John L

Al Green has no "street cred" in the black community? That is a new one to me. And O.V. Wright does? James Brown and Bobby Bland are also potential Starbucks material. They also drew majority-white crowds in more recent years. Yet I never thought that their credibility in the black community was in question. Is the case of Al Green any different? Why?

No retread here. This sounds different than anything that Al Green has done before. That is why I think that it is a worthwhile addition to his discography, even if it is highly uneven and does not come close to reaching the heights of his previous masterpieces. The title track alone would have made the whole endeavor worthwhile. It is not just "product." Some of it is quite good music that can stand by itself without any obligatory comparisons to O.V. Wright, Al Green of the 1970s, or anybody else. You seem to imply that it would be better for Al Green to record nothing than to make albums like this. I strongly disagree.

There appears to be a JATP 1949 concert here and (I believe) a live Bird with Strings concert, both of which are Norman Granz (Verve/Clef) recordings. The first concert is a 1947 reunion with Diz, and some of the tracks were issued as 78s at the time (including Bird's only "official" recording of Confirmation in the 1940s). Thje other recordings have been available on various boots over the years. The overall quality here is somewhat variable, but the best material is VERY VERY good, and the sound quality of these broadcasts is usually excellent to match. Special highlights include the first 1947 concert and the 1949 Christmas concert with Red Rodney. The 1949 JATP extended Embraceable You with Lester Young is one of my very favorite pieces of recorded music. In other words, if you don't have this music, grab it.

I heard him live many times, and never felt disappointed. RIP

It sounds a lot like one of the grooves that the Ray Charles Band used to play, but I can't place the exact riff. It does sound quite a bit like the riff on Blues March.

i don´t think so. can you give more exact information, please? keep boppin´ marcel Volume 5 of a 4 CD set? Hmmm. I've never heard of that Bird session before. The only "Dixieland versus Bop" recordings with Bird that I know of are the Bands for Bonds broadcasts.

This is one not to miss, some of the best trumpet playing ever recorded.

Yes, no one has mentioned Bird and Diz yet. A wonderful album - and a very formative one where I'm concerned, as I bought it on 10" LP in 1958 at the age of 18. Super compositions and totally inspired solos by the two leaders. And I agree with British Parker enthusiast, altoist Peter King, who said on air that he's entirely happy - as most people are not - with Buddy Rich's presence on this date. A great session, but if only it had been Max...

Allen: Given your description, I bet that you have in mind the other OJC release, "Bird on 52nd Street." In fact, there is a lot more where that came from (Onyx mid-48) on the Benedetti box. Is the Debut/OJC material from "Bird on 52nd Street" covered in the Benedetti Mosaic? I have "Bird at St. Nick's" already, but not the other one, and will skip it if it's in the bigger box... My understanding is that all of "Bird on 52nd Street" is in the Benedetti Mosaic. Bird at St. Nicks is not.

Allen: Given your description, I bet that you have in mind the other OJC release, "Bird on 52nd Street." In fact, there is a lot more where that came from (Onyx mid-48) on the Benedetti box.

On the contrary, he is NOT overlooked, and therefore not here. Now Hip Lankchan should be here. He is the overlooked version of Hound Dog, and a very good one at that.

Some nice selections. I agree very much with Dan about "Ain't Enough Coming In." We can add to that Otis Rush's other last studio album "Any Place I'm Going." I never understood why these albums didn't get more attention when they were released. Fantastic music. It is too bad that there is not more where that came from. Here are few of my favorite more obscure blues records Geater Davis: Sadder Shades of Blue Freddie Waters: One Step Closer to the Blues Andrew Brown: Big Brown's Blues Eddie C. Campbell: King of the Jungle Bessie Tucker and Ida Mae Mack: Complete recordings Jimmy Wilson: Jumpin' from Six to Six Robert Nighthawk: Bricks in My Pillow Willie Love: Greenville Smokin' Johnny Adams: Man of My Word Peggy-Scott Adams: Help Yourself Eddie Kirkland: It's the Blues Man

