John L

The Octet Live might be my favorite among those five - a high energy affair that works quite well. After that, I would probably go for the two trio albums: Autumn Colors and Dissent or Descent. Tapscott is in good form on the former with Everett Brown Jr. on drums. Dissent and Descent puts him in a less familiar context with Fred Hopkins and Ben Riley, and it works well. I am less fond of Faith, despite the solid rhythm section, as it suffers (IMO) from inadequate and sometimes out of tune performances from the strings. Little Afrika is a good solo date, although I tend to prefer listening to Tapscott with a rhythm section,.

These are not among my favorite Lester Young recordings. The music is certainly good. Pres is in good physical shape and the sound quality is excellent. However, for me, most of them don't have the sparkle and moments of bliss present in many of Lester Young's other recordings from 1956, in particular those with Teddy Wilson on Verve, live in Europe, and live at the Cafe Bohemia.

Good question. I can't think of any sideman appearances. He did make some recordings with George Coleman, Donald Byrd, and Stanley Turrentine in France in the 1990s.

I certainly do not recall a box set, and I have followed most Lester Young releases closely since the 1970s.

Me too. By contrast, the earlier Atlantic albums are the Mingus that I listen to the most.

What is being discussed and argued here is nothing new. There has long been a tension between the creative forces in jazz, which have been predominantly black, and the critical establishment that has been predominantly white. I find it interesting and ironic that the advent of bebop, which was almost entirely a black creation, marked the time when audiences for jazz become more and more white. In the end, of course, it is the quality of writing about jazz that matters, not race. But it is not so simple that we can just wish this tension away.

RIP to one of the last true giants.

Two of my favorites.

Very nice! I really liked listening to Armstrong reminiscing at length about his time with Oliver and the recordings.

I recall reading an interview with an old Jamaican musician who argued that the evolution of the ska beat from calypso came initially from Jamaican musicians trying to swing US style but not getting it right.

RIP - He was a truly fine artist.

It would be an interesting research project for someone like Lewis Porter to document as much as possible the emergence of a Philadelphia school of tenor saxophone. Unfortunately, most of the people who could have contributed new key information for this have already left us.

When we hear a tenor player sounding like Coltrane, we usually assume that it is because of the influence of Coltrane. But I wonder if, in the case of Jimmy Heath, some of the influence also went in the other direction.

The Jimmy Heath solo here at 1:42, particularly the entry, has always sounded very Coltranesque to me. But this was recorded in April, 1953. Was Coltrane himself that Coltranesque back then? Were they working this out together in Philadelphia? Thoughts?

Yes, the Savory set is a no brainer if you like swing era jazz at all.

I think that an early recordings of Mary Lou Williams set that includes everything with Andy Kirk would work in that regard. It could also include her 1940s recordings on Asch that are not widely known.

This will probably give more information about the age distribution of people here at the forum than about people who buy Mosaic boxes.

Sounds great. Congrats!

What I had in mind was something a bit different. The database would have a better, clearer and more elaborate format than discogs. One of the reasons for having a jazz database is the ability to search by musicians, arrangers, and composers as well as a headline artist or group. It can potentially call up sessions as well as albums, and also search (call up) artists and musicians in that medium. I now have a database like that, but I had to invest more time than I would have liked into entering artists, arrangers, sessions, session dates, etc. (Discogs does not offer these functions. It does not even have a listing of musicians, recording dates, or session information for every album). What I was suggesting is that it would be beautiful if you could buy such a database that is not just an empty shell but already populated for a large number of albums. That would allow us to mold it into representing our collections with a minimal amount of effort. Yes, I would think that it could certainly be done.

Yes. The easiest database to use would be one where there is already a preloaded comprehensive set of entries of albums with detailed discographical information. Then there could be a way to quickly create a subset of albums that are held one's collection from that base, including the option of adding manually sessions or concerts that might have been left out. That would save hours and hours of work that we probably duplicate with each other over and over again.

The English trad jazz scene was a bit different than on the continent due partly to the fact that the UK had tougher restrictions on allowing foreign musicians to come and work there. A central figure in the French trad jazz scene was Claude Luter, who continued the tradition into the 21st century. The scene received a big boost when Sidney Bechet moved to Paris.

Wow. That is.great site. Thanks

They are also on the earlier McMaster version. That trio session has always been one of my favorites, and as much for Philly Joe Jones as for Sonny Clark.

I mean that versions of these concerts have been circulating. I don't mean that Elemental bootlegged them. Sorry if the wording was ambiguous.

Looks good. From the track listing, it looks like LP 3 comes from Copenhagen 10/24/66 (Side 1) and Arhus 11/21/69 (Side 2). Those concerts have been bootlegged.