Rooster_Ties

Super nice guy. Really bummed to hear this. RIP:

I can't fathom a 'biopic' of Lee's life happening, nor anything good coming from it (should any such movie ever be made).

Amen to that. My all-time favorite Woody Shaw album, bar none. Absolute highest recommendation.

Of all of Woody's 80's output specifically, this is probably my single favorite of his 80's albums. Never cared for Bemsha Swing a whole ton, though I haven't heard it in years. Can't remember my beef with it, but maybe the specific tunes was at least part of it, iirc. A little too much Monk, maybe.

Ike Willis is -- or damn well sure ought to be -- considered a national treasure. "Outside Now" is such a fantastic tune. The version on Broadway The Hard Way was one of the very first post-70's Zappa albums I ever heard -- and that whole '88 live band was totally the shit. Must have listened to Broadway, Best Band, and Jazz Noise on repeat for a whole year when I first got them in the early 90's. Ike's voice is seriously one of the most beautiful and interesting voices in all of pop/rock/jazz/you-name-it.

I got to hang out backstage a couple different times with Kevin and his wife, back some 20+ years ago - at a club in KC that I used to frequent so much I practically worked there (for bigger shows - The Drum Room in Westport, for anyone who remembers KC back in the mid-90's), and I had free run of the place. Kevin and his wife were always super nice, and very down to earth. His wife was a photographer by trade (I think?), and I vaguely remember running into her around town at clubs, now and then - so I chatted with her even more than Kevin. Really good people. Really sorry to hear of this loss, and 59 is definitely young. I understand his wife preceded him, RIP to both really good souls. Not being a huge fan of vocal-jazz, I never sought out hearing Kevin on gigs around Kansas City (not that he played in town a whole ton), but I did catch him a few times -- but more than that, I seemed to run into him more often than I heard him. Not lots, but maybe every year or so. I just tried to find a good picture of both Kevin and his wife (Alllene) to post, and instead found this lovely slideshow (below) of photos from his wife's passing just back in June this year. It's a little long (~10 minutes), but you can skip around - and it includes wedding photos, and other family and candid shots (more of his wife, of course). I have good memories of both of them seeing this, and although it's a little personal, since it is public (Google brought it right up), I think I'll share it here. Music, of course, is Kevin in the background. http://www.creativephotoslideshows.com/Custom-Shows/Funeral-Memorials/Client-Memorial-Slideshows/Allene/i-cnpGrJS

"The Rumproller" for Lee, definitely. But I'm not sure Hill ever wrote anything for Mobley (their only encounter was on No Room For Squares, iirc). If the on-line resource I found this on is right (don't have my McMaster with me at the moment), the full session was as shown down below (and all titles by Hank, or Lee)... QUESTION: SO, then was "Rumproller" the ONLY Hill-penned tune for anyone else? -- other than the four (4) Hill tunes on Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue, of course. Hank Mobley No Room For Squares - Blue Note BST 84149 Rec. Oct 2, 1963 at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Hank Mobley (ts), Lee Morgan (tp), Andrew Hill (p), John Ore (b), Philly Joe Jones (d) No Room For Squares (Hank Mobley) Three Way Split (Hank Mobley) Me 'N' You (Lee Morgan) Carolyn (Lee Morgan) Comin' Back* (Hank Mobley) Syrup and Biscuits* (Hank Mobley) No Room For Squares (alt tk)* Carolyn (alt tk)* Notes: *songs from the session which first appeared on the CD re-issue

Ha! Exactly the anecdotal evidence I needed to 'prove' my point! The import of KOB seems pretty darn clear, but most Coltrane fans I know wouldn't elevate Blue Train to anything other than maybe being one of his 10 most important albums. My perspective is a little skewed, by the fact that I never really got bitten hard by the Coltrane bug (weird, I know). I've got tons of respect and admiration for him, but I think I only own barely 20% of Trane's total recorded output -- where I'm well over 80% for Joe Henderson, for instance (and that's including all of Joe's sideman work). I probably haven't listened to my copy of Blue Trane more than 5 times in the last 20 years.

