John L

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.

I never heard the Mosaic set, but the 3 remastered CDs sound fine to my ears. Perhaps of significance, the 3 CDs were released after the Mosaic set. So most likely they tried to at least equal the remastering of the already existing Mosaic set. On the other hand, I don't know why I am even commenting as I am sure there are plenty of people at this forum who have heard them both.

A few thoughts here - Sure, blues can be great both in instrumental and vocal form. Here at this forum, we are particularly aware that some of the greatest blues ever played was in strictly instrumental form. Nevertheless, when we think about blues as a genre of music in the narrow sense of the word, there are very different perceptions in black and white America, and those perceptions are related to vocals versus guitar. I remember one year in the early 90s when they had Oakland and San Francisco blues festivals in the same month. No overlap of players. The San Francisco affair featured mostly guitar slingers, both white and black, and the Oakland blues festival featured almost only singers: Johnnie Taylor, Tyrone Davis, Latimore, Clarence Carter, Denise Lasalle, and a few others. There were almost no white people at the Oakland event and the San Francisco event was dominated by whites. Today on the "blues" bandstand, good guitar playing is accepted by most as a license to sing, no matter how terribly, i.e. you can't make on the blues bandstand playing poor guitar and singing well, but playing guitar well and singing poorly is accepted as the norm. That is the sense in which a lot of people now think of the blues as guitar music.

. I can't remember any exact quotes, but I know that Muddy Waters also stressed the importance of vocals in the blues. Great vocals is what I miss in a lot of the blues played today.

So this is our yearly dose of previously unissued Charlie Parker with Strings? Count me in. I'm a Bird junkie. Maybe Phil will include some alternates of pause tracks too. D)

My boyhood hero!

Prince was an amazing talent and musical presence, no doubt. For some reason, I have never been much of a fan of his singing voice. I would probably listen to him more often if not for that. I do love dancing to some of his stuff, especially Musicology. RIP to a true original in a time when originality was in short supply.

I am also a big fan of Franco and Dr. Nico. Papa Wemba had a more modern sound. Have you heard the self-titled disc on Sterns that begins with M'Fono Yami? That one knocked me out the first time that I heard it, and still does. His early discs with Zaiko Langa-Langa are classics, closer in style to the older Congolese Rhumba but still a step beyond it. Maybe try "Zaire-Ghana" if you can find it. "Zea" is more of the same. "La Voyageur" is another Papa Wemba album that gives me a lot of enjoyment. Beginning in the 90s, I was disappointed in a number of his records and eventually stopped paying attention. The music somehow lost its Congolese backbone and became more like the generic soukous+makossa+zouk groove that can get monotonous. Maybe he still dropped some good albums in recent years, but I haven't heard them. Et Viva La Musique was the last Papa Wemba album I heard that I really liked.

Farewell to one of the most dynamic and creative African musicians and artists. Personally, he was my favorite Congolese artist after Franco. He didn't always make good records in recent years, but he sure did made a handful of classic recordings that will always endure. RIP

RIP

Check out My Baby Upsets Me on Disc 3. Nothing complicated here, just the Basie band at its most soulful backing Joe Williams in his element. The audience falls out. I did too. This is why we miss big bands. Only they could do that simple special thing that the Basie band does here and on many other tracks from this box.

Ubu - Yes. The HEP CD is "Jubilee Alternatives," for the most part alternate takes of tracks released elsewhere, most notably on the the Jubilee Shows disks that appeared a while back. I understand your confusion. When I bought the HEP CD, I first thought that "alternatives" referred to alternative to what Basie was recording on Columbia.

Thanks, Ubu. Yes, it looks like there may only be two tracks with Lester as a leader in the studio on Jubilee. I forgot that the Jubilee session with Coleman Hawkins was recorded live. There is quite a lot of Basie on Jubilee in 44-45 with and without Pres. There is more than a full CD worth of tracks with Pres in the band, and he solos on the majority of tracks.

Almost. As we discussed earlier in this thread, Pres also recorded a few things in the studio for Jubilee as a leader and with Basie.

Still curious. It would seem to concern disc 7 that puts the 1944 Verve session after the first Aladdin sessions from 1945-1946. So the sessions in question are on the same disc, and one would think that they could have just reversed the order of presentation. Anyway....:)

OK, thanks.

Looks and sounds great from the samples! In the notes, Mosaic says that they couldn't present the post-Basie recordings in chronological order for contractual reasons. What is that all about? What kind of a contract would prevent them from putting the music in chronological order?

I was just thinking about him because of his birthday. A great loss. RIP

Yea, but those are SOME kind of coat tails to ride on. It went on well into the 70s too. For example, I consider "Angel" to be one of her most definitive performances. I get major goosebumps every time I hear her sing the bridge after the instrumental passage - just unreal. By the late 70s, she lost a step. Her voice changed. It happens to the best of us. She was still capable of great performances, but it never again quite reached the earlier heights. Should we hold that against her? Yes, there are plenty of other great singers. But Aretha is certainly in my Pantheon. Pre-war, post-war, any kind of music - Aretha in her prime could hold her own with anybody.

Come on. He's mackin'. We used to call those pimp socks back in the 70s. You HAD to wear them.