clandy44

I don't think I ever heard a bad Benny Carter album-the man had consummate good judgment about what he recorded, and you can hear it starting on his earliest leader dates (Classics 1929-1933). I owned the Shearing-Wilson lp years ago. This was young Nancy at her most popular stage, and Shearing is a master at working with others-very enjoyable.

My favorite female (the NKC box is numero uno) Mosaic vocal set. And that is saying something, since my affection for music of the 1930s should prompt me to pick the Mildred box. I also bought the O'Day Proper box to get a solid slug of her sound from the early 40s. She was definitely in her prime in the Verve years, and a few of the albums are stupendous. Guess you could call me a fan.

Anyone been listening to these? How is the sound? Recommend any particular volumes?

Thanks for the feedback. If GOM is right, then the overlap comes mostly on Vol 2. For those who have all 4 volumes, do you prefer one volume over the others?

Does anyone have all or a part of the 12 cd Sunbeam recordings of Bix? What is the quality of the sound, etc? And, is there much if any overlap with the Mosaic Bix?

The Proper box is filled with goodies from the 1940s and priced right. But, buy the Mosaic when you can-it really showcases her when her voice was its most vibrant.

Stuff's sudden disappearance resembles Ventura/Phillips' also sudden deoarture last year or the year before. Guess we can't procrastinate.

I have found them, with the generous help of a fellow board member.

I'm a fan too. Picked up all the Dream Band stuff and then began to buy some of his other work. But then, I'm a West Coast fan.

Thanks to EKE BBB, I'm on a Fats hunt. Looking for 2 Bluebird sets: Fractious Fingering-The Early Years Part 3 and A Good Man is Hard to Find-The Middle Years Part 2. Thanks for any help.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Bought Goo Gone and, by golly, it works! For those of you who have pets or kids, however, beware: it has a cloying citrus smell which is more appropriate (in a less concentrated form) to food products.

I know this has been covered before, but lately I have been buying some used cds with what seem to be the Mother of All Labels, which when finally peeled off leave a gross residue. Any suggested home remedies? Thanks.

I have all three. Just on the music, my preferences; 1. Kento Presents-by a mile over the other two. But then I groove on the West Coast thing. 2. Gerald Wilson-in my view, a genius is Gerald as an arranger and leader...but too many renditions of pop 60s songs makes me carefully choose which discs of the set I listen to. Yes, I'm a confirmed hater of California Dreamin'. 3. Ellington Reprise-one very good album in there with some OK (by the Duke's lofty standards) other work. Can't really miss with any of them, though.

EKE BBB-Thanks for this thread. I just discovered it (where have I been?). Love stride...can't get enough of James P or Fats. Gonna buy some Luckey and go for the Joe Turner Solo. Strongly recommend Ralph Sutton's work-literally all of it. You might try Alligator Crawl or Swings St Louis (beautifully recorded on the obscure label Gaslight). His work with Ruby Braff also quite nice as are the two Live at Sunnie's discs.

I didn't pay much attention to the comments made about Basie not being able to explain his music-I can almost picture Basie, in a kindly but mischievous way, deciding to stonewall this dude, whose overly earnest manner probably brought bad karma into the room. But, what Page, Jones, Green and Basie did with the rhythm section does make for some thoughtful comparisons to other artistic and industrial developments in the 1930s.

