mikeweil

So much for the omnipresence of compression ...... disgusting.

Me, too ...... ..... have the first track as well and didn't get it either. Our collections are too big.

Used copies of the twofer I linked shouldn't be too hard to find ..... I, too, was skeptical at the time, but had a listen at my shop, and that was about it.

Just picked the disc from the mailbox! Thanks!

That reminds me of a book once presented to a bibliophile person in a novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann: it had blank pages, but when you put it in your pocket, and pulled it out whenever you felt the urge to read something specific, it turned out to be just that book ....... now if that existed as a jazz box set .....

So you can recomend the Haydn disc Staier did? - I skipped this one for some reason. Of the Mozart concertos with Staier, both, one with concertos # 9 & 17, the other with # 18 & 19, seem to be in print. They're both very good. But as I stated elsewhere, I like Staier much better live, as he takes more chances on stage.

A closer look at the Immerseel box revealed that it was probably exclusive to the German market on the occasion of the 1991 anniversary. The booklet has only German text ..... Sorry that it wasn't available in the US at that bargain price - it's really a good complete set.

Yeah, Christian Zacharias is great! If a modern piano, then him. I saw a long interview with him on tv - he really knows what he's doing and loves the music. He's the only pianist whose take on Domenico Scarlatti appeals to me. If there weren't any Mozart recordings on historic pianos, he'd be my choice. His Schumann concerto recording is great, too.

The new breed? Surprise packet auction? I wonder if he gets around to add the description before it ends ...

This interview makes for a great read - thanks much for linking this!

No intention to be over critical - but: - the koto is a zither-type instrument. Zither are played laying flat and have a small flat resonating chamber, whereas harp strings are freely suspended in the frame, standing upright, with the rsonater at the base of the frame that holds the strings. Furthermore, you have frets below part of the zither strings. - a concert harp: - a zither and a koto: - the kora is an instrument family of its own, called harp-lutes, because it bears characteristics of both instruments. The main difference to a harp is that the strings are suspended in two parallel rows. These instruments may all sound similar to untrained ears, but they are different, and not harps.

It makes sense that is was her choice to use a bassist. But it is a recording problem to get it going. RVG made a rather thin bass sound on the Prestige sessions he recorded, and especially when he had bass and organ. George Duvivier's bass sound, e.g., is much fatter on other sessions. Bass recording wasn't easy back then - they probably still were afraid the cutting stylus would jump out of the groove, so they stayed on the safe side. Same with bass drums. I have a new recording by The Casualties of Jazz - there is a thread on this I started - with double bass and organ, and it sounds warm and voluminous, simply terrific. Some aspects of jazz recording have improved, after all.

These comments are not an encouragement to buy the Mosaic - I meanwhile I regret I sold most of my Japanese LPs (except for the All Stars which I always liked best among his 1950's sessions) to raise some funds. Well - as legendary as RVG is - in his earlier years he made mistakes, maybe because he was largely self-taught. He had some preconceptions about intrument isolation/separation that didn't always work too well. As long as he still recorded in his parents' living room he probably had to do this - but close miking of a cymbal is a risky thing. Blakey sometimes played very hard on the ride - thus the distortion on Tina Brooks' Minor Move LP, and the Mobley All Stars is close. As soon as the drummer uses a rather loose cymbal suspension you get into trouble with close miking - you get an audible phasing effect which is getting worse when the tape ages or the tape tracking isn't adjusted correctly. The treble range is affected first when a tape machine shows tracking problems - that's what this session sound like to me. Engineers with larger, good sounding recording rooms like Howard Holzer and Ray Du Nann at Contemporary never had these problems. On that LP I have the bass is prominent - a remastering error with the newer reissues? On the RVG of Wayne Shorter's Adam's Applethe bass slao was less prominentthan on previous issues .....

Mike, I'm afraid you're wrong! The Cuscuna/Ruppli BN Label discography book (first edition 1988) states that the first session recorded by BN in both mono and stereo was the May 8, 1957 session (Horace Silver 'The Stylings of Silver'). Or has this Bible been proved wrong? I have this from a note by Cuscuna himself on some reissue he produced! (I think it was the Japanese 3 LP boy "The Other Side of Blue Note 1500 Series".) As I said, the Sabu was only released in mono at the time - maybe the Silver was the first Blue Note to be issued in both mono and stereo. I had the Japanese LP reissue Cuscuna produced back then and now have the Japanese CD - clearly stereo.

