sambrasa

It does say recording engineer Jan-Erik Kongshaug and it is one of the two concerts Personal Mountains was compiled of. Ian Carr's Jarrett bio says if I remember correctly Kongshaug and Eicher recorded the whole Japan tour, so the idea of those tapes laying in ECM vaults does not appear terribly outlandish.

I've always tried to track down original German pressings, even if they'd be considerably pricier. Had Robin Kenyatta's "Girl From Martinique" as ECM/Polydor which looked minty but sounded like shit, cheap cover which probably had ring wear when it was new. More than happy to get rid of it and buy solid German pressing: pristine sound + laminated cover with still looks gorgeous 40 years later. Deutschland, large portion yes!

Sam Rivers played on Evans' Living Time album and toured with Cecil Taylor.

It was reissued on LP quite recently by a Catalonian label called Wah Wah - legally, by the way. Norma Winstone herself provided some new liner notes. She states she was not too interested in seeing it reissued but changed her mind, something like "let them have it if they want it so bad" (my interpretation of her words.) Which brings me to another topic: why do people pay insidious sums of money for records that are reissued (sometimes repeatedly). I can understand someone paying a lot for Hum Dono or Afro Jazz, since those have never been available since they were released a long time ago. But to cough up thousands for original Blue Train or Kind Of Blue, I do not understand. It's not really about the music anymore, is it?

Ira Sullivan

There's also another mistake here, Jumma Santos (Jim Riley) who played on Bitches Brew, Olatunji Concert, etc. is not the same person as Juma Sultan, who played with Hendrix. It's a wide spread misconception, though. Would be neat if it be true, but it's not.

Twins was 1982 Big Band recording, this new one is 1983 World of Mouth (small band) recording. I have been listening to it for couple of weeks. Pros: essential for Jaco fans. Scorching version of Havona. Cons: sound is not as good as on Twins (c-cassette recordings.) Most tracks fade out arbitrarily for some reason. My guess is it is aimed at Japanese market who would like to hear Kazumi Watanabe with Pastorius Word of Mouth band.

Nice album. I still prefer Nude Ants which got much rawer feel to it, being a club recording and all. One really nice and unexpected surprise on Sleeper is the version of So Tender. 1st Quartet version of this lovely composition. The other two versions are of course from Standards vol.2 and Airto's Free album. Personal Mountains album is a composite of Sleeper concert and the one(s) next day. From song lenghts I recon only one tune overlaps, unless they did some editing.

The Montreux album is good, IMHO. More free-ish than their JAPO/ECM records. Only side A is actually recorded at Montreux, side B is studio. Sleeve back says something like "free music electric jazz," which pretty much sums it. The collage of OM album covers is still missing one, I just realized. The Christy Doran / Fredy Studer anthology 'Half A Lifetime' has 2 tracks from their 1982 Om + guests concert at Willisau, some 30 minutes of music. Guests are Dom Um Romao, Trilok Gurtu, Manfred Schoof, Charlie Mariano and Jasper Van't Hoof. This was their last show before they reunited again couple of years ago.

Hum Dono is up for bids again: http://www.ebay.de/itm/JOE-HARRIOT-AMANCIO-DSILVA-QUARTET-HUM-DONO-LP-UK-1ST-ULTRA-RARE-NM-EX-/221029277119?pt=UK_Records&hash=item33765f1dbf This copy seems a little less pristine than the last one but is nevertheless climbed out of my reach :-)

Means no Hum Dono or Afro-Jazz. Amancio D'Silva and Guy Warren were never ever important.

If you mean if it was ever released on CD format, then yes. Twice, actually. First there was an Italian bootleg which was a needle drop. And couple of years ago it was released as a nice and clean digipack by some label called Take 5. They also released the MPS New Violin Summit 1971. Very shabby distribution, though. Which means probably not legit.

