felser

I've been a Donny Hathaway guy since 1970 or 71, when I heard "The Ghetto". My understanding is that the compilers of 'These Songs For You, Live!' wanted to put everything from the first two live albums plus the unreleased tracks on a 2-CD set, but that the company would only let them do one CD. They didn't leave out anything glaring, given that choices had to be made, but there are enough missing tracks that you'll want the other two live CD's also. 'These Songs For You Live' is probably the best place to start on Hathaway. You get his incredible "What's Going On" (I'd take it over Marvin's if forced to choose only one version), a live version of the beautiful "Someday We'll All Be Free" (covered memorably by Alicia Keys in the concert right after 9/11), a great live version of "The Ghetto", and almost another hour of music on top of that. 'Extensions of a Man', as touted by Mr. Sangrey, has some amazing moments, such as his cover of "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" and the studio version of "Someday We'll All Be Free", though I find the album somewhat inconsistent. But it is truly transcendant in spots, and belongs in all of our music collections, as does every CD this unique artist released, which only amount to three live CD's and three studio CD's.

This one came today!

John Coltrane - Interplay. Beautiful box, as is Fearless Leader.

I have the set on now. It's really a beautifully done box, and it was $45.97 shipped for a five CD set from Amazon. In addition to the Dameron, Elmo Hope, and Ray Draper sessions, it's also missing the Red Garland sessions. Hope the third box with those sessions sees the light of day. This and 'Fearless Leader' were obviously labors of love.

DeepDiscount.com just sent the wrong CD in a package to me two days in a row. This is at least the fifth time they have done this to me. And they are never able to correct the situation and send the right CD, they just keep sending the wrong one, even though the right one is listed on the packing slip. And last time, they made me pay the return shipping on the CD I had to send back. Interestingly, they have never made an error on any DVD I have ordered from them. Has anyone else had bad experiences like this with them, and has anyone found a good way to deal with them on issues, better than returning the CD, getting a refund, and buying it somewhere else at a more expensive price? Thanks for your input.

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I like most of the Desmond stuff quite a bit, but I'll tell you what I consider the great underrated Brubeck albums - the ones with Gerry Mulligan. Try 'Live at the Berlin Philharmonie' as a starting point.

Something like this is where freakin' iTunes could make a niche for themselves with collectors. But they don't care about collectors.

This was the 1972 album that had "Superstar" and "Take A Look Around" on it. It's the only Norman Whitfield-produced Temps CD that I don't have. I have most of the cuts on other Temps collections, but would like to have the actual album in context. Thx for your help. I find the Norman Whitfield and Frank Wilson-produced Motown albums from the early 70's to be pretty wonderful, very strong start to finish, and very underrated IMO. Wilson is especially underappreciated (Whitfield at least gets some props). "Up The Ladder To The Roof" is an absolutely breathtaking production, still gives me chills 37 years later, even when I play it a bunch of times in a row. 'My People Hold On' by Eddie Kendricks is another lost Wilson-produced gem.

15 years back, sold my Tim Buckley 'Starsailor' and People 'I Love You' CD's to the used store for $2 each, and sold a lot of the early Mosaic sets for their face value when the music came out on other labels, where they are worth hundreds now. Back then, my brain didn't comprehend that CD's would go out of print and have great secondary market value, or that for some reason the same music in a Mosaic set would be worth 10 times what it is in a normal Blue Note or Bluebird set that is just as nice and sounds just as good (still don't really understand why).

Well, now I'm $109 poorer than I was 30 minutes ago.

I like this album quite a bit, but am saddened by the offhand dismissal of 'The Prisoner'!. The first two jazz albums I ever bought (got them at the same time) were Lee Morgan 'Live at the Lighthouse' and a Best of Herbie Hancock collection. Both were Blue Notes, two LP's for the price of one. "Absolutions" on the Morgan and "King Cobra", "I Have a Dream", and "He Who Lives In Fear" on the Hancock changed my life (or at least my ears) forever. 35 years ago this month, and I remember it almost like it was yesterday. It hurts to hear the last two titles (both from 'The Prisoner') called "cold"! Not an objective, measured response, to be sure, but one I had to share!

