felser

Count me in for "Illusions" and "Elaborations" along with the first one.

Agreed, and subtotaling by year may be enlightening also (I'm sure I'll have a lot more from the beginning of the decade).

There was already a mystique here in my world (Philly) by the time I started with jazz in the early 70's. I knew to grab any 50's/60's Blue Note out of a cutout or cheap used bin, if I knew the artist or not. I had some good guys in record stores (not just Third Street Jazz, but also Franklin Records in Plymouth Meeting Mall) who trained me well.

IMO, YMMV

RIP

And truth be told, some of those Blythe Columbia's were a mess (though others were pretty great, and the first one was classic).

Not really. "Jazz at Massey Hall" is the one success I can think of, and others may think less of it.

Thanks for the heads up. I ordered a "used" but unread copy from Amazon, and also stumbled (Amazon style - they suggested it) onto a similar book by Leo Sullivan about Birdland, which I also ordered. The whole bill with shipping came to $16 for the two books, and I used rewards points from my Amazon credit card. Looking forward to both!

I also have it on CD, and agree with every statement Rooster has made. It's a collective date crying out for a leader to take charge. The whole is less than the (incredibly substantial) sum of the parts.

I actually did like those Blanchard/Harrison sides OK. Blanchard even then was such a good writer.

So are Joey DeFrancesco, Marlon Jordan, the Marsalis Bros. and others, but Columbia had a thing they were doing on those albums which didn't do any favors to the musicians involved. And a lot of them weren't ready to be leaders 35 years ago.

$40 vinyl!

Magnificent. As indispensible as anything he ever did.

Amen.

"A Fickle Sonance" was the holy grail for me. Even Jerry Gordon at 3rd St. Jazz didn't have that one around.

Agreed. Not just that Winwood kid (and whatever became of him, anyways, did he do anything else ), but Eddie Hardin was also really good.

Infation factor between 1985 and now is 2.42, so that is like a $72 album today. It was enormous, but a great choice!

With you on Dexter, give me the best of the Steeplechase's for the decade. I also am glad for "Homecoming", with the Woody Shaw/Louis Hayes group doing the honors. They were one of my favorites of the era. I like Anthenagin/Buhaina also, dig Cedar's Rhodes and Mickey Bass's electric bass, as well as the Woody/Jefferson front like. I also really like this one for Watson's playing and Watson and Walter Davis's writing ("Time Will Tell" is one of my all-time favorites). I'm with you on Schnitter and Pomeranov. They were certainly competent, but not inspiring. Wynton actually brought some real fire to that group at first when he joined, for a while. The "Live at Bubba's" semi-bootlegs are my favorites. Things really blanded out with the recordings on Concord (as if that's a surprise). I wasn't finding a lot of great cutouts by the 80's (I did in the 70's), but was finding a lot of wonderful used records.

Tough era to start, lots of young guys in nice suits and hats doing polite albums on major labels. And cassettes at that. The CD revolution later in the decade into the 90's was a miracle.

I like those Joe Bonner albums, forgot about them. And "Essence" is the Kloss album I was thinking of. Fire with Hannibal on that one. 32jazz put out three extensive 2CD sets of Mark Murphy's Muse work, which seem to contain just about everything he did on the label, but in haphazard form. I would have much preferred them arranged chronologically by album. What a strange label 32jazz was, so very right and so very wrong at the same time!

Nice Dex set. Tough to pick just one from his 70s output. And I like the Byard.

Yep. Including gems by Eric Kloss and Charles Earland and the Visitors. Also some nice titles from the predecessor Cobblestone label.

Not a masterpiece, but an interesting listen: