Rooster_Ties

Playing a little catch-up, but I wanted to say that these 3 titles in particular were among the very strongest highlights of the Bee Hive box for me -- a box I bought partly out of loyalty to Mosaic (and wanting to be supportive of them with my $$), even if I really only felt like I was especially interested in about half of it (at most) -- and I also wanted to vote with my $$ to say that I *really* appreciated content from the 70's. But the box really had a few more surprises that I was expecting -- the two biggest being... 1. Sal Nistico!! -- I have to confess I'd never really heard any Sal before the Bee Hive box -- and it was this Curtis Fuller album (with Sal) that really made me first take notice. I'd gotten the Bee Hive box on the eve of a 2-week road-trip/vacation with my wife and then 91-year old father in the midwest (all around Arkansas, jumping off from St. Louis in my father's car, thankfully with a CD player in it). So I listened to the entire box for the first time on the road with them. And when I got to this Curtis Fuller date, my ears completely perked up -- and I literally sat up in the driver's seat when one of Sal's really fast and articulate solos came on. Holy crap! - this guy plays with the fluidity of a Tina Brooks (darker tone, obviously), and a little bit of the sort fast UN-syncopated approach of a Gary Thomas or Billy Harper even. Anyway, I was driving, and had my wife dig into the CD-case insert for me to help me find out who the heck it was I was hearing. Sal Nistico? Who the hell is THAT? -- I remember asking her -- and we were in an area with spotty cell-phone coverage, so it took 20 more minutes before she got enough of a signal to pull up Nistico's Wikipedia entry for me. Then it turns out Sal features on a couple other Bee Hive dates on the box too (iirc), maybe three? - so another good reason to have gotten the box (even if I didn't know it at the time I decided to buy it). 2. To my great surprise, I was really taken with Johnny Hartman's lone Bee Hive date ("Once In Every Life" - 1980). I'm normally not one for real traditional jazz singing (or too much jazz singing in general), but even my father -- who has NOT a musical bone in his body -- asked me who was singing / liked the album. I'm just seeing this Hartman album falls just outside of your 1970's focus of your blog/this thread -- but I thought I'd mention it anyway, an album I really love. That Bee Hive Box turned out to be such a nice purchase. Not everything is a home run, but the whole thing is really of a quality that even most of the more staid Bee Hive dates are really quite enjoyable.

So literally... ”Thanks, don’t mention it!” (All in the same breath, same speaker.)

You don’t say!!!

As someone said not too far back, it's a crime that Charles Tolliver and Billy Harper aren't better recognized for their contributions to the decade (and more generally) -- and of course, Woody Shaw too. Cripes -- how any "top-whatever" list from the 70's would leave off Woody Shaw is astounding.

Haven't read it myself, but I got to hear Harry Sparnaay perform with a new music ensemble (New Ear) back in Kansas City, probably 15 years ago.

Discs 1 & 3 -- both for the very first time today (thanks to the help of a kind board member, who traded me his copy, which just arrived in the mail hours ago)... And Mrs. Rooster really dug disc #3 -- i,e, the Tristano-heavy disc with all the solo-piano and manipulated piano-trio material.

Not sure what time of day you were at the post office on Tue, but it was dropped off at the front desk of our apartment bldg at 12:15pm Eastern (so 9:15am Pacific). That HAD to have been well less than 48 hours — I’m astonished!! — and all for just $3 and some change. BTW, thanks again!!

Silly Billy, *IF* Bitches Brew is a 70’s album (not saying you said it was!) — then Miles’ Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It's About that Time is a 2001 album. Maybe it’s a factor of my only getting into jazz starting in the late 80’s — but when particular albums were released is really quite a secondary data-element, though I’ll admit it can be interesting to look at the history of the PUBLIC’s experience of someone like Miles, through the lens of when THEY first got to experience particular albums — particularly when they came out 2-3 or 5+ years after they were recorded. But that’s an entirely different lens than when/how/why things actually got recorded at the time, and what preceded and followed what, and by how long — weeks, months, half-a-year, etc. And what tours might have interceded between the ventures into the studio — particularly with someone as “evolving” as Miles.

I realize Bitches Brew was released in March of 1970, but the album is a “1969” album in practically every way anyone steeped in Miles would and surely does think of it (recorded in Aug, 1969). I always recoil a bit when I see Bitches Brew listed on “best of the 1970’s” lists.

I’m sure I’ll end up getting this sooner or later (within a year). I’ve bought nearly every ‘new’ Hendrix release over the last 15 years, though some were a few years after their release. I think the only thing I’m lacking is the most recent (nearly)-Complete Band of Gypsies box — which I’ll get around to sooner or later too, I’m sure. Hendrix was my very, very first really DEEP musical love, who I first discovered around my sophomore and especially my junior year in high school (circa 1985) — and by the time I left to go to college in the fall of 1987, I had something like 45 Hendrix titles in my collection, half of them bootlegs. My interest in Jimi waned a bit by 1990, but picked back up again around 2005.