I liked Klemmer from this period quite a bit. Was really interesting to me until 'Touch' (and I actually think the title track on that one is stunningly beautiful, but have no particular use for the rest of the album). Anyone who has preconceptions of Klemmer's pre-Touch work based on familiarity with his post-Touch work would do well to instead give it a listen. It's very different than what you would expect. It has it's flaws, but also it's substantial merits. From about '69-'70 to about '73-'75. fusion had some wonderful moments, seemed like it was a true breakthrough, not the commercial formula it soon degenerated into. Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Corea solo, Stanley Clarke solo, Miles, Larry Coryell, Klemmer, Soft Machine, Ian Carr & Nexus, even Frank Zappa, even Chuck Mangione that early, all were doing really interesting and exciting things in the arena. It was, as Whitney Balliet had coined about jazz, "the sound of surprise" (it shortly would become anything but). The very success of what they were doing seemed to bring about the doom of the sub-genre. As Jim layed out earlier in this thread, iconoclastic fusion became formulaic Fusion, and it was over. Klemmer was one of the self-inflicted casualties, and is largely only known for his later commercially successful genre compromises rather than for the challenging stuff he did before that.

Agreed. I understand some what you're saying Lon, but this is THE MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL. This and Woodstock need to be exceptions to your rule for their cultural significance! And there are some incredible performances on the set. Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Association (really), Simon & Garfunkel, Al Kooper, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe & the Fish, etc. all shine. And Big Brother and the Holding Company etc. Janis doing the performance of "Ball and Chain" that put her on the map. Gotta have it. And the film of the crowd is incredibly moving. It was a time of hope and innocence for youth, moreso than Woodstock. This was '67. so all the horrors of '68 (RFK and MLK assasinations, My Lai Massacre, Nixon election, etc.) hadn't happened yet.

Got the new one by Mrs. Springsteen, and it's outstanding. Her other two albums were, also. This one is an amazing meditation on life and love's path, musically much more roots-oriented than her other two releases. It's a shame that artistically she has to live in the Boss's shadow, because she's a spectacular singer/songwriter, and very different than Bruce (who also has a new release coming this fall, a return to R&R with the E Street Band, which sounds like a great idea to me). This looks like a good year for 50-something rockers, as John Mellencamp and Rickie Lee Jones both had compelling releases in January. Those two and the Scialfa belong on the year's top 10 lists, and the Bruce will be quite a disappointment if it doesn't also.

Hey, Lon, how is it going to be any different from the DVD included in the Monterey Pop box set? BTW, the entire performance is contained on the 4CD Monterey Box Set out on Rhino many years ago. That's the way to go. Hendrix's performance at Monterey (and really, all of the live '67 performances by him I've heard) was much more about showmanship than musicianship. The '68 Winterland CD on Rykodisc is head and shoulders above Monterey musically. The DVD is the way to go, but again better in the Monterey Box Set on Criterion, where the third DVD of the outtakes from the movie is priceless (first DVD is the movie, second DVD is Hendrix and Redding).

Y'know, on the one hand, that's pretty cool that they're releasing those old 2-fers on one CD. I'm guessing the sound will be the usual 20-bit mastering & all that. OTOH, some of those titles are either: a) redundant (the Coltrane 2-fer, which is already out in the Concord/Prestige RVG series as Soultrane and Traneing In, not to mention the Trane Fearless Leader box, the OJC, etc etc etc; the Griffin is also readily available in more complete form on the OJC's Thelonious in Action and Misterioso) or b) lacking (the necessity of the bonus tracks from the Burrell All Day/Night Long sessions, which are easily available on the OJCs, cannot be overstated enough. It also looks as though a track or two has been left off of the Parker 2-fer (according to the jazzdisco.org site), but that may be due to duplication of titles. I'm not sure, having never heard the album. The Miles leaves off "My Old Flame" from the Dig session that was originally on the 2-LP set). That said, I still think this is a cool thing Concord is doing. I mean, it sure beats another issue of "Trane for Lovers" or some such crap. For those of us who value quantity for the price paid, you really can't beat these deals. Beware on those twofers. I bought a bunch of them when I first got into jazz in the early 70's. Two caveat emptors. Some of them just cherrypicked cuts from several different session. Also, in some cases on the CD's, as mentioned, they have deleted a cut or two from the original albums to make everthing fit on one disc. They did that on the Hank Mobley twofer which came out several years ago, and on the Gary Bartz Harlem Bush Music twofer (though they picked the right cut to delete in that case).

