Rooster_Ties

Dmitry, let us know how this thread turns out -- if you complete any sets!! It'd be good to hear if any are completed as a result of this board. Go Dmitry!!!

I'm the same way, Eric, in the comparisons with Herbie -- at least from what I've heard. These three electric albums by Eddie that I have are all BAAAD!!!! --- and have Herbie beat (slightly) at his own game, at least in my book. Hey, I see on Dusty Groove's site that his 1977 album "Comin' Through" is due out on CD this month. The Dusty review sounds good, of course (don't they all!!!) --- with all the Dusty buzzwords (which I've put in bold below)... Of course the AMG review paints a different picture... As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Just picked up this one-disc compilation of Eddie Henderson's first two albums as a leader, both on the Capricorn label originally. (Got it from Dusty Groove, the only place I've ever seen it.) Both albums have the entire line-up for Herbie's Mwandishi group, including Herbie, Bennie Maupin, Buster Williams, and Billy Hart, plus a couple extra musicians on each session. Man, I really love these recordings, especially the first one - "Realization" - recorded in early 1973. The second one - "Inside Out" - is a bit spacier, with less blowing from Eddie (or Bennie), but it's still a mighty interesting album never the less. And actually, this compilation is called "Anthology: Volume 2 - The Capricorn Years". I passed on Volume 1 for the moment, because it appears to be a greatest-hits/overview kind of thing, for much of Eddie's output in the 70's. Anybody else have Volume 1?? Is it worth picking up?? Is that the only way to get most of that material on CD?? (I tend to avoid compilations that draw from multiple albums, don't we all?) I've also got Eddie's "Sunburst", the recent Rare Groove title from BN, and really like it as well, particularly while driving in the car. What other electric-era Eddie from the 70's is on CD?? I've got a smattering of his Steeplechase work (all acoustic, at least what I have), and I like most of it as well. Has Eddie recorded in any electric contexts since the start of the 80's?? Everything I've heard has been acoustic, but perhaps I'm not aware of some things. With the variety of groups revisiting Miles' electric work from the 70's, you'd think Eddie would maybe have a new audience for his (former) electric side.

Don't suppose this in on-line anywhere?? In fact, doesn't Downbeat have extended versions of the Blindfold Tests on-line??

Got the new CD reissue of "Gemini" today (from 'The Bastards'), and man -- is this ever one hell of an album!!! (And every bit as exciting as Phil Ranelin's "The Time Is Now!" from about the same year.) A little pricy at Dusty ($18.99), but probably worth every penny (or at least nearly so). And FYI, you can sample the first minute of two tracks (particularly track #4 - "Gemini II"), if you go HERE. Next time you order anything from Dusty, get this one too!!!

What I'm waiting for is good ol' 12-tone (serial) Country music. Bring it on!!!

Which often leads to circular heavy-petting.

I've got a copy of "Farmer's Reserve" that I'd be happy to trade to somebody. PM me if interested.

Any former Brill's Content subscribers/readers here?? What do you read now to get that same fix??

Word!! And props.

First off --- does anybody here subscribe to The Columbia Journalism Review?? I've been reading their stuff on-line, off and on, for the last couple months -- and I'm kinda thinking of subscribing, and getting the print-edition (6 issues a year). Anybody else here subscribe to the CJR?? Is it worth it?? I used to be a subscriber to Brill's Content -- and I really loved reading it, cover to cover --- first when it was monthly, then (quickly) 10 issues a year, then 8, then 6 (I lost track -- all that happened in the space of like 18 months), then el-foldo. Then we got Mother Jones for a short while, for 'free' from the Brill's people --- as their way of covering the rest of our unfulfilled Brill's subscription --- but I never could get into Mother Jones nearly as much as Brill's.) My wife subscribes to TIME, and I usually read it, though often I find myself just skimming through it quickly. We also get a magazine every other month through our church (we're Unitarian Universalists, or "UU" for short), and I usually find a number of things to like there... (By the way, here's a LINK to the "Jazz Theology" article, which was a cover story last year.) What do you get in your mail-box, or on the newsstand (frequently, or semi-frequently), that's worth your time???

In some ways, my favorite WWM disc is their very first one ("Notes from the Underground" (Accurate, 1992), pictured above). Or at least it's the one MMW album with what I would actually called "focused" soloing (or maybe "meaningful" soloing, take your pick) --- especially when it comes to Medeski's solos, on piano in particular. So then, as far as his acoustic piano playing goes, for my taste he goes downhill after that first album. In all fairness, he normally (by which I mean everything since that first MMW album)... Medeski normally plays the piano more like a pure percussion instrument. I'm not much on Cecil Taylor (sorry, I've tried, and it just doesn't work for me), and Medski's recent piano-work reminds me of Cecil a bit (piano as pure percussion). That said, I do respect Medeski's piano playing (and Cecil's too). It's just that in both cases, I don't get it. (All that said, I do own nearly the entire MMW catalog, and I've seen them live 5 or 6 times -- so obviously I do find something in their music, even if I find fault with them too.)