PM sent!!

Long shot I realize, but bump.

Greatly enjoying this show as I’m typing this. A Word From Bird is all I have by (or with) Teddy Charles, and I really do need to track down more. I’ve been listening to a bunch of Tristano/Konitz/Marsh lately, and Teddy Charles is definitely pushing a lot of those same buttons for me.

Just saw the list of Biden’s Covid team (just announced this morning), and one of the task force members is a friend of ours! — who sings in church choir with my wife (a ‘fellow alto’ who my wife often sings/sits right next to) and me. (Of course our choir hasn’t been meeting/singing in person since early March.) We don’t envy their task, but are relived to see an impressive team being assembled. (Our friend is Executive director and president of the Global Health Council, and she previously served in leadership positions at the American Cancer Society.)

And now... Eric Long: “Pennsylvania On My Mind” - Live at Sonoma Broadway Farms (2015)

Brother Ray’s in this one too, as the sun rises... on a new day.

...as I’m waking up this morning...

I’d also never driven a stick shift (car) before — so my first ever experience learning to “clutch/shift” was on that behemoth of a bike — all while trying to keep the damn thing upright. Still have never properly learned to drive a stick either, but that’s another story for later...

Back in college, my roommate my sophomore year taught me to ride (drive) his motorcycle. I never got licensed, but I could almost pass the obstacle course test outside the testing station (painted on the pavement, access 24/7 so you could practice on your own time). His bike was the very FIRST motorcycle I’d ever even been on the back of, let alone driven. And, oh, I should also mention that it was a Honda Goldwing 1000(!!!) — which was a HUGE bike to have to learn on from scratch (I never had/have been on any other motorcycle, before or since). I understand it would have been orders of magnitude easier to have learned on a dirt bike, or smaller model first. I was never great, but I did drive around in small-town traffic on city streets now and then that year, always with my buddy on the back. This was back in ~1989.

Mask wearing is about 90% here in Washington DC. Not sure about the wider DC metro (my wife and I live in DC proper). Maybe 85% — I’ll fully grant that my sample is largely what I’m seeing, and hearing news reports of (probably also anecdotal). In any case, though, the positivity rate here (last I checked), was less than 2% — and has been that way for a couple months. We’re still in Phase 2 now (have been for months and months) — and never opened under phase 3, despite having met the guidelines for Phase 3 a number of times (we may be meeting them now). They’ve moves those “guideline” goalposts a few times, in order to justify staying in Phase 2 — which I think has been smart. Business/employment might be a tad higher under Phase 3, but only for 6-8 weeks, after which I’m betting cases would be back up again, and we’d have to move back to Phase 2 again (or we’d need to, and there’s be a massive pushback against closing down again). I’m not sure of all the technical details, but I think we’re a little more open than when we were first on Phase 2 back in June and July — so it’s likely a modified Phase 2, to enable some more business/commerce, but the violations have been relatively few and far between, at least here in the city (far as I’ve seen in the media, anyway).

All three of the Yo Miles! cd sets are pretty phenomenal, so there’s a good chance this will be pretty tasty.

Before much of my first real exposure to real (actual) jazz, I took a beginners modern dance class in college (free half-credit, and I took all those I could). Pretty sure I heard Grover Washington’s Mr. Magic (the whole album) close to a dozen times over about thirty 90-minute classes that semester (circa 1989, iirc). I’ve never owned a copy, but it’s a good spin every now and then online, every 2-3 years or so.

$285, with 14 hours left to go... https://www.ebay.com/itm/MILT-WARD-VIRGO-SPECTRUM-Self-Titled-TWIN-QUEST-LP-VG/313271029400 Edit: this is not my copy for sale — I’m not turning loose of mine!

Resht in Peash

I’ve only recently started to get bitten by the Tristano School bug — just in the last 4-5 months really — and realizing I’m way too late to the party. Looking for a CD set in good condition (doesn’t have to be perfect, but the discs all need to be Ex-, or Vg+ at worst) — and that won’t completely break the bank. I do have Larry’s excellent book (that includes a reprint of the liners), so I’d even entertain a “disks-only” situation, for the right price. I have an auto-search set on eBay, and I can be pretty patient. Ideally, not much more than $120. I got outbid on the last one that sold on eBay at the very last second (I’d bid 5 seconds before the auction ended, but unfortunately the winner’s ultimate max-bid auto-bid more than me — shame, as it came in a hair less than $100 — and I really should have bid $10 more than I did, though that might not have been enough either). Anyway, if anyone has any leads, or a copy they’d like to part with, I’d be super appreciative. Thanks!!