felser

Bunch of thoughts here: 1 - I've always liked the album. The track that sticks with me is the great "Love Will Take You There". I was a big fan of Peterson in this era, and he burns here. 2 - I talked to Ron Thomas about 10 years ago when he shared a stage with our friend Ruth Naomi Floyd, and he said he was still in contact with Kloss, and that Kloss was married, had a family, and was still playing very well. So life seemed to turn out well for him, even if his recording career seemed to die off. By the way, Thomas played beautifully on the night I heard him, and he told me how his life had also gone in wonderful directions. He had greatly grown as both a musician and a human being since his recordings with Kloss and Pat Martino on Muse in the 70's. 3 - It seems like musicians sometimes put the most commercially viable names on their resumes rather than the most musically rewarding ones. Tyrone Brown gave me his resume one time when he was playing in Ruth's group, and it didn't mention Catalyst at all, and to me that was (along with his time with Max Roach) an artistic peak of his career. But they were never commercially viable. I have no sense of how well they were known outside of here in Philly, since they were local to us. But they recorded four albums for Muse, three of which are pretty wonderful, and consisted of heavyweight musicians (Odean Pope, Eddie Green, Sherman Ferguson, and Brown). I tried to encourage Brown on how proud he should be of his work in Catalyst, and that I'd love to see it on his resume. BTW, he is an amazing bass player to see live, a commanding physical presence and a gifted musician.

Not sure if I'd call "Europa" great -- it sounds canned to me, a slick and soulless sequel to "Samba Pa Ti". Gato Barbieri gave the definitive reading of this one. Seriously. No argument from me. That whole 'Caliente' album is surprisingly good. Also has the definitive reading of "I Want You" in my book. Tuck Andress did a wonderful "Europa" on 'Love Warriors'. The first three Tuck & Patti albums are classics of their genre, quite untypical for Windham Hill (and the best things that label ever did) and his guitar playing is stunning.

'Amigos' has two great songs ("Dance Sister Dance" and "Europa"), and 'Festival' has the great "Let The Children Play" suite, but otherwise both albums are pretty forgettable. 'Innner Secrets' is actually a consistently better album than either, but has nothing approaching the highlights of those two (the cover of Traffic's "Dealer" is probably the best thing on it). I agree with the assessment of "Open Invitation", an utter embarrasment! 'Zebop' is akin to 'Marathon', maybe just a bit better. 'Oneness' is actually quite excellent, the most underrated album Santana ever did. It is a Carlos solo album rather than a Santnana group album, almost totally instrumental, quite spiritual in it's groove, the last consistently satisfying studio album he ever made.

Ludicrous orchestral overdubbing on this one, avoid it. Better to get the Benson Live at the Casa Caribe material, available on many budget labels if you want live jazz from Benson. Look for something that has the full program, 2 CD's with a little over two hours of music on them. Most of the budget releases just cherry-pick tracks from the concert haphazardly to put on one CD. The live 'Weekend in LA', which came out out Warner Bros. in the late 70's is also pretty good. If you want more CTI Benson (assuming you already have the incredibe 'Beyond the Blue Horizon'). check out 'White Rabbit' and 'Body Talk' and 'Bad Benson'. (edit - 'Breezin', while neither live nor CTI, is an excellent album and belongs in every collection - it's already in a couple million of them, and for good reason. The other career highlight for Benson is his amazing version of "The World is a Ghetto", on the otherwise forgettable 'In Flight').

Many are too expensive for US buyers where used copies of many of these titles are easily available very inexpensively through half.com and amazon.com. Also "Best of" and "Collection" CD's will not be popular items on this board of fanatical collectors :-) Also, they are of a more traditional style than what is most popular on the board, though there are some excellent CD's on your list.

One last bump.

I gave up on the Penguin Guide long ago, found it ludicrous. The early pre-Yanow AMG Guides were also worthless. The only one I use is the Yanow versions of the AMG Guide. I'm a HUGE fan of the long (27 minutes, I think) solo piano piece on 'Young at Heart, Wise in Time', it's marvelous. The only other Abrams I play much are 'Sightsong' and 'Spiral' (live at Montreux 1978), though I do own several others. In fairness, there are a number of his later recordings I have never heard.