This review from today's WSJ makes an interesting point about the relationship of Basie's music in the 30s to the other arts. As anyone who has this box will confirm, it is over the top in sound and quality. The Streamliner Swing of Count Basie By JOHN MCDONOUGH In his recent book, "Jazz Modernism," Alfred Appel, professor emeritus at Northwestern University, broke rare new ground in jazz writing by linking Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and other jazz players to Matisse, Joyce and other icons of the modern high-art canon. He argued without a speck of condescension that jazz, painting, literature and other arts actually did talk to each other, even if subliminally, through the medium of modernism. Upon spending several lively hours with "Count Basie and His Orchestra: The Columbia Years -- America's #1 Band!" a new four-CD collection from Columbia/Legacy covering the band's formative years from 1936 to 1951, I find myself persuaded that Mr. Appel is on to something and that to view Basie's music only within the constraints of jazz is to miss the range of his reach. His name not only belongs alongside the likes of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, as you would expect, but also the pioneers who interpreted the technology of the machine into visual arts and design in the 1930s -- men such as Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes and Frank Lloyd Wright. If economics answers to an all-pervading "invisible hand," surely the arts must have a similar force channeling the buzz from music, art, industrial design, architecture, etc. into some cohesive and unified stream. Call it common sensibility if you like, or zeitgeist, or the spirit of the times. Only in the perspective of time does it ultimately become clear. COUNT BASIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA: THE COLUMBIA YEARS -- AMERICA'S #1 BAND! Columbia/Legacy $44.98 There are 90 selections in the Basie package, 22 of them from live radio broadcasts. Thirty are by Basie small groups; the rest by the full orchestra. Nearly all remind us that in the 1930s Basie, his band, piano, and particularly his rhythm section rewrote the most fundamental laws of motion in jazz. And therein lies the link, because few things dominated the spirit of the late '30s more than the larger wonders of motion, speed and the new aerodynamic shapes that became expressions of a futuristic and optimistic modernism. Count Basie materialized, as if by some invisible hand, at almost precisely the moment when streamlining reached a critical mass in breakthrough designs and public fascination. In one brief 18-month period from 1934 to 1936, America saw its first diesel streamliners, Raymond Loewy's Hupmobile, the Chrysler Airflow, the smooth metallic shrouds that transformed traditional steam engines into futuristic projectiles on wheels, the first production DC-3s, "Flash Gordon," and the statuesque curves of Jean Harlow sheathed in white and silver satin. In the midst of all this, popular music also took a sudden turn as well -- from a frumpy two-beat angularity lingering from the '20s toward the unbroken propulsion and rhythmic flow of swing. Basie's music was a musical mirror image of the same spirit of modernity that found beauty in sleek designs inspired by the physics of velocity, designs that merged all sub-forms into a continuum of smooth, rounded, transitional lines. Toward the end of disc four there is a remarkable Basie version of "I Got Rhythm" that perfectly illustrates this. As the band retires after a chorus, tenor saxophonist Lester Young, the most streamlined and gifted of Basie's great soloists, glides in skimming like a stone across a sustained F for over four measures, capping the sprint with an exclamatory B-flat. It's more striking for its sheer aerodynamic contour than any content -- that, and the fact that a decade earlier Louis Armstrong might have ridden that F by hammering out a string of staccato quarter notes while bumping along on a two-cylinder rhythm section. Jazz lurched into the '30s as a boxy jalopy. It exited, largely under Basie's leadership, as a streamliner. Another Basie soloist worth noting is Dickie Wells. Using the trombone's sliding intonations, he found ingenious ways to disobey the formalities of tempo with oblique swerves and eccentric phrasings. Outside the Basie context, they could sound awkward. But they make perfect sense here. On one small band tune, "Dickie's Dream" on disc one, Wells drifts leisurely in on top of Young, in a flowing, almost imperceptible transition of overlapping C's across four measures. The transition is as seamless as a soap bubble, all disjunction between the two camouflaged in the gentle, curved lines of a Saarinen or Eames silhouette set to music. If anyone personified and objectified the subtle sweep of Basie's understated swing, it was Jo Jones, drummer on all but a handful of these performances (and sometimes so understated as to be barely audible). It was Jones who forged his mastery of the high-hat cymbal into a fragile but steely force that breathed with the natural elegance of a gull's wings. It was said that he "played like the wind," a perfect metaphor for the ideals of streamlining, which derived in part from such organic models as birds in flight. Basie never saw his music in this way, of course. I doubt if he'd ever heard of Raymond Loewy or contemplated the interconnectedness of the arts. It wasn't that he resisted intellectualizing his music. He was simply incapable of it. About 30 years ago, I interviewed him. I took the occasion very seriously, intent on digging into the roots of his innovations and getting insights from the man himself on his creative logic. What I got instead were looks of confusion, a lot of hemming and hawing, and a strong sense that he'd rather be wasting his money at the race track than his time with me. He didn't understand what I was after because he couldn't see it in his own work. Ten years later, a 400-page autobiography written with Albert Murray contained no more insight than my interview. I finally understood that Basie's most original music, much of which is included in the Columbia/Legacy set, was a completely natural and unpremeditated reaction to unique circumstances and opportunity. That is the only way, perhaps, in which the "invisible hand" of sensibility can manifest itself free of the distortions of unnecessary knowledge -- something best left to those of us who imbibe our arts from the galleries with intent to commit criticism.

