John L

Hey, I want to nominate you for Dad of the Year! What other Dad would let his 8-year old take his Andrew Hill Mosaic set on the road as an easel? Now that is fatherly love!

Is the title track a cover of the Robert Kline original?

I wasn't planning to buy this set, but found it at a good price and took the plunge. It is easy to be cynical about it. This music was never meant to be heard in this manner. Miles always had the tape machine going at that time so as not to miss anything special. These 5 full cds all come from a 5-month period in the studio. That said, I have to admit that I am really enjoying it! If nothing else, it is a great historical document. But it is much more. Hearing the music as it actually went down somehow gives a much deeper feeling for, and understanding of, the end result. Besides, most of the tracks are blues or blue vamps. And I can never get enough of hearing Miles play the blues. Mercifully, the wah wah only briefly surfaces toward the end.

Somebody (I think maybe Albert Murray) once said that playing Monk's music is like riding a bicycle. There is something compelling about that metaphor, although exactly what is difficult to articulate. The rhythmic drive in Monk seems somehow circular. They didn't call him Sphere for nothing.

I think that the main point is the following: Rouse devoted himself to Monk's music completely. Rollins, Coltrane, and Griffin realized their ideas in the context of Monk's music. Rouse realized Monk's ideas in the context of Monk's music. One of the greatest aspects of Monk's art is his manner of comping or hitting single-note accents behind horn players. (the very thing that Miles hated!) Sometimes Rouse's steady flowing lines sound to me like deliberate fodder for Monk's mischievous poking and bashing.

That is what I am waiting for!!!!

I have never understood why some critics dismiss the Columbia Monk recordings. Could they have been so jaded by the steady flow of brilliant new Monk compositions in the 40s and 50s that the pace in the 60s just wasn't fast enough? The Riversides and Columbias reflect very different philosophies. Keepnews constantly challenging Monk by putting him in unfamiliar and varied contexts, and by influencing directly the choice of material. Columbia gave Monk virtual complete freedom (at least until the later years) to document his music the way he wanted to in the best possible sound. In many ways, the Columbia recordings were the supreme realization of Monk's musical conception. Yet the Riverside strategy helped prevent Monk from getting lazy and just "coasting," as he sometimes was inclined to do. In retrospect, we are very lucky that we have both sets of recordings.

Yea, I agree that "Good Move" was a disappointment. I had high hopes for Stanley Turrentine's "Rough a Tumble" a few years ago. Lots of talent, few sparks (IMO). I was expected the new Charlie Rouse to be a bit more interesting.

Good question. The power of Organissimo numbers? We could all push toward the vaults at once.

How long should we give Blue Note to get this out before we go in and get it ourselves?

Coltrane apparently used to jam with Larry Young sometimes. No recordings that I know of.

I agree 100% on the contributions of Farrell to this one. I am not yet familiar with "Dance With Death" (Somebody want to burn me a copy? ), but here Farrell sounds like he might have been listening to Joe Henderson's work on Black Fire, and listening well! Lenny White keeps it solid at all times. He doesn't make the mistake that some drummers do in trying to "follow" Hill's rhythmic accents into a change of tempo. Hill plays off the rhythm here in the best of his tradition. Some of the ensemble sections may not be tight enough to satisfy some listeners, but that is of little concern to me. This is my favorite Blue Note release or reissue in a LONG TIME. It sure makes me wonder what the other Andrew Hill in the vaults sounds like. Let us hear it, Michael!

I picked this one up after work and put it on my DiskMan. Man, I didn't even want to get home. This is the shit, people. There is some brilliant music here, absolutely brilliant! How this one didn't get reissued until now makes no sense at all. That groove in Plantation Bag is not ever going to leave my short term memory. The title track is sublime. So is Noon Tide. I say that we work to get Andrew back together with Lenny White. It WORKS.

Thanks for that information, Soul Stream. I had always wondered what happened to Fred Jackson, and whether or not he was still alive. Of course, "somebody told Braith" is not quite the same as an obituary. Who knows. Maybe he will still surface?

Speaking of the eighth wonder of the world, do NOT ignore: The latter disk actually includes a live version of "There it is." But it might be the updated version of "Since You've Been Gone" with Bobby Byrd that does it to death on that album. The former disk is already done completely to death during the first 12:00 of disk 1. The rest is the hardest funk overkill this side of the Payback itself.

This is a fantastic recording. It is the same as the "At the Crossroads with Sonny Criss" session that was originally released on Savoy.

Yes indeed. I agree that the Tommy McClennan was a crown jewel of that series. I play it quite often. But I would still reserve the supreme crown for the Robert Lee McCoy (Robert Nighthhawk). Before that disk, all reissues of that material were in absolutely terrible sound, with some tracks barely audible. That disk was like a dream come true for Robert Nighthawk lovers. For Blind Willie McTell fans, also be advised that JSP just released McTell's complete known recordings from 1927-1940 on 4 disks at a very low budget price (about $21).

When I was in high school and we made the rounds to the parties on Friday and Saturday night, the first thing we would look for were the Brown records. No Brown? We were gone. It didn't matter how many fine single ladies were there. Before long, we got smart and never came to a party Brownless. We started to Brown bag it. Fellas ah...(boom-boom-boom)...a brand new funk ah...(boom-boom-boom)...a brand new funk....ah

You could even die back then as long you were dead on the double bump.

You're getting the 9:14 version of "Get Up Off of That Thing" here. So what else could you possibly need?????? Maybe the devasting 12:00 remake of Sex Machine: When I ride, I want to glide, I need to ease my glide, I need cushions in my ride, I need cushions in my ride Now THERE is some deep existentialist shit.

Bird's quartets with Hank Jones or Al Haig and Max Roach were recorded in 1952 and 1953. If that doesn't satisfy the definition of "hard bop," then why?

Can we assign your essay in Philosophy 280B (Existentialism)?

I wonder if Dorn is aware that RTE France already released this (previously unreleased) part of the Olympia concert on CD a few years ago.

Nice post, Jim. I am sure that "There it is" has never received a more detailed examination. Your text reads the way that Greil Marcus would probably write if he were able to write in a coherent and understandable manner. I will never listen to "There it is" the same way again. Despite all of the recognition, I still contend that James Brown is underrated and underappreciated. He changed American music in the 20th century as much as anyone. Even his band members underestimated his role in the mix. When his illustrious bands quit him in the 60s and 70s, Brown responded by putting together a group of relative unknowns who, within a couple years time, were playing the best funk on the planet. There was only one common denominator and that was James. Good God!

If I was off, then sorry. I just remembered that the discussion on that thread at one time moved into an assessment of the place of "tightness of horns" in jazz. TOP was held up as the example of tightness, and you were using the example of Dr. Jeckle as "insufficient tightness," (if I recall correctly).