Daniel A

There is fantastic live material in decent sound with the Hutcherson/Land group. It does not seem likely that Mosaic would combine it with studio material, but it would be nice to see a proper release of that material as well.

For some reason, the physical Birka store, while excellent, did not seem to attract enough customers. It sustained only a couple of years. It was situated only a block from the then location of more well-known Andra Jazz. However, Birka were kind of pioneers in going web-only already at the turn of the millennium. Here is a picture from the Birka store: Its owner, Torbjörn Sörhuus, was born in the same year as famed Andra Jazz owner Harald Hult, 1940, and had a similar history of starting out with a used book store, but also working as a journalist. After retiring from Birka Jazz, he wrote a fantastic book, loaded with rare pictures, covering just about all the record stores in Stockholm through the 20th century and up to modern times.

Not sure why, really, but to me, some of the Blue Note magic is lost just because of those black or white "B" labels. I just prefer to se the rotating blue/white label on the turntable. 🙂 Incredible find! Not as sought after title maybe, but in 1998 I found a mono copy of Hubbard's 'Blue Spirits' for 9 Euro in a jazz record shop (Birka Jazz, which some might remember from their later web-only incarnation).

Bob, when and where did you score all those NY Blue Notes? 😄Seems like you have choice pressings of every 4000 series album worth having. I have a late 60s Liberty pressing of Happenings, but I don't recall any exorbitant noise. I remember when I found it in the 90s. I had just started to discover Hutcherson and this album was unknown to me at that point. I was pleasantly surprised that they did a cover of "Maiden Voyage" and shelled out the 15 Euro, which seemed a lot to a poor student.

Actually, Larry retracted his opinion on July 3: "Finally I'm all aboard the Smulyan train. Accompanied by nine brass and rhythm playing heady Belden originals, Smulyan sounds great here."

This was one of my first "jazz" experiences at age 4-5:

Actually, the original sound is just as ridiculous, slightly diminishing the humour of the "shreds" version. As mentioned above, especially Herbie's playing.

The article is not a review, but a quite long interview with Byrd. However, the article states that the recent Black Byrd album is a "success". In general, Byrd doesn't appear to be that happy. This is maybe the most amusing section: Driving to Dunhills he talks about African music and why tribal music was played at certain times of the day. Then he shifts to a newspaper article he read once that claimed that loud music, like rock, killed plants. “That’s absurd. Do you know that some people talk to their plants? The next thing you'll hear about is loudspeakers in corn fields because corn has ears.”

TTK, I've been following your posts in this thread, and so much that I want to check out is coming up! Never knew about the Kai Olé! album, but now I need to hear it...

Oh, I see... At least everything is in the 20th century domain, then - recording, editing technique and sound carrier.

I suppose that if you are able to remove vocals (or perhaps any instrument as well), you could also put them back at a different level in the mix.

To me, the "lo-res" is definitely enough for recordings from the 1920s. Thanks for the tip!

There's a link to a PDF: 64. Rollins, oral history by Appelbaum. 66. "Music is music,” Sonny said. "There's only good music—and I'm saying good to me—or bad music, bad to me." Rollins, interview by Bendian, 39.

Just not to spread potentially misleading information - it turns out that the trombonist is frequent session man George Vernon.

The basist was Nate "Lloyd" Hygelund, now apparently a resident of Oregon. This is from another message board, eight years ago: "Nate Hygelund is nearly 80 years old and lives in Central Oregon. His memories and experiences playing with many of the greats of the bebop era are incredible. He taught at Berklee and was the resident bassist at the Jazz Workshop in Boston during the 60's." https://rec.music.bluenote.narkive.com/fba8yOuj/nate-hygelund

Excellent track! I would never have guessed it was a Russell tune. I wonder who pulled together the band. Do you know who trombonist "George Bernard" is? I cannot find a trace of him online. He looks as if he might be in his 50s, so somewhat older than most of the other players.

I love the way he presents everybody in the band before they start to play. A trombonist I play with participated in some of Russell's other projects in Sweden at the time, and I seem to recall he has told that the rehearsals were not always smooth.

I was looking for Bernt Rosengren videos, prompted by his recent passing. I happened to find this recording of George Russell and a (mostly) Swedish Big Band, including Rosengren, from 1967. Audio is missing from the last couple of minutes, but there is a link to another video with the missing part in the YouTube description.

For several years I played in a big band, and "Basie Straight Ahead" was a tune I never tired of. I don't know why, but it feels so good every time; the voicings and the interplay between the piano and the band. I also fully support the idea that music can be everything at once. One example of things I am endlessly attracted to is Clare Fischer's arrangements for George Shearing's bossa nova album on Capitol. On the surface, it's easy listening. But if you actually listen to the voicings for the woodwinds, they are super sophisticated - and jazzy!

Sad, but maybe not unexpected. Obituaries in main Swedish newspapers do not state on which day he passed, but some sources say yesterday, May 15.

I believe you're thinking of "mmilovan". Catesta was one of the "original" members here, as was Jim R.

I think we are spoiled. How much was a CD 30 years ago? $16.99? Considering the inflation that would probably be more than twice as much in today's money. $35. For one CD.

I was 26 when I got my first set and 40 when I made my latest purchase, but that was almost a decade ago. There are still a couple of sets I might want to get second hand (e.g. Jackie McLean), but mostly I have what I need.

Crippled left hand from childhood polio.