Rooster_Ties

Well, as long as you asked... Jim Hendrix was my first really BIG musical obsession in High School, starting around my Sophomore year. I went through a minor Beatles phase late in Junior High (barely 18 months), and then about a year of random exploring, mostly just listening to classic-rock radio (back when the playlists were 10x as deep/long/wide). By my senior year of High School, including bootlegs, I had over 50(!) Jimi Hendrix albums -- so in a great many respects, THAT was my gateway. Or it certainly prepped me for Electric Miles Davis, that's for damn sure. So there was that too.

Eric Dolphy on alto, and Ron Carter on cello -- what's more to like?

I'm not sure they're enough "thinner" that I've noticed any different by weight -- but considering how tightly the interior "teeth" hold discs on some of their recent multi-disc sets ("interior" meaning where discs #2 & #3 are held, in a 4-disc "fat-boy" jewel-box) -- I definitely *HAVE* notices how easily the CD's bend (or maybe "flex" is the better term). Before I broke off half the spokes (teeth) of those "interior" holders, I was always terrified I was going to snap one or more of the discs clean in half!! So, yeah, I've noticed that Mosaic's more recent CD's seem to bend (flex) a bit more easily -- which would be consistent with being thinner.

The variety of the Jordan Strata East box is really wonderful. All of the inside stuff is just a little outside (or at least funny). And most of the more outside stuff is really coherent (don't know how else to say it). Not quite as solid as something like Complete Communion, but certainly in the vicinity. I'd just bought In The World as very pricy Japanese import CD, when the box was first announced -- but I've got no regrets, and am just thankful for all the great music on the rest of the box that I didn't yet have (nor had ever heard, or even heard OF before). If anybody missed out on the big box, and needs my Japanese mini-LP of In The World, lemme know. My extra copy needs a good home!

I had two gateways really. The first 4 jazz albums I had and heard with any degree of repetition, were two C90 cassette dubs a friend of mine made for me the summer before my Junior year of college -- and I must have played those tapes to death on auto-repeat for about 2 months straight, until I had to get more. Tape #1: Kind of Blue / Nefertiti + "Prince of Darkness" (from Sorcerer) Tape #2: Power To The People / Mode For Joe + "Gary's Notebook" (from Sidewinder) But I did have some key earlier exposure... 1) I took an Intro to Jazz 101 class at the end of my Sophomore year in college (actually it was a 200-level class). I was intrigued by it all, but I wasn't yet a 'convert'. My final project was on Sun Ra, but honestly, that was as much because my uncle had told me a number of great stories about Sun Ra off and on over the years, and both of Ra's A&M dates had just come out on CD (and were conveniently borrowable from the college radio station I were I was a DJ), that I thought that would be fun and different. Don't know how much I really "got" the music, but both those A&M CD's (Blue Delight and Purple Night) did make some sort of impression. Plus my uncle loaned me about 12 other Sun Ra LP's, which I listened to (though really didn't connect with as much). But Ra's story was out of this world, and made for an easy final project. 2) I mentioned my uncle (who was head of the art department at the college I went to, Knox College in Galesburg, IL - pop 30,000). For YEARS I'd heard him talking about jazz, and he played lots of stuff for me every year at Christmas or Thanksgiving. Don't know how much I really picked up, but I certainly got the impression that jazz was something really cool and special, and I got a sense of the whole scene and lineage of the music (or that there was one, even if I didn't "know" it yet). My uncle was a huge influence on a lot of my interests, even though I only saw him a couple times a year. He sadly passed about 5 years ago, after 6-8 years of ever worsening dementia. But even in his last several years, he like to talk about jazz a lot (if not often very coherently). He also played trumpet all through his adult life -- not especially well, but he worked a lot at it, and wasn't half-bad sometimes. I have a nice handful of his LP's and some 78's -- and also his entire Downbeat collection (complete), from 1965-1990 -- which I'll always treasure. I should also mention that I listened to a *LOT* of Frank Zappa my Freshman year -- and that HAD to have had a big influence too, in opening my ears to jazz (even if it smelled funny). Before that, I only knew 4-5 tracks from the radio ("Watch out where the huskies go..." - and god only knows what else), but I had a suitemate my Freshman year who was somewhat into Zappa when he got there, and then he started borrowing every Zappa album he could find (from the college radio station), and bringing them home and playing them a lot -- and I dubbed a few of them.

My dad will be 92 in May, and (thankfully) it's only his right ear that he has lots of trouble hearing with. He was fitted with a medium-grade hearing aid through an audiologist, but he says it really doesn't help much when he really needs it most (in crowded rooms, or noisy environments). He says it basically amplifies the noise as much or more than what he's actually trying to hear. As a result, I think he rarely wears it. Unfortunately I live 1,000 miles away, and haven't been able to have much luck engaging with him about it (he's getting more stubborn as he gets older). I'd probably force the issue more if I lived a lot closer, and saw him more than about 5-6 times a year -- and I may yet have to force the issue. But for now he's mostly getting along pretty OK with his one good ear, which (thank heaven) really does still have pretty decent hearing for his age. (He's gone into the audiologist for follow-ups about 4 times, but what I'm hearing secondhand from him is that no matter what they say or do, it just doesn't seem to work. But he won't be very assertive about it when he meets with the audiologist, and I have no idea if he's really got the hang of what it is they're trying to tell him to do. He has some other recent health issues that are not serious yet, but developing and potentially troubling - and I'm trying to focus on all that for the moment, which is about as much as I can do remotely from 1,000 miles away, without any other close family in his neck of the woods -- outside of St. Louis.)

