Daniel A

I wish you a happy birthday, David!

It is on this CD; 'Upstairs', written by Bacharach for the musical "Promises, Promises", covered by The Jazz Crusaders on 'Powerhouse' but not by too many others. Until now, of course! Thank you so much for your appreciative words! This is all about playing tunes we like (or that I like, since I've chosen them all), and while the interepretations are not advanced in any manner I hope they'll bring the good vibe we got going while playing them. 'Lady in Cement' has long been a favorite of mine; I love the time signature shifts! Bacharach was also using time shifts quite often and I've tried to get some of that into 'What the World Needs Now' which alters between 5/4 and 3/4 during the solos. And thanks everyone for your support! I feel very privileged to be able to bring tunes to a band and make music that people find - if not challenging - at least nice to listen to.

OK, will think of that next time! You others may still discuss it here, though...

Thanks for your enthuastic comments! I know I'm not the greatest pianist in the world, but the players in the band are really making the best out of my arrangements and I'm trying my best to keep pace.

Many years ago, while still a student, I led a short-lived band dedicated to playing jazz versions of Burt Bacharach tunes, called 'Young, Shy & Handsome'. We got the band name from a 60s instrumental Bacharach LP where Burt himself was described in those words, despite being around 45 years old by then. After a couple of gigs the band evaporated, mostly because I was unable to get anyone to hire us. Since then I've been playing infrequently with other bands (not so much these days because most of my time goes into my office job), but I was hoping that some day I would be able to put together a band of my own once again. Earlier this year I was discussing this with a couple of former band members and we decided to give it a try. I booked a studio for one single day of recording; only one day because I felt I could not invest more money in the project at that point. However, the results turned out good enough to make me decide to release it on a label of my own. The release party will take place next Tuesday at a hotel in Stockholm. I'm a bit nervous since the CDs haven't been delivered from the factory yet, but I hope everything will get settled before the gig. Most of the band members have countless other projects going on, but we're hoping that by using the CD for promotion we'll get enough of gigs to keep us going (playing a couple of times a year, maybe). Myself, I'm looking at this as hobby because I won't make much money from it, but I want to keep the guys in the band happy and I'm willing to spend a lot of my free time to make it work. I've made all of the arrangements for the 7-piece band which includes trumpet, alto saxophone, trombone, bass trombone, bass and drums. I'm playing the piano myself. So far, I'm planning to handle the distribution of the CD on my own. It will hopefully soon be available from CD Baby and digitally from iTunes, eMusic and a few other services. Not many people are buying CDs these days and most of them will probably just be used for promotion, but of course anyone interested is more than welcome to order it directly from me; the price will be around 11 Euro or 12 USD plus postage. Some may note that the price to the US is cheaper; that is because I only need to add VAT inside the EU. A couple of tracks from the album may be sampled at our MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/youngshyandhandsome Our website is still in Swedish only (and in reality it's still just an ad for our release gig. However, I hope to be able to update it with some more pictures, English text and an order form for the album soon. Track listing: 1. Manteca (Gillespie) 2. The Look of Love (Bacharach) 3. Someday (George Duke) 4. Pensativa (Clare Fischer) 5. Lady in Cement (Montenegro) 6. Upstairs (Bacharach) 7. What the World Needs Now (Bacharach) 8. Do you Know the Way to San José (Bacharach) (p)&© D-Disk, 2008

Somehow, Frank's fireplace (and the wall, too) looks somewhat fake, like the scenery from 60s TV series. Or is it just typical American design?

No expert here, but I'm under the impression that the life span depends on temperature, light and other environmental factors.

That's the big difference. On-line is great for finding something you specifically want, but not necessarily for stumbling across things you never heard of. Internet communities and forums will replace bin diving as a means to discover new and old things (and to a large extent it has changed already, look at all the blogs), but I agree it's not exactly the same.