Hiseman - another Brit drummer I never liked. Very well described: an Elvin Jones type rock drummer, but too metronomic. Especially his post-Colosseum work is checked out to the extreme. I remember reading a Blindfold Test with Buddy Rich: they played Hiseman's solo on "Time Machine" and his comment was "He sounds like one falling down the stairs carrying tymps." I laughed my .... off. Yeah, Jack Bruce's band was one where Marshall was right in the pocket!

Yes they all loved Marshall - I once saw him live with Eberhard Weber's group. I guess they loved the energy and dedication he brought into every grouzp he played with - it was just his personal groove that never got me. Phil Howard - IIRC he joined Soft Machine on Elton Dean's urging who wanted a more free form dummer. I saw them live on German tv back then - Howard was wild. I can see that Mike Ratledge probably wasn't feeling too comfortable with him. Ratledge, and later, too an excess, Karl Jenkins, were much more constructive - so it was only a matter of time before the free from leaning players were out. Very interesting to compare the parallels and differences between various British jazz rock bands .....

Well .... John Marshall: I found him insensitive. No subtlety. Soft Machine never had an appropriate drummer: Robert Wyatt's sensitivity and imagination with a more definite groove, that would have been great, but not John Marshall. Simply not my taste. Of all British jazz rock drummers I liked Thacker the most. His groove with the Trinity was very tight. Terry Cox did some nice work outside of the Pentangle back then, like on harold McNair's The Fence - great groove! The others I don't know enough. Sorry I can't discuss your choice .....

That explains why Black Lion did an extensive Candid CD reissue series several years ago. I suppose he leased them to that US company? What US company? Black Lion is Bates, too, no? He also did some Freedom reissues (CD and LP, I have some Randy Weston... great stuff! Also that Andrew Hill one with Lee Konitz and Ted Curson). Yes, Black Lion is Alan Bates' company - he bought Freedom and later Candid. Got me the Ervin Candid today and the inlay card gives a London adress. So this sale has nothing to do with ZYX losing Fantasy.

One more reason to keep or buy the box set is the sound. I had the single CD releases available at the time the box set was issued, and in every the music sounded better from the box! Better remastering.

Listening to Belladonna right now. What makes Summer Rain so good is that fantastic solo Dave McRae plays until the end. One of the best Rhodes solos I ever heard - very nice, too, how Holdsworth engages in a bit of counterpoint dialogue at the beginning of the solo and then cuts out as McRae builds it up. Noone, not even Herbie Hancock, was milking the sonic possibilties of a Rhodes with pedals - fuzz and wah-wah I think - as much as McRae did in that solo. The one reason for me to keep this LP. Too bad another dialogue of the two in Remadione which starts side B is faded out - hard to see why. - the album as a whole is so derivative of the Miles Davis LPs of the time - Mayday starts like an outtake from In A Silent Way! Carr's composing reminds me a lot of the stuff he and others wrote for the United Jazz & Rock Ensemble - now that was a band that bored me all the time .....

Ian Carr's Nucleus - Belladonna

Belladonna was the very first time I ever heard Holdsworth! Still on the quest for his own sound and concept, but already a very interesting guitarist. Yeah, Summer Rain is a very nice tune. I liked the rather cool quality of that album back then, and it still appeals to me. Clive Thacker played it rather cool, but I think it is a welcome change compared to the busy stylings of most other British drummers of the time, who always maneuvered on the verge of overplaying. I dug Thacker already with Brian Auger's Trinity, very clear and no-nonsense drumming. Agree on McRae - he was one of the few to really explore the Fender Rhodes electric piano's sonic capacities with pedals and the like. No idea what became of him. Just saw that Jon Hiseman produced Belladonna. Who produced Solar Plexus? Carr himself and Roger Wake? Carr's composition sound a little too constructed to me - a lot of desktop composing, it seems. But sooo typical of the European jazz-rock of the time. Heavy Milesian influence on all parts.

Hank Mobley & his All Stars, Blue Note 1544 (Japanese Toshiba LP)

The first Blue Note session recorded in stereo was Sabu's Palo Congo on April 27, 1957 (it was issued only in mono at the time on Blue Note LP 1561). CD Universe is wrong when they state Hank Mobley & his All Stars is stereo. Maybe the tapes have deteriorated - I have a Japanse LP reissue from the 1980's that sounds okay - although a slight phasing effect on the cymbals is audible - I have the impression Van Gelder sometimes had problems achieving a good cymbal sound. But it could well be a tracking problem with the tapes or as I stated above, the aging of the tapes.