Ken Dryden

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.

One major screw up by the post office was the due to a lazy mailman a few years back who tucked a box with an LP in it between the outside of the mailbox and the flag, just so he wouldn't have to make a 30 step round trip to my front porch like most folks delivering packages too large for the mailbox. It contained an out of print LP on Fat Cat's Jazz by Willie the Lion Smith and by the time I got home, the record was hopelessly warped from a day in the hot afternoon summer sun. Needless to say, I never have been able to acquire a replacement for it. Thanks a lot, you lazy S.O.B....

Among the record show vinyl acquisitions I gave a spin to recently was Gary Wofsey's Kef's Pool, with special guest Phil Woods. But not even Woods' best effort helped the treatment of the mediocre song "Close to the Edge" (by the forgettable rock group Yes).

Elmer's Glue to clean a record? That sounds like an April Fool's joke....which gives me an idea. We once had a station staffer clean records, only instead of using the VPI vacuum machine, he poured tape head cleaner onto them. Needless to say, we tossed every one of them.

Could there have been a worse choice to contribute lyrics and a vocal to "Blood Count" than Elvis Costello? Oh well, Duke often had a preference for odd male vocalists.

I have a fair quantity of Charlie Parker, including all of the Verve, Savoy, Dial things plus the airchecks issued by Columbia and some of the ones issued on various other labels. I'll admit that I go blank as to the name of a tune I should recognize from time to time, too. Then again, I've heard musicians who can't remember what tunes they've played by the end of a set and seen more than a few record labels and writers who can't identify songs correctly. We all are less than perfect on occasion.

I'd love to figure a way to archive this video, thanks for sharing the link.

Do you mean the original British version of The Ladykillers or the awful recent version with Tom Hanks? If you haven't seen the original with Alec Guiness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, you owe it to yourself to view it.

With declining numbers of public radio stations offering NPR's classical programming, what are they supposed to do, flush additional money away? NPR has dropped lots of programs in the past, including Afro-Pop Worldwide, Heat with John Hockenberry and various jazz programs (Jazz Alive!, American Jazz Radio Festival, Wynton Marsalis Making the Music--though some of these may have lost funding to keep running). Performance Today will be moving to another network, while if there is so much demand for additional syndicated classical programs, I'm sure that some organization can raise the funds to produce it. NPR, like individual public radio stations, can hardly stand still or run up deficits and remain in existence. Why have local stations dropped classical music programming? The aging (50+) of the audience, lack of financial support, lack of underwriting support, etc., are all likely factors. We finally dropped the Metropolitan Opera (again) and our station's audience doubled within the first six weeks, not to mention opening times to sell underwriting and pitch during membership drives. Most stations don't have huge endowments (we don't have one at all) so they live from year to year. This is another case of whining about something without bothering to investigate the factors that brought about the decision.

To top it off, this is a used copy. Not to mention the dolt lists Jim Hall elsewhere on the page as part of the CD. Duh....

As a former retailer myself, I find it extremely dishonest for any business to charge one's credit card unless they have the merchandise in stock and ready to ship at the time of the transaction, especially Amazon or half.com sellers, who are supposed to ship promptly after confirmation. This would be different if it involved a special order of merchandise not normally carried (to protect a retailer against getting stuck with merchandise if a customer suddenly had a change of mind). It's like the old ruse many chain retail stores use of offering a great price on a popular item at or below cost, yet have so little inventory that they run out long before the sale is over, or the bogus huge discounts off a ridiculously high "regular" price. I worked for Gordon Jewelry, which had 50% off gold chains for every day of my tenure with them as a manager (which lasted over 4 years).

I think this is the same organization/person that sells through half.com. I've had some orders filled and some that never arrived that I had to complain about. But they would confirm orders whether or not they had the merchandise, which is very dishonest. How can one confirm an order that is supposed to ship within two business days if it isn't already on hand? I had a friend that never received his only order through half.com and he never got credit either, which embarassed me, since I had directed him to this seller.