Daniel A

**½ in the fifth edition. "A curious failure", "aimless wool-gathering" and "the very opposite of Rollins at his best" are some of the statements from the review. Unfortunately, I have not heard or even been looking for this album (probably because of what the AMG and Penguin said). Several of his Milestone albums get even lower ratings; for example 'The Way I Feel' gets *½ ("plain feeble").

The sound of the JJ set is splendid. I have a Japanese "Blue Trombone" CD, but haven't seen any reason to play it that often since getting the Mosaic.

The date with Hancock and Bartz has been sheduled for reissue "very soon" on Tolliver's website for years, but nothing's happened yet. I remember someone with a bit of inside info posted that it was very close to be released or something to that effect, but I think that was over a year ago.

Missed this release back then. Will probably get it. Several posts seem to be missing in this thread. Anyone knows what's up with that?

Only In the second hand bins or on eBay, I'm afraid, since it has been out of print for some time. It was reissued on CD in the early 90s (cat. no. Black Lion 760174).

From Ira Gitler's notes for 'Live! Vol. 1': "Farrell's stick comments are quite apt." I don't fully agree.

Sidewinder, do your copies have "Black Lion" or "Polydor" LP labels? The copy I saw yesterday had a red Polydor label. The quality of the gatefold cover seemed to be slightly better than that of the Intercord, but the vinyl was a bit warped and noisier. The copy I got has yellow Black Lion labels with a small Intercord logo at the bottom. Edit: You managed to reply to my label question already before I had posted it - thanks! Indeed, this is one of the quitest vinyls I've heard, even better than some ECMs. (I'm beginning to think that the guy in the shop made a mistake when he offered me 50 percent off the price of this copy, assuming that it was mis-priced - not an original with the Interchord logo and being "Made in West Germany")

It's seems to be a somewhat universal view that original (or "original", depending on the real origin of the recordings) US pressings generally are the best, regardless of what label it's on. However, my experience is that the average German pressing in the 70s was better than what was being manufactured in the US. It's one thing with MPS and other good quality European labels, but even some American labels seemed to be simultanously pressed in Europe with good results. I listened to Paul Desmond's 'Summertime' the other day, late 1960s A&M album, and noticed that it said "manufactured by Deutsche Grammophon"; actually I found it sounded rather better than some other US A&M:s I've got.

Thanks for the information, Chuck. Perhaps the Black Lion LPs were issued in cooperation with Polydor, Intercord etc. right from the start, so that there are in fact no "plain" Black Lion pressings?

Heh... sort of what I suspected, but thanks anyway. I just got the Clarke-Boland LP on Black Lion, 'At Her Majesty's Pleasure....'. The shop had two copies, one /Polydor (made in England) and one /Interchord (made in Germany). They were identical (gatefold cover and all) except for the logos, LP labels and that the Polydor had an additional note below "Sleeve design: Hamish Grimes" which said "Cover printed by: [forget who]". I got the Interchord since it was cheaper, and actually sounded like a better (quieter) pressing.

How does one recognize an original Black Lion LP? I seem to recall that most of the Black Lion LPs I've seen also have either the "Interchord" or the "Polydor" logo on the cover/label.

There's a whole lot of Duke Pearson compositions which have not been covered by someone else. Believe it or not, some of them are actually great. Another that springs to mind: McLean's Blue Fable. It's on a McLean tribute album, but I think I recall that version is not particularly good.

The administration perhaps should have hired another lawyer to find a loop-hole, only that lawyer would only get 230 000...

On the other hand, I had forgotten my own post in that thread myself, where I'm comparing it to the earlier BNs. I suppose you can't remember everything you post. Anyway, regarding the merits of The Peace-maker I'm standing by my statement of April 13th...

A helpful forum member has posted the lineup in this post already. Sorry, Rooster!

Re: The Peacemaker - I wouldn't call it better than the Blue Notes. It's somewhat behind such dates as "Total Eclipse", "Medina" and "Spiral", but it's got a different vibe altogether. To answer a question some posts up, yes, I'd say it's closer to the feel of Ayers' "Virgo Vibes" than the BN Hutcherson/Land albums, with a just a measure of the Jazz Crusaders thrown in as well. Not a classic, but it has its merits.

