John L

I first became interested in jazz around the time of Louis Armstrong's death. I wanted to pick up a good Armstrong record, but didn't look in any guide books for advice. I ended up buying the one called something like Louis Armstrong's Greatest Hits that includes an endorsement on the cover by Pops himself to the effect that "this is my greatest album." In fact, it was one of his worst - a poorly recorded mediocre concert from the 60s. So that didn't do it for me. About a half year later, I came across the 2-LP memorial album released by RCA. The first disc contained the 1932-1933 recordings and the second disc was 1945-1947. I decided to take a second chance. That changed my life. The RCA recordings remain some of my absolute favorites in Armstrong's discography. Years later, I discovered jazz guide books. That made it less fun.

Understood, but some of those short solos with Lunceford are more than enough to put him in my pantheon.

When they were first released, most of them contained music that was unavailable elsewhere. That was the primary point of the series. However, a lot of it has been released recently on the various Spanish labels. I haven't kept track. So others will need to chime in. Some of the best (IMO) are: Vol. 12, which contains the so-called "apartment sessions" from 1950 - Bird captured in incredible form by Joe Maini and Don Laphere in their home. Vol. 17, which has all of the Bands for Bonds broadcasts: Bird & Diz play Tiger Rag, etc. Vol. 8, which contains a number of interesting items, including a well recorded concert at Symphony Hall with Red Rodney, Al Haig, Teddy Kotick, and Roy Haynes. Vol. 24 & 25, which contain the Open Door 1953 concert, were an incredible revelation when they were released, but can now be had on a single disc from one of the Spanish labels. I would guess that some of the best material from volumes 8, 12, & 17 has also been re-released recently on the Andoran labels.

Either that or there is something wrong with the Linksys settings. If your computer is successfully hooked up to Linksys, but you don't have wireless internet, there is probably something wrong with the Linksys settings for your internet signal. You can change those settings through the internet browser by going to a Linksys page. Give Linksys a call and they will take you there. I know that from painful experience. When I was using Linksys, my settings would go out of wack virtually every month. I have no idea why, but I don't use Linksys any more.

Chicago jazz just won't be the same without Fred. RIP

:lol:

I bought a Digipack in the 90s, and it has the shorter version of Afro Blue on it.

I downloaded and listened to the previously unreleased material. These tracks are quite good, with the 1956 sessions standing out in particular. That is perhaps not surprising, as Pres was in better shape in 1956 than 1953. All in all, this is a nice addition to Lester Young's discography. I can also verify Ubu's suspicion about the two Birdland tracks listed by Storyville (as reported by Marcel) as unreleased from April 15, 1953. They are indeed identical to the two track released in the Japanese live Pres box that are listed as being from January 15. Given the personnel, that date is most likely correct. There are similar broadcasts of this band from this Birdland gig on January 10th and 17th.

With this discographical help, I can download just the previous unknown tracks from iTunes. As I can make out, they constitute tracks 5-15 on disc 1 and 3-5 on disc 2. Right?

Great! Thank you very much for this information, Marcel.

Thanks for that clarification, Angie. For some reason, I was thinking about removal from the woman, not the man. Oops, sorry honey. I somehow forgot to take it out.

This would seem to be a major drawback for a sexually active woman. And why do medical professionals need to contact South African police when they see one?

Look at it this way. You also get Comin' Your Way, Jubilee Shout, A Chip Off The Old Block, Mr. Natural and In Memory Of (the last 2 never on CD outside the Mosaic, afaik). Of course, of course ... not that I wanted to complain. It's only that, if it's such a good album, it would have deserved a single reissue. How did it happen? Never leave your doors open with a rare LP on the turntable ... It wasn't rare yet back in 79.

It was a rather strange coincidence that, after decades of silence, many of the best Horos were finally issued as bootlegs last year. That must have taken out whatever remaining steam could have lingered in an already highly questionable market. Myself, I initially bought a number of the boots last year thinking that they were the already expected real deal before hearing that they weren't. Now, I am not enthusiastic about the thought of having to repurchase these titles, and am also beginning to think that I should track down the remaining titles that I want (as boots) before they disappear altogether. Of course, another reassuring post on this thread about the legit releases might make me decide otherwise.

