John L

The mature Esther Phillips can be an acquired taste. The rasp can put you off at first. But the taste is definitely worth acquiring. She could get quite deep and subtle, and carried the whole blues with her at all times. Little Esther Phillips I can take or leave, but Big Esther Phillips is in my constant rotation.

Looking at the title of the thread, I was expecting another Wynton Marsalis interview.

Interesting discussion here - yea, I would also say that pitch and nuance are a good part of what makes Gene Ammons playing so moving and distinctive. So I guess if his pitch and nuance doesn't do it for you, you are not going to like him much. As far as "repeating the same thing," that may refer in part to his very relaxed approach - it often feels as if Ammons is not deliberately try to make new things happen as opposed to creating a good context where they might naturally emerge. I actually find that refreshing. And Jug can get away with it since he is one of those people who sound so damn good even playing just a set melody.

I was wondering the same thing. Bob Brookmeyer had strong opinions about a lot of music and artists, sometimes very negative, and I am sure that he had good reasons for them. He expressed a number of them while interacting with us at Jazz Corner, although did not always bother to provide justifications. After all, he was Bob Brookmeyer and we weren't.

I'm happy to see this thread revived. This is the thread that fostered my appreciation for Chet Baker. The recommendations Brownie and Jim R made for me on page 1 of this thread took me on a journey that I never came back from.

Very nice post, MG. Thanks. I have also been a huge fan of Gene Ammons most of my life. Jim's comment about about separate People Who Get Gene Ammons and People Who Don't Get Gene Ammons camps reminded me of an interaction back at Jazz Corner some years ago. We were listing our favorite tenor saxophone players and I listed Ammons right near the top with Lester Young and John Coltrane. None other than Bob Brookmeyer gave me hell for it - how could I possibly suggest that Gene Ammons might belong on a list together with these truly immortal names? To each his own. Like for MG, Gene Ammons is someone who has consistently brought me enormous musical enjoyment.

RIP

I just downloaded iTunes 12.4.3.1. Was that ever a terrible mistake! Those of you have have iPod Classics, be careful! As people have been worried about, iTunes is no longer thinking about the iPod Classic when it updates iTunes. The new iTunes is much much worse with the iPod Classic. For starters, there is no option any more to have a column browser for the menu that shows the content of the iPod classic. Therefore, you cannot see and manage the music any more like in the past. REALLY SUCKS!!!!!

You did. Mine is finally shipping.

Yea, mine hasn't shipped yet either. I wonder if they ran out of the first batch already?

I don't fool with LPs much any more, but there is only one approach that I used for warped LPs - increase the weight of the needle. If the LP is not too warped, a bit more weight might do the trick.

I recall a pretty extraordinary Down Beat article by McDonough where he argued that anyone who likes late period Coltrane must be suffering from psychological issues. The music is so plainly terrible, in his opinion, that it can only be embraced by someone who is in denial of an evident fact.

Yes, these sessions were important and amazing enough to make one VERY curious about how it all went down.

Didn't Quartet Out have something called the Donkey Dix?

I just got a chance to hear this - a very fine release, indeed. The highlight for me is all the new music with Bird's working band from the Spring of 1949. Less than 19 minutes of music from these sessions was released up until now. Now we have 35 minutes more. This was the only time that Norman Granz allowed Bird to record with his working band. It is also the only studio recordings with the Dorham, Haig, Potter, Roach quintet (with Tommy Turk (tb) and Carlos Vidal (bgo) added on the April session). Bird is in great form too.

I'll be happy to take it in any form, and MP3s sounds great to me. Let's get it out, people!

I've been living in Beijing lately. Here we pay for a bit more for air in a different way - 1000s of dollars on machines and filters to purify the air in our apartments.

Well, the MP3 version finally appeared on Amazon: the MP3s are only $10 more expensive than the CD package.

I think that Santa Cruz is one of Braxton's best.

Thanks for that information.

Prison would be easier for ordering CDs than where I am.

So this appears to be a CD only offering. Right? No legit downloads for sale? I would buy a legit download, but I am not in a place where it is convenient to order a CD. So...

Very interesting. I have the Geneva Concert. So is it worth getting the CDs for just the two tracks with Ernie Henry? Are they earthshattering?

Having acquired over the years a rather large collection of live Monk (mostly in Europe) from the 60s, I find myself often choosing a random concert from that group for my Monk listening. One of the great pleasures of Monk is unpredictability, and sometimes I wish that I could listen to the most celebrated albums for the first time again and be completely surprised again. Since I can't do that, throwing on a random concert that I may have only heard a few times before usually does the trick.

RIP, a real loss.