Rooster_Ties

Free For All doesn't have time to hang out this afternoon... (He gave me some B.S. about stuff he's got to do in order to close on buying a house in less than 48 hours. What's up with that shit?? Where's your priorities man?? You can buy a house any old time you want, but hearing 'new' old unreleased Andrew Hill doesn't happen all that damn often. ) ...so I'm listening to "Passing Ships" for the first time right now. Here I go!!!!

Yes, it was included in the Mosaic box as well as half of One For One What I meant in my original post was (hypothetically speaking) if there turned out to be another 'lost' 1965 session (besides the "One For One" session on the Mosaic)..... -- vs. "Passing Ships" -- which is a 'lost' 1969 session.

Yes, compared to later Blue Note Hill, but not as much as Black Fire, Judgment, Point of Departure and Andrew!!! Me too, sorta. It took me a long time to get into "Dance With Death", but now I really like it - quite a bit. It's no "Black Fire", to be sure. But as long as I don't expect it to be, I do really find lots of things to like in it, on it's own merits. (Charles Tolliver, for sure!!!!) Or, in other words, regardless of Andrew's earlier output, I like and treasure most of his later BN out put too --- just in a different way. Generally speaking, I have a sweet spot for quirky and/or slightly avant dates that also have some accessible traits to them too --- particularly if they are both quirky and slightly more accessible at the same time. "Dance With Death" fits well with that area of interest for me, and I think it (DwD) is probably as good an album as "Grass Roots", now that I think of it. But "Lift Every Voice" beats 'em both. And frankly, as much as I like "Lift Every Voice", in some ways I'm even more interested in "Passing Ships" (partly because it's got Woody Shaw, and partly because it's Andrew Hill in 1969) --- than I might have been in another 'lost' Andrew Hill date from say 1965 or '66. Or, yet another (stupid?) way of putting it is this: A 'lost' Andrew Hill album from 1965 might be better, but a great 'lost' Andrew Hill album from 1969 probably would be cooler, if you catch my drift. B) (And no, I don't expect all that many of you necessarily just caught that drift. )

I don't think you're the atypical Blue Note fan, but you may be the atypical Larry Young fan!!

This is probably my favorite Sting release of the last 10 years, but it's not a studio album of all new material. It was recorded live, and has an interesting augmented group backing him up, with cello, acoustic piano, trumpet, pedal steel guitar, and trombone. Worth picking up if you find it used at a decent price: Sting: All This Time (2001) 1. Fragile (Sting) - 4:35 2. A Thousand Years (Kipper/Sting) - 3:02 3. Perfect Love...Gone Wrong (Sting) - 4:11 4. All This Time (Sting) - 5:20 5. The Hounds of Winter (Sting) - 4:29 6. Don't Stand So Close to Me (Sting) - 2:15 7. When We Dance (Sting) - 4:52 8. Dienda (Kirkland/Sting) - 3:12 9. Roxanne (Sting) - 3:36 10. If You Love Someone Set Them Free (Sting) - 4:57 11. Brand New Day (Sting) - 4:46 12. Fields of Gold (Sting) - 3:50 13. Moon Over Bourbon Street (Sting) - 2:55 14. If I Ever Lose My Faith in You (Sting) - 4:31 15. Every Breath You Take (Sting) - 5:04

I would have said the record before that, "The Soul Cages", was his last really great record. "Ten Summoner's Tales" was good, but no where near as good as everything he'd done before it. There have been individual tracks off of all his albums since, that are really good singles - maybe - but Mr. Sting hasn't turned in a really great album in 10 or 12 years (IMHO). I saw Sting play live about 7 years ago, and it was one of the most "so-so" shows I had seen in a long time. I'm not very much of a Dave Matthews fanatic, but (because of my wife) I've been to 4 or 5 Dave Matthews shows that were all better than that one Sting show (in about '96).

Always great to hear a Lee as part of a three-horn front line too. I'd give the extra session (just by itself) at about 3 and 1/2 stars. ( It's not quite good enough (or maybe "not long enough" is part of the problem) to be a 4-star session, but it's better than a bunch of 3-star sessions I can think of. )

I really like the 2nd session on the new "Sonic Boom" (a.k.a. the second session on "The Procrastinator"). It won't change your world, but I do think it's a solid session. I paid a fair bit for a TOCJ of "The Procrastinator" a couple years ago, and wasn't dissapointed by the quality of the date (I already had the U.S. "Procrastinator", so the extra session was my only reason for looking for the TOCJ.) I imagine the two sessions fit together quite nicely on the new Conn. I'd say get it, for anything less than $15.

Streetside didn't get any more new releases in today (I checked around Noon), so I found another Borders (not the one north of the river), that actually had "Passing Ships" in stock. On the upside, I managed to use that infamous 40% off coupon, so I got it for $10.79 + tax --- SWEET!!!!! Now, I've read the liner-notes twice already, but I'm going to be REALLY good and not listen to the disc until "Free For All" calls me sometime in the next hour or two, in case he has time this afternoon to get together and listen to it for the first time ever, together. Man, I'm sitting here looking right at the disc, and I even stuck it in my stereo to see how long it was (47:40), but I haven't heard a note of it yet. Can I make it for 2 hours more???????????

