mikeweil

Seriously, I love it! I'm really surprised there's five tracks on these two discs I instantly recognized. I get something out of every track and dig the diversity of styles - there are some tracks I'd really like to have! More details to come tomorrow - I just spent two hours at this f....ing machine trying to repair some acidentally deleted file and need some sleep ....

Got my copy today, had a listen to both discs. Some initial reactions:

The last few posts point into a direction that seems right to me: I wanna have some fun, 'cause I simply LOVE Blindfold Tests - they're always the first I read when I get a new copy of down beat or Jazz Times. I do that with a good friend regularly. (And I pass the disc on to him when I'm done.) I KNOW I will have fun just because I love it so much. And everything I heard so far is interesting in some way or another. Getting to know stuff I don't know about, yeah, testing myself, I can second all statements above. I can get something out of every type of music, and speaking frankly, I sometimes think this board can take a look or two over the Blue Note fence ...

About time for a jazz addicts's corner ... most of us will have a confession or two to contribute! -_-

If Claude cannot answer these questions, who can? Some speculative thoughts: Kenny Dorham appears to me as a pretty self-conscious man who wants to make sure he gets his due credit. He was the first to break out from the original Jazz Messengers after the first two Blue Note 10" LPs. Conflicts about leadership. His band was called "The Jazz Prophets". One of their albums for ABC remained unissued, the tapes are lost - bad luck sure was involved. The common practice of giving publishing rights to the labels' own company might be a reason. He was a good writer. He played with Max Roach's quintet after Clifford Brown's death, before Booker Little. He wanted to be his own man, and not be put into a bag. Too individualistic for your typical Blue Note pool of players. But the band with Joe Henderson, that worked! Five LPs, but three of them under Joe's name! Everybody remembers it was Joe's albums, but Kenny wrote the hit tunes! He never got the credit he deserved. Always was placed a notch below Dizzy or Brownie or Miles. Maybe he was not quite as great, but he certainly was his own man and was one of the top five bop trumpets!

R.I.P. Ruben and thanks for your playing and personality. As much as I like him, to put him in a league with Monk (a Cuban Monk, as Ry Cooder put it) does not show a deep knowledge of either Monk or Cuban music, and to call him the greatest Son pianist, is with all due respect, a little exaggerated. You have to put these names before him, and he would have been the first to admit this: Peruchín (Pedro Justíz) Luís Martinez (Lily Martinez, his predecessor in the Arsenio Rodriguez conjunto) There is another one whose name escapes me right now. These masters of Cuban music were late discoveries to the rest of the world, their "discovery" was overdue, and there are still more, dead and alive. That movie only scratched the surface, and only of Son, not even mentioning the other musical styles of Cuba - this is my main complaint about "Buena Vista Social Club".

Most of us will admit we were curious about the looks of each other, but some of the comments make me even more curious about the lives and stories behind ... seems our next larger project should be some organissimo convention.

I suggest you inherit your collection to some institution or some serious jazz lover you know - this is what will happen to my collection. I think this is the best - and least - one can do to keep it in circulation.

Don't wanna spoil your fun - I had this double LP too, but sold it after buying this box set: It has plenty of unreleased material, exhaustive annotation and better sound ...

... courtesy of the master couwatar, as always. Thanks a lot, couw!!!

Why not give Alsace to Switzerland? But not to Great Britain, I prithee!!!

I just received this e-mail from AAJ: Now whaddaya say ..... (red color added by yours truly ...)

Funktastic pic!!! p.s. I mean, congrats for being the first to reach that status!

Take your choice: # 3:

Take your choice: # 2:

Take your choice: # 1:

I have a photo in the booklet of a RCA Joe Newman reissue, just one mic (probably a Neumann) and the balance achieved by the distance to it: four horms, piano, guitar, bass, drums. Balance and sound are very natural and excellent! Wish they would do it like this today, but I'm afraid only few groups could play that way.

I strongly advise German speaking board members to read the English original, which is available as paperback (amazon.de) for about the same money as the newly published Fischer pocketbook. Too many errors in the translation (obviously done with the aid of a translation software, without proofreading of someone knowing about jazz), including the seemingly inevitable "Thelonius" ... . See the review in Die Zeit for some examples. There is a much better German translation (by Dorothea Trottenberg) of part of the Lester Young chapter in the July 1998 issue of the Swiss magazine DU, featuring tenor saxophonists (Giant Steps. Album Tenor Sax).

There are many important jazz musicians that lead unspectacular lifes that will never inspire any storyteller ... or other whre we do not not have enough documentary material to write a story about them the way Dyer did. On a bottom line, I was a little disappointed by Paris Trance, in the end it did not lead anywhere too substantial. Complete Review has some fitting comments about his other works, it seems.

I'm aware of this, but can use some Mr. B. as well. Still thanks for the warning ...

Call that matching trips!

Lookie, lookie, here comes cookie ... just wanted to post his name.

Haven't yet seen the Eldridge set in shops here, but the Mulligan, another Verve, showed up at EUR 60,00! Completely identical to the Mosaic, i.e. part of their pressing. If you carefuly read their webpages, they announced this from the start, that some copies would be available through retailers.