I've got nearly every release by MMW, except maybe their very most-recent one. As has already been said before -- great band, but the sum of the parts is greater than just the parts. Medeski, in particular, is a guy who I can't -- for the life of me -- get into in terms of his solos. Especially when he plays piano. But as a band, they can't be beat. I've heard them live about five or six times, including their all-acoustic tour (the one that generated Tonic). The grooves they cut are mega-deep, but what they each have to say as soloists is somewhat less interesting to me. But shit, those grooves are cavernous!!! -- even if they go on, and on, sometimes a bit longer than makes sense sometimes. They're always solid "B+" material (never less, and sometimes "A-"), but I'm always left wishing they had more meat on the bone, as far as their soloing ability.

Had to look this one up - as it was a cover I had never seen before. Here 't is... Just picked up a used copy of this CD today. Haven't listened to quite all of it yet, but what I've heard -- I like!! EDIT: Listened to the whole thing in the car, while driving around town to various appointments. Great disc. Always good to have some more Lee that I didn't have previously.

Hey, any chance we could get a new rolleyes.gif smilie?? --> I can't tell you how many times I've seen people around here use it (I think by mistake), when they really probably intended just to pick a "smiling" smilie. In fact, looking over to my left right now -- as I'm typing this -- for some reason none of the smilies are currently animated (not "animat-ing"), and as a result, the "rolleyes" one looks like a regular smile with the eyes wide, wide open. So, with that in mind, I have this suggestion... Take away the "smile" part, and make the mouth go straight acorss, just like the mouth on this smilie ---> Oh, that, and we need more threads about Kerry's war record. Can we please do something about that too.

There are many, many videos floating around of Miles concerts, from every year after his comeback, including 1982. I have a bunch from later in the 80's (that I got years ago, when I was in college around 1990), but remember seeing listed two or three full-length concerts on the "trade lists" of others, from every year in the 80's, including the early 80's. The answer you seek is out there, for sure.

I'm not sure this is what you're looking for (and perhaps it isn't), but allow me to wholeheartedly recommend the single most interesting jazz bio I've read in years, and that's John Szwed's recent book "So What: The Life of Miles Davis" -- one of the best written books of any kind, that I've ever read. Though I certainly liked Szwed's bio of Sun Ra as well (and not just cuz my name appears in the “thanks” section in the intro B-) ), I don't remember it being as engaging as the Miles book. Having recently re-read his bio of Miles, I'm eager to revisit the Sun Ra book sometime soon. Side question: Has anybody read Szwed's recent general jazz guide/book: "Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz"?? Any thoughts??

If she even half-likes the Ornette, then marry her!!

Wrongfully convicted man free after 40 years behind bars Friday, August 20, 2004 Posted: 11:45 AM EDT (1545 GMT) LUFKIN, Texas (AP) -- A 76-year-old man who spent nearly every day of the last four decades in prison walked free after a judge found that deputies extracted his confession to a 1962 robbery by crushing his fingers between cell bars. After walking out of the Angelina County jail Tuesday with his wife, Robert Carroll Coney said he was not bitter. "I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney said. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?" Coney was convicted of robbing a Safeway supermarket in 1962 and sentenced to life in prison. Many times he escaped from facilities in other states -- including South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi -- only to be recaptured each time. He was returned to the Texas prison system last year. Coney said his identity had been confused with a man he had carpooled with through Lufkin on the day of the robbery. State District Judge David Wilson, who dismissed Coney's charges, investigated and found that the sheriff of Angelina County at the time and his deputies used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars. When Wilson questioned Coney, the prisoner held up two twisted and bent fingers. "I remember the sheriff well," Coney said. He said the jailers, in addition to mangling his hand, threatened his life and scared him into confessing. Wilson's findings stated Coney probably did not see a lawyer until he stood before a judge in the case with then-court-appointed lawyer Gilbert Spring. Spring said he didn't remember Coney's case and told Wilson that courts frequently called attorneys in the 1960s to stand with defendants for no money. "It really contains everybody's worst fears about what went on during certain darker years in this country," said Huntsville attorney David P. O'Neill, who worked on Coney's case. Coney said he may consider a civil suit at some point but initially wants to focus on his family. Holding his wife's hand as he left the jail Tuesday for their Dallas home, Coney said little about the ordeal. "We're going home," Coney said.

Funny, I'm usually the one around here with big, gaping holes in my collection for older music. (Over 95% of my collection was recorded after 1960.) But "Birth of the Cool" is one that's always worked for me. It's not about the soloing, it's about the texture!! B-) I was a Miles junkie when I first started with jazz, and I still am to some extent. I have all the Columbia boxes, and plenty of boots from the late 60's, but currently I don't own anything he did before be joined with Columbia ----- EXCEPT for Birth of the Cool, which I've always had -- and actually pull out to listen to two or three times a year. (I used to own the Miles box on Prestige, but sold it several years ago, cuz I just never found it all that satisfying.) So count me in the pro-BOTC camp.

