mikeweil

It's not Baker, it's Jon Hiseman before his Colosseum days. On the Bond it's him with Bruce, Hiseman and Heckstall-Smith.

Didn't buy it back then for lack of funds, but sure would like to hear that once again, AFAIR it sure swings. Bruce is on acoustic here, and isn't it Ginger Baker, McLaughlin and Dick Heckstall-Smith? I do remember there was another album under Graham Bond's name with the same rhythm section. It's a shame Universal didn't give Bruce the box set treatment on occasion of his recent birthday. One of the more important substantial rock heroes, IMO.

If the Non-Jazz AOTM threads will deliver instructional qualities of this order, I'm all the more for it. I have to admit I didn't get the point with Sly Stone's recordings at the time, but "In Time" from the "Fresh" album hit me as a highly sophisticated and original piece of funk. As I cannot afford buying all the single albums right now, I'll settle for this primer:

Has anybody heard and can recommend this one? I'm curious about how Sam Jones and Louis Hayes come across with Hooker, they're fine on Eddie Vinson's Riverside date, but with Hooker? As always, thanks in advance!

That setup change improved the guitar sound, for sure, almost as good as on later Riverside sessions, but it obiviously reduced the level on the tenor sax mike, because it sounds even thinner than on the first take. Now Clay had a very lean tenor sound, not voluminous, not much "bottom" - Jim, you can describe this much better than I can - but a tenor with such a hard sound easily overshadows Wes' delicate guitar sound, so they reduced the volume, and the balance in the theme of "So Do It", the only tenor tune, is dissatisfying to these ears. While writing this I listen to this: which I consider a companion album, as it was recorded the preceding day with partly the same personnel. There is more tenor here, and it is far better recorded, warmer and more virile sounding. Strange: same studio, same engineer (Wally Heider), two conscutive days. I hold Clay in high regard, but think the session would have been more successful without him. The two quartet numbers, especially "Ghost", which is magnificent, are proof of this. And it was a little shortsighted by Wes to simply borrow that guitar and record on it. It's not simply a guitar tuned an octave lower. One guitarist I perform with alternates on (acoustic) classical, 12-string, and contrabass guitars and has to approach each of them differently - e.g. an electric bass guitar player could not get a decent sound from the acoustic bass guitar! It takes practice, and as critical as Wes was about his own sound, he should have taken more time to study that instrument. He doesn't sound as sure and fluid on it as usual, no octaves, very few instances with chordal playing. It sounds too thin for these ears, and rarely uses the low E string. You have to adjust the tonal settings differently as well, on the amp and in the recording console. This sounds like he used his amps with his everyday settings, which will not yield an adequate sound. The whole record sounds thinner to me, the bass, the piano, and the bass drum sound in Movin' Along is plain awful. Still a nice record, but IMHO, an experiment with mixed results. Jim, have you heard the Clay record? If not, I think you'll like it better than the Wes date.

I agree that most Naxos CDs can be bought without risking too much. Some of it, like the ongoing complete recording the lute music of Sylvius Weiss, a contemporary and friend of J.S. Bach and one of the greatest lute players of all time, is fantastic, and well recorded as well. Naxos operates from Hongkong and thus saves on costs, but is headed by a German, who BTW cut his teeth with the Marco Polo label, a high-price specialist for rare late romanticism, some of which is now reissued on Naxos. Their success forced all the majors to inaugurate similar lines: BMG's is called Arte Nova and features one of the most striking recordings of the Beethoven symphonies by David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich; they now do a cycle of Strauss' orchestral music to high critical acclaim. One of their newer ventures is a series with the Basle Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christopher Hogwood, called "Classicistical Modernism", featuring original concert programs from the 1920's to 1940's originally premiered in that city, featuring works by Martinu, Stravinsky, Honegger, Tippett and Britten (so far), that I heartily recommend. Many low-price CDs of the majors are scaled-down (as far as info is concerned) reissues of older recordings of varying quality, as far as sound and interpretational qualities are concerned - if you know what you are looking for there are some great bargains. But most of these are deleted pretty soon, they seem to try to capture the buyer's attention with new methods every three or so years.

Well, he almost missed one: He reportedly fell asleep during one of the tracks on the session for Monk's Music, missed his cue to start ofter Monk's solo - you can hear him shout "Coltrane, Coltrane" on the record. Trane didn't play one wrong note, just played somewhat faster until he caught up with the changes.

Indecision, that term describes it very nicely, at least what I hear with my non-saxophonistic ears. And perhaps some moment of not feeling entirely comfortable in the musical context or groove, like on Wabash from the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago album. Even when he experimented with new stuff, he did it in a highly professional fashion.

You sure the 50 years copyright regulation applies to films too? No matter how it is, they may have their reasons for not shouting it out, but apart from this I have the impression they hand out only few review copies and I never saw an ad for their new releases in any of the German magazines, only by one of their distributors. Could it be they don't want to wake up some sleeping giant? (If so, we better restrict ourselves to promoting this by PM!)