The Town Hall recording is great, indeed, although I am surprised that you think it would be a consensus choice. My ultimate choice is probably these three sessions, all from late 1947: two on Dial and one on Savoy. A strong runner up would be the live Bird-Diz recording from Carnegie Hall from the same year. If I could only have a little Bird, that would be it. Charlie Parker (as); Miles Davis (tpt); Irving "Duke" Jordan (p); Tommy Potter (b); Max Roach (d) 10/28/47 1 Dexterity (C. Parker) (take 1) 2:55 2 Dexterity (C. Parker) (take 2 (master)) 2:58 3 Bongo Bop (C. Parker) (take 1 (master)) 2:43 4 Bongo Bop (C. Parker) (take 2) 2:42 5 Dewey Square (C. Parker) (take 1) [Prezology] 3:27 6 Dewey Square (C. Parker) (take 2) 3:01 7 Dewey Square (C. Parker) (take 3 (master)) 3:07 8 The Hymn (C. Parker) (take 1 (master)) 2:30 9 The Hymn (C. Parker) (take 2) [superman] 2:26 10 Bird of Paradise (C. Parker) (take 1) [All the Things You Are] 3:07 11 Bird of Paradise (C. Parker) (take 2) [All the Things You Are] 3:09 12 Bird of Paradise (C. Parker) (take 3 (master)) [All the Things You Are] 3:06 13 Embraceable You (G. Gershwin-I. Gershwin) (take 1) 3:46 14 Embraceable You (G. Gershwin-I. Gershwin) (take 2 (master)) 3:22 11/4/74 1)Bird Feathers (C. Parker) (take 3 (master)) 2:50 2 Klact-oveereds-tene (C. Parker) (take 1 (master)) 3:04 3 Klact-oveereds-tene (C. Parker) (take 2) 3:04 4 Scrapple from the Apple (C. Parker) (take 2) 2:38 5 Scrapple from the Apple (C. Parker) (take 3 (master)) 2:57 6 My Old Flame (A. Johnston-S. Coslow) (take 1 (master)) 3:13 7 Out of Nowhere (E. Heyman-J.W. Green) (take 1) 4:02 8 Out of Nowhere (E. Heyman-J.W. Green) (take 2) 3:49 9 Out of Nowhere (E. Heyman-J.W. Green) (take 3) 3:04 10 Don't Blame Me (D. Fields-J. McHugh) (take 1) 2:46 12/21/47 1 Another Hair-Do (C. Parker) (take 1 (inc)) 0:14 2 Another Hair-Do (C. Parker) (take 2 (inc)) 0:44 3 Another Hair-Do (C. Parker) (take 3 (inc)) 1:04 4 Another Hair-Do (C. Parker) (take 4 (master)) 2:37 5 Bluebird (C. Parker) (take 1) 2:53 6 Bluebird (C. Parker) (take 2) 0:03 7 Bluebird (C. Parker) (take 3 (master)) 2:49 8 Klaunstance (C. Parker) [The Way You Look Tonight] 2:44 9 Bird Gets the Worm (C. Parker) (take 1) [Lover Come Back to Me] 3:00 10 Bird Gets the Worm (C. Parker) (take 2 (inc)) [Lover Come Back to Me] 0:09 11 Bird Gets the Worm (C. Parker) (take 3 (master)) [Lover Come Back to Me] 2:34

Thanks, Jim S.! I wish I knew enough to rattle stuff like that off. One question: Back in the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" days, do you really think that teenage Lennon and McCartney, who had never studied music, sat around and said, "OK, we will go to the III7 to set up a resolution to the VI. But then we will freak everybody out by not going there." My own inclination would be to think that they learned a bunch of chords and decided to mix it up in unusual ways, and it just came out. That is not to say that there can't be genius at work here, but I wonder how conscious it was.

OK, I plead cultural predisposition to ignorance (even though I used to be a big Beatles fan, and still like to hear them every now and again). What is special about the Beatles' chord progressions?

And to think that those raised on Tin Pan Alley tunes accused groups like the Beatles of simplifying the harmonic structure of popular music. Little did they know...

His clarinet that Goodman gave him was stollen from his dressing room, and he gave up clarinet playing - goes the official story. Somewhere I've read Sadik Hakim heard Pres playing clarinet around 1947 or so. Interesting. Thanks. I can't recall hearing either of those stories before. By the time Pres pulled the clarinet out again for those last sessions for Norman Granz, It was a little too late. Not that those sessions don't have their share of beautiful and deeply moving music in spite of it all.

It is obviously a very personal list. In fact, I find these kinds of lists much more interesting to read than those made of consensus choices like Kind of Blue, A Love Supreme, and yawn, yawn, yawn... I was living in Paris in 96 and remember that issue of Jazz Magazine. I always got a kick out of how many French jazz critics were convinced that authentic jazz is either American or French. Jazz from other countries is usually highly suspect. On this list, I found particularly interesting the only blues record included: Albert Collins - Trash Talking. That one wouldn't even come close to making my Albert Collins desert island list.

Lester Young was a serious man. And he also played some very fine clarinet--wish he'd played more! Greg Mo Absolutely. I have always searched for a story behind why Lester Young gave up the clarinet in 37-38, and have never found one.

That's just a bit too pithy for me. Do you mean Joseph Jarman or Joseph Bowie, and if so, which albums? In response to The Flam - it's Joseph Bowie on trombone, not Lester Bowie on trumpet. The trumpet is Leo Smith. I don't think that anybody cited the Flam. I cited Fresh, which has a lot of fine Lester Bowie on it.

There is an earful of nice Lester Bowie on Frank Lowe's "Fresh."

I've got it working a different way. I don't want more than one iTunes library, but I have files stored in iTunes folders on multiple drives. iTunes does given you the option to do this, but then you get can pelted by various bugs. I know about the "consolidate library" function, and have had problems with that as well. I have one 1TB drive that I use for backup of all my MP3s. One option is to by another one and consolidate my library in one place. Or I will use the link that Shawn provided and see what I can do. Thanks, Shawn.

Since I started using multiple hard drives, I have been increasingly frustrated by bugs in iTunes. Every now and again, iTunes refuses to recognize (or forgets) where files are located, and the only function to get it to recognize files is to go track-by-track, something that would take longer than just deleting the whole iTunes program and starting over, or alternatively deleting the relevant iTunes entries and reloading them all folder-by-folder. I have had to do that several times. It lets me edit the files on some hard drives and not on others, even though it recognizes and plays the files on both hard drives. And so on. Please give me the link to WinAmp.

Of the Blue Note Al Green releases, I didn't like the first one. It really took Al Green out of his element (IMO). I have listened to the new one once so far. I like the title track quite a bit. The rest strikes me as very uneven. Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile release. Al Green still has it, and is able to get it done on the best tracks on this CD. For my money, the very best modern day Al Green performance is his duet with Ann Nesby: "Put it On Paper." Now that is a modern day soul masterpiece for the ages.

Milan: Maybe you and Larry are right. But I personally don't hear anything in that first repetitive figure to make me doubt that it is Pres, and doesn't the tone sound very different to that of Phillips? What comes after it is a bit unusual for Pres, but a few of the figures are certainly still taken from the Pres book.