Now that I've got the Fresh Sound CD reissue of the Hank Jones Savoy solo album I can attest that to my ears it sounds like the CD is transferred from vinyl, albeit decently done. The best sounding version would still probably be the 70s reissue from Arista which - if found - could be had for next to nothing, no doubt partly because of the ugly cover. To me, it really sounds as if it is mastered from tape rather than a previous LP release. If you don't do vinyl the Fresh Sound is however a decent option to get one of Hank's best albums.

Belated birthday greetings!

So, has anyone ordered anything from "Promising Music", or made any "requests" for that matter? I notice that some of the titles in the wish list are in print from Universal, so I wonder why those have been made available for lease-out in the first place. That said, there are lots of good stuff in the catalogue that should get out, and this initiative looks promising.

I see! The labels (not that it matters much) for the new "reissues" are Disconforme, Essential Jazz Classics, Jazz Track and Gambit, and all seem to be listed as available already. Why all these different labels?

Before the dismal releases of the mid-70s, Jamal made some interesting recordings with the Jamil Nasser/Frank Gant trio on Cadet and Impulse, some of which are hard to find now. The only one which seems to be readily available is 'The Awakening', which may also be the best of them. 'Heat Wave' 1966 (Cadet, reissued on CD by GRP) 'Ahmad Jamal at the Top - Poinciana Revisited' 1968 (Impulse, reissued on CD in Japan) 'Tranquility' 1968 (Impulse) 'The Awakening' 1970 (Impulse, reissued on CD) 'Freeflight' 1972 (Impulse, reissued on CD by GRP) 'Outertineinnerspace' 1972 (Impulse) (I'm excluding two albums with trio+choir since even Dusty Groove describes them as "colorless"; never seen or heard any of them myself) I once had 'Freeflight' on LP but traded it away many years ago, which I now regret a bit. I tried to listen to the sound clips at Verve's site, but clearly someone has made a mistake: http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist/rele...84&aid=2665

Probably by copying existing CD releases. I thought the old Discovery label was still controlled by Warner. Or is this some independent rip-off label?

'Locomotion' is a library-type album with short tracks, time-locked rhythms and unadventorous playing, as I remember it. A curious item of interest to Solal collectors, but of limited musical value.

Updated for the last time this year. Not sure I'll be able to keep up with updating a thread like this for 2009. I'll try of course!

Wouldn't it be a nice touch if these titles were delivered as CD-RW:s, so that you can erase them if the music is not to you liking?

This one is essential:

Suspect label, but mostly very fine music. Some info in this previous thread: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=33471

Actually it wasn't on this, but on another, long-defunct board (although re-posted here). But it was amusing!

I thought you said "comes closest"... OK, sorry... Anyway, that would probably be "The Real McCoy". But personally, I think I listen to 'The Sidewinder' even more seldom.

Thanks for describing it so much better, MG. Yes, when someone is using the link to one of his cover scans to display that picture in a post on these forums, for example, the picture will be uploaded from his site into the web browser of every person who is viewing that thread. A picture is a lot more heavy on data than plain text, so most of the data transmission in a typical "cover art thread" will be not from Jim Alfredson's web service, but from the original sources of those pictures. Of course, there is always the option Chris is describing, to download the picture to your own computer, and then attach it to your post on the forums. But if everybody did that on the cover threads I wonder if we wouldn't be pushing Jim's limit.

The first time I heard 'Adam's Apple' I was slightly underwhelmed (the only Shorter album I'd heard at that point was 'Speak No Evil'), but I learned to like it and the tune I always hear in my head when I think of that album these days is 'El Gaucho', such a good tune. Never heard another version of that tune with the very special vibe of the original! (Which of course goes for most Shorter - or any original jazz - compositions, but anyway...)

I think he does that (or maybe some software automatically does it for him) because people are using the site as an album cover resource and that much of his bandwidth is used up by direct linking to his scans. The real purpose of the site is just a self-conscious display of his (admittedly great) collection.

Wasn't it revealed ages ago that the master tape for that session is damaged? Nice to see BN do vinyl, but selling these only in LP+CD sets doesn't ring well with me. I would take it most people interested in analog quality remasters of these titles already have them on CD. I suppose one could always give the CDs away...