John L

I like Parker and Drake very much together. They have found a means of bringing together swing, funk, and Afro-Cuban rhythms in a manner that sounds both completely contemporary and compelling. As for their place in jazz history, time will tell. But I am going to keep grabbing their releases and attending their concerts.

As we have learned, Sonny Criss was terminally ill and apparently in pain at the time that he took his life.

Good record!

"Band of the people" is right. I grew up in Berkeley and TOP was a integral part of our street community. You could go down to Flint's BQ on a given night and see the TOP front line sitting at one of the tables working out some charts with ribs and cornbread. (Sadly, I believe that Flint's shut down very recently.) It is hard for me to think objectively about their music. It was so much a part of my youth. Every song brings back the anguish of young love. Conan should check in here. I remember a thread that he participated in at the old Jazz Central Station BBS some years ago where it was noted that the horn section of TOP was much tighter than Miles, Coltrane, and Adderley in the classic sextet.

I have heard some things by Rob Swift that sound interesting. This is something that I would definitely need to hear before laying down a big head 20. I will only agree to "money for shit" in this case if I am getting "THE shit."

Will they reproduce a color version of that beautiful cover photo on "Oh, Baby?"

that Mulligan set is very tempting. Too bad they couldn't have made that one a budget-priced package as well.

I didn't realize that there exists a video. I will have to track that down.

I agree with virtually all of the above comments. As good as Criss played in the 40s and 50s, I think that he really hit his stride in the 60s and 70s. I like all of the Prestige records very much. I think that Criss already had everything together for "Crossroads" session that he did for Savoy in 1959. Certainly, get Crisscraft. I like "Out of Nowhere" even more. Blues Pour Filtrer is fantastic. And DO NOT neglect the live recording with the George Arvantis trio that was just re-released a few months ago. This is top drawer Criss stretching out for some dazzling extended solos.

Well, there's a fair amount of JATP stuff on the old box, but I think some new things got unearthed afterwards. The Jam Session is definitely on there - BETTER be, you can't have Bird on Verve w/o "Funky Blues"! The MAIN omission, now that I get the thing out and look at it, is the session w/Machito, and that's just wrong. Don't know how THAT happened. John, I got your PM, btw. Thanks! I dug out my lps too to take a gander - I just didn't remember that stuff being on there! Turns out I had the 6 lp set "THE VERVE YEARS". Three twofers. It's an American Verve set with a 1976 copyright on it. The three two-fers were what I had too. I didn't remember that a complete LP set came out.

I really enjoy Mal Waldron's "the Git Go" and "The Seagulls of Kristiansund," which were recording at the Village Vanguard in September, 1986 with Woody Shaw, Charlie Rouse, Reggie Workman, and Ed Blackwell. Waldron and Blackwell burn together like extra virgin olive oil and fresh garlic. There is nothing else like it! In the liner notes to "Seagulls," Waldron comments "we did three sets a night and three tunes per set throughout the week - I guess we recorded enough music for six albums. Does anybody know anything about the status of those tapes?

With the BIG horn of King Curtis. Everyone should own this one.

There is a 2-CD Roomful of Blues set on 32jazz that is well worth searching for. One disk features Joe Turner and the other disk has Cleanhead Vinson. Both sessions were quite successful.

I don't even remember there being a complete LP set. When was that released?

I am not really an audiophile, but I couldn't stand the muffled sound on the long-box version. I was used to the LPs, which were far superior. The new reissue of King of the Delta Blues Singers is MUCH more enjoyable than the long box, with sound surpassing the LP version. I hope that they remaster volume 2 of King of the Delta Blues Singers as well. In fact, it is a bit curious that they haven't done it yet.

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.