Ken Dryden

It's hard to imagine a jazz artist behaving so badly. Guess he's burned his bridges at Perugia...

No one ever said being in the record business was easy.

PM sent on: Shelley Manne & His Men - At the Black Hawk, Vol. 3 (OJC 1991) - $5 Don Preston Trio - Transformation (Cryptogramophone, 2001) - $5

I thought that would be an incentive for someone to hurry up and buy it, so you didn't have to pay any fees to a website to sell it. But you are very generous to sell it for such a price, as many sellers are on this bulletin board.

I don't recall that much of it being reissued since 1999. The cardboard sleeves are a pain and the book tends to come apart if you try to read it much, but I would consider it essential for Ellington fans. I'm surprised that Chuck Nessa doesn't already own one of the 10,000 existing copies.

I was just about to buy Oscar Peterson: Debut: The Clef Mercury Duo Recordings 1949-1951 and the Ella Fitzgerald: Twelve Nights in Hollywood boxed sets, when both of them, plus Billie Holiday's Master Takes of the Commodore and Decca Recordings, showed up on my porch yesterday, courtesy of Regina Joskow-Duncan, the wonderful publicist at Verve. An earlier email indicated that no promos were going out on these limited edition sets, but she made a few exceptions for a few lucky souls.

I'd be surprised if it lasted long at that price, as used copies routinely sell for a lot more than $290. I don't think it remained in print for long.

At work I have the Gary Larson cartoon cover for Herb Ellis/Red Mitchell: Doggin' Around as a framed poster. Plus a few autographed photos, including Oscar Peterson, Milt Hinton, Clark Terry & James Williams, Dave Brubeck, Gene Harris, Eliane Elias, Ken Peplowski, Marian McPartland and a few others. No jazz stuff hanging at home, not even in my basement.

What's odd is that the song order on all issues of Benny Bailey's Big Brass seems to be incorrect, though since there are several originals, I'm not sure which song belongs to each title, aside from the standard on the date. Not exactly a mistake that made it to fruition, but when I was assigned liner notes for a best of collection (from a larger boxed set for the label), I mentioned that they included a song on the advance CD that didn't feature the leader soloing at all, an odd choice. They deleted it and took my suggestion for a replacement. I also found it odd that they omitted one of his best known compositions, which they did and took my suggestion of deleting "Canadian Sunset." I guess I could have gotten assistant producer credit, even if it meant no extra pay...

You might want to look for Cal Tjader: Both Sides of the Coin, a 2 CD set which includes the complete version of The Shining Sea. It might be a better deal. I've seen several copies of The Shining Sea listed at Amazon and Half.com. Perhaps you are only looking for a trade...

I officially ran out of shelf room today for heard CDs. I have hundreds I haven't gotten to yet, in boxes, drawers, stacked on the floor. I can't seem to get my photos to load. Oh, well...

One person's bad taste is another's satire. Whatever Jim wants is fine, he's paying for the board, so his rules rule.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes...It was a fun day, though there was no live jazz to enjoy (except on CDs and LPs).

In my collection: Randy Weston The Spirits of Our Ancestors Antilles 314511896 Randy Weston & Melba Liston Volcano Blues Antilles 314519269 Randy Weston The Splendid Master Gnawa Musicians Of Morocco Antilles 314521587 Randy Weston How High the Moon Biograph 147 Randy Weston Berkshire Blues Black Lion 760205 David Murray & Randy Weston The Healers Black Saint 120118 Randy Weston & Vishnu Wood Perspective Denon 8554 Randy Weston Nuit Africaine Enja 2086 Randy Weston Carnival Freedom 41004 Randy Weston Blues To Africa Freedom 41014 Randy Weston African Cookbook Koch 8517 Randy Weston Solo, Duo & Trio Milestone 47085 Randy Weston Mosaic Select Mosaic Select 4 Randy Weston Trio/Cecil Payne Jazz A La Bohemia OJC 1747 Randy Weston Trio Get Happy OJC 1870 Randy Weston Trio + Cecil Payne With These Hands... OJC 1883 Randy Weston African Nite Owl 14732 Randy Weston & His African Rhythm Trio Zep Tepi Random Chance 27 Randy Weston Spirit! The Power of Music Sunnyside 3015 Randy Weston Portraits Of Duke Ellington Verve 841312 Randy Weston Portraits Of Thelonious Monk Verve 841313 Randy Weston Self Portraits Verve 841314 Randy Weston Sextet Monterey '66 Verve 314519698 Randy Weston Marrakech In The Cool Of The Evening Verve 314521588 Randy Weston Tanjah Verve 314527778 Randy Weston Saga Verve 314529237 Randy Weston Earth Birth Verve 314537088 Randy Weston Khepera Verve 314557821

