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Thumbs up on 'For Losers'. Thumbs even higher up for "The Magic of Juju'. 'Village of the Pharoahs' is pretty good if you like Sanders' rhythmic stuff with Joe Bonner and aren't worried about there not being much sax on it.

That would be due to the dreaded Larry Mizell. 'Black Byrd' was the biggest selling album in Blue Note history for a long time (Norah Jones certainly has wiped THAT fact off the books), but is, as noted, dreadful. And due to the success of it, the follow-ups were equally commercial. It could have been worse - Mizell originally pitched the idea to Lee Morgan before settling in with Byrd. There was a lot of this in the 70's, heartbreaking sell-out's. I remember seeing Gary Bartz live at the Tower Theatre in Philly, blowing stock funk phrases on electric alto, with some chick singer cooing "Ma-ca-ro-o-ni". Azar Lawrence ruined his career with some monstrosity called 'People Moving'. Joe Henderson remained listenable, but tarnished a little of his dignity with 'Black Miracle'. The most grotesque of all was 'Monuments', a funk/disco album on RCA by the (otherwise) great Jackie McLean. Contains the unfortunate track "Dr. Jackle and Mr. Funk".

Backing up my friend Colin, Curtis/Live is well worthwhile, great sound on the Rhino reissue, and definitely go for the Impressions collections. "I'm So Proud" is the theme song of my marriage, and "Choice of Colors" is THE great racial reconciliation song. I never found Mayfield's post-Superfly material to be worthwhile.

Golson was already a well-respected composer and arranger when he joined the band, Morgan was 19 years old, and Timmons hadn't written any of his signature tunes yet, so it shouldn't have been too much of a stretch for him to become the director. If memory serves, Golson recruited the other guys (Morgan, Timmons, Merritt), who were all from Philly. Timmons had been out on the west coast with Chet Baker and hadn't written (or at least recorded) his signature stuff yet and Morgan had been in Dizzy's big band, blowing away listeners with his break in Tunisia. I heard Blakey twice in the '85-'90 period, and he did "Blues March" (and "Moanin'") both times. I've never particularly cared for "Blues March", but "Moanin'" is the hard bop national anthem, as far as I'm concerned. Timmons wrote some great stuff in that era ("Moanin'", "This Here", "Dat Dere", etc.).

And he kept getting him some younger ones. I saw him live at Penn's Landing a few months before he passed, and Brian Lynch was with him on trumpet and his playing smoked! I was less impressed with some of the other players (a very young Geoff Keezer, the ever-puzzling Javon Jackson). Steve Davis was very good on trombone, and he had a second tenor player, Dale somebody, who played well. I forget who the bass player was, I'm thinking maybe Essiett O. Essiett.

I would assume that the song title is. Tolliver was a sideman with Roach in a great group in the late 60's on "Members Don't Get Weary" (the cover of which happens to be my avatar on this site). Great group - Tolliver, Gary Bartz, Stanley Cowell, Jymie Merritt, and Roach. The Tolliver CD was originally released as a 2 album set on Strata-East in the 70's, and was named 'Live at Loosdrecht'. Great group - Tolliver, John Hicks, Reggie Workman, and Alvin Queen. Workman's bass solo on "Prayer for Peace" is my favorite bass solo ever, and the whole cut smokes The whole CD does, for that matter.

My favorite was Hubbbard/Fuller/Shorter/Walton/Workman/Blakey, second was W.Marsalis/Watson/Pierce/Williams/Fambrough/Blakey (especially enjoyed Watson's writing for the Messengers, especially "Time Will Tell"). I wish all of the groups between "Indestructible" and "Gypsy Folk Tales" had been recorded more/better. Would have loved to hear more than one semi-bootleg of Billy Harper in the group, would have liked to have heard better what Gary Bartz brought to the group.

Great turnout for the bone marrow screening in Jenkintown, PA. I talked to one of the guys working there, and he said that they were hoping for 700 people, and that the turnout was actually going to exceed that by a good bit.

Alan, check again. Looks like the Miles is the 44th row back. 43rd row is the Complete 50's Columbia Recordings of Sing Along With Mitch Miller box set. Rumored that Mosaic and Sundazed are in a bidding war for the 180 gram vinyl reissue rights to that one.

I match the donor type and am heading to the screening in Jenkintown tomorrow after I get out of church. Any other Philly area guys going? We can meet up.

← Well done, sounds awfully good to me. I'll have to go back through the Prestige discography. I must have missed that one amongst the Freddie McCoy's and Melvin Sparks's, etc. that seemed to define that period for Prestige.

With you on that one, Funkateer! Those are the cream of their catalog to me. 'New Shade of Blue' and 'Choma' were recordings by the great, underrated Hutcherson/Land group. 'Damisi' was an excellent quintet with Oscar Brahsear. They recorded under Hutch's name on Blue Note, and Land's on Chess and Mainstream. Also would like to see 'Awareness' and 'Pure Dynamite' by Buddy Terry. Terry was a good Tenor player, and those albums had long, modal tracks with stunning sidemen - Woody Shaw, Joanne Brackeen, etc. There were also a few Various Artists albums on Mainstream ('Booty' was one) which had outtakes from the sessions. Those would make great bonus cuts. There isn't much of anything left in the Prestige Catalog that I'm itching to see on CD. They've gone pretty deep into it. Riverside, Jazzland, and Contemporary is another story.

Great stuff on McLean! I'm not familiar with many of the artists in the Ancient to the Future series, I'll have to research them. Would really have liked to get to Sunny Murray to catch Khan Jamal and Odean Pope. Planning to catch Eric Alexander at the Philly Art Museum on 11/18.

more here... ← Got it. I own the Hill. Didn't know that the reference was just to the Blue Note sessions, as he has 35 years worth of other stuff.

