiting for us to join it. Has it gone to heaven or hell? It depends, didn't you know?

Seriously - I have the Jimmy Smith sides - re-burned in session order as I like it a lot better this way - as well as the live and studio material with Wynton Kelly on the Verve Jazz Sides twofer, and I have single CDs of Tequila (with bonus tracks) and Movin' - so do I really need this if it's not complete and the sides with Smith are spread over two discs so I cannot re-program? They should have re-sequenced in session order, then they would have noticed.

I'm reconsidering - comparing the track lists linked above showed there might be a track missing on this set - I'm shocked! The posthumous Willow Weep For Me LP included a live version of Four On Six (running 9:30 as compared to the 6:43 of the studio version) that was reissued on the double CD The Verve Jazz Sides - but I cannot find this on the box set track lists ... That twofer CD also included a second, re-edited version of The Surrey with the fringe on top which is a minute longer. And, IIRC, a Wynton Kelly trio track, Blues on Purpose, also belongs to these sessions. Now why can't they do anything right?!?!

Thanks for the links - no new discoveries, and they include the overdubbed versions of the Half Note recordings on disc 5. Except for one alternate take all sessions are kept together - nicely done. I think this will be my Xmas gift from my wife ... Only complaint: I would have preferred the Jimmy and Wes sessions sorted by session, first the combo, then the big band tracks. As these two albums are spread over discs four and five, I will have to keep my burned discs in session order.

An excellent bass player - I fondly remember this trio album with Kenny Kirkland and Elvin Jones, which I found to be one of the best new trio albums at the time of its release.

I used the link posted above, too - but my day job and rehearsing/practicing for upcoming gigs take all the time I have, I'm afraid ...

I've often wondered — just based on listening to the CD — if Jacquet was physically present for the recording of each track. His entrance and obligatos on "Charade" have always seemed strange to me, as if they were overdubbed. Sonically (and this may simply be due to the CD issue I have) he seems as if he's in another room, but his playing also seems detached from (or oblivious to) the groove Hartman has with Hank Jones and Kenny Burrell, especially from 1:47 to 1:57. Has anyone else here had this thought? Yes, it sounds strange. I think this is due to two aspects: 1. Jacquet is not playing obligato in a way you'd expect him, as a second, supporting voice to Hartman, but rather as if the singer weren't present, with no regard to him. Not a simpler second line, or filling the gaps, completely his own part. 2. RVG recorded the sax and band "dry", closely miked, without an yroom ambience, but had some reverb or room sound on the voice - something I always hate. Maybe Hartman was in a cabin, and Jacquet didn't hear him because Hartman was not on his headphones? In any case, it is hard to understand why they left such an obtrusive obligato on the record. Maybe they wanted it that way? Are there any other sessions with Jacquet accompanying a singer?