mikeweil

"Morning" is also on Poncho Sanchez' debut LP "Poncho" on Discovery DS-799 (1979, Fischer playing and arranging) and Fischer's "Salsa Picante" (1978, MPS 15.539 or Discovery DS 817 - Poncho played in that band). Might be the tune that he himself recorded the most often. As far as his use of electric keyboards is concerned - he always does it with more taste than most others. And he never neglected his playing of acoustic pianos for them. There are plenty of acoustic solo piano LPs on Revelation, Discovery and MPS, I have three of them and find them all excellent. He even recorded an LP of solos on a baroque pipe organ for MPS (Clare Declares) that swings like mad. The voicings he uses for the keyboards are in the same vein as his writing for a woodwind section or voices. I LOVE his woodwind writing on the Gillespie album or "Extensions". He uses low reeds to even better effect than Gil Evans!!! Check out "Blues Trilogy" on Discovery, if you can get it! Trend/Musicraft/Discovery seems to be out of business, it seems?

Sad news indeed. If a musician was under-recorded it was Webster Young. He was born December 3, 1932, in Columbia, SC. Not a spectacular player but very, very lyrical, and his Billie Holiday tribute is one of the most moving ever recorded. I'll always cherish the Prestige sessions he did: ... and, of course, some Jackie McLean sessions for Prestige and Jubilee, scattered over four LPs. VGM published three LPs of a live session in St. Louis, "Webster Young Plays The Miles Davis Songbook" - that seems to be all there is. RIP.

Now if only there were Mosaics for all the rare stuff the Verve group has in the vaults ....

I'm afraid most of the CDs with his works are OOP. His arrangements for Dizzy Gillespie's 1960 Verve CD A Portrait of Duke Ellington constitute one of the most original takes on Ellington material ever recorded. He is a master of authentic Brazilian and Cuban music; I'm still waiting for Pacific Jazz CDs of So Danco Samba and Manteca. He had two tenures with Tjader, one off and on from 1960 to 1962 (mostly as arranger, alternating at the piano with Lonnie Hewitt), his arrangements on Fantasy FCD-24775-2 Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story are fantastic; and a second from 1976 to 1978, the Fantasy CDs FCD-24743-2 Here And There and FCD-24777-2 Cuban Fantasy represent that. The two Verve albums with Tjader he was on during the former period are OOP: Verve 815 058-2 Cal Tjader - Sona Libré (great!) and Verve 543 380-2 Cal Tjader Plays The Contemporary Music of Mexico and Brazil. He had a great Latin band with Poncho Sanchez during/after his second stay with Tjader that cut several LPs for MPS, there is a selection on the MPS CD Latin Patterns: The Legendary MPS Sessions. His list of credits as an arranger is enormous and ranges from Gillespie to Rufus. His own Californian big band was excellent, Thesaurus is currently available, although Fischer himself favoured the OOP Discovery CD for sound. The cover photo of the latter should clear any doubts about his gender and was the initial inspiration for my buying this album:

You still can do that with your answers! Not as much fun as if it were in the beginning, but still some! couw, I hope you do not curse me for this, you'll get an extra beer!

I'm still waiting for a B-3 band album of all Monk tunes! That would be a first! I'd have some suggestions for grooves underneath them tunes besides straightahead, if you're interested.

The Bill Evans I like the most besides the trio with LaFaro and Motian is the earlier sessions where he plays with more rhythmic Verve, like the George Russell RCA and Hal McKusick Decca sides. It seems he wasn't interested in pursuing that direction as intesively as other aspects of his playing, as he asked Orrin Keepnews to hold back a Riverside session with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe that swung like mad, "but there wasn't much happening on other levels", as he is quoted in the Riverside box set.

Amazon Germany has it for EURO 9,99. This is the Rhino/Warner pressing. Amazon.com has it for US $ 17,98 !!! (Koch issue) The Rhino site doesn't list it any more.

I hope I didn't go too far - I'm afraid I did not read that initial post carefully enough - I'll do better next time. My apologies, if appropriate.

I saved that under file name "Christiern's Christmas". Thanks a lot, please take my return wishes y'all, and thanks for the song (and, always, this incredible board) - it'll take some time with my slow connection until I can give it a listen.

Oh, another story I remember: A fellow student at high school almost got a nervous breakdown whenever his mother-in-law was remowing the dust from his turntable, always while it was running and preferably wiping the finger over the tone arm.

Chuck, you had well educating parents as far as vinyl is concerned?

Hysterical--I did the same thing, only it was on my mono turntable. The stylus (after heavy use) broke off, and being a young whippersnapper, I must have read some article about how records/styli work. So I got a needle, made a cone of paper, stuck the needle through the cone, and taped the whole assembly onto the record arm. It worked! Only problem is, I used this apparatus to play my dad's Ballet Mechanique b/w Roy Schuman symphony record! Man, I still remember that "experience!" Must have sounded unforgettably weird! I elaborated on that method when I had my own primitive mono player - a used machine of my brother's wife-to-be - and simulated stereo by holding my ear to the needle while playing the disc 'cause I noticed the sound coming from the pin and the speaker was different!

I tried that method on a heavily warped copy, I had nothing to loose, and I did! Nothing substantial, musically, at least.

Talk about karma!

I added the title track you omitted - accidentally, I'm sure! One of my favourite Getz albums. I would upgrade in no time when they added the unissued tracks.

If you have the Lewis/Perkins, listen again. I did! What threw me was the sound. Jim's LP copy has remarkably different sound, with more reverb than the CD (from the first batch of Pacific Jazz reissues Cuscuna did) I own. But I would have expected he included some Bill Perkins! I remember I didn't like Chico's drum breaks from the first time I heard this. ... so I was closer than I thought. And my personal rule for these tests is confirmed: There is always one item from my collection I only recognize after several attempts!

I remember when I used my parent's old mono record player in the beginning and explored the way a pickup stylus worked by placing a pin into the groove while the turntable was running and holding my ear very close to it .... In retrospect I'm amazed how much a vinyl record can endure ...

It was some very expensive model, of course, and their second attempt .....

A former roommate told me a story how he and his brother tried to repair a broken pickup with some special glue. After reading the passage in the instructions that the glue hardened faster and better when exposed to higher temperatures they turned on the oven and placed the pickup inside. Now imagine the looks on their faces when they saw that piece of molten plastic after half an hour ....

Now how in all the world did you do THAT?!? BTW, congrats to new status!!! Very appropriate for a new year in your life.

Oh geez! Another one to get .... The Danny Barker cuts on this may sound very good, too.

Yeah, but the one who steals it for me is Sir Roland Hanna! We will never have enough music of this incomparable piano genius!

Happy Birthday, John! Hope you got some CDs as a present! I just opened one of these to honour your day:

Remember that Zweitausendeins has them only for two or three months, until they run out of stock. I pick up several, musically most are very good, e.g. the Billy Mitchell, Al Grey, Jimmy Giuffre, John Klemmer etc. Only a few I still have to pick up: Alice Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, Sam Rivers - although I dislike those mini-Lps as they do not fit into my CD rack!