Ken Dryden

I have had a few dealings with unsavory individuals through ebay/half.com who either didn't ship discs ordered or badly misrepresented items for sale (one clown sent burned DVD copies and represented them as "the only way to get them,") yet I still was in touch with them before filing claims. Regarding the DVDR crook, he refunded everything, including shipping both ways. The same is true for informal direct sales through boards. Although it might be tough to get a refund or an adjustment from a seller in this type of transaction, I still feel that the seller deserves the opportunity to offer a replacement, partial refund, or full refund before a buyer goes public complaining about a purchase. Put yourself in the seller's shoes and ask how you would react to a posted bb complaint before hearing from a disgruntled buyer. I probably won't be shopping at one used CD store in NYC again. I purchased a Paul Bley disc on Steeplechase there and didn't look at it closely enough. When I finally got ready to play it a few months later, I discovered it was a CDR with a glossy photo (but definitely copied) book. If they actually took this thing in via trade, they should have pitched it or played it in the store. I know it is too late to get a refund, as they would claim I burned it myself.

Any buyer with a perceived problem should contact a seller directly first if there is a problem rather than venting on a bulletin board. I used to be a retail manager and it used to surprise me that customers would occasionally contact the Better Business Bureau before giving me a chance to offer a solution to their problems.

Willis Conover was also responsible for assembling a great jazz lineup for the initial New Orleans Jazz Festival. Now jazz is second tier behind headliners like Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart, making the name of the festival the worst kind of false advertising.

I am anxiously awaiting the Monterey series. I wonder if Carl Jefferson left behind the masters of the various Concord Jazz Festivals that he recorded that have never seen the light of day? Among them is a Woody Herman set with Duke Ellington sitting in; a former Concord rep once had a copy of it that Jefferson gave to him. By the way, who's George Washington, Jr.? Was it supposed to be GROVER?

I just heard Cyrus Chestnut's Trio last night. A nice set that was wide-ranging, with originals, standards, hymns and spirituals, plus even a few entertaining reworkings of tunes associated with Elvis Presley that are from his upcoming Koch CD (and I've never particularly been a fan of Elvis).

One of the strangest problems I had was paying an extra cover to sit close to the bandstand to hear Kenny Barron & Ray Drummond at the late lamented Zino in NYC, only to have some yuppie women talking loudly throughout the set at the next table. Why in the hell did these morons pay extra to sit so close? Another weird experience was during a jazz party, when Rebecca Kilgore was singing with Dave Frishberg backing her and a hotel employee was making popcorn in the back of the ballroom during the set.

It shouldn't be surprising that Captain Kangaroo would feature jazz. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood had jazz pianist Johnny Costa as music director for most of its run.

You have to realize several things: Sometimes the songs listed are no longer with the masters, but either lost or discarded. Sometimes the performances simply are unworthy of release, even to most obssesive collectors. There also may be sound problems, poor balance, excessive dropouts in the tape, damaged tape, etc. Some of the producers who contribute to this Bulletin Board probably can give you additional reasons as to why tracks aren't made available. It is nice when labels like Mosaic mention the listing in the logs of missing tracks and why they are not present in a reissue or boxed set. No other label seems to do this much at all.

The Verve boxed set issued by Mosaic was pulled prior to the end of the normal lease period because of unstated legal problems. But look for the 2 disc Verve compilation released a few year ago, the collaborations with Stephane Grappelli, Violin Summit (oop) with Ponty, Grappelli & Asmussen. There are also a number of LPs that have never been out on CD; I've always liked his final album, Black Violin, issued by BASF/MPS. AB Fable also has put out several excellent compilations of Smith's private recordings.

I wasn't aware of the new "Buyer 1, then Buyer 2" ebay rule, but that will keep me from bidding in the future. Ebay has not done enough to protect buyers from crooks on the site. The first thing they ought to do would be to require sellers to accept Visa/Mastercard. That would put a lot of the dishonest folks out of business.

What about journeyman Harry "Suitcase" Simpson, who always seemed to be getting traded? Eli Grba, a pitcher with an unpronouncable nameand worse stuff...

I guess whoever typed (or wrote) the press release pooted.... What about all the typos/errors in liner notes, incorrect song titles, wrong or missing composers and missing instruments on certain CD releases?