A "darn good" date, sure - but nowhere near the semi-magnum-opus it's been marketed to be over the years. And yeah, the ensembles are way more sloppy than one could ever imagine, considering its street-cred. And Curtis has always seemed to be phoning it in here. How did this album become such a revered cash cow for Blue Note? Was it just the title track being hummable as all get-out, and the cover being as iconic as hell? If so, a killer combo, indeed. I don't know that it reached Sidewinder-esque sales back in its day, but I'm betting sales of Blue Train after 1980 probably matched (or eclipsed?) Sidewinder even. I think I may have even seen copies for sale at Starbucks 10-15 years ago (but never Sidewinder). As a result, to this day, I'm convinced that there are probably a couple thousand Gen Xers out there who've only ever owned 5 jazz CD's (or less), and two of them are Kind of Blue and Blue Train. A good album, sure (arguably top-100, I suppose) -- but nowhere near its near "top-10 jazz albums of all time" perceived status by more than a handful of people. But an absolute feat of marketing, I'll give it that.

What was the lowdown on the overalls? I mean, didn't he make the whole band(!) wear matching overalls for a while there (am I remembering they right?). Were they all tired of dry cleaning bills?

Since I think(?) all these BN SHM's are back out again (with a few that have otherwise unreleased bonus tracks), I just thought I'd point out that I thought the alternate take of the title track from Mode For Joe continues to be a real revelation for me -- and perhaps even surpasses the 'original' (i.e. the far better known released version). Well worth plunking down for, imho, if anyone's ordering some other titles in this series. Anybody else concur?? Meaning specifically about this track.

I don't suppose any of the rest of this 1966 material has ever surfaced. Would love to hear this entire set someday, even as short as it is.

When/what the heck does this alternate cover for Dizzy Reece's Comin' On! come from? CD or LP? I've sure never seen this photo-less one before just moments ago. Weird!

For some reason I thought this series was being issued twice a year, but I'm just now seeing "quarterly" on the cover-art for the whole package -- ??. If it really is quartely, $800 per year is a lot to expect people to drop, imho.

I had the 1992 Bellaphon/Strata-East german version years ago (lost when the friend I loaned it to passed away unexpectedly 10+ years ago, and I never had the heart to reach out to his widow about it). About 5 years ago, replaced it with the more recent Japanese mini-LP reissue, which sounds great (but I never had the change to A/B compare the sound). Just looked on eBay, and there are ZERO copies available on CD now (nor any in the recently completed auctions listings), so it appears to be pretty scarce these days. God damn crime key dates like this are becoming so frickin' rare. A person ought to be able to pick up any of the best half-a-dozen of Harper's dates on CD, without having to shell out $50 or more (which seems to be about the price on Amazon's second-hand market). Seriously, it's a crime such good material is rapidly becoming impossible to buy. Most of Charles Tolliver's key output is headed that direction too, to say nothing of dozens of other important musicians.

BTW, I won a copy of the Verve Mulligan 'Concert Jazz Band' Mosaic on eBay a couple weeks ago (only $60 total!). Turns out it was from Euclid Records in St. Louis (where I'm visiting family next week for Thanksgiving) -- so I got an in-store pick-up planned (and no shipping cost, and no sales-tax because I got it through eBay). Really looking forward to this one, a set I'd considered buying easily a half-dozen times (but never quite got around to). Hell of a price, that I couldn't pass up. EDIT: I'm seeing just now that I posted earlier in this very topic -- way back in 2003! Only took me almost 15 years go get around to it.

I think he might have been both times I met him backstage after concerts (just for a quick autograph). Not in any way "out of it", but he definitely sees the world in his own way. In fact, he might be extra "with it" - maybe practically all time.