Then I take back every nice thing I've had to say about Concord and how they started out managing the Fantasy holdings. They seem to have decided to take the low road after all. We can "look forward" to the Keepnews Collection mindless regurgitations and the "... plays for Lovers" idiocy and that's it? Not a penny of mine will go towards any of that. I will, however, buy the Trane box as soon as it comes out. Man, we're fickle! On the one hand we complain that Concord is too fixed on the bottom line by cutting the chaff and re-releasing the same old money-making stuff; on the other we bitch that they may not be releasing one of the more commercial/profitable entries in their reissue series. Not fickle at all. Give me a configuration and package and remaster that makes some sense and utilizes the capabilities of the CD medium better than what's been out before, and I'll buy it. The boxes they had come out with the past 6-12 months were beautiful. Reissue the same 36 minute albums on CD's with an Orrin Keepnews monogram being the primary difference, and I won't rebuy it. And I sure ain't buying ".... plays for Lovers"! I don't expect them to reissue John Dennis, Joe Holiday, couldn't believe it when Fantasy did the first time. I do expect them to be respectful with the catalogue. And if I didn't already own the titles and the K2's weren't available, I'd buy the Keepnews editions. Again, not sure what's fickle about any of that.

Yup -- Free at Last. I think this one is in-print, at least in Europe. Guy And it's well worth picking up, as is all of the Waldron stuff from that period (all of his stuff from any period, actually).

Then I take back every nice thing I've had to say about Concord and how they started out managing the Fantasy holdings. They seem to have decided to take the low road after all. We can "look forward" to the Keepnews Collection mindless regurgitations and the "... plays for Lovers" idiocy and that's it? Not a penny of mine will go towards any of that. I will, however, buy the Trane box as soon as it comes out.

While logic makes it's demands, emotion lends it's voice. You'd better have those five smiley faces on there!

Also my favorites along with 'Lee Morgan'. 'Infinity' and 'Lee-Way' are also pretty great. '

I have multipes of the following CD's available. All are new and still sealed, and unless noted, have no cutout marks or promo marks. US shipping is $2.50 for the first CD and $1.00 for each additional CD, up to a $5.00 maximum shipping charge. Also willing to consider trades for all titles. Xanadu CD's Barry Harris - Bird of Red and Gold $4 Dexter Gordon - True Blue $6 Bud Powell - Bud in Paris $6 Shorty Rogers/Art Pepper - Popo $5 Red Garland - Keystones $6 Georgie Auld - Homage $5 Jimmy Raney/Sonny Clark - Together $5 Dolo Coker - California Hard $6 Charles McPherson - Beautiful $7 J.R. Monterose - Straight Ahead $7 Sam Most - Mostly Flute $10 Terry Gibbs - Bopstacle Course $6 Kenny Drew- Home Is Where The Soul Is $6 Charlie Parker/Clifford Brown/Phil Woods - International Jam Sessions $4 New World CD's (cutout marks) Ricky Ford - Loxodonta Africana $6 DCC CD's (some have cutout marks, some don't - specify if that matters to you) Sonny Stitt - Live at Ronnie Scott's $4 Don Sebesky - Three Works $4 Phil Woods - Song for Sisyphus $4 Bob Brookmeyer - Small Group Vol. 1 $4 Naked City CD's Art Pepper - Live in Toronto 1979 $4 Bud Powell - Live in Lausanne 1962 $4 Warne Marsh - Live in Las Vegas 1962 $2 (great music, wretched sound) Zoot Sims - Live at the Half Note 1965 $4 Dave Schildkraudt - Last Date $4 Percy France - I Should Care $4 contact me at john.felser@verizon.net

Totally with you on Cornbread, it has always amounted to much less than the sum of the parts. The Rajah is better than the albums you mention because of some good Cal Massey tunes written for it.

