Peter Friedman

I have seen Bill Watrous in person many many times. Once he was appearing at an event that also had Al Grey performing (though not the two of them playing together). The contrast was very interesting. Watrous had excellent technique and could play extremely fast. But always had the mic right in the bell of his horn . When he would momentarily step back from the mic his sound on the horn was not at all strong. Grey did not play as fast. And one was less likely to marvel at his technical prowess. But he had a huge sound and never placed the mic in the bell of his horn. Al could fill up a somewhat large room with his sound standing far from the mic.

Disc 2, Vol.2

Haydn - Op.64/2 Schumann - Introduction and Allegro / Mendelssohn - Capriccio brillant

I saw the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Band there. They just barely were able to fit on the stage.

I have a number of CDs from the Left Bank. Many or most have less than very good audio quality. Hope that is not the case with the new releases.

Haydn - Op.20/2 Mozart - K.545 and K.576

Haydn - No.48 and No.51 Mozart - Sinfonia Concertante K.364

This is one of my favorite examples of playing by Elvin Jones.

I would estimate that I especially like about ten or twelve of the albums on this list.

I agree as well. Another issue is that Monk wrote very few new compositions after the mid 1950's. Apart from his own tunes, he only played a tiny number of standard tunes. To the best of my knowledge, he never played a tune by Charlie Rouse during those many years they were together. Nor did he play tunes by Bird, Dameron, Dizzy or others from his generation. That is one reason why there is such a sameness when listening to the numerous recordings of the Monk Quartet from about 1958 onwards. His few solo sessions, and the adding of Joe Gordon and Harold Land to the quartet were especially interesting to me as a switch from the sameness of the quartet recordings.

Mozart - K.305 & K.378 Reinecke - Piano Concerto No.2, Op.120

Disc 2

Disc 1

Haydn - Op.64/1 Chopin - - Disc 1