I think really "low-end" hearing aids may not be able to discriminate based on frequency, but (I think?) even "medium-end" hearing aids will definitely adjust to specific frequency ranges (and that technology has been widely available for 30 years or more. I'm forgetting the details, but my mother taught audiology at the masters-degree level, and I'm almost positive this was the case back even before she retired in the late 90's (and sadly passed away about 15 years ago - or else I'd be able to confirm with her personally).

CD or LP? Prices aren't much better on Discogs, especially considering shipping costs... https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?sort=price%2Casc&master_id=284374&ev=mb

AMEN!!! I'd pay a premium price for it too (up to a certain point). I've been looking for that Waldron/Hino "Reminiscent Suite" date on LP for ~5 years now, but have never seen a copy for less than about $80, iirc -- but I'd really prefer to have it on CD.

I often feel the same way about the Elvin box, the farther towards the end of it that I get. That said, at one point I realized that if the albums covered on discs #6 & #7 (with Jan Hammer, and the like)... ...I realized that if those very same albums were by somebody else, and some really obscure label -- I'd probably value you them a little more (and probably even like them a little more too). I mean, there's a ton of oddball 70's stuff I really love, and those last few Elvin BN dates fit right in that bag, stylistically -- along with some of the lesser-known Strata East dates, and the like. Which is to say that my expectations going into them definitely colors the experience of listening to them for me -- so recalibrating my expectations has helped me appreciate those dates a little differently (and more too). FWIW, my favorite date on that entire set is the one with Lee Morgan, in a rare piano-less "Ornette" quartet setting (rare for him, anyway).

Wayne with Horace Silver? That's a new one on me.

I don't have a link handy I'm afraid (on mobile in an airport currently), but I recently re-purchased 3 of the 5(?) (or was it 6?) Hino TAKT titles that I previously only had as very nice quality on-demand CDR's (purchased ~4 years ago from CDJapan). I just don't trust CDR's to last more than about 10-20 years, and these albums are too great to take a chance on. But nearly all the Hino titles that kicked off this thread are entirely new to me, and I plan to order all of them in the next week or two. Honestly, if push really came to shove, I might very well rank Hino among my top-10 all-time favorite trumpeters. Not always, but he's often shockingly good. Certainly sometimes in the same league with the likes of a Woody Shaw, imho. And a few of these new TAKT reissues also have 1-2 bonus tracks, adding a bit to albums that were unfortunately around 35-37 minutes each originally. Hino might just be the most underrated trumpeter ever, at least in the US. Perhaps he's better known and appreciated in Europe - ? In any case, I'm thrilled to be picking up all this incredible material -- the first big jazz buying binge I've given myself in years.

Wasn't there some previous rubber band related record store day release six months ago or sometime in the last year? Or am I misremembering early hypefor this one? Also, weren't there several rubber band tracks released on the aborted six CD set of complete Warner Bros. recordings? I think it got all the way to the promo stage, and CD-R's of the six CD version were sent out. But then when it came out in stores, it was only a four CD set. In other words, what are the total number of rubber band tracks, or rubber band related (updated/remixed) tracks, that have been either issued, or send out as promos for something never (or not yet) issued?

Give me a full-length CD of the sessions, including some remixes, and I might bite. But this piecemeal crap is for the birds. Modern remixes don't bother me, but I'd prefer if they included the original, contemporaneous versions as originally intended, warts and all.

Sure does! Had no idea of his DC connections. BTW, up until just this last year, there was a full-time all-Bluegrass FM radio station here in DC (public radio, but oddly enough, *not* down at the bottom of the dial). It was a vestige of what became DC's main NPR affiliate in the early 70's (when NPR was first founded), but its Bluegrass origins go back to at least the 1960's. Then when WAMU became more of a traditional NPR affiliate, they found another frequency on the dial and programmed Bluegrass Country (as they called it), 24/7, iirc. I think(?) it may be internet only (or maybe on HD-radio, or whatever that's called these days). https://current.org/2017/05/bluegrass-fm-signal-in-washington-d-c-suburbs-will-go-off-air/ In any case, there's a LONG history of country/bluegrass here in and around DC, or so I've gleaned in my few years here. Doesn't take too far to get out of DC before you really are halfway into more rural (and rural-minded) environs. Western Maryland, West Virginia, and non-suburban parts of Virginia are barely 60 miles from the heart of DC, and even less from the close-in suburbs. Interesting that Clark also spent some time in New York City as well.

