felser

Great idea, and it seems like Mingus may have well had that in mind based on his naming of the sections. If it hasn't been, I'll challenge my daughter to the task. She looks to be a legitimate dance major when she goes to college. BTW, if anyone is knowledgeable on collegiate dance programs, please contact me!

I have tried in my other AOTW postings to nominate either exemplary works which may have flown under the radar for a lot of listeners on the board, or else works that seemed to be calling out for re-evaluation. I take a break from those purposes this time around, and instead select a work simply because it may be the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard. Charles Mingus recorded 'The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady' for Impulse Records in January of 1963. AMG says of the album "...one of the greatest achievements in orchestration by any composer in jazz history...Charles Mingus consciously designed the six-part ballet as his magnum opus, and ... it's as much an examination of his own tortured psyche as it is a conceptual piece about love and struggle. It veers between so many emotions that it defies easy encapsulation...Yet the work soon reveals itself as a masterpiece of rich, multi-layered texture and swirling tonal colors, manipulated with a painter's attention to detail. There are a few stylistic reference points — Ellington, the contemporary avant-garde, several flamenco guitar breaks — but the totality is quite unlike what came before it. ..Mingus was sometimes pigeonholed as a firebrand, but the personal exorcism of Black Saint deserves the reputation — one needn't be able to follow the story line to hear the suffering, mourning, frustration, and caged fury pouring out of the music...The result is one of the high-water marks for avant-garde jazz in the '60s and arguably Mingus' most brilliant moment." I'll add two points. One is that this is Charlie Mariano's career moment - his playing is stunning on this album. The other is that if you're a young guy or new to the music,and haven't heard this, don't rest until you have it in your possession and playing on your music playback equipment of choice.

Great conversation, but I find the CD unlistenable because of the vocals. May just be a subjective style preference on my part...

No, the disservice would be to not present a complete cross-section of experience with Caimen. Allowing only negative experiences with them to be presented, but not positive experiences, amounts to propaganda. You can get absolute delivery and the best prices imaginable on things like remastered British Import rock CD's from them, and people should know that, as well as knowing that they aren't going to come up with that long OOP gem which hasn't been removed from the catalog. Blame Amazon for the "float" problem (it's their policy to charge the card immediately), but if $10 sitting for a month on a credit card statement creates a fiscal crisis, you shouldn't be buying the CD in the first place.

PM sent on Terry Gibbs-Buddy DeFranco "Chicago Fire" Contemporary $6

A few things to throw into the discussion here. First, Collectables in the old days was always perfectly happy to do a needle drop of an old album for a CD release, and was notorious for releasing some of the worst-sounding CD's ever. They cleaned up their act quite a bit as the years went on, and have put out some terrific-sounding rock CD's in recent times, maybe thanks to CBS/Sony and EMI special products divisions. Second, we're talking about 50's-60's Atlantic recordings here, and it's worth remembering that the reason Coltrane left Atlantic for Impulse! was because he felt the sound quaility of his Atlantic albums was unacceptable. I still cringe when I hear Tommy Flanagan's piano on "Giant Steps". Third, it's easy to say "Get the Mosaic" on everything, but these are real dollars (euro's, yen, whatever) that are being spent here, and are you really going to listen to 'Kelly At Midnight' often enough and get enough marginal difference to pay the inflated OOP Mosaic prices rather than the $10 the Collectables CD will cost you? If money is no object go for it, but how many of us can take that approach?

They have 400,000 feedbacks on Amazon alone in just calender year '06, which probably means they are moving well over a million items a year. I know how out of date my trade lists can get moving 100-200 items a year from it. They make an honest attempt to acquire any title and to keep up with what is current. They ship very quickly on some items (which they likely have in their Florida warehouse) , and slower on others, and occasionally they are out of stock and cannot obtain, and they will keep trying to get it for as long as you're willing to wait, and very glad to refund your purchase price if you cancel the backordered item. That's not fraud any more than your corner CD store putting in a special order for you and not receiving the item. They are doing the best they can to mesh their business model (which is a sensible one for they volume they are moving) with Amazon's business model (which ensures Amazon gets their cut up front). I think they're a great organization, and an honorable one, and will continue to buy 80% of my Amazon CD purchases through them, as I have in the past year. To call them fraudulant is ludicrous.

I have found that all of the big sellers on Amazon work the same way with not keeping stock. They are moving staggering amounts of CD's. I actually find them to be the best as far as fill rate on the harder to find CD's, and they are my seller of choice on Amazon/Ebay. And I have done well with their customer service in the past when I've had a problem.

PM sent on Crazy Horse

I was one, too, Wharton '76. Saw some amazing music at the Empty Foxhole Cafe in the basement of St. Mary's church on campus back in that era (mostly right after I graduated). Cecil Taylor, Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Heath, Richie Cole with Eddie Jefferson, Archie Shepp, Richard Davis, and more that I can't remember at this point. Leo Gadsen also had a great series at the Ethical Society downtown (10-15 blocks away) in those days - Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. Juju, Jackie McLean, George Adams & Hannibal Marvin Peterson, and others I can't remember. He used really good local talent like Monette Sudler and Sumi Tanooka as opening acts. At both venues, admission was incredibly low, like $5 or something. Good days (music-wise, that is - I have no desire to relive them otherwise).

I only liked the 'n Brass. The others were problematic with the voices and stuff.

Don't think that one has ever come out on CD. A lot of that late period (70's) Blue Note stuff is MIA on CD, mostly justifiable, though this album was pretty good.