Interesting thread. For me, it's the Vaughan set by a wide margin-I was hopin' against hope that her Roulette work (only a couple of which I had) would be more jazz than pop...but my hopes were dashed when I played it through.

Lon-I am in favor of barring the recidivists and incorrigibles like Deep, whose venom runs thick and deep. But, these "warning" systems only lower the bar so far that the innocent and the guilty all are made to walk the plank. In short, plain overkill.

Lon-I hear ya, but I am not persuaded. I have found Deep's postings nasty and useless to me, and I simply avoid reading them. But, the presence of a couple morons doesn't warrant some non-transparent (that is, only the censors know what is worthy of warning and we are in the dark until we start getting pluses or whatever) system. How can anyone conduct him or herself properly when the rules are, at best, ambiguous and found only in the desk drawer of the Board moderator? A tip of the cap, then, to Senator Joe McCarthy, who had a long run on Broadway with this approach. I'm hardly some wild-assed (sorry) libertarian, but, as you can see, this new "system" has pricked (sorry) my conscience.-Chuck

I may win the thick-member-of-the-year award, but I guess I still don't get it. Does the appearance of this "warning bar" indicate I have been deemed to have transgressed before, or is this being seen by everyone who makes a post? It can't be the former since I have been too busy to make many postings at all, let alone recently, and my posts are not exactly "in your face" stuff. If it's the latter, then I am surprised that some parental guidance system has been deemed necessary here-I haven't seen any of the nasty stuff that used to pass for posts on the BNBB. I don't recite the First Amendment much in my daily (or, for that matter my yearly) life, but is this warning system really essential to this Board? If so, count me as one even less enthusiastic poster...that comment will probably get me a plus one in the system-good in hockey but, I suppose, bad here. If the Board guru is really concerned about close supervision, may I suggest that each poster be made to sign a certification that he, she or it will not write displeasing things-this is being used to "great" advantage by the SEC in the corporate world and would get the HUAC seal of approval.

Hmmmm. Anyone know what "warn" means under my avatar? Have I offended the god of music? Maybe I was too enthusiastic about Benny..........gee, I am so sorry.

Vol. 7 (with Phillips and Harris) is very enjoyable. Harris sounds especially on his game, and Flip here, as always, is top-notch. As a Benny fan, I don't think he made too many duds and this sure isn't one.