That Mingus Dynasty show was both sad (Don Pullen and George Adams had to cancel, Adams because he was terminally ill) and stunning (their replacements were John Hicks and a pre-Warners Joshua Redman. Redman was incredible, the whole show was amazing). We had tickets to the McLean show that night and had to stay home and eat the tickets because we couldn't get into the city because of the snow.

Mike, what is that approach? I'm new to the board.

I concur that 4 in 1 is the pick of the Blue Notes. I also concur that overall, they don't catch him at his best. Contrary to previous post, I really liked his work with Tyner, especially on 'Sahara' (which belongs in every jazz collection everywhere), and also on 'Song For My Lady' (another gem). He was underutilized by Tyner on 'Song of the New World'. Wonder what 'Enlightenment' and 'Atlantis' would have sounded like with him instead of 19-year-old Azar Lawrence? They're tremendous with Lawrence. Of course, Tyner in the 70's can overwhelm any horn player. The guy that, surprisingly, really seemed to get steamrolled by Tyner was George Adams, and Gary Bartz didn't exactly stand out either. What an amazing run of recordings Tyner had on Blue Note and the early Milestones, before it got just a touch formulaic for him prior to switching to trio format to good effect.

Earland and Joe Henderson have some nice solos on it, and the title track is a killer. Album's funked up 70's style a bit with Patrick Gleeson, etc, but worth having. On Earland, you have to have his debut on Prestige, Black Talk (second side, loooong versions of "Aquarius" and "More Today Than Yesterday" is killer), and his two releases on Milestone, 'Front Burner' and 'Third Degree Burn', and then fill in the gaps from there according to taste. I found him the most exciting of all organists when he was "on".

Which would still beat two shows I saw in the 70's here in Philly. Juju (nice group that recorded for Strata-East) pulled about a dozen people at the Ethical Society (promoter, if I remember his name correctly, was Leo Gadsen. He brought some really nice shows to that venue including Jazz Messengers and Jackie McLean and Hannibal Peterson/George Adams, but likely didn't make a penny on them). And, just to show the state of things then, in 1976 or 1977, Andrew Hill played a solo concert at, I think, the Walnut Street Theatre, and 14 people came. I couldn't believe it. Empty Foxhole Cafe, with like $5 tickets back then, had trouble pulling 200 people for Archie Shepp, for Richie Cole/Eddie Jefferson, for Cecil Taylor, for the Heath Brothers, for Clifford Jordan. Things seemed a bit better at some of the shows in the 90's here (less venues for sure, which may have helped individual shows), but Billy Harper and Mingus Dynasty (Jack Walrath-led) each had trouble pulling 200-300 people to the Painted Bride Art Center, my favorite venue in the city, with $15-$20 tickets. I haven't been to the Verizon Center yet, would like to see it once, but won't be doing so at $41 a pop.

Two very compelling bits in the Tolliver Mosaic. One, in case you missed it in the Strata-East thread, was that Michael Cuscuna wrote in the liner notes "Hopefully, this is just the first in a line of co-ventures between Mosaic and Strata-East". The other, is a note on the bonus cuts, that "The previously unissued Tokyo material... was transferred from the audio portion of a video tape...". Anyone know anything about that tape? Obviously, Tolliver owns it. I'd love to see that show on DVD!

Promising news - in the liner notes to the Tolliver Mosaic Select set (which is superb bu the way - great remastering by Malcom Addey. This music has never had nearly this good of sound quality in its previous LP and CD releases. And of course, the music itself is sublime.), Michael Cuscuna ends his essay with the sentence "Hopefully this is just the first in a line of co-ventures between Mosaic and Strata-East". Now there's something to make the imagination run wild!

I received the Tolliver from Mosaic on Friday.

I sure wish I could be there for that one... I've been diggin' Charles Tolliver since the mid 70's when he did all those cookin' Music Inc sides for Strata East records.. Jimmy Hopps was the drummer back then and man did he swing hard! The piano player was Stanley Cowell, and the bass player was Cecil McBee... ← Soon to be re-released in a Mosaic Select set! ← My Tolliver Mosaic arrived in the mail today. Contains the cuts from the original Live at Slugs albums, the original Live in Tokyo set, and three extra cuts from each. The Slugs bonus cuts are On the Nile (13:33), Ruthie's Heart (18:46), and Repitition (8:51). The Tokyo bonus cuts are Impact (7:28), Our Second Father (20:15), and Earl's World (6:24).

Alan, thx for the info. I didn't know about the Kimmel center gig by Jamal. I'm way out of circulation at the moment, due to family needs. If you think of it, drop me an email if you see Jamal will be playing live again in the area. ← Your wish is my command. Announced today: Friday, October 21 | 8pm SUNNY MURRAY FACTOR with Khan Jamal, vibraphone Sabir Mateen, saxophone Odean Pope, saxophone Ed Crockett, bass Sunny Murray, drums Community Education Center (CEC) Theater, 3500 Lancaster Avenue | Philadelphia $12 General Admission | All ages ← Is there anyone who got to this concert and can report on it? We had family needs tonight, so I really couldn't go out.

In 1971., Mal Waldron recorded an album with Gary Peacock and a Japanese drummer. The name of the album was 'First Encounter', and it was issued on Catalyst Records in the 70's. This is my favorite Waldron recording Does anyone know if this has been on CD, and who would own the master tapes? I know some of the Catalyst Records stuff (the Gary Bartz is the one I remember) has ended up on Japanese CD, and this recording (to my ears, anyways) was the crown of their catalog. Thanks for your help.