John L

I think that the CD format is dying and will die. Even to the degree that there is still a market for a similar hard transferable digital medium, CDs are already large and bulky compared to alternative digital storage. As technology progresses, that will become more and more the case. I can imagine a future purchase of the complete works of Miles Davis. It is a large book, with pictures, discographical information, and essays. At the beginning of every chapter is a little chip that contains the music being discussed in high quality WAVE. You will be able to put that chip directly into a computer or digital player. So who needs CDs?

Nice post, MG I agree about the attractiveness of Nat and Blue's pure sound. To that "lovely sound" group, I would also add Miles Davis, Art Farmer, and Thad Jones. They didn't need many notes to really move you. They could do it with the beauty of their sound/tone.

It is a bit ironic that the digital revolution was initially about expanding dynamic range. Some of the earlier attemtps to do this went too far, just like they went overboard in channel separation when stereo first appeared. I have some symphonic classical CDs that are virtually unlistenable for the opposite reason that is being discussed here: either the soft parts are inaudible or the load parts rattle the walls. Clearly, it is not compression that is an evil in and of itself. It just needs to be used properly.

If those first sides that Inez made with the Andrewettes right after she left the Caravans ever make it to the digital age, some people are going to be STUNNED.

I had NO idea he recorded for Vee-Jay. What on earth were the Carters thinking of? MG Sorry. My mistake. He didn't record for Vee Jay. Collectables packaged up his Cadence LPs on CDs in exactly the same way they did the Vee Jay catalog. So I naturally assumed in my ignorance... They did release a box set of all of these recordings together.

A rather large CD box set of his Vee Jay recordings was released a while back. I found it curious that there would be a market for a giant and expensive box set of Don Shirley. But I guess that they had somebody in mind to target.

Listening to Seven Standards and a Blues makes me wish that it had been Seven Blues and a Standard. I really love Henry's singifying blues solo on Specific Gravity.

You will probably get a lot of different opinions here. One of the problems is that some of Lewis' own best playing is with rather out of tune bands. Of the discs that I have, I like the Beverley Caverns sessions quite a bit. I also like "With Kid Shots" on American, although be warned that some of the playing here by the band is rather rough. I also find the Riverside album George Lewis of New Orleans (Original Zenith Jazz Band and Eclipse Alley Five) to be interesting, although perhaps primarily from the historical point of view. I find it to be one of the more convincing of many attempts to get older New Olreans musicians in the 1940s to resurrect the music lias they played it 30 years previous to then.

Yes. Sometimes jazz is not like a Superman comic book. Its musicans don't always divide easily into good guys and bad guys.

You suspect correctly. This guy is based in Europe and uses the 50-year public domain law to remaster official CDs. He has some strange program that allows him to do most of this work without even listening to the music. In certain cases, the results are interesting.

I hope that "solos" here is interpreted loosely to include obligatos. God forbid that Mosaic should make the same mistake that Sony did for their 4-disc set and leave out "I Left My Baby." Pres' work on that track is just UNREAL.

