felser

Think how good he would have sounded on those if the piano had been anywhere close to in-tune.

Allen, glad to see you get well-deserved recognition!

Wynton already did that 🙂

Some of the locals you mention apparently weren't willing to upend their lives/family situations and do the NYC graveyard thing. Philly has a tenor player named Larry McKenna who is amazing, but he has stayed in Philly. Bootsie Barnes also.

+1. And loosen them around the neck as much as permissible, and take them off as soon as I can.

This was a great and greatly underrated group. Maggie Bell was awesome, James Dewar (later the singer/bassist with Robin Trower) gave them a second strong vocalist, and tragic Les Harvey was an excellent guitarist.

i own it. It's a really rewarding read!

You're right. Don't disagree with that. I like Jack Johnson and Get Up With It a lot, Like Big Fun a decent amount. Some of the other titles, such as At Fillmore, Live Evil, and On The Corner, not as much. But it's all very subjective, and my rankings on them run counter to much of the commonly accepted wisdom.

Yes, 'On The Corner', then 'Big Fun', then 'Get Up With It'.

1-5 - Before my window of listening. 6 – Old timer, can certainly play 7 – I have this as track 2-7 from this 8 – Title track from this . Got to meet the singer back in the 70’s when he was waiting for the doors to the Empty Foxhole Café to be opened up to let him and us in. Seemed like a nice guy. Very strange what happened to him a couple years later. 9 – I like this, though mainly as background music. 10 – Now this is initially invigorating, though it wears out its welcome a few minutes before the end. 11 – I’m glad they were able to complete tuning their instruments and sort of start a song eventually. Totally lost on me. 12 – I like this. Definitely my favorite cut on the BFT, and the one I want to be sure I have in my collection (I have #7 and #8 already). Really digging the trumpet and piano solos. Not as sold on the tenor solo, though I don’t dislike it. Fidelity not great, so I assume this is from the 60’s on a label like ESP-Disk. Has that kind of mix of the instruments, plus the bass player stays in the pocket rather than doing butterfly stuff, yet the pianist’s playing is inventive. I do hope I have this somewhere already.

Thanks, a great listen!

Great BFT, but I've come to expect nothing less from you! How do we get your album with cut #5?

Never thought about it, but you may well be right!

I don't remember it sounding like a needle drop. Will pull it out.

But recording without comment is such a forward-thinking, avant-garde approach!

Wow, never heard of that one, would love to give a listen!

Personnel-wise Basically sounds like a Gary Bartz mid-70's album (and that's a good thing in my book).

I have a grab bag of feelings about the label. I actually liked the artwork quite a bit with the exception of the hideous red/white/blue Montreux '77 covers. Musically, many of the artists are not really my bag, but enjoyable enough. Many were pretty old by then. I though the label did wonders for Sarah Vaughan. I liked their approach with Milt Jackson quite a bit. I like many of the Oscar Peterson albums on Pablo, but he sure recorded a LOT for them! I like many of the settings Dizzy recorded in, though I was not a big fan of his playing after the 60's. They did right by Zoot Sims. Pass doesn't bother me, though I don't seek him out. The OP comparison for him is an apt one, though I sort of hit middle ground with both of them, so not at all sure love or hate is necessary. In many ways, the label just felt like an updated continuation of Verve. Not sure what more could have been done with people like Roy Eldridge at that point. They sure didn't know what to do with someone like Freddie Hubbard. The label was more of a shockwave when it started in the 70's amidst the rhodes and fender bass era than is realized now. I'm thankful for it on its own terms, much prefer it to Concord, for instance.

Do we know if master tapes are used for this reissue? I'm not up for a $20 needle drop.

I heard they were just a quick fad, not expected to last beyond 1964, so not sure if anyone much remembers them today. But they may have a few stray reissues in print here and there on boutique labels.

Well, this also happened to the record industry, which changed all the rules/strategies overnight:

Essay question asked honestly: How could Granz have done it better with Pablo?

A lot of us did. I didn't financially, but did so in ever other sense.