king ubu

"Settin' the Pace" is a big favourite here ... probalby a tiny bit ahead of "Soultrane", which again is a tiny bit ahead of "Traneing In". The debut album "Coltrane" is fine, too ... but as Mr. Sangrey said: buy with confidence! Of the jams, one I've been very fond of since my early teens is "The Cats" - a mighty fine band with Idrees Sulieman (heard way too rarely!), Trane, Kenny Burrell, Doug Watkins, Louis Hayes, Tommy Flanagan (who gets a nice trio tune, "How Long Has This Been Goin' On" - omitted, alas on the three thematically ordered boxes, as are a few other tracks where Trane lays out ... one from the Draper album, one or two from "Cattin'" with Lady Q ... and a whole lot of stuff from the two Gene Ammons albums, where the omission is okay in my book, but where a lone tune is missing to complete albums, I find it silly). The session with Q and Wess is fine, too (Wess wins!), and I'm also fond of the Interplay album ... it's kinda fun to hear Chambers and Watkins opposite each other (I prefer the later, I think - wonderful sound, perfect time, good pitch ... sure, Chambers was an m-f, but Watkins had it down!). Oh, and one I've always loved a lot is "The Last Trane" ... it has the best (by far!) track of the trio date that was issued as half of "Lush Life", a long alternate of the blues that easily beats the master. That trio idea was kinda trying to emulate Sonny Rollins, I assume? Or did it just grow out of Garland arriving late, I don't remember ... Earl May surely wasn't the right bassist to pull it and Taylor probably not the right drummer, either ... but that long blues is effin' good, May is up to the task there! The long session with Wilbur Harden is lovely, too ... so is the Burrell & Coltrane album (actually that one's a bit darker than just lovely, it's a real beauty, and that goes deeper than being "lovely"). And talking Harden, there's the Savoy material which is better than the Prestige date, I find ... there was 2CD reissue pulling it all together (I think OK didn't even manage to omit anything for some weird reason - our luck!). I've never been that fond of "Dakar", I'm afraid, sound a bit like a gimmick to my ears ... the album with Q ("Cattin'") has some very good moments but also some fluffs by Q ... but then who cares, Waldron is great there and - finally! - there's a good drummer that doesn't just make you feel good but has actual good time, too (Ed Thipgen!). Also when I want Trane in a tenor jam, I rather go for "The Dealers"/"Wheelin' and Dealin'" than for "Tenor Conclave" (Art Taylor's rushing time is at its most extreme there, things get rather hectic in some spots). It's fun of course, but the stuff with Wess/Q (and also the BN with Griffin/Mobley) is better (the later has much more bite of course, which depending on how I feel on a particular day is a good thing). The long sessions with Garland leading a quintet with Trane and Donald Byrd are highly enjoyable though ... had all of the albums separately before (I actually had most of them before, not "Dakar", "Stardust", "Bahia" and "Standard Coltrane" though ... but I had a disc pulling together all the Harden tracks from the later three).

I had a "kind spirit" there ... providing me with most Barney albums that are hard to find - they seem to turn up in second hand stores in Paris Still some gaps, but none I think that I need to close at all cost ... I have access to the material, but would it be reissued, I'd be amongst the first to get hard copies! (Bandini, the Cerri, one or two late ones including the excellent Ruwenzori ... and obviously Zodiac, too!)

Not a big surprise that this one times out long before it would have actually sold out ... too bad this seems to happen so often in recent years!

I really enjoy the Osaka Concert! Very much so! Some of the most poised late Wilen.

Yeah, but it might not have socks on

I had no internet, no phone, no nothing for most ot today ... consequence (or cause, they didn't know when I called the helpline) of a short power outage in the morning ... good timing, I guess

Thanks David. This sounds better than anything (all rumours!) I've heard about Silver in the past several years. No matter what, props to Horace Silver and eternal gratitude for all the wonderful music he's given to us.

The world's longest going daily paper has put up an obit on their website: http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/feuilleton/pop_jazz/wegbereiter-der-jazzmoderne-1.18206507 Now don't ask me where they got their info from ...

The cover is pretty atrocious, too ... but this does seem to be down my alley!

http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com/news-mainmenu-139/70-2013/12947-horace-silver-dies-aged-85 also referencing social media etc though ...

I do lots of repeated listening .... but Richter is so far not one garnering those honours ... I mean I can hear that some his stuff is amazing (Schumann! and there's quite some of it on this new box), but so far he's not a favourite, so this might indeed be too much of a good thing ... Btw, interesting observation you made about the DG Wagner box not containing their best offerings ... would you think similarly about the EMI box? That one seems to be a pretty mixed bag just as well ... but would they have had many alternatives? Their choices for the new Strauss box seem to be almost exclusively immaculate, so ... (but then their Verdi was uninteresting again to me, but maybe that's just me). Oh, and the Boehm "Ring" is in that Bayreuth Decca box that has mostly Sawallisch and consists of - all or mostly - Philips recordings ... maybe they wanted to keep that separate, I think apart for the two early ones, the DG box actually contains DG recordings (and not just Universal holdings)? In light of that, could they still have done better?

another big sucker announced: http://www.amazon.it/Solo-Recordings-33-Richter-Sviatoslav/dp/B00GYHSYW4/ not sure I'll need it ... got his EMI box and am about to order the Brilliant Concertos box (in prestoclassical's box-set sale) ... also have had the DG box on the wishlist for a while ... too much stuff around, too much overlap, me losing overview ...

Oh, shit, no ... not that it hadn't to be expected for a while, but wow, this is a blow. Thank you for all the fine music!

okay, here's one I've always loved dearly: and one more:

Yes, and if you get the CD, you'll get the LP material as bonus (and with each version you'll also get the physically bought stuff as DL, too - that's my understanding at least).

I remember it as one of the earliest big boxes, like the Charlie Parker on Verve, so for me it was too expensive at the time (early Nineties when I was a student). I passed on the Parker for the same reason. The first big box I got was probably Billie Holiday on Verve. It felt like a big outlay -- but it was worth it. Yeah ... the Brownie, the Kirk, the Bird, the Billie ... all big 10CD suckers, all going for hefty prices (not sure about measuring/comparing to anything of today's time makes sense ... I paid 200 to 250 CHF for them, but the $ was worth more and the € didn't even exist). I saved up for each of the four ... in fact I had a list, on a small piece of paper, of the box-sets I wanted (other than Mosaics, which I bought after doing jobs on school holidays ... crazy kid, going to work to buy saxophones and CDs). The Kirk and Brownie were among the first ones I got ... don't think I knew any other Kirk than Mingus' "Oh Yeah!" and the old twofer with "Rip, Rig and Panic" and the one Verve album ... with Brownie it was "Study in Brown" and the live recordings with Blakey that made me want to get it all. These boxes just had to be, even though each one of them meant at least 2 days' work on the lousy salary I got! The JATP was too rich for me, but I snagged it up years later, when a slightly beat-up copy was on offer for less than half the usual going price ... it had been on display in the shop for years and the booklet was broken open in one place and showing wear around the edges, but I was still a happy camper! The Bird, Billie, JATP and Brownie were all reissued by Universal Italy by now, so it's indeed just the Kirk that's still missing!

Definitely international! Happy Birthday, Mr. Terry!

All the hardcopy editions are said to include "download of 4-track album" ... so I guess to have it all on hardcopy, you'd need the 2LP+2CD version (shipping to yurp is expensive!!!), but if you're okay with FLAC of the whole thing, you can get half of it on LP or the other half on CD (guess shipping for the double LP is nearly as expensive, of course). Weird. 20$ for digital only still seems steep to me ... I'm old-fashioned. Just got the Pepper in, though, many thanks for guiding the way!

on we go: might go for the Piau, Otter and Say ... not sure the listing is complete ... anyway, they're 10€ each on amazon.fr

Oh, wow, somehow I missed this ... DL only then? Too bad! Will have to get this!

more goodies from naïve ... probably the regular discs with a new slipcase added and for less $$:

added to the listing above

actually wanted mom to do that "whole stuffed camel" recipe for x-mas dinner this year, but we couldn't get a camel ... darn! haven't even started buying presents ... one CD on order for my dad, took amazon several days to ship it even though it was always in stock (and none of that "additional days until shipping" thing) ... hope it'll make it in time ... I never manage to do x-mas stuff online in time ... but then we do way too much online shopping and those having to pack and deliver it are working on gruelsome terms way too often ... I'll do the usual book shopping at my favourite bookshop and some more local shopping.

uhm, what's that?

Alex' solo disc is great indeed! :tup Don't know any of his group's discs yet though - they were sold out by the time I heard him with the Convergence Quartet ... that group's 2013 disc on NoBusiness is very good, too (thanks, Alex!) ... and so is the duo with Louis Moholo, but that one's too old to fit into this thread.