As everyone knows, I was a BNBB refugee, and I joined relatively late in the game (member #171, and I joined a full 6 days after "day #1"). First I went to a couple other places... First to some board based on the Harlem Renaissance (??? -- does that ring any bells with anybody?). Needless to say the "Harlem Renaissance" board never did attract enough BNBB-ers to even drive 10 posts a day, as I recall. Then I found AAJ, but that never seemed right either, with the bashing we were starting to take over there from day #1 ("damn Blue Note people, go away!!!"). I think I saw on AAJ that something was happening at some board with the funny-sounding name that I couldn’t hardly spell ( ) --- and then when I saw that both Sangry and Chuck had up camp over here --- I said, this be the place for me!!!!

Howdy all, My Dad has about 50 reels of silent home-movies from the 30's and 40's (back when he was a kid!! -- he'll be 80 in about 2 years), which my cousin just had transferred to DVD. So, my Dad is looking for a good, but inexpensive DVD player, and I said I'd get back to him by the end of the month with a couple suggestions. He's gonna probably be hooking into the inputs (RCA-type phono-jack) on the back of his existing VCR, for both video and audio (and it's an old mono-VCR, for what it's worth), which is already hooked up to his TV. We're really talking low-tech here. (And his TV is mono too, I think.) I'd like to suggest a relatively inexpensive unit, with as few bells and whistles as possible --- but the key is that it's gotta be reliable. My Dad goes ballistic when stuff doesn't work, and he's one of those guys who thinks that everything should last forever. (He uses a toaster that’s 40 years old, if that tells you anything.) So, what brands are super-ultra-reliable??? Brands that make/sell entry-level units that are dirt-simple. Maybe a better question... Are any of the dirt-simple ones reliable??? (I'd like to find something for him that's less than $75, if at all possible.) Thanks!!! PS: My first thought for cheap, but reliable, was maybe to go with a low-end Panasonic model. I've had pretty good luck with their low-end (and medium-end) bookshelf CD systems, etc...

Haven't heard this one in at least 10 years. (A friend of mine had it back in my college days.) Re-Birth of the Cool --- Gerry Mulligan How has this held up since it's release in '91?? I remember enjoying it some, but it was also somehow too "nice", maybe too "clean" or "perfect sounding" in it's approach. (Can't remember if that was just in how it was recorded (being GRP and all), or in the performances too.)

OK, what are your favorite recordings of tunes that originally (or most prominently) appeared on BN recordings from the 1960's?? Yes, I'm limiting this thread to the 60's, because let's face it, that's the decade where the tunes -- the compositions that help define the label -- where they nearly all come from. And in particular, it'd be good to hear about examples of two things (though this thread isn't just limited to these two categories)... 1. Other recordings also made in the 60's (on other labels), of tunes primarily associated with Blue Note. (Often this happened when a BN guy guested on somebody else's non-BN date as a sideman.) 2. More recent albums/CD's with remakes of multiple tunes primarily associated with BN. (Be they single-artist tribute albums (like to Herbie, or Wayne, or Lee Morgan, etc...), or albums that include two or more BN-centric tunes originally by different artists.) Here's one that fits the bill pretty well... Uri Caine's second album as a leader, "Toys" (JMT, 1996), includes versions of several Herbie tunes from the 60's: "The Prisoner", "Dolphin Dance", "Toys", and "Cantaloupe Island". (And for me, "The Prisoner" is particularly interesting here -- in that it is covered much less frequently than many of Herbie's other tunes from the 60's.) What others are your favorites??

I've always been struck immediately when I hear a non-"Birth of the Cool" version of a tune originally from "Birth of the Cool" (or at least that's were I personally associate all those tunes -- cuz that's where I heard all of them for the first time). Two of my favorites happen to be from Blue Note titles, and are of the same tune, Denzil Best's Move. 1. The version from Art Taylor's "A.T.'s Delight", with Dave Burns (tp), Stanley Turrentine, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Taylor, and "Potato" Valdez on conga. The conga part, in particular, in duet with trumpet (and nothing else), really works well for me --- in spicing up this tune in a pretty darn exciting way (especially for 1960). 2. And Lou Donandson's version from "Blues Walk" (in 1958), also with congas (oddly enough). Just for reference (for this thread), the tunes from Birth of the Cool are... 1 Move 2:32 (Denzil Best) 2 Jeru 3:10 (Gerry Mulligan) 3 Moon Dreams 3:18 (C. MacGregor-J. Mercer) 4 Venus De Milo 3:10 (Gerry Mulligan) 5 Budo 2:31 (B. Powell-M. Davis) 6 Deception 2:46 (Miles Davis) 7 Godchild 3:08 (George Wallington) 8 Boplicity 2:58 ("Cleo Henry") 9 Rocker 3:04 (Gerry Mulligan) 10 Israel 2:15 (John Carisi) 11 Rouge 3:13 (John Lewis) 12 Darn That Dream 3:24 (E. De Lange-J. Van Heusen) What are your favorite versions of these tunes?? Any with particularly interesting arrangements and/or instrumentation?? And by "interesting", I might be even inclined to include even piano-trio versions, since the "originals" (or at least the "Birth of the Cool" originals), which were certainly not what you'd call piano-centric.