John, I think I understand what you wanna say, they have some things in common, including the same producer and record label for a period, but I see some fundamental difference: Where Eddie was willing and able to have fun even with the deepest roots of his heritage, Rahsaan was always trying to make sure everyone got his due credit for his achievements - Eddie didn't give a damn. He did his thing. Rahsaan was sufferin', for long periods of his life, and made it a theme of some of his music. Eddie made fun even of his sufferin, the look into the mirror who never would have stepped into the trap of taking life too seriously. Rahsaan was taken all of this very seriously, fighting for the recognition of his musical predecessors and peers, and his people, for all of his life. And if you fight, you get some blows in return. They're part of the same generation, for sure. I hope you get the idea of what I wanna say.

socks? thanks Mike, that was real... erm... expressive writing. Just kidding! There was nothing (bad) to be smelled, but I wanted to give an impression how close I was. I had better stayed away, 'cause he was still sufferin' from a bad cold he had caught in the Netherlands the days before.

I'd rather see some complete club dates reissued, including the X-rated talking, if Atlantic still has the tapes.

Yeah! (You did it again, Jim!) Well said! I'll always love him, too, and I'm so glad I saw him live sitting in the front row of a very small club. I could smell ........ anyway, he was a true original, and he recorded enough "serious" jazz for anyone, IMO. We shared some laughs on that "comedy" album, I'll have to visit you some day if only to get some of it explained !

Anything you can do .....

Maybe Cannonball was involved? He "discovered" Clay for Riverside, he had produced "Sound of the Wide Open Spaces", and Clay's second Riverside LP "Double Dose of Soul" with Nat Adderley and Gene Harris alongside Feldman, Jones and Hayes who are on Wes' LP (October 12), was recorded the preceding day, October 11, 1960. Cannonball's Lighthouse live album was done October 16, and there were sessions by Dexter Gorden, Lenny McBrowne and Bev Kelly in between - one of Keepnews' busy production trips to California. He used to book the same players for more than one session, to mutual advantage.

No use, you'll never catch up!

Of course that makes a difference. Under that aspect your choices are excellent, aiming at a reading audience that knows not much beyond the great names. I'll read them again more carefully, and give you feedback later.

Yes, why not? Go ahead! Curious about your next choices. I have to admit I expected even rarer albums.

Ubu, the link is right there! Problem solved?

But only the sound!!! Eddie's choice of notes is entirely different from Getz'!!! That quote is very very fitting! He uses that "cool" sound but the "hot" phrasing of the advanced hard bop school. There is no other cat who could have written Freedom Jazz Dance or Mean Greens! This is some phrasing even different from Rollins or Trane. I hear a parallel to Lucky Thompson, who managed to cross the rhapsodic attitude of Hawkins with the fluidity of Don Byas and the lightness of Lester Young. Very individual mixtures of influences!

Re the alternate takes: With Wes they always merit attention, beacuse he never played the same solo twice or in a similar fashion - in the case of this album this is diminished a little bit as he does not use his chord or octave technique on that bass guitar, to hear him solo in a linear fashion all the way is unusual. on his regular guitar he always mixed single note, chordal and octave playing to achieve more variety. And that bass guitar's sound is less warm, almost as if he had used a pick - which he didn't, it is the sound of that axe. Considering how long he worked on his sound, he probably wasn't that satisfied with the guitar sound here, but studio time was running out and two dates for one LP was luxury for Riverside ... Keepnews may have insisted on settling for the given results, as Wes had a reputation of being perfectionist. It is an experiment, and the results are okay for a star soloist with a frontline partner and a rhythm section that were not his regular working band. Well, he was familiat with Jones and Hayes from previous dates, but still....

AFAIK Eddie started as a pianist/vocalist and vibes player - I heard him play some mean bluesy piano live a few years before he died, he was a real down home earthy player and had a wild imagination as well. He made his professional debut as a pianist in the Gene Ammons band. He is quoted on the liner for "The Tender Storm: "I like Miles for choice of notes, Milt Jackson for feeling, Stan Getz for timbre and sound, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown for smoothness and articulation, Rollins and Coltrane for their skips and intervals." Nuff said!

I too think that re-establishing the Windows/IE default settings may help. Brownie described the way to go. You can enable everything, then deactivate one by one to find out how far you can go. Or if you use a firewall, check the programs allowed or blocked for internet. Or download and use OPERA, like we clever cats do ... much easier to change settings in OPERA.

I suspect a bootleg. Noal Cohen's Frank Strozier Discography doesn't have it, and at least the recording date of 1984 is very unlikely. The applause couild be faked. Can you post track timings, solo order etc, then I could compare to the Affinity LP. Body and Soul and Dolphin Street were on that LP.