There was something about a reissue decade ago on Amancio D'silva's website (which was made by his family) but of course nothing came out of it. I gave it a listen when I saw this eBay listing and pondered if I should participate. I came to conclusion it's very good, but probably not really worth $2500. Funny thing about those holy grail records is that while they're hard to find and fetch top dollar on auctions, the moment they get reissued they kind of drop out of radar screen. Being so rare means everybody talks about them and they're remembered and cherished. Then one day they get reissued and poof! - talk of the town turns to whisper of the village.

This was issued on CD at least twice. The Japanese mastersound version (1998) is to be preferred for vast increase in sound quality.

This is a nice one. It being a box set and not separate releases is less of a problem to me since there's no titles on Jazz Icons 5 that I would not want anyway. All the previous Jazz Icons had some that I did not need, not this one. Highlights for me are Coltrane, of course, Kirk, and Freddie Hubbard. There's some un-Mosaic like confusion in info. The Johnny Griffin DVD "Live in France 1971" is actually two shows, one from 1971 and another from 1965. Kirk DVD is supposedly black and white but is actually color footage. Another one that's color is Monk, all the other ones are b/w.

Sound is great, indeed. Compared to the old CD version of Between Nothingness and Eternity, the new one is way better. If you listen to Sister Andrea through headphones, you can actually hear Cobham's bass drum that's inaudible on the previous version. And it's more than a minute longer, too. The studio albums are presented with the same mix as previous releases, I think (booklet seems to imply this). Now, packaging is whole another issue. The booklet I got with my copy looks like it's been chewed by a dog, missing a little part of last page, and rest of it is is wrinkled. The discs are a bit scratchy, not too bad but still, presumably because they're loose in their cardboard sleeves. Those made in USA (and Europe) albums should not be called mini LP's, they're cheapo cardboard sleeves, not real mini LP sleeves like the ones manufactured in Japan -- which have inside protective sleeves for individual discs and print quality that's usually so high it actually looks like the original LP when blown-up.

Another bootleg that came out as vinyl as well as CD was "Two Miles Live" (Vienna 1971). Losin discography does not mention vinyl release, only CD.

Masterpiece, all time favourite, desert island disc.

Are these Japanese new versions of Seattle and Olatunji concerts remastered? Do they sound better than previous versions?

Not a re-issue, but a never heard before recording from Ira Sullivan's Quintet, Miami Beach 1973; released under Jaco Pastorius' name. JACO PASTORIUS "THE GREEN LIGHT" KKJ012

Our Kind of Sabi (MPS, 1970) with John Surman, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Daniel Humair. Strongly recommended

Just watched the DVD. Excellent. Definitely worth picking up. Now, what I would like to see, is a 2CD + 1DVD package of Weather Report and Surman/Skidmore/Thelin in Berlin 1971. Or is this out of Cuneiform's league?

One side is totally out avantgarde, second is more inside, let's say freebop with hints of what Miles was doing at that time.

I picked up the new Horo sampler today and must say I'm really unimpressed by it. It has no discographical info on any of the tracks! No personnel, not even year. They managed to find room for praise to the compiler, Gilles Peterson, "man who has entertained millions of club goes and radio listeners," as the liner notes say. Worst of all, 2 of the tracks (Roy Haynes and Lester Bowie ones) have been ruined by something called "Scotti re-edit." I wonder when does the time come my poor ears are going to witness Miles' Kind of Blue raped by mindless "re-editing." If this is the standard the allegedly upcoming Horo reissues are going to be measured by, why bother? As a fitting contrast, I also picked up today the new Mainstream records sampler from BGP records, A Loud Minority. That's the real deal, full discographical data, booklet filled with rare photographs, insightful liner notes, even full page original album cover art for some titles. <EDIT> Upon further inspection: the Mainstream compilation makes a funny mistake, though. The Charles McPherson track which is allegedly "Charisma" is actually "Invitation" from the same LP. Furthermore, the liner notes for this track praise the drummer, Elvin Jones. The drummer is actually Billy Higgins (correctly identified in the personnel section.) D'oh!