A review from today's WSJ: MUSIC The Rev. Al Green Loosens Up By ASHLEY KAHN Memphis, Tenn. The Rev. Al Green is slightly restless and visibly moved. The 57-year-old soul singer turned church leader is seated in a corner of Royal, this city's oldest active recording studio and a former 1920s movie theater. Mr. Green, casually dressed in gray running pants, a tiger-pattern jacket and a white T-shirt, a large six-pointed gold star around his neck, points to a battered RCA microphone still reserved for his use only. "There's the old mike No. 9. There's a certain something about this old mike. It's probably haunted!" The entire garage-sized room has a preserved, spirit-laden air about it: clean, yet with exposed, age-old insulation hanging above; an ancient organ and well-trodden carpet below. Mr. Green looks up and laughs. "He don't want nobody to tear the damn padding off the walls, or take off the old spider webs. He says, 'No, that makes the sound.'" "He" is producer Willie Mitchell, the man who helped shape Mr. Green's classic soul sound in the early '70s and still runs Royal Studio. Only a few months ago, the two reunited to record Mr. Green's new album, "I Can't Stop," their first collaboration in almost 20 years. That in itself is news. That Mr. Green traced his own footsteps to the site where, over 30 years ago, he first alchemized his enduring, sugar-and-satin formula can be startling. Even for him. AL GREEN I Can't Stop Blue Note Records Tonight Show With Jay Leno NBC, 11:35 p.m. EST, tonight "I would pick any spot in the studio [to stand] except the very same spot where we sang 'Let's Stay Together' and 'Tired of Being Alone' and 'I'm Still in Love With You.' But here I am, and this is it!" Some historical context: Before Barry White or Marvin Gaye recorded their own takes on bedroom soul, Al Green was already in place as the voice of seduction for an unbuttoned decade. He posed bare-chested on his album covers. His falsetto moan -- straight from the church -- was filled with a longing all could grasp. He put the afro into aphrodisiac, writing songs ("Love and Happiness," "Here I Am," those above) that inspired a generation -- and helped create another. "I mean, people still show me pictures of a beautiful little kid. I say, OK, what's that about? 'Well, it's because of one of your songs . . .'" Mr. Green's fans weren't the only ones influenced by the music's sexual charge, the reverend himself confesses. "In my 20s, I was running to the Holiday Inn, kissing and naughty little things. The sins of our youth, OK?" But as the '70s drew to a close, all that changed -- the escapades, the music -- as the singer gradually yielded to a higher calling. Mr. Green was raised by strict churchgoers. His religious awakening was first triggered in 1973 by what is best described as a late-night visitation. His concerts soon took on a Sunday morning feel as he began preaching between performances of his romantic hits. Mishaps and misfortune deepened his devotion: the suicide of a girlfriend after she tossed boiling grits on him in '74; falling off a stage in '79. It was also in '79 that "the new Al Green" (as he dubbed himself) became a minister, founded a Memphis church and chose to sing only gospel music. Despite a few pop dalliances over the next two decades (duets with Annie Lennox and Lyle Lovett; a less-than-stellar secular album in '95), he generally held to the line that a true servant of the Lord should be singing neither of romantic love nor physical passion. "If I'm gonna sing blues, then come on sing the blues. If I ain't, let me sing the gospel . . . but don't try to fool the Lord and the Devil," he preached in the 1983 documentary "The Gospel According to Al Green." Everybody's been waiting on the music. Al Green's new album, "I Can't Stop," is a return to his secular side. "I've got to reach the people," he says. When that line is read back to him today, Mr. Green sighs and offers an explanation born of experience. "At that time, I was wrestling with my conversion. I couldn't help the way I felt! The balance I've come to now is the wisdom that spiritual things are spiritual things and carnal things are carnal things, but God made both of them." The tempering of Mr. Green's zeal, and a recent street-corner encounter with a few fans, helped return the reverend to songs of love and Royal Studio. "I was in Baltimore dressed incognito -- big hat, glasses -- and there were four of them just trying to act like they didn't know me. But one of them kind of just went off. 'Oh Al, you know everybody waitin' on the music.' And that, verbatim, inspired me to go to Willie Mitchell and say, 'Let's do the music.'" "I Can't Stop" is no mere reunion, nor simple updating; the album artfully weaves the old (same studio and most of his studio musicians from the '70s) and the new (freshly minted ballads and blues) into a satisfying portrait of the singer in middle age. Mr. Green's voice is more robust now, yet ably delivers the emotive squeal of his youth. One critic describes the collection as "a whole new dish for a feast, a lot more than just reheated leftovers." Mr. Green is more humble. "I heard it a couple of times -- sounds pretty good." The 12 tunes render familiar sensuality with nary a mention of Jesus. The title track is a declaration of perseverance with disco-era flourishes. "My Problem Is You" is an unhurried blues that conjures the best of Bobby Bland, Little Milton and others ("The blues is what makes Memphis; Memphis, what makes B.B. King, B.B. King.") "Rainin' In My Heart" is a slow-as-molasses heart-dragger, while the upbeat "I'd Still Choose You" is Mr. Green's admitted favorite. He dismisses a request to identify the tune's inspiration: "That's my business. I tell you my business, I won't have none." Nonetheless, the refrain -- "If I had to do it all over/I'd still choose you" -- reveals much of the reverend's present-day philosophy, answering the God-fearing who might have trouble with lyrics addressing "girl" and "baby" rather than the Lord. But Mr. Green, it seems, has divine support. "I asked God about 'baby.' God said, 'Don't get too carried away with the baby part. If you mean what you say, then do it.' So I did it. "I've got to reach the people. They want to hear 'Baby I love you,' 'I'll never choose another.' That whole lifestyle, the family, the husband, the wife, the kids, the staying together, is what I promote. With a look, Mr. Green lets on that he's done. He adds one last point. "I was having to answer a question for the churches. They said to me, 'Well, Reverend? How should we receive this secular album that you've put out here?' I would say everybody in this room got here some kind of way and it wasn't all just holding hands." Mr. Kahn is an independent journalist and author of "A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album."