This is a fantastic album, one of my favorite Turrentine's

Gato is still playing well. I saw him not long ago, and was very pleased. He is no longer as energetic, wild and aggressive as he was back in the day, but now concentrates on making every note really count, and usually does. Every time he puts the horn to his mouth, you KNOW you are in the presence of a real master.

I happen to be in the Bay Area at the moment, and will also be attending the show tonight. Will the Organissimo contingent be recognizable? You can find me with the biggest mouthful of Hamachi Sashimi.

I'm with you on that. As incredible as LaFaro and Gomez are, I would rather listen to other bass players, including with Bill Evans.

What happened after Trane would quite certainly not have happened the same way if Trane had remained on the scene. I often think the 80's and 90's would not have happened the same way if Mingus hadn't died. But people do die, and things go on without them, necessarily differently. It's interesting to fantasize, though. Personally I like to imagine the collaboration of Trane and the AACM crowd in Chicago. Imagine a group in 1969 with Trane, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, Steve McCall... Coltrane would have studied the value of space and silence from Roscoe? I could certainly imagine Coltrane working like (or with) Don Cherry on some world music fusion, although I don't think that Coltrane would have spread himself as thinly over the world music landscape as Cherry, and would probably have spent more time pushing in one or another direction. But who knows.

Maybe there was no way forward, but there was room for movement sideways, even backwards with a new twist. If Sonny Rollins had died in 1969, we might be saying much the same thing.

If my memory serves me right, Coltrane was planning a trip to Africa, including playing with African musicians, but cancelled due to his sudden illness. So something would have probably happened in that direction (African Brass 3). How much and for how long, who knows?

I tend to prefer the remakes that Patsy Cline made in the early 60s to the original hits of the 50s. T-Bone walker arguably surpassed even his own high standards on some of the remakes recorded for Atlantic on T-Bone Blues. Jimmy Scott's voice grew in maturity and nuance, and he continued to surpass himself on a number of remakes from the 60s-80s. Robert Nighthawk made a number of his best recordings of older songs in the 60s. I actually prefer Mississippi John Hurt's rediscovery remakes from the 60s to the original 78s from the 20s, although not everyone agrees with this.

A great dream, but I doubt that it could ever be a reality in this day and age. Some of those Caravans sides are as good as it gets - it fact a lot of them are!

But I am interested in this: Leaving the 78s alone as a sort of stand-alone prize, did he have any or much influence on the future course of the delta blues and blues in general? My guess is "no", or at least no more than any other individual participating in what seems like a sort of collective tradition. Well, he was a strong influence on Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Johnny Shines, Robert Jr. Lockwood and several other Chicago post-war blues figures. Sonny Boy Williamson and Calvin Frazier covered his songs on records even before the war. So his ghost was clearly present in the creation of modern Chicago blues. Most likely, he would have been physically very present in Chicago too if he had survived. As far as the Delta Blues is concerned, you can hear him echoed in a number of the performances captured by Modern records in the South in the early 50s (currently available on the fabulous CD series Modern Down Home Blues). Still, Tommy Johnson probably had a stronger continuing influence on Delta blues (and maybe even Chicago blues) than Robert. In my mind, a focus on the many sources of Johnson's material only serves to strengthen the case for his profound originality in the way that he put it all together. Again, I write all that as someone who does not count Robert Johnson among his personal favorite blues artists. I see it as objective truth.

No wonder at all, considering the fact that decades of tireless scholarship and the more recent availability of all of Johnson's recordings have really not done much to wipe away that mystery and mythology (despite the heroic claims to that effect in a few recent books). Historical scholarship rarely has much impact on embedded historical myths. The need for heroic figures from the past is much greater than the need to understand the complexities of how things might actually evolve. The case of Robert Johnson is interesting from that point of view. In this case, there really has been a revisionist campaign in recent years to debunk all of the myths surrounding Johnson. More than one book claims to do this. When I read these books, however, I am amazed by how little they have to show for their "noble" quests.