Yeah, but I got one problem with Ace. They own the Duke catalog, right? I know they've put out some fine Gatemouth comps - but where is the full-on, we-love-him-and-he-deserves-it treatment of one JUNIOR PARKER??? I've seen one lousy Ace LP, and he's not even listed on the site under "artists" at all. And Junior Parker, from the start of his career to the end, was one of the very greatest blues/R&B/soul singers of them all. Is it possible Ace doesn't own all of the Duke recordings? I know that MCA put out some Junior Parker comps on CD - did they lease or do they maintain the rights? And what of his label-mate and co-concert attraction, Bobby Bland? Personally, every single thing I've heard by Junior Parker rates as nothing less than "good" and most of the time is flat-out GREAT, from the Duke sides to the Mercury LPs and even what I've heard of the Groove Merchant years at the end of his life (haven't heard the Beatles covers, but that's about it). Call me crazy, I like Bobby Bland but LOVE Junior Parker. It would be nice if Ace felt the same way. Ace does not own the rights to the Duke-Peacock catalog, UNFORTUNATELY. They have only leased material from this catalog on occasion, and very infrequently. In fact, Junior Parker has fared relatively well in resissues compared to most other artists on Duke/Peacock. At least MCA gave him two full discs before ending their Duke reissue program altogether. I was a bit disappointed when the Ace O.V. Wright CD came out. Even though it is an outstanding one-disc collection, Ace decided to duplicate a good part of the previous one-disc MCA reissue, as opposed to focusing on the great material that has never been on CD. I patiently waited for a follow-up, but it never came. Only a small fraction of the Peacock gospel catalog has made it to CD. Even the Spirit of Memphis have no CD release of their Peacock recordings (although Acrobat put out a tremendous 2-disc set of their King recordings a few years ago). A high quality good-selling biography of the Dixie Hummingbirds led to a movie, but not to any releases of their best recordings, which are on the Peacock label. When will James Davis' great Duke recordings make it to CD? Probably never. I get the feeling that the Duke-Peacock catalog is under lock and key. The leasing price is evidently too high for companies like Ace to break even releasing this material. Otherwise, I am sure that they would. This is one of the saddest reissue stories in American music.

As I recall, those Crown/Kent LPs didn't even come with dust jackets. Is was easier to find them in drug stores than record stores.

There are a lot of good options for external hard drives. I have a number of them. The single most important thing to know about external hard drives is that they will eventually wear out and fail, often without warning. Therefore, make sure everything is backed up. If you are not using an external hard drive just to back up your internal hard drive, but to expand its capacity, it makes very good sense to buy 2 of them. Back everything up on the second.

Actually, these sides were recorded in Memphis by Sam Phillips, who sold the masters to the Biharis. No. Only a handful of tracks here were recorded by Phillips. After Phillips sold Moanin' at Midnight/How Many More Years to Chess, the Biharis broke relations with Sun and began legal action. They thought that they had an exclusive deal with Phillips regarding Wolf. Jules Bihari then traveled to Memphis himself, hired Ike Turner, and recorded Howlin' Wolf on his own (with Ike Turner on piano). The majority of the music here is from these sessions. It is interesting how the law suit was settled. Bihari agreed to give Howlin' Wolf to Chess if he could get exclusive rights to Rosco Gordon. No too fair a trade, I would say. In retrospect, it worked out well. Gordon's style was better served by Modern, and Wolf thrived with Chess in Chicago.

Bihari and Turner also recorded Howlin' Wolf: some of the fiercest blues ever put on wax, with highly distorted jazzy guitar from Willie Johnson.

Yeah, but why hasn't PJ released LOOKIN' AHEAD, their second album and to my ears one of their absolute best? I've been confused by PJ's choice of re-issues for a very long time! Cali: That is in included on the Mosaic Box Set, along with Freedom Sound, Tough Talk, Heat Wave, Stretchin' Out, The Thing, Uh Huh, Powerhouse, Give Peace a Chance, and bonus material. So all that is left for single releases from this period (at least until the set sells out) are the live recordings.

A very large share of that music has been reissued recently in this form: VERY raw but deep blues from the South during the peak blues years in America: this comes from DEEP in the juke joints. I absolutely love it! I have never doubted that Modern Records is more important than me.

Looks like she blows a pretty big piece.

This is what Dave Wild writes about the book Also I guess that the John Coltrane Reference is already available. I am not planning to fork out 150 for it, but I would still very much like to see it. More to the point, I would like to hear some of this new treasure chest of Coltrane!

It would be a great art music indeed that could express the range and nuances of human emotions embodied in the popular musics of the world.

Walkin' Art Blakey Quintet at Birdland Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers. Hard Bop arrives!

For some reason, this stuff is very popular in Russia, where I have spent a lot of time. I never did care for it, myself.

Good point. I guess that I was thinking of "late-60s post bop" in musical, as opposed to chronological, terms. A lot of 70s post bop was a continuation of late-60s post bop. P.S. Arthur Blythe's recordings with Horace Tapscott were late-60s proper.