Cook came before McLean. The way I think it worked was: Cook and Hayes co-led a group together, Shaw joined that group (the CD Ichi-Ban has that group), Cook left and was replaced by McLean, with Shaw becoming co-leader with Hayes.

'Solid' was issued around '79-'80, nice enough set but I can understand why it sat in the can. Chewy-Chewy-Chew needs to listeny-listeny-listen to 'Idle Moments' , 'Green Street' ,'Matador', 'Grants First Stand', and 'Talkin About', and then report back to us on the relative and absolute merits of pre-Funky Grant Green.

I like 'The Real Thing' and the Swiss Radio Days CD's a lot. 'Breath of Life' has much weaker personnel, and it affects the music, both the playing and the writing. Tex Allen and Gerald Hayes rather than Woody Shaw and Rene McLean. I like Hayes as a drummer much better than you do, but have never found him to be a strong leader on the sessions apart from the ones he co-led with Shaw. I know that Shaw expressed displeasure with the McLean/Mathews/James/Hayes group when he went to Columbia and had the group with Victor Lewis, et al, but I still think McLean/Mathews/James/Hayes was the best group he ever worked with, and that the 70's Muse sides are much stronger on balance than the Columbia's that came right after. The dissing of the Hayes et al group may have been publicity oriented, or may have had financial reasons. The 80's Muse sides I found a great disappointment, much too safe. I do like the live CD's on High Note quite a bit, and am still waiting for the excellent Elektra Musician sides to hit CD (anyone have any knowledge on why they still aren't out on CD? Or did I miss them somehow?).

Agreed, and ironically they were never even released back in the day. The Mosaic of this is what convinced me that Green was a great guitarist. 'Idle Moments' was also great, and I've been able to discover a number of other sessions which have come out on CD since which had been out of print on vinyl already when I started listening to jazz in the early 70's. If you buy the 2CD Green/Clark, and the single CDs 'Born to Be Blue' by Green and 'Blue & Sentimental' by Quebec, you have everything that was in the Mosaic box at a fraction of the cost. I remember complaining a bit to Mosaic when they released the box because the music would have easily fit onto three CD's, yet they stretched it out to four (and charged the extra $16 or whatever the cost per disc was back then). But I also complimented them on how great and eye-opening the music was.

The packaging on the new box is spectacular. The CD's sound great to me, but I'm no expert on that topic.

I have little of substance I can add to the excellent commentary above by JSngry, but want to add another thumbs-up for this CD. I also always have considered Massey a major jazz composer, and therefore assumed, before hearing this, that he must not be able to play very well at all, and that wasn't at all the case. I was fairly shocked at how well he and Brodie (who I am otherwise unfamiliar with) played on this when I got it 10-15 years ago.

With this most recent batch of RVG's (the September batch), this marked the first time the Fort Worth area Borders didn't carry them. They have also slimmed down their jazz racks as well. Sad. The brick and mortars are crumbling here in King of Prussia (Philly suburb which is home of the shopping mall in the USA with the most stores - 420). Sam Goody is closed down. Tower Records drastically downsized and eliminated 75% of their jazz inventory a few years ago, and is now closing. I used to spend $1000 a year there, haven't spent $50 total there the last two years, since they eliminated both the deep inventory and the really good January/February sales. Two of the three FYE's are shut down. Borders is now the best game in town inventorywise, but is too pricey for my blood (and I avoid the mall, though I'm glad it pays my property taxes for me - I remind myself of that when I sit in mall traffic coming home from work at night, especially during the holiday season). The only indy brick and mortar in town closed about five years ago. Fifteen minutes away on the Main Line, Plastic Fantastic, the famous used store in Ardmore, closed down a few years ago. Borders in Rosemont drastically reduced their shelf space. Repo Records in Bryn Mawr, a funky used place which grossly underpriced a lot of good used CD's which weren't alternative rock, closed down in the last few months. None of this affects me much, as I've been doing almost everything online in recent years, but it's an interesting sign o' the times. Only the big box stores (Best Buy and Circuit City) seem to be holding on at this point here, and my understanding is that they actually run their CD departments at zero profit to draw people into their stores.

Now there's some great news! I'll second that!! Since PAX was in the last round of Conns, I think that means the entire original Andrew Hill Mosaic set has been reissued on CD domestically, with the only exception being that last date with Sam Rivers. And I'll bet that one ends up being a Conn within the next year or three too. Yippee!!! (Not for myself so much -- I've already got the Mosaic -- but I'm thrilled all of Hill's material is becoming available again, for other people to be able to purchase.) You can go $100+ to the good by selling the Mosaic and buying the individual titles!

Now there's some great news!

That would be my excuse, though the title offered here ain't exactly primo Dexter.

It's also been odd how slow a lot of the Adderley stuff on Capitol has been to get to CD. You would think he'd be a relatively big seller. I don't know if you're referring to Cannonball in the Land of Hi-Fi, but that's an EmArcy (now Universal) album, not a Capitol one. Well aware of that, which is why I said ALSO been odd about the Capitols.

It's also been odd how slow a lot of the Adderley stuff on Capitol has been to get to CD. You would think he'd be a relatively big seller.

My bad. 'Now' was where I first heard "Hello To The Wind", and I had always just thought of it, "Slow Change", and "Now" as being McDaniels songs without even checking. 'Now' is another album I've been thinking of for AOTW - it's a unique experience with the Hutcherson/Land group, the McDaniels lyrics and vocals, and the great writing on "Hello To The Wind" and "Slow Change".