I'm sure Brownie or someone else will be able to submit an accurate answer to your question. I can't help you, but I would buy such a set instantly. Jaspar really deserves a dedicated boxed reissue of some sort! Link to previous discussion: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=427

I don't think I've repeated myself yet, so here goes: Get it! You will never regret it!

The consistency blues? I wasn't thinking of "blue notes", but rather on a sadder approach on playing altogether.

To play everything slightly sharp sounds cool enough, but are there any players who consistently play everything a quarter-tone low? If there are several horns, there's usually only room for one "Jackie McLean" in the band. Perhaps we would all be better off if everyone just stuck to the vibes instead.

The odd thing then is that RVG CD remasters often sound very different from the original LPs. It could be that Lion and the artists would have wanted the music to sound like the current CDs, but that it was impossible to achive this particular sound in those days. ("Rudy, ain't there no way to make the music sound... a bit louder?") But even if that's true, does that make narrowing the stereo spread and using compression any better? I'm not pro- or con- any of the mastering engineers by priciple. I've just observed that I like the sound of the original LPs, and that non-RVG CD remasters (Japanese pre-compression era remasters in particular) are generally closer to that sound - based on listening experiences from several hifi setups.

Update: Slide Hampton 'Somethin' Sanctified' sounds OK, and Dave 'Fathead' Newman 'Straight Ahead' sounds rather good. A nice album, BTW: Fathead, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Charlie Persip. Recorded in 1960.

I was unaware that anything of Solal's 1960s output for French Columbia had been reissued on CD. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised to find a 2 CD set last week which picks a few nice tracks from a couple of his studio Columbia albums - 'Bonsoir' (1960), 'En Liberté' (1965), 'Trio' (1965), 'Son 66' (1965) and 'En Direct du Blue Note' (1966) and releases the two exciting live LPs 'Jazz à Gaveau' and 'Concert à Gaveau' (recorded in 1962) in full! Martial Solal 'Jazz à Gaveau et autres pièces' (1959-1966) EMI Music France 8 56490 2 The set was apparently put out in 1997, but - I would think - OOP by now. It's a bit sad, because I can't recommend this strongly enough as an excellent introduction to Solal's albums on French Columbia. The live Gaveau LPs are very hard to find and usually very expensive, so grab this set if you see it! Disc 1 Lover Man Suite no 1 BOF "A bout De Souffle" Clark's Blues Le Beau Danube Bleu 8 Avril Jazz Frit Four Brothers Grain De Valse Liberté Sous Potion 18+1 Petit Poupée Blues Masochiste Disc 2 Jordu Nos Smokings Spécial Club Dermaplastic Aigue-Marine Averty, C'est Moi Gavotte à Gaveau Lucien, Valsons Sous Le Ciel de Paris Galerie C Vice Et Versa Billie's Bounce

The concept behind the selections for the twofers only seems to be "any two albums that could be squeezed onto one CD". Ironically, when they for once matched two albums by the same artist - the two Jarretts mentioned above - one track had to be left out due to "time restrictions". It's beyond me how they can run a business like this. Give me an afternoon, and I could make better-sounding transfers from my LPs instead of these. (If anyone has made the mistake to invest in the Laws or Jarrett CDs and would want to hear these in better sound, PM me.)

I recieved my order today (unfortunately, Swedish customs were thorough this time...). My credit card was charged with the right amount and the discs packed well enough. I've still only listened to the Eddie Higgins/Hubert Laws and Keith Jarret discs - I was curious how they compared to the LPs; 'Law's Cause' and 'Life Between the Exit Signs' were the only ones I had previously. I must say that these are among the - if not the - worst sounding remasters I've ever heard. Most of the tracks are so heavily no-noised that it's almost a joke. Espescially the cymbals and brush work sound so heavily distorted that it's actually worse - yes, worse - than an average 64 kbps MP3 file. In contrast, one or two couple of tracks are thankfully not processed in this way at all. On the other hand they are hissier than any commercially released CD I've ever encountered - way hissier than the original LPs. I can't comment on the other albums so far, but my advice to anyone with a turntable is: don't bother with these. An LP scratched into pieces will sound better.