mikeweil

CDs 90% of the time - I always hear a diifference between the sound before and after transfer to MP3 or even Flac formats. I have an MP3 player to listen to stuff and will probably use it in the car when the hardware allows, but I rarely find the time to put it on, although I have plenty of MP3 files on hard disc to choose from. I had hopes SACD would be the way to go, but with billions of young people listening only on Ipods, not even ghetto blasters .... audiophile listeners are a dying species. 10 % is vinyl ...

I have the Mosaic live Capitol set and it is very nice. Always a pleasure to listen to, and much going on beneath the surface that merits attention. The MGM sides with Cal Tjader show an amazingly wide range of styles - including some very Cuban sounding piano on "Tempo de Cencerro". His choice of of percussionists was first class - Armando Peraza, Candido Camero, José mangual .... His choice of bassists and drummers, too - when Ahmad Jamal disbanded his trio with Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier he immediately hired them - he thought Crosby was superior even to Al McKibbon. Too sad Crosby died only a few months after he joined - the Trio LP for Capitol is the only recording they could make together. Not earth shattering, but some nice original ideas in treating some well worn standard material, like "What is this thing called love?" in 7/4 time for the A sections. Or a blues in 9/4, real nine beats, not just a 3-beat texture with triplets. A Mosaic of his MGM sides would surprise many, I think.

Best wishes - another year has passed, it seems, hope the ones to come are again filled with lost of good music!

"Water" .... there are great differences between brands of water, depending on the source. If they cared so much about the ingredients of beer, why not about those of water? Typical for a sloppy examination of the topic. If you choose a mineral water with the right combination of minerals, and mix it with apple juice 1:3 or 1:4, just the same effect, without the alcohol - the latter is the reason they recommend "moderate" consumption of beer. Did they consider non-alcoholic beer? Which brand did they use for the tests? Great differences here, too. I hate sloppy, pseudo-scientific research like that - what are they thinking?

Some more please, Jim, as I never had an opportunity to listen to that Delmark album. Who's on it, besides Bud?

When I was a kid, people used to call this style of pants "Hochwasser" - high tide ....

Word ... that's the way Tom Nicholas, my first conga drum teacher, lost his best drum ever, a fiberglass conga with a mule hide so thick I wouldn't get a tone out of it. The band, Mombasa, had their logo all over the van. When they returned from dinner after the gig one night, all was gone. He was weeping .... My instrument insurance explicitly excludes covering when you leave stuff in the car overnight, except when the car is in a garage under lock and key. But it would cover for a case like Nicole Mitchell's for alittle extra fee.

There are special insurance policies for musical instruments, that of course cover for loss or damage, but you need to pay extra fees if you take them abroad. I don't know of any home insurance covering for musical instruments taken outside ... she really should have read the small print. Still, a sad story, but naive, as Jim said. Shit really happens: A cousin of mine once dug out a large black case out of the sand on a beach in Sardegna, and it turned out there was a tenor sax inside. She gave note at the local police station, but nobody claimed it, no serial numbers to help identify the owner. After a year of waiting they told her to keep it, she had it overhauled, and its a beauty. It was almost new when it was taken off board by a wave or something like that ...

The Columbia Legacy CD reissue is without the fake applause and sounds a lot better - as does the companion session with Don Byas. That Bud's playing declined due to the many problems and difficulties in his life is one of the great tragedies of all jazz history, IMHO - he was a talent of the caliber of Tatum, methinks. When I see those few filmed sequences, with his fingers barely touching the keyboard but eliciting such a powerful sound .... just magnificent.

James Spaulding on 1960's Blue Note sessions Donald Harrison ... and of course, my bandmate Wolfgang Wittemann

I always thought Ron Carter's All Blues is the best of his CTI albums - Joe Henderson plays very well here. Never understood why they didn't reissue this ... I'll glady replace my noisy LP. Jobim's Stone Flower ist one of his best, IMHO. If only for the great title track. And the Kenny Burrell is great, too - a very nice, warm and relaxed album. Of all CTI's I own this one is played the moste often.

Jimmie Lunceford - Hell's Bells

I found a copy on ebay for a mere two bucks several years ago - he has such a charming, nonchalant way of narrating ...

I urge everybody that is some kind of a Don Ellis fan to get the documentary DVD another board member helped produce - it's definitely worth it. I got ot through amazon. I think Ellis is very underrated. I have loved and followed his music since I heard it for the first time, and learned so much from it. link

Some special Earl Grey Tea with a little sugar ...

Very sad news - R.I.P. a helluva professional player mastering all the reeds and flutes ... always enjoyed his playing. Fascinating body of work.

Some rare pressing with wrong tracks?

The locked groove at the end of an LP side might not be running smoothly, I can't imagine it being harmless to have the stylus jump over such a thing for hours ... Only thing in a turntable that might need breaking in is the motor - I read stories of an audio engineer having his turntable running for months before putting on a record! I simply play my LPs and use one repeatedly to watch for sonic differences that might become audible when I mount a new cartridge.

His first CDs on Warner were quite interesting, I thought - must dig them out again.

I have one LP - an MGM George Shearing with the same phenomenon. I looked at the grooves under a microscope and couldn't find anything defective - but that would mean they dubbed from a 78, which I don't believe. Strange ....

Sorry, I was mistaken about the number of copies made - the labels on the boxes say how many there were: 1000 of the first and 1500 of the second .... but I vividly remember I was anxious to get a copy, the first box was sold out in no time! How much was a Dollar 30 years ago? somewhere between three and four Deutschmarks for a Dollar ...

The one thing I never liked about BS&T was the singers - except for founder Al Kooper, because he didn't take himself so damn serious.

IIRC it was only 150 copies ...

Their latest batch of releases includes some rare stuff - like the Shirley Horn, The Laurindo Almeida, or the Freddie Gambrell. And they did the Russ Freeman Trios - now that the Mosaic Select is gone. I wish they would do Clare Fischer's Pacific Jazz sessions, but Clare would sue them, for sure.

It was 130 Deutschmarks when I bought it from Gigi Campi himself back then ... but the stuff was so hard to come by that I gladly shelled out the bills. Original CBBB vinyl still achieves astronomically high prices on ebay etc.