I once ordered a promo copy of the 10 CD Jazz at the Philharmonic set from Verve plus an Erroll Garner CD. They received my payment and proceeded to send me ten copies of the Garner and no JATP. The lady I contacted was very gracious, told me to keep the extra Garners (which I gave away to friends and added to our premiums at my station) and she also said she'd include an extra copy of JATP for my trouble. I ended up with 4 of them, so I made several friends happy at Christmas.

Because of some backorders, I ended up with duplicates of the following titles: Bud Shank/Shorty Rogers California Concert (OJC) $5.98 Susannah McCorkle How Do You Keep the Music Playing? $5.98 Gene Ammons Goodbye (OJC) $5.98 The Trumpet Kings (Gillespie/Eldridge/Terry, with Oscar Peterson) at Montreux $5.98 I'm also open to trades.

That's the one, The Banjo Album, reissued on Sierra as a CD. I enjoyed it.

If All of Your Friends are Dead, you need to get out more...

I just picked up a bluegrass CD by banjo player Doug Dillard and discovered Red Mitchell is the bassist. Lots of fun if you enjoy this sort of thing.

Lots better today. Yesterday, heavy rains caused flooding in parts of Southeast Tennessee around Chattanooga and in numerous Georgia counties from the state line down to Atlanta.

I've long enjoyed the 2 CD reissue of the Live at the Blue Note performances. I'm sure some of you may have heard this story, but it was around this time frame that Clark Terry introduced his routine of alternating between trumpet and flugelhorn. He told me during an interview that he was late for a matinee and Duke announced "And now the LATE Clark Terry will play "Caravan.'" He said, "Duke played it in a different key and faster than usual. But I was ready, I had been practicing." Terry tore up the show with his musicianship, though he confided, "Duke was so mad at me that he didn't speak to me for a month."

Jazz Icons does it right with detailed liner notes and lots of photos as well, to go with the excellent re-mastering of the vintage videos.

Euclid Records has some jazz LPs, both new and vintage things that have often never been reissued on CD.

My third order arrived today, with some backorders from the first two yesterday. I received a Daedalus catalog today and they seemed to have a few Concord/Fantasy cutouts that I don't remember seeing at Oldies, including the still fairly new Monterey Jazz Festival series, nearly every one except for the Brubeck.

I reviewed a Terry Gibbs/Buddy DeFranco CD of Steve Allen's music. Evidently Gibbs sent Allen a copy of my review after I submitted a tearsheet to Fantasy. A few weeks later I received a gracious personal note from the composer along with some other CDs of his music. I regret never getting around to interviewing him, I'm sure it would have been fun and informative. He was even joking the day he died. I read that after he had a minor traffic accident on the way to visit his son, he quipped, "Some people will do anything to get my autograph." I reviewed a Terry Gibbs/Buddy DeFranco CD of Steve Allen's music. Evidently Gibbs sent Allen a copy of my review after I submitted a tearsheet to Fantasy. A few weeks later I received a gracious personal note from the composer along with some other CDs of his music. I regret never getting around to interviewing him, I'm sure it would have been fun and informative. He was even joking the day he died. I read that after he had a minor traffic accident on the way to visit his son, he quipped, "Some people will do anything to get my autograph." ___________ I also feel fortunate to have seen Bill Evans in concert in 1979, while I've snapped up nearly everything I've found that he recorded, though I'm still missing a few sideman appearances.