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I'm gonna put a few words in here about their second album - "Dance to the Music". A little less social significance, a whole lot more party. I suspect some of you guys may not have heard these records as they came out - this one blew me away when I first heard it, and it's still a favorite. A lot of people think highly of "Riot" - I never dug it, and am happy to stick with "Stand" and the singles which came right after it as Sly's finest work- to my ears, anyway. I also feel that all of their absolute gretest work was the pre-'Riot' singles. 'Riot' is a devastating personal/political statement of despair, but I've never been totally sold on it musically (or as a life thesis). "Dance To The Music" was also a huge political statement, but not so much for the lyrics as for who was singing them. Men and women, black and white, each expressing their uniqueness yet come together for a common purpose. The one statement of the times in the lyrics comes when Cynthia Robinson cries out "All the squares go home!", a statement much more significant in early 1968 than today.

A lot of Grateful Dead archival stuff that I picked up at the beginning of the year, and a whole lot of semi-obscure West Coast 50's jazz from the Concord Blowout sale. Also, as always, a lot of the first five albums by the Byrds.

It's a nice session, as are all of the Riverside Heath's. Someone should jump on this one at this great price.

It's actually excellent. I own it on the twofer 'Hip Harp' US reissue (contains 'Hip Harp' and 'In a Minor Groove') and enjoy it quite a bit: Review of 'Hip Harp'/'In a Minor Groove' CD reissue by Scott Yanow in AMG: Dorothy Ashby, the top jazz harpist during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, recorded just a few albums as a leader during her career. This CD reissue has the complete contents of her Prestige and New Jazz albums: Hip Harp and In a Minor Groove. In both cases, Ashby (who really could improvise) was joined by flutist Frank Wess, bassist Gene Wright, and either Art Taylor or Roy Haynes on drums. The bop-oriented program is naturally at a low volume, but Dorothy Ashby shows that she could swing hard too. Her definitive reissue.

I groove to Dorothy Ashby and have lots of Harold Mabern CD's!

Ok - just one. Accent On The Blues Jim, for having absolutely no interest in this thread, you sure post to it a lot!

Well, say that 'The Real McCoy' were to show up here five times, which could understandably happen. It's a real nice album. Now say someone were to come on here and say that 'The Real McCoy' is the greatest album that's ever been released. That would certainly overrate the case for it, even if it, very possibly deservedly, were picked on 5-6 lists here. And that is exactly my problem with the "overrating" concept - it is a judgment call about someone else's taste. If someone thinkgs that The Real McCoy is the best album ever, then it is - TO THEM! Look, I'm a physicist with an egghead number crunching job, and even I don't understand why people feel a need to superimpose some quasi-objective ranking framework on art. It is a matter of personal taste. Someone out there CAN legitimately feel that The Real McCoy is the best record of all time. Now, if you want to talk about jazz records popular amongst connoisseurs that I don't personally get in to, I've got a long list, but I'm not going to claim that any of them are overrated. Good, because I'm much more interested in discussing "jazz records popular amongst connoisseurs that I don't personally get in to" with you than I am in hearing an argument on the semantics of "overrated".

Well, say that 'The Real McCoy' were to show up here five times, which could understandably happen. It's a real nice album. Now say someone were to come on here and say that 'The Real McCoy' is the greatest album that's ever been released. That would certainly overrate the case for it, even if it, very possibly deservedly, were picked on 5-6 lists here.

No doubt produced by Larry Mizell, with George Duke, Larry Carlton, Bernard Purdie, and the Memphis Horns making special guest appearances.

A radical lifestyle goal like that may get you exiled to a spiritual desert island in this day and age. Keep the faith.

Guess that likely depends on who's doing the rating, which is most of the point.

Agreed. 'Stand' is the best album, but is basically made up of singles plus a long filler instrumental. All the ones up to Fresh are enjoyable, but this is a group where you can start with the 2CD Essential collection (amazing remastering) and really get the point of everything up through 'Stand' (plus a couple of classic single sides that aren't on any of the albums). 'Riot' needs to stand by itself. Each person needs to decide what they think of it, but it should be heard. 'Fresh' is good, but to me not absolutely essential. Nothing after that should be touched with a 10 foot pole, regardless of what the marketing on Rhino Handmade says.

