felser

So where should I start? Is any of his stuff on Pablo good for an Ellington newbie? A lot of that is currently on sale at 2001, available for ridiculous €2.99. 'Newport 56', 'Ellington Uptown' are two of my favorites. I really like much of his 50's Columbia stuff (which those two titles are). 'And His Mother Called Him Bill' and 'The Far East Suite' are two of his 60's RCA titles I like quite a bit, and the first of those is universally recognized as one of his greatest works. 'The Blanton/Webster Band' ha some of his greatest 40's stuff. I don't do well with the earliest Ellington material (20's and early 30's), it's lost on me, but others will have plenty of suggestions on that and other eras. The titles available on Fantasy are very good - his late work is very rewarding and very underrated IMO. The Ellington/Coltrane session, to me, was pretty much an uncomfortable, lifeless compromise all around, which makes the explosiveness of 'Money Jungle' (recorded just nine days earlier) all the more amazing.

A phenomenal record, and one that broke a lot of misconceptions for me about Ellington when I was a kid starting out in jazz, coming in through 'A Love Supreme' and thinking of Duke as old-fashioned. It was the first Ellington I ever bought (a cut-out LP of this on UA, I think), and I loved it immediately. Mingus and Roach were drawing cards for me, but Duke is able to hold his own in their world, and this did a lot to draw me into his world with open ears.

My favorite Mingus album, period. And I love Mingus's music so much I named my first male cat after him. (The cat also has turned out to have a horrible temper).

It did. Vortex was either distributed by or a subsidiary of Atlantic. Some interesting albums on that label, by Sonny Sharrock and Steve Marcus. Of course 1966 was just an interesting time musically, period.

'Tones for Joan's Bones' was an early favorite of mine, Corea's first album as a leader. An excellent post-bop quintet with Woody Shaw and Joe Farrell on the front line. Steve Swallow and Joe Chambers join Corea in the rhythm section. The writing and playing are extremely strong, with none of the indulgences of ARC/Circle and none of the smugness which has poisoned too much of his work since then. "Litha" has become something of a standard, and the other compositions are of the same caliber. This album was reissued as 'Inner Space' with two long, excellent outtakes and two cuts Corea did with Hubert Laws in the 70's - that was my introduction to this work. Unfortunately, Atlantic botched the 'Inner Space' CD, leaving off two cuts from the 'Tones' album which can only be found on 'Piano by Four' instead of just dropping the two Laws cuts or making it a double CD (hello, Collectables, please rescue!). 'Piano By Four' is worth running down, as it has two early trio recordings by McCoy Tyner which are otherwise unreleased. Corea's style here reminds me of his playing on 'Matrix', which is another essential album by him. This one, that one, and the two RTF's with Flora Purim/Airto/Stanley Clarke/Joe Farrell are the crown jewels of his work to me.

Go ahead, do it!

We've firmly established that's not the case. Too many of us with a second, smaller order (mine for an overseas friend) that were filled before our first, larger orders were.

Hopefully, not the 7 you were planning to keep. Taken with the humor intended :-). The great majority of this order for me will be upgrading everything in sight to K2's from the original CD releases, so I'll both be keeping most of the titles, and yet having those same titles available on my trade list!

Finally got confirmation on my big order from last Wednesday. 136 of 143 shipped. I'm not taking the time to figure out which 7 didn't.

A bunch of good Cobblestone/Muse titles by Jimmy Heath ('The Gap Sealer', and the next one) and Carlos Garnett ('Journey to Enlightenment' and 'Let This Melody Ring On'). I also heard Garnett do a phenomenal live version of "Mystery of Ages", which was not fulfilled on the big band record. There are also some really good mid-70's Italian LP's by Archie Shepp, George Adams, and Don Pullen. There was a 2 LP set by Shepp that had an amazing live version of "African Drums" on it. The first album by Hannibal Peterson. The Eric Kloss Muse LP with Peterson on it. Gary Bartz Live at the Left Bank on Milestone. Any of the remaining McCoy Tyner's. The Elektra Musician Woody Shaw's. Non-jazz, the Richie Havens titles on Douglas ('Electric Havens' and 'Richie Havens Record' - he hates them.) and on Stormy Forest. The Bobby Hutcherson stuff with Harold Land (Blue Note) and the Harold Land stuff with Bobby Hutcherson (Mainstream). The Mainstream Buddy Terry's.