1 - I've got Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, "The Game of Love". What came first, the label or the group? 2 - I don't know if 'Modern Times' sounds worse by the day or not, because I only played it once. It sounded plenty bad enough the first time. 3 - Not sure what "People" you are the voice of, Clem. The "People" thought that Geffen Neil Young was awful and that the Geffen Joni didn't measure up. Check the sales. My ears agree with the "People" in those cases. I'll take 'After the Goldrush', you can have 'Trans'. Yeah, 'Trans' was "Visionary". Martin Luther King was Visionary. So was Hitler. Visionary is value neutral. It's what the Vision consists of that has positive or negative value. 4 - Ya want record company hype, consider this gem from our buddies at Concord on the new Carla Thomas CD of a previously unreleased '67 concert. I quote: "In 1967, Carla Thomas was the undisputed queen of soul". I mean, I really like Carla Thomas, but if Aretha were dead, she'd turn over in her grave!

The "Byrds" with only Michael Clark from the original group being my "favorite" example of that.

Agreed, and I recommend the DVD of the same event even more strongly. It's very moving, and musically miraculous at that late date. Somehow manages to capture the magic of the original.

A couple of really nice Rock DVD's I just picked up. The Spooky Tooth 'Nomads...' is recorded live in Germany in 2004. Mike Harrison, Gary Wright, Mike Kellie, and good musicians on guitar and bass. They sound amazingly good, especially Harrison, who I consider one of the absolute great rock singers. Miraculously, even though he looks ancient, he hasn't lost a thing. Wright still sounds good, Kellie as good as ever. The two-part keyboard and vocal harmonies between Harrison and Wright are as thrilling as ever. Their "reunion" album in '99 was awful, so I didn't expect how good this would be. But they totally ignore that garbage and do pretty much what you would hope: six tunes from 'Spooky Two' ("Waitin' For the Wind" is chillingly good, "Evil Woman" is as it should be),"Sunshine Help Me" and "Tobacco Road" off of 'Its All About", "Wrong Time" off of 'The Last Puff', and one song from 'Witness'. Nothing from 'The Mirror', 'Ceremony', or the comeback album, all of which are basically useless. Also, if you really like Harrison, his first two early-70's solo albums, done before the '73 reorg of Spooky Tooth, are really good ('Rainbow Rider', from '75 is not). The Bangles are one of my great musical guilty pleasures. The 'Return...' DVD was recorded at the House of Blues in LA (their hometown) when they reformed in late 2000. The classic group, in very good form, doing all the hits and many of the key album tracks. Michael Steel is especially impressive musically, and Susanna Hoffs is still adorable as well as a fine musician. All four still have excellent chops, and the vocal harmonies sound great. "Hazy Shade of Winter" is breathtaking (as is "Stealing Rosemary"), and the rest is great fun, including a rave-up cover of "Pushin' Too Hard". If you're a fan, you won't be disappointed. Wonderful commentary by Hoffs and the Peterson sisters in the special features. BTW, I also really liked their comeback album, 'Doll Revolution'. Get the deluxe dual-disc version with the DVD features.

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Hey, I'm happy anytime my AOTW's can generate discussion, pro or con, anymore. I've put what I think are some great albums up at times, and like three people comment the whole week. It gets discouraging. John Handy - Live at Monterey, what I consider a seminal album of 60's jazz, precursor to jazz/rock fusion, and Chuck hates it and two people haven't heard it, and no other responses. Max Roach - Members Don't Get Weary, and two people have anything to say about the album, and the rest of the discussion is about the style of electric bass that Jymie Merritt uses. And so on and so forth.

Not keeping a copy for myself. When I want to hear Ella, I'll go to the Songbooks (got complete 16 CD set on yourmusic.com for $96 when they first started) or some of the other 50's/early 60's Verve stuff. I'm different than a lot of listeners here, where I don't get off on vocal technique too often if it doesn't have a purity of voice with it. I don't do well with later recordings of jazz vocalists in general. Late Mel Torme, late Ella, late Sarah all are difficult for me, as is 50's Billie, etc.