John L

Thanks for those recollections, Jim. I had heard some previous stories of how Johnnie Taylor could abuse his musicians. Sometimes, his touring bands in the 80s and 90s looked and sounded as demoralized as they must have felt. That is interesting about Little Joe Blue. I didn't realize that he was such a good guy in that respect. He had a lot of talent. I almost think that he might have been better off never having heard BB King. The influence on his sound became too dominating (IMO).

Yea, I've heard some stories myself. One of the reasons that I never got to experience a live show like the one recorded here (other than the exceptional band) is that Johnnie Taylor in the 1980s often used to get seriously loaded before shows. At one show I attended, he could barely stand up. It took a lot of nerve too, as he was leading a soul revue that included Tyrone Davis, Clarence Carter, Latimore, and Denise LaSalle. A lot of people just walked out on JT. But that voice... With Little Johnny Taylor, it was really an issue of only one song, but a really big song. Little Johnny Taylor had a #1 smash with Part Time Love in the early 60s at a time when JT had yet to really dent the charts. When JT went on tour, people would get mixed up and call out "Part Time Love." Very smartly, JT decided to join 'em rather than fight 'em. He began featuring Part Time Love in his shows, and even on the posters for the shows. JT's version of Part Time Love is on his "Raw Blues" Stax LP. Ironically, JT went on to incredible success on the R&B charts for a whole decade, while Little Johnny Taylor drfited into obscurity (although he struck one more time with "Everybody Knows About My Good Thing."). I heard little Johnny Taylor in an almost empty Oakland club in the mid-1990s, and the pipes were all still there. It was riviting, a little like hearing Little Willie John back from the dead singing the down home blues.

You haven't heard it for good reason. It doesn't exist...at least in reality. It has existed in my wildest dreams for many years now. I have the first few volumes of the Motown singles and like them quite a bit. It is mostly gritty & bluesy R&B of the likes of Barrett Strong, Mable John, Sammy Ward, and the Contours, with some top notch "proto-Motown sound" singles from people like Mary Wells, Smokey, and the underappreciated Brenda Holloway: very good R&B and quite different than the factory-type Motown pop sound that emerged in the mid-60s.

I caught Curtis at Winterland on the same tour. Great stuff. It's interesting that this album started sounding stale and even corny to me for many years. But now it sounds just as good as when it was released. Funny how time plays ticks like that.

You guys won't be sorry.

Holy shit! How could this one have remained in the vaults at Fantasy all of these years? This is the best present that Concord has given us to date. JT live in 1972. I used to love hearing JT in concert, but I never had the opportunity to hear ANYTHING like this. I haven't seen the credits yet, but the band kicks some serious ass, and JT is...words fail me. Put this one immediately in the all-time classics pile. This is JT's answer to JB's Live at the Apollo and Sam's Live at the Harlem Club.

I'd be interested to know the reference for this. I follow the Coltrane discography rather closely and AFAIK the only known recording of the quintet with Coltrane, Dolphy, and Montgomery is a poor quality audience tape from the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco that is in the possession of the estate. Commercial release of this material would almost certainly have to come through Ravi. There are many issues there but the question of "putting up the money"...at least as it applies to the LOC Pres recording...is not one of them, at least not to anything like the same degree. There is a large body of unissued Coltrane work that the estate controls, some of it unissued material from Impulse, some of it privately recorded, and some of the latter in the posession of the estate, e.g., the "Titans of Tenor" concert from February '66 at which Ayler performed with Coltrane. The basic consideration for commercial issue is whether the estate wants to do it. Ed: For all I know, this could be the same tape. I just remember the following: about 4-5 years a tape was "discovered" of the quintet with Montgomery (or sextet, I guess, if Dolphy was there, or was it pianoless?). I recall that it was in the possession of somebody (maybe this person was respesenting the estate. I don't remember now) who put a definite price tag on the copyright for commercial release. There were some brief negotiations, but no deal was reached at the requested price. I also recall that the company in question was concerned about the sound quality. So it probably was an audience tape.

By our own Chris Albertson, if I am not mistaken. Very nice music.

On the positive side, it is nice to know that there still exist Lester Young recordings that we haven't heard, and hopefully will have the pleasure of doing so sometime in the future.

Milan: I'm sorry if you've been going through hard times, and hope that things are looking up for you now. It's great to have you back! John

On the subject of unissued recordings, there are still the John Coltrane quintet tapes with Wes Montgomery that nobody was willing to put the money up for many years ago. So these kind of delays could be indefinite.

If they did, it wouldn't matter much. Clearly, they dislike this type of jazz as a rule, and give out ratings for it based on the wrong criteria. I'd agree with that John, except for the fact that they seem to like the sessions when they're listed as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis & Johnny Griffin. The three titles listed under Eddie's name get 4, 3 1/2 and 3 1/2 stars. Flip to the two titles listed under Johnny's name, "Lookin' At Monk" and " Tough Tenor Favorites", and the ratings drop to 2 1/2 each. Do they jusy not like Griff? Later, Kevin Kevin: I haven't looked at a recent edition of the Guide in some time. From past versions, I got the impression that they don't like the Griff & Lockjaw stuff much in general, but they still feel obliged in the interest of objectivity to give out nontrivial relative ratings that don't trash everything. As for other hard bop and soul jazz, the relative ratings tend to reflect the degree to which the recordings are perceived to "transcend the limited genre," as opposed to being good examples of the genre itself, i.e. a blues number will receive higher marks not for good blues playing, but for some sort of arrangement that adds complexity "beyond" the blues. I seem to recall that earlier versions of the Guide gave virtually no four star ratings to these type of records. Then they gave in to criticism and felt obliged to increase the number of stars for some of them. But that didn't make the guide more informative. On the contrary.

What??? Does this mean to say that it is not possible to take the lacquer discs to some other building for making the digital masters? Or no state-of-the art digital preservation laboratory yet exists anywhere?

If they did, it wouldn't matter much. Clearly, they dislike this type of jazz as a rule, and give out ratings for it based on the wrong criteria.

Russian import? That must be from the SIS (Suitcase Import Series).

Sorry about that. I somehow missed your post. On the other hand, this one is even good enough to double post about.

On the subject of Percy Mayfield releases, no fan will want to be without the beautiful compilation of his best RCA material that was released last year. It may not quite reach the heights of the Specialty and Tangerine recordings, but it is still very very very good.

This is it. It was another Rhino Handmade that is most likely long out of print now. It is a beautiful album, one of Scott's best (IMO).

Thanks, Brownie! That one is going near the top of my "to buy" list.

Thanks, Brownie. That looks interesting. Is it as good as the lineup would suggest?

Is there any other Bean on Savoy than "The Hawk Returns?" I haven't heard of any.

It's not that this sextet playing these pieces in 1964 lacks previous documentation. But, hey, bring it on!

The way Monk soloed on Rhythm A Ning was really a trip. Monk must of liked what he was doing himself, as he repeated the same approach at many different concerts. I listened to the 1961 Stockholm concert not long ago, and was epecially struck (again) by Monk's solo on Jackie-ing. Monk could play incredible solos on anything.

If you don't have the material on the RCA box, that is a great collection of music, some of my very favorite Pops. Part of it is from before 1935, but don't let that stop you.

RIP