High shipping costs save the seller money since ebay doesn't get a commission on that portion of the sale. Hopefully, this is meant to cover insurance for more expensive sales, but watch out...

I have the LP version with Sir Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I don't know if it has been reissued, but it remains my favorite recording of this ballet.

If a fifth edition ever appears, I hope the selected reviews are shorter. The fourth edition has far too many long reviews, which squeezed out a lot of titles from the third. If I take a copy into a voluminous record store like Euclid or Jazz Record Center, I want to have as many titles covered at my fingertips as possible. There are several musicians strangely omitted like Bill Charlap, yet nobodies like Caelie Norby and modern artists who've only recorded 2-3 CDs as leaders since 1990 (ex: Marlon Jordan) still are listed. Another editing suggestion is to delete all of the best of listed compilations (something serious collectors rarely buy) and Prestige Twofer LPs, since the latter are made of individual albums that have frequently been reissued in their original form on CD.

I haven't done a huge amount of liner note writing, but it is always fun and definitely a challenge! If you make a huge gaff, it can last for a long time in the public eye. I'm sure other liner note writers can share their stories. I've been sent advance discs with mislabeled songs, unlisted instruments, wrong or incomplete composer credits and even one track for a "best of" compilation in which the leader didn't even take a solo. After my feedback, that track, along with another I suggested deleting in favor of a much better known song, were replaced before the CD was issued. I was dumbfounded as to what Jaki Byard meant by "St. Mark's Place in the Sewers" until CD producer Stuart Kremsky told me of the pianist's explanation to the audience, which was omitted from The Last From Lennie's. On the liner notes to Phil Woods' Bouquet, Leonard Feather states that Woods' song title "HUK2E" "doesn't mean anything..."--I guess he didn't expectorate it. Regarding wrong track order: one way around it is to talk about songs in logical groupings instead of in the order of appearance on the CD. That way last minute production changes won't affect the notes.

One man's Boone's Farm is another Chateau Lafitte Rothschild (or however it's spelled, it's out of my price range, in any case). The offerings on Mosaic Contemporary will be like Boone's Farm to me; I've never heard a smooth jazz release that merited playing on my stereo. And three laughs at the hapless writer who described David Sanborn as "one of the greatest saxophonists of all time" in the very uneven Legends of Jazz boxed set.

I'm always amused at ebayers who start with an insanely high selling price instead of starting much lower and having a reserve price.

I don't think that Mosaic is running shy of material, by any means. But some of the sets mentioned above might be a bit of a gamble as boxed sets. Then again, I'll leave it to Michael Cuscuna and company, since it will be their assets, not mine, that are in play.

They have mined a lot of good stuff, while some labels may be asking too much to lease out certain recordings or artists. Cuscuna is a smart businessman, so he has to ask whether or not each potential set or individual reissue will sell enough copies to make a decent profit. No one can forecast accurately 100% of the time and the Capitol sets seem to be the ones that have done poorly, given the number of sales involving them. The Honeydew jest by someone in an earlier post was a riot. Dave McKenna told me that the sessions he did for the label "sounded like they were recorded in a toilet" and that he never got paid for them.

I seem to recall reading the World Pacific version of Now Jazz Ramwong was edited byt the often overzealous label owner Dick Bock.

Sonny Rollins is not doin' a Gangsta thing, he's just beating the thieves at their own game, the same way that Frank Zappa did with his two Beat the Boots! boxed sets on the Rhino-distributed Foo-eee label. Those boxes are now collectable themselves. I wish more artists did the same thing, it would put a damper on some of these crooked European labels who never pay anyone for the material they brazenly steal.

I doubt he'll get that much for that 1998 reissue. One is available at half.com for just $80, but I already own this set, in any case.

Michael Cuscuna has frequently said that such unreleased Blue Note sessions may look good but were held back for a damned good reason.

I find it hard to believe that a descendant of the Big Bopper was conned into approving his exhumation to examine him for bullet wounds, according to that stupid urban legend that's been circulating since the crash. Almost as dumb as them pulling President Zachary Taylor out of his crypt 150 years later to see if he was poisoned, all due to some dimwit writer from my home state of Florida and a descendant foolish enough to okay it. Maybe someone will talk one of John Connolly's great-grandkids into exhuming his body to get out the missing bullet from that sad day in Dallas.