No error messages here, but the board is SSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW as can be here too...

OMG, what a trip!!! Funny as hell when you see just the titles of the CD's, but then click on a few of them. Then click on some more. ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then from one of the auctions itself... "facile bass chops" and "gentle touch on the fender Rhodes"...

I first heard "Mother Ship" about two years ago, and instantly loved it. Some of the most progressive playing in Lee Morgan's entire career (IMHO). Eddie Gladden has some amazing "Dejohnette-circa-1969"-like fills going on, and Herbert Morgan was a very interesting player (in much the same vein as Tyrone Washington). 4 and 1/2 stars in my book.

Is it Oct. 7th yet???

Yeah, I love that version of Stormy Weather too. Seems like something that would have been totally well suited for the Lee Morgan "Standards" album from around that same time (plus or minus, I forget exactly when).

There's a brand-new Borders Book store up north of Kansas City (near the airport), so if Streetside doesn't have it by Noon tomorrow (Wednesday), I may shoot up there and give them a try. I didn't go the Internet retailer route, cuz I was only planning on getting "Passing Ships" right now, and knew that the shipping charges would kill me on one disc. (I plan to get most of the rest sometime in the future, but I have several of them already on various Mosiacs, etc...)

I'm pretty sure it's out of print, but it does turn up on eBay here and there. Personally, it's my all-time favorite Gil Evans album (sans Miles), and would be well worth trying to find (even used) as a present for someone. Edit: None on eBay at the moment, but here's one at half.com: CLICK HERE Well worth $12.50 (plus $2.50 shipping), even used -- as long as the disc is in excellent shape. (Well, I think it's well worth that. Others may differ.)

WTF?????????

Really, I couldn't believe that Barnes and Noble didn't order ANY of the Conns, and Borders only ordered one of each title. I would have thought B&N would have had one of each title, and Borders two of each title. ( And I thought it was bad that Streetside only ordered two of each Conn, or at least that's what they did the last time Conns came out. "Streetside" is the only regional independant recordstore that carries much in the way of "new" CD's, or any Jazz or Classical (besides B&N or Borders). )

By the way, despite all the " " smileys in my post up above, I'm really not as much angry about not having "Passing Ships" in my hot little hands, as much as I just want to hear the damn music, and read the linernotes. ( Now if I still don't have one after tomorrow (Wednesday), then I might start to be a little bit on the "angry" side. And if I still don't have one after Thursday -- then I'm really gonna be pissed!! )

Although it bites bit-time to have to shell-out $15-$16 per CD for a whole batch of Conns, all at the same time (like if all of them are great), I will say that when you consider them individually (or at least when I do), I think that most of the Conns are well worth $15 or $16. Let's put it this way... There have been plenty of Conns that I've bought at the $15/$16 price, where there are quite a number of RVG's that I haven't bought, even though they were much cheaper. The typical "Conn" release is something I've been salivating about for a year or more, where quite a few of the RVG's are "nice to have", but not titles that I feel I gotta own the very day they come out.

Thanks Eric, Much as I appreciate your offer, I probably shouldn't introduce another complication into this, by borrowing yours when you really won't have had time to spend with it. I'm pretty sure Streetside will get theirs in tomorrow (since they didn't get hardly any new Jazz CD's in today, and none of their "new release" Classical titles). But if I can't score this thing by Thursday, I might consider your offer, which is much appreciated. (I live near K.U. Med myself, on the MO side.)

I'm pretty sure I can pick you up a used 'Modernistic' for something in the $7 to $9 range, if you're interested. Heck, I may even have an extra copy around the house, come to think of it. I'll take a look, and get back to you in a few days...

How true!!

Ditto!! Son of a bitch!!! Free For All and I got together to buy the new Hill Conn, and listen to it together for the first time. But at Noon today, Streetside Records still hadn't gotten their 'other' UPS shipments yet today. So we drive down to Barnes and Noble on the Plaza, and they don't have any of the Conns - nor was their store slated to carry them either (or at least they weren't ordered for people to buy today, "maybe sometime in the future though"). So, then we drive our asses down to Borders Books down in Johnson County, KS - and after we turn the store upside down - we finally find the crash-cart with all the new releases that they hadn't put out yet. And after 10 minutes of searching, we find 5 of the six new Conns. Anybody wanna guess which Conn they didn't have???? ("maybe it'll come next week????") So, we go get some lunch, and then drive back to Streetside, hoping that the UPS truck had finally been there by then (it was about 2:30pm by that time), and when we got to Streetside, there hadn't been any more UPS boxes delivered today, so "maybe tomorrow??".

The conns don't sell nearly as well because of their obscurity, so they try to make back some of the additional risk associated with selling them by charging more. The RVG's are more mainstream titles, and sell quite a bit better, and are often sonic upgrades of previously available titles. Like Africa Brass, I would be much more inclined to pay $10 for a Sonic Upgrade of a title I already have on CD, than I ever would if the RVG's were $15 each. ($10 and $15 are more like what I end up paying, per disc, after whatever discounts I can find.)