I placed an order for one of my overseas friends from our community tonight and it was 5860. My order last Wednesday afternoon was 5559, so a little over 300 orders in about a week. Seems like most of those literally would be from this community.

The first of my two orders shipped. They canceled one CD -- John Coltrane "Soultrane." I wouldn't have expected that one to be a problem, but it really doesn't matter to me because the Coltrane box IS coming and that material is on there anyway. To those thinking about skipping the Coltrane box - that material is a lot better than you may suspect. Some excellent writing/arranging by the likes of Tadd Dameron and Mal Waldron, a lot of cool jamming with Donald Byrd, Red Garland, and several other noteworthy tenor players, and some beautiful playing later by Coltrane as you hear him mature in his playing and discover and refine his sheets of sound. 31 complete albums contained on those 16 CD's, all worth hearing and owning.

If they won't back their product, you can always dispute through your credit card company.

A related thought, are they processing orders that did not reach the $2.98 tier first, figuring that they'd rather sell a CD for $3.98 than $2.98. That would really be low, since they are the ones who came up with the tiered approach in order to get people to make large orders.

Just noticed this on the Concord site while trying to track down my order. This makes a lot more sense than anything Fantasy (or Prestige, for that matter) did with those Stitt sides, so I still have hope that some really good stuff will come out of Concord. Stitt and Red Garland aren't exactly bankable names the way Coltrane, Miles, and Monk are ( Stitt may sell a million, but that will be 100 copies each of the 10,000 albums he recorded), yet they've both already been treated right by Concord, even in the early going. The Miles set makes a lot of sense also. I'm actually pretty encouraged in some ways. Sonny Stitt Stitt's Bits [box Set - pre-sale only] PRCD3-30043-2 A 3-CD box set spotlighting one of the great founders of BeBop, the multi-talented Sonny Stitt. His blazing, beautiful playing of alto, tenor AND baritone saxophone collected within this special collection is not to be missed! Features the complete Prestige BeBop recordings from 1949-1952 on three digitally remastered CDs and Includes previously unreleased material!

5559, placed Wed. afternoon, no second email, I did order the Ellington.

PM sent on Music Revelation Ensemble and the Sharrock.

I listen all day at work. I can get through as many as 10 a day as I stare into the computer and type and click.

Even if that would turn out to be the case, we'd still get some nice CD's at a great price, would save 90% of what we thought we had spent, and have fun with these posts in the meantime. Not a bad deal when all is done.

Initially I resisted the K2s because, as you say, they'll re-emerge in another incarnation. They're not rare. But there were about 6 or 7 rarities that I didn't want to miss (Hardin, Buddy Tate, Tatro etc). ANd once you get to that point, the math starts getting funny. 7 CDs (@7.98) will cost about 56.00. 10 CDs @5.98 cost virtually the same. So, my basket's at 10 CDs for 60.00 and then I realized I could get 20 CDs for 80.00. WHen am I ever going to have the opportunity to get all of those K2s for 2.00? So, my basket went from 10 to 20, mostly with K2s So, there you go, that's how the thought processes work. Pure illogic. 20 will cost you $80 + $12 shipping = $92. 34 will cost you $102 with free shipping. So you can get 14 more for $10 total. And it's not like the $3 to replace something with a K2 ends up being a net expenditure of $3 - we can then liquidate the old ones we've replaced for whatever they will bring in sale/trade. 34 should be the magic number to aim for in a shopping cart. Makes sense for guys to combine orders. Two guys getting 20 each will each spend $92, $184. Combine that order, and the total becomes $120, $60 each. You can mail 20 CD's media rate for about $4, making the total cost $124. so you could each save $30 ($62 each instead of $92 each) by combining the order. I knew that double major in finance and economics would eventually be good for something, it only took 30 years and a blowout sale to discover what!

Uh, one... But guess what everyone's going to get for Christmas? Credit card bills, same as we're going to get for August!

I don't know--I just ordered and ordered. Email confirmation also says free shipping. I also got free shipping.

138 - some extras of titles I already have to trade off in the future, some to just try for the education (at $2.99, I should be able to move them along without a meaningful loss), a whole lot of upgrades to the 20-bit K2's, which I was not willing to do at retail but can't not do at $2.99. Will have to be selling a whole lot of stuff on ebay to recoup this expense, but how can I not do this?

be prepared for the "death in the family" excuse. it's what I got from him a few years ago. Sometimes there really is a death in the family.

It's available on emusic.