I'll believe it when I see it, though. Haven't we been promised something like this before? And is it really such a good idea to clean up "Riot?" I always thought part of its charm was its awful sound. With any luck, Sony'll leave this one virtually untouched but give us a nice booklet with scads of details to go with it. This is great news, especially in the case of 'Stand!". The first three came out in CD much later in the game, with much better CD sound than the last four. I agree with Big Al on 'Riot' - it somehow wouldn't feel right to hear that one with good sound, and I'm not sure how close I want to get to that album anyways. It seems like a better idea to appreciate it from a safe distance.

Picks submitted by Red They're also overrated in his opinion... MG We'll need Red to sort that out. I think he meant to post them in this thread, accidentally posted them in the other. So unless we hear otherwise from Red, they stand as his 10 BN DID's.

It was released as a reasonably priced 2CD set on One Way in the mid-90's, went out of print, was rereleased on some ridiculously expensive import CD's, was just rereleased as a reasonably priced 2CD set on Castle UK in October. I picked up the Castle reissue, so have my One Way set available for sale ($14 includes shipping) or trade if anyone is interested. I like the set a lot, but actually like the concurrent studio sets by the same group ('Second Wind', 'Closer To It', and especially 'Straight Ahead') even more. The live stuff is a little ragged compared to the studio takes, and while that's a good thing for some types of music, it isn't for this. The longer solos are nice to have, and the group is smoking. There are many earlier Brian Auger & Trinity, and Brian Auger & Oblivion Express releases that are also well worth having. The utter classic is 'Streetnoise', with Julie Driscoll, but 'Befour' and 'Oblivion Express' are also well worth owning, though all of these sound very different than the live album. The 70's reunion album with Julie Driscoll is also very good, with an amazing version of "No Time To Live".

Picks submitted by Red

Chris, the rule was 10 discs, not 100! 10 individual releases! A big part of the experience is going through the difficult exercise of cutting the list down to 10. We get your point, and love the bodies of work by Blakey and Silver, but I can't count any of your picks in my tally unless you cut it down to 1o individual albums!

Not allowed - pick 10, base 10! And chose your Shorter!

Not interested. Organissimo is the jazz community for me!

No fair submitting 13. A big part of the experience here is the challenge of cutting the list to 10!

What he said. Don't miss this set. "Young Rabbits" was my answering machine greeting for a lot of years!

That's what I found also, just one more slot! Amyways, here's mine: Art Blakey - Mosaic (strongest writing on a Blue Note Blakey disc, and amazing playing) Donald Byrd - Free Form (for the title track, maybe the most magic of all Blue Note cuts for me) Freddie Hubbard - Ready For Freddie (see, Jim, I really will take it to the grave with me) Jackie McLean - One Step Beyond (New Thing never sounded any fresher than here) Jackie McLean - Jacknife (again for one track, the amazing "On The Nile") Lee Morgan - The Gigolo (for the second side, "You Go To My Head" and title track) Sonny Rollins - Newk's Time (my favorite Rollins album, period.) Wayne Shorter - Ju-Ju (tough to pick one Shorter, but this one's consistently wonderful) McCoy Tyner - Expansions McCoy Tyner - Extensions (Couldn't leave either off - today meeting tomorrow at the cusp of the 70's) It hurt me to not include 'Empyrian Isles' ( for "Oliloqui Valley"), 'Speak No Evil' (for "Infant Eyes"), 'Lee Morgan' (for "Capra Black"), 'Coalition' (for "Simone") and others, but 10 is 10, and I'm the guy who wrote the rules here. I was also tempted to include James Newton 'Romance in Revolution' from the "new" Blue Note, but wasn't willing to drop any of my chosen 10 to do so.

To do penance for my last Topic and to pay tribute to the Late, at one time Great Tower Records, we can do Blue Note Desert Island Discs. Here's the rules. You can vote one time. You can pick up to 10 Blue Note Albums (not artists) which you would want if you were stuck on a desert island and could only have 10 of them. Any multi-album sets count as the number of albums contained in the set. So the 4 CD Jackie McLean Mosaic, which contains six albums, would be a vote for each of those six albums and would take up six of your ten eligible slots. After the traffic dies down, I will tally up the votes and present the overall list of Blue Note Desert Island Discs. Then we can do the same with other labels. If no one else posts their lists, then my ten titles (when I post them) win!

Everybody loves Blue Note here, everybody has many titles on that label which are priceless to them.

Totally agree with that.