From today's WSJ Reinventing the Music Of Bix Beiderbecke By JIM FUSILLI Neither Bix Beiderbecke nor Geoff Muldaur has commanded much attention lately from anyone save their devotees, but the two have come together in the form of one of the most surprising and delightful albums of the year. "Private Astronomy: A Vision of the Music of Bix Beiderbecke" (edge Music) is Mr. Muldaur's reinvention of some of the cornet player's compositions and performances, all of which emanate from the late 1920s and earliest years of the '30s. The 13-song disc comprises Mr. Muldaur's two approaches to the Beiderbecke canon and the sounds of the era. The six chamber performances of his piano compositions illustrate how Mr. Beiderbecke was as influenced by Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky as he was by Nick LaRocca, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. The remaining tracks are bright, snazzy takes on the pop and blues of the time sung back then by Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys and Frankie Trumbauer, among others. Surprisingly, and perhaps wisely, no one attempts to trump Mr. Beiderbecke on the cornet. While there are a few spry solos here and there, mostly on violin and guitar, airtight adherence to the layered arrangements is the thing on "Private Astronomy." To execute the knotty charts, Mr. Muldaur and producer Dick Connette put together an extraordinary band, which includes jazz saxophonist Ted Nash; Art Barone, who played trombone with Duke Ellington; drummer Artie Kinsella, who plays in the All-Star Shoe Band on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion"; violinist Paul Woodiel; guitarists Doug Wamble and Mike Munisteri; and Mark Gould, principal trumpet with the Metropolitan Opera. Their work is flawless, studied yet affecting, serious yet full of fun. "Private Astronomy" represents the next phase in the 60-year-old Mr. Muldaur's return to center stage. A founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, which featured his then-wife, Maria, Mr. Muldaur emerged from the Cambridge, Mass., folk-blues scene in the '60s and worked with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Jerry Garcia and Richard Thompson, who reportedly said, cryptically, "There are only three white blues singers and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them." He dropped out in 1980 -- "It's the usual boring story of drinking and drugging," he told me -- and went on to establish a successful management-consulting business. On a whim, he joined old friend Bob Neuwirth on a '97 tour of northern Italy. "We didn't get paid and we were roughing it," Mr. Muldaur said, "but I found myself staying back in my hotel room and working on guitar licks." By the time Mr. Muldaur returned to the States, he'd decided to become a working musician again, and a year later he released "Secret Handshake" (Hightone), a very pleasing blues-folk set that he called "17 years of things that were marinating in my mind, things I'd been singing in the shower." While working as a consultant, Mr. Muldaur wrote new arrangements of Mr. Beiderbecke's piano compositions, only one of which Mr. Beiderbecke recorded prior to his death in 1931. (Jess Stacy, a pianist best known for his work with Benny Goodman, recorded several of them.) To illustrate the complexity of Mr. Beiderbecke's compositions, Mr. Muldaur insisted upon recasting them as chamber music rather than the jazzy adaptations he'd heard in recordings by Ry Cooder, Benny Carter and Bucky Pizzarelli, among others. The chamber pieces -- four Beiderbecke piano pieces, a reprise of one, "In a Mist," and a gorgeous reworking of "Davenport Blues" -- are the highlights of "Private Astronomy." "The guys were originally thrown by it," Mr. Muldaur remembered. "It's got a certain feel to it. It's not traditional jazz." And yet, while the music is rich with influence of the classical impressionists, its harmonies, rhythms and some of the phrasing by the musicians are unmistakably rooted in early 20th-century jazz. Mr. Muldaur sings several songs, including "Take Your Tomorrow (And Give Me Today)," which Mr. Beiderbecke recorded with the Trumbauer band; Irving Berlin's "Waiting at the End of the Road," which Mr. Crosby sang with Paul Whiteman's orchestra during its Beiderbecke years; and Mr. Beiderbecke's "Clouds," with new lyrics by Mr. Connette, Linda Thompson and Rufus Wainwright. Martha Wainwright, Rufus's sister, offers a brassy take on "There Ain't No Sweet Man That's Worth the Salt of My Tears," while, continuing the family affair, Rufus's and Martha's father, Loudon Wainwright III, backed by Mr. Muldaur's daughters Jenni and Clare, sings a rousing "Bless You! Sister." With his loving renditions of tunes culled from the Beiderbecke canon, Mr. Muldaur succeeds in shaking the cobwebs off songs that are imprinted on the DNA of American music lovers but have long been out of earshot of even those with an ambitious CD collection. His sentimentality adds an appropriate touch of tenderness that echoes long after the music subsides.

I have told Mosaic not to use Airborne for my shipments. They were partial to leaving Mosaic boxes in the middle of my driveway, which makes my receipt of the box a far more chancey enterprise than I was willing to assume. Apart from that, UPS eats their lunch in every which way.