PM sent on this one: Davis/Newton Quartet - Hidden Voices / India Navigation 1041

I actually have a lot of extras of 10 or so Xanadu titles that I've been meaning to post for sale on the board. I'll try to post that tonight.

Those were wonderful CD's at excellent prices - no surprise they're gone. The box set is spectacular.

Great news, I'll buy this one immediately - and how often anymore do we get to say "major kudos to Verve"? This is an event.

Vista is available on a Japanese CD. I have it and love it. It is very different than Brown's work that came before it, but very beautiful. Stanley Cowell's influence is strong on it. Sweet Earth Flying and Geechee Recollections have not been out on CD.

And the people responsible for those packages have been terminated. I know there was a bunch of stuff in the pipeline before the closing of the Fantasy facility so it will take (maybe) a year for the "Concord produced" items to reach the public. Chuck, if I'm interpreting your post correctly, the boxes were produced by Fantasy prior to the Concord buyout, and were going to come out on Fantasy. Is that true? And the people were let go? What does Concord have in mind? Are the Coltrane boxes and Miles box we are expecting still going to come out? Were those also Fantasy produced prior to the buyout? Any additional light you can shed on this would be greatly appreciated.

Huge improvement. All of the boxes Concord has produced of the Fantasy-owned material have been exemplary in terms of concept, remastering, packaging, and price.

PM sent. I have one available that's new and still sealed.

They got to hold something back in the vaults so that they can later reissue the material in a new, indespensible format... Verve has really mastered the art of crass marketing. Next up: Coltrane at Newport for After Dinner on a Second Date. Maybe Ravi deserves some credit for the full version coming out now.

Impulse! snuck this one out today - I hadn't heard anything about it. Previously unreleased 23:30 of "Impressions" from the '63 Newport festival? Yeah, that's of interest to me (and one or two others, I bet ) John Coltrane - My Favorite Things: Coltrane at Newport Release Date Jul 3, 2007 Recording Date Jul 7, 1963-Jul 2, 1965 Label Impulse Review by Steve Leggett John Coltrane appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival on five different occasions, the first in 1958 as a member of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue-era sextet. As a bandleader, Coltrane performed at the festival in 1961, 1963, 1965 and 1966, and it is the middle two sets that are combined here on this intriguing release. The 1963 band was a variation on Coltrane's classic quartet (Coltrane on tenor sax, McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass) with veteran drummer Roy Haynes sitting in for Jones, who was unable to be in attendance. Jones was back in the drum chair for the 1965 appearance, while Coltrane's final Newport showing in 1966 found him working with an entirely different band that included his wife Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. Since Coltrane did lengthy versions of his signature arrangement of "My Favorite Things" in both 1963 and 1965 (he did it in 1966, as well), it's impossible not to compare the approach of the two different drummers. Haynes has a lighter, skittering touch that gives the piece a kind of airiness while Jones is all power and propulsion which makes for a more ambiguous and ominous feel. Both versions are striking, but the real treat here is the 23 minute and change take on "Impressions" from 1963, which has never before been released in its entirety (an edited version was released in 1978). Here Coltrane and Haynes trade phrases and percussive glides after Tyner and Garrison lay out what is a truly wonderful dialogue between two veteran jazz musicians. There's little doubt that the quartet hits with more raw power with Jones driving it, but here Haynes' contribution is perfect for the moment. Taken together, the 1963 and 1965 sets make a nice whole, and having two great drummers with slightly different approaches only underscores how complete Coltrane's vision was at this point in his career. Tracks Title Composer Time 1 I Want to Talk About You Eckstine 9:41 2 My Favorite Things Hammerstein, Rodgers 17:20 3 Impressions [#] Coltrane 23:30 4 Introduction by Father Norman O'Connor 1:08 5 One Down, One Up Coltrane 12:43 6 My Favorite Things Hammerstein, Rodgers 15:13 2007 CD Impulse 9076

What else are they coming out with boxwise? Where is this info available? There was supposed to be a Miles early 50's box, according to talk on this board a while ago, any news on that? I can't find anything about upcoming box sets on concordmusicgroup.com. Am I missing something there?