Sounded pretty good to me, frankly. The whole thing clocks in around 110 minutes, and would make a great 2-CD set. Also, based on the sample, the track "A5" has Nathan on soprano, and man does he ever have just about THE sweetest, most precise soprano tone and intonation of just about anyone I've ever heard. I wouldn't want a whole album with him just on soprano, but a track (or two even) would not be unwelcome. Nathan plays soprano about as 'beautifully' as Eric Dolphy played flute. Remarkable.

Me too. Looks great! Shame it appears to be LP only.

Does anyone have an alternate link? This one goes to a paywall, I'm afraid. Thx!

Well, physical copies certainly won't disappear. But I don't trust that everything that's currently available to be reliably available forever. 80% or more, yes, probably all safe (so maybe my 20-30% is a bit high -- maybe it's more like 10-15%). In any case, it's not some NON-trivial small number of recordings (like 2%). As Jim eluded to before, companies come and go all the time, and so do agreements. Not, not most of them (I realize), but who's to say that something semi-obscure won't be in the next batch of stuff that doesn't seem to be "accessible" any more, for whatever reason. I agree, the great majority of "popular" jazz recordings will probably be accessible via streaming for decades to come. But how much stuff that has only ever come out on CD once (or maybe twice), might either never be available -- or maybe be available for a time, but then in some huge acquisition, be easily excised because the costs don't outweigh the benefits. For instance: How many movies and TV series have been on Netflix for quite a number of years, only to disappear. I'm not on Netflix, mind you, but I've read about that numerous times (meaning a couple times every year, for several years now). It's not boatloads of material, but it's not a non-trivial tiny amount either. It used to be a really good, art-house-oriented video-rental store would have TONS of films that I understand only a fraction of which can be streamed today. Maybe 75% of all of Hitchcock's sound-era films can be streamed today (I don't know), but it was just 28-ish years ago that I remember going around to every video-rental place in the small town where I went to college (population 30,000), and collectively in that tiny town, I personally binge-watched 80% of Hitchcock's sound-era films, JUST FROM WHAT WAS IN THE 5 VIDEO-RENTAL STORES IN THAT TOWN OF 30,000. In a much larger city (back then), I could have probably rented 90% of them, I'm betting -- which is probably WAY more than you can stream on-line now. The music holdings owned and license by huge conglomerates stand the best chance of "survival" -- but that still leaves a ton of lesser-known stuff, that's more likely to get the axe at some point or some of it, at least). How about Charles Tolliver's or Billy Harper's great 70's recordings? Most of Woody Shaw's studio dates are probably safe (most were on major labels), but how about all the live stuff? - and there's TONS of *live* Woody Shaw, close to a dozen CD's (give or take, hell it might be 14-15, I've lost count), just off the top of my head -- but most of THAT hasn't been on majors. Maybe my CD collection is overly obscure, but off the top of my head, I would fear a disproportionate part of it (maybe 25%?) might easily never be on any streaming services, or be available for a time, with some portion of it suddenly disappearing at some point. Yes I'm pulling numbers out of thin air, but I'm deliberately NOT trying to be hyperbolic and suggesting the majority of the 3,000 CD's I own would suddenly disappear from streaming services. But you can't tell me with any certainty which part of it will disappear (on-line), and I do think some of it will -- and which "some" is the big question nobody knows.

Wild guess.

That's my concern too, Jim. I'm sure 70-80% if what you can reliably stream now will be reliably streamable years from now. But there's no way to predict which 20-30% will suddenly disappear at some random point 5-10-15 years from now. And given my luck, a higher proportion of the more obscure stuff I value most will be among the losses. I don't stream stuff now much, or only randomly (and from YouTube mostly). But if I moved over to relying more on streaming, I might more easily give up my physical copies of certain artists (on certain labels), than others. Like Monk on Columbia, that's probably (safely) gonna be around forever to stream. Same with Booker Ervin on Prestige. But there's no way I'm gonna get rid of any of my Terumasa Hino CD's, cuz I can't imagine all that much being available now, and then what is, could easily be gone in X years. Likewise, there are any number of pivotal 20th Century classical works that I don't really listen to but a time or two each year -- "Quartet for the End of Time" for instance (or Schoenberg's string quartets) -- that I'm pretty positive I can stream somewhere or somehow (forever). But some more obscure stuff (with only 1 or 2 released recordings in the CD age), I'm not turning loose of that stuff on physical media. Everything's probably case by case. But yeah, I could probably see reducing my physical collection by 1/3rd without too much worry. But half of what I have, I would seriously doubt I'd have reliable access to (via streaming), ad infinitum.

Also just bought something from Scott too, a small Select-size box, and it came perfectly packaged as well (and in perfect condition) - and fast. No reservations, would purchase again!

Look forward to that book!! Especially the coverage of the 60's and 70's -- time periods often given shorter shrift in some books (or that was certainly the case 20 years ago, anyway, but maybe less-so now) When is the book coming out? I'll most definitely want one!

Other than Maria Schneider's, aren't (and haven't) true jazz "orchestras" been more of a European thing?? -- thinking back as far as the 1960's. (Owing surely to better state-support of the arts on the other side of the pond.)