John L

I join the majority opinion on this one. I bought it when it first came out and absolutely love it! Back before the complete Bird on Verve was released, you could hear stories about Bird's artistic demise during the later period of his life. Looking at pictures of Bird from that time, you could believe it too. The limited number of Verve Bird LPs available often came with a qualifying line to the effect that this happens to be one of the occasions during the Verve years where Bird still played well. Upon purchasing the complete Verve set, I was curious and prepared to listen to the deterioration and decline of a great artist. Imagine my surprise to hear Bird playing at a consistently brilliant level all the way through the box! There are no duds. Some things worked better than others, but Bird had it to the very end and here is the proof. Norman Granz went a bit overboard in trying to prevent Bird from giving "cheap" sessions for the label. He only let Bird record with just his working group once. As a result, however, we have a treasure chest of Bird performing in all sorts of different contexts, with all-star quartets and quintets, with strings, with big bands, with Afro-Cuban bands. The genius always comes through. I don't think that you will be sorry.

You might check out Otis Clay: "Soul Man: Live in Japan" He had a band with him back then called Chicago Fire. They burned up to their name.

AMG says that the 4-disk box set on Good Time Jazz of the complete recordings of Lou Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band is "absolutely essential for all traditional jazz fans and historians." I enjoy listening to Lou Watters every now and again but...

I didn't even know that Van Morrison plays alto sax. Does he play on any of his other recordings?

Those are interesting comments coming from Jimmy Heath. For me, it is just the opposite. Sonny Criss would be very high on my list of most underrated jazz artists. So who are you going to believe? Me or Jimmy Heath? I have always loved Sonny Criss. There is something about the way he gets into the blues, twisting and turning them, that penetrates deep into my soul. Among altos, only Bird and Ornette can do the same to me. As for Sonny's Dream, that is one of those albums that I have always wanted to like much more than I actually do. I am also a Horace Tapscott fan. Combining Tapscott and Criss (and finally giving Tapscott an opportunity to record some of his music) was an inspired choice. The record is unique. As has been mentioned, Criss' playing is often very impassioned. So why am I unable to enjoy this disk as much as many of Criss' and Tapscott's other records? I am not really sure. But it may have to do with two factors. I tend to like Criss in a more loose atmosphere that leaves him room for a lot of invention. Although he plays well throughout the album, I get the feeling that Criss never feels comfortable enough here to really "step out" in the way that he does on more familiar blues and standards. Second, I think that Tapscott's music gets a lot of its force from his own unique brand of hard-driving and pulsating piano, which is unfortunately absent here. (Although complaining about Tommy Flanagan is something like blasphemy against jazz.) At any rate, this is a record that I play quite often under the expectation that someday I will fall deeply in love. It hasn't quite happened yet.

Understood. That is why we need competition in the industry.

Fascinating, Shrdlu! Absolutely fascinating. That must have been such an amazing experience! I have a dynamite BMG CD of the original Jazz Epistles recordings from 1959, featuring Kippie Moeketsi all the way through (together with Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela, and Jonas Gwangwa). "Jazz in Africa: Volume 1" Camden CDN 1004, 1998 (BMG UK and Ireland)

I do think that song searches there can be quite useful and helpful, and to some extent getting info on sideman appearances as well. However, the idea of going to AMG looking for dates is very iffy, IMO. They constantly confuse dates of recording with dates of release, and even when they don't, they tend to get them wrong a lot of the time. That would be part of the beauty of getting the database as a download. You have the information? You can fix the errors.

I think you'd need pretty big harddrive for that! You mean that it wouldn't fit on a CD ROM? It could be a stripped down version with just the data. No pictures or reviews necessary. Although some of the reviews are good, I find the real value of the AMG to be the cross-referencing ability of identifying where sessions and songs appeared, who played on them, what date, etc.

Hmmm. I wish that AMG would exploit another way to make money. Sell the database to us for private use! It would be a dream come true to download the AMG database in a manner that allows us to edit and add what we want, and then create a subdatabase for our own collections. We could then pay for monthly updates.

As far as I know, the Coltrane performance of "One Down, One Up" from the March 28, 1965 Village Gate concert remains unissued. I wonder why?

I never understood where the old man got that one from. He himself was half Irish and half a variety of German called "Pennsylvania Dutch", and since I STILL don't know what the hell "Pennsylvania Dutch" are, I canonly conclude that he was proving his point by demonstrating it. "Pennsylvania Dutch" is really "Pennsylvania Deutsch," or families of German immigants who came to Pennsylvania. The "Deutsch" became "Dutch" after the outbreak of World War II.

Pres was, is, and will always be the man.

Given that all of this material is in the public domain in Europe, why doesn't some company do the jazz world a favor and make a single disk with all of Freddie Webster's recorded solos? That would be an extremely interesting and enlightening collection.

As the 20th century has shown us, the blues offers endless possibilities for interpretation and creativity. For the future, I understand the burden of the above question to be WHO is going to do it? It is hard to create anything of lasting value while using something other than one's own native language.

Milt Jackson's "Plenty, Plenty Soul" is also one to have. "Here Comes Louis Smith" is still another fine recording with Cannonball.

I think what Chuck meant is that is is depressing to think that someone would wait for years to hear this music in anticipation of a sonic upgrade. There will always be sonic upgrades. Life is short. Ornette is now!

James Clay more than lives up to legend on this one.

Interesting!

Funny. I was just listening to "New York R&B" yesterday. Anyone who doubts Cecil's feel for the blues should listen again to "O.P."

Actually, Freddie Webster is on quite a lot of recordings. But he hardly ever solos! I enjoy the session with Bud Powell.

If pressed to choose one, I might actually pick Thelonious Monk. Does Jimmy Yancey count as a jazz pianist? Johnny Jones is another favorite outside of jazz proper who could REALLY make it blue. Jay McShann and Bobby Timmons also deserve consideration. I agree with the above citations of Gene Harris, Junior Mance, Ray Bryant, and Red Garland. Jack McDuff also played piano every now and again.

...well, I was getting ready to write that I agree with you 100%. But then it dawned on me that that would be calling you an asshole, a jerk, a fat fuck, and an Internet whore. So I guess that I will just keep quiet.

Jim S: I agree with you. In fact, I often think that jazz is currently in a transition period for exactly this reason. In my opinion, the blues language is what gave jazz most of its power, beauty, and logic of development in the 20th century. (Some here might disagree, but that is my opinion.) But the blues core has been weakening since the 1970s. Furthermore, the efforts of Marsalis and others to bring it back illustrate (IMO) the inherent difficulties of such an endeavor. It is doubtful that today's young musicians are going to feel and identify with the blues in the way that young musicians did in 1950. Therefore, as much as I am personally attached to the blues, I think that it is understandable that artists today should be looking toward other languages, maybe related to the blues but still fundamentally different in some way. I agree with you that other powerful languages also exist that can be fused with jazz. As jazz has become an international music, we may actually be at the dawn of another golden age for jazz. The possibilities are endless. As for me and the rest of my time here, my heart and soul are gonna stay with my good ole blues.

I just recalled that there is an excellent date with Groove Holmes: "Soul Mist" Harold Vick is also on tenor.