I too was deeply shocked that there was ever any compassion shown for Helen, by anyone who knew Lee (least of all those who knew him well, worked with him etc...) I'm not suggesting that such compassion should never have been offered -- but, rather, I'm simply astounded that people exist with that kind of compassion. Honestly, I about fell out of my chair when I saw Ridley's comments there towards the very end. Ridley's comments there really had a huge impact on my experience of the film, and the complexity around the events of Lee's life (and death) -- something I could have never imagined going into the film. I'm not sure I could muster that kind of compassion, or understanding for someone -- but I did find myself admiring Ridley at that point, for apparently having that capacity (at least to some extent).

I'd gladly contribute $200 towards a Kickstarter campaign to get Tyrone's "train wreck" released legitimately by Blue Note (or by any legit reissue label), in a heartbeat. Where do I click, I'll sign up now! (And if I knew I could get 20 copies on CD too, included, I'd probably kick in $300.) And that NOT cuz I'm dying to hear the thing, but simply because I'm (still) rather fond of the idea of this complete session getting some legitimacy. I'm marginally curious about the 'new' material in the 2CD set unique to each "Blue Note Review" -- but nowhere near enough to plunk down $200 just to get that (not terribly interested in anything on vinyl, or the scarf, or any of the rest either). "Marginally" at best. Wonder what their sales targets are for this thing? 50 subscriptions? - at $200 a pop, that's $10K. Or do they need 100 subscriptions to really make this fly? Or 250? Thing is, 250 seems like a LOT, for something this big/pricy. Would I pay $100 for each one of these? - perhaps, but I'd only be doing so out of "charity" and my personal love of the label. (But certainly not $200, no way could I afford that for long.)

Looking, it seems to be just her (solo), which should be really good! My wife's a fan (me too, but especially my wife) -- and we saw Regina with her band over the summer (with Ben Folds opening, solo). I thought with her band, it was all a little stiff, and unspontaneous - but still fun. She's got loads of personality that shines through, and I love most of her quirky songwriting, not entirely unlike Bjork (or Fiona Apple, for that matter). Wish I could hear her solo sometime, probably a lot of fun. Enjoy!

Just bumping an old thread to say how darn much I'm still enjoying Theo, which is a favorite for when my wife and I are on our occasional road-trips (couple times a year, usually) - not that it doesn't get other spins at home too. Jim, if you ever have any interest in doing another Theo prog-type release, I'm definitely in! Hell of a great album, one for the ages!!

Just bumping an old thread to say how darn much I'm still enjoying Theo, which is a favorite for when my wife and I are on our occasional road-trips (couple times a year, usually) - not that it doesn't get other spins at home too. Jim, if you ever have any interest in doing another Theo prog-type release, I'm definitely in! Hell of a great album, one for the ages!!

Honestly, I like The Trainwreck even better than Natural Essence. And Herbie's playing, in particular, is VERY interesting, in that All Seeing Eye sort of way (much like his contributions there). If I won the lottery, I'd love to somehow get The Trainwreck liberated with a legit release, including all the alternates.

In the spirit of the recent "What would you ask Chick Corea?" thread, where some very interesting questions were posed, I'll ask for a parallel discussion re: Herbie. Not seeing him soon, nor any chance to ask him anything. Though I have met him twice, and asked him some question about the 2nd Quintet and Plugged Nickel recordings with Miles (had him sign something related to the Plugged Nickel set, forget exactly what, when I saw him on that live duo tour with Whayne. And the SECOND time I heard him, circa 2007? - of course I asked him about 'The Trainwreck' - but it was at some high-donor post concert reception (that Spontooneous and I crashed), that Herbie clearly was kind of annoyed to have had to have attended -- and all he said was that Tyrone Washington was one weird cat, and that was about it (I think this was before I'd actually heard it, or I might have asked something more specific about the date). ANYWAY, what burning questions, or non-burning, or just smoldering -- would you ask, given the chance??