king ubu

Oh, and one where I'm not late! Happy Birthday, Andy!

I got the LP of the first one last year ... and just last week got the CD twofer with them: http://www.amazon.de/Jazz-Goes-Baroque-Club/dp/B007BWUHTY/ whacky stuff! btw, they died the same day, Nobs and Gruntz - really bad times.

Belated best wishes!

belated best wishes, Jeff!

Too many birthdays in too short a time for me to keep up ... belated best wishes, David!

One of the finest and most influential of Swiss jazz' musicians has died. German articles: http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/feuilleton/uebersicht/george-gruntz-gestorben-1.17935729 http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/pop-und-jazz/JazzPianist-George-Gruntz-ist-tot-/story/23334081 He played with Barney on "Mental Cruelty", founded The Band with the Ambrosettis (the late Flavio and Franco who's not exactly a youngster and was a frequent collaborator of Gruntz' until most recent times, though I've never seen them play together) and Daniel Humair, the great drummer ... led for a long time his on-and-off band of cracks which he later re-named the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, recording lots of albums, some of them including cameos by the likes of Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, John Scofield etc. etc. He also wrote several programmes for the NDR and WDR radio big bands, dedicated to amongst others the music of Mingus and Monk. I was lucky to catch him live in December 2011 with his concert jazz band - including, amongst others, Larry Schneider, Chris Hunter, Luciano Biondini, Dave Bargeron, Gary Smulyin and an absolutely stunning Howard Johnson. Thank you for all the music, Mr. Gruntz!

Just lost a long reply, the new o-board sucks in several respects... Anyway, I was really pissed about that great disc being in such sorry state after only a few months (might have arrived like this, I only found out once my EAC ripping process took half a day to complete). And the BoB release that prompted this thread has been here for a few months now, too - and it's excellent!

prompted by a post in another thread: I have those on the Blue Notes/Frank Wright disc. Plays but is totally un-rip-able on any computer drive. Might be time for Ogun to re-consider their packaging. I replace those crappy plastic sleeves (which I blame because they easily tear and dust or whatever gets in an casues those lines which are scratches) with paper sleeves now, but it's too late on that one. This is really too bad! I love Ogun but I hate stuff like this! Guess the regular jewel case ain't too bad an idea, after all.

very sad news

Only good experience here, too ... damaged my Django box by accident, got a replacement booklet by accident, and then a replacement box, too - all for free, needless to say! Also whenever I had scratched discs, or in one lone case a disc with what looked like a small bubble in it (and that did affect play), they always immediately and for free sent replacement discs, most recently even two for a Joe Pass set I had bought from a local retailer! They're the very best, in my book! I've been a customer - mostly straight from them, but I bought a few used and new sets from other sources, including folks from right here - of theirs since ... well, since the Tristano/Konitz/Marsh was released, when was that, 1996? (And I still consider 170 and 180 numbers high ones ... I did miss out on a few early boxes though that were still around back when I started buying their sets.) One early experience that was bothersome - in those days I had no credit card, so I had to pay via IMO - was when they "lost" my payment somehow, and after calling them up (yep, I talked to Cindy on the phone back then, but I think it was my one and only phone call) they did find my payment again and my order, too ... and they shipped it air mail instead of my usual option of overseas shipping (which was much, much cheaper and I had lots of time, so...). But being a high school kid who just sent them all the money I made doing some jobs in summer vacation, that was quite a scary experience. In the end though I didn't have to wait longer than I would have had for my overseas shipment to arrive.

Love Friedman's touch and sound - very lyrical yet somehow still probing, disclosing an exploring mind. Not that fond of his early trios (I remember them as having a bit much of Bill Evans' influence? I might be wrong and he was already having his own thing going on?), but the albums with Zoller are indeed mighty fine! "Horizon's Beyond" btw is out on CD, it was reissued by Act and there are a few copies floating around: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B0000252WF/ The solo one on Act that brownie mentions - it's dedicated to Attila Zoller (From A to Z) - is indeed wonderful!

back to the roots ... in light of the lacking profitability, that would indeed make sense - close the chapter and focus on the main beef. too bad about it, but we can't help it any more - hey, don't blame me, I got plenty of Selects and Singles! I did buy them when they were around ... and I nearly panicked when the big pressing plant disaster took place, striving to get as many of the Selects I missed as possible - I wonder if that incident might have had a decisive influence on the decision to stop the Selects? It was really pretty bad!

Happy Birthday, Clifford! :party:

What would the "soundtrack album" for "Shadows" be? Was there ever a released album?

dang! :tup So is the Merrill/Katz, but I think some said the Mosaic was sounding bad? (I've got the two Universal/Gitanes discs, so I never bothered about the Mosaic.) Glorious music, in my opinion some of the very finest in vocal modern jazz.

Read it yesterday, too. Very sad. There's nothing much more to gather from the Swiss press, just that the accident happened while cross-country running (on familiar ground, too), so "skiing accident" isn't wrong, but somewhat misleading. And that he's been in a coma for two weeks (he fell into coma during the operation made necessary by the accident). And now I see "cross-country skiing" or whatever you call it (it's plain simple Langlauf in German) is being mentioned on the Beeb link, sorry.

Only need two of those, Newman/Green/Cohn and Pendulum. Hope they will be around for a few more weeks!

I've had issues with them already ... and just had another problem with another vendor (moviemars_amerique) from whom I've bought dozens of times. Now they sent me a CD-R instead of the proper thing (nowhere on the respective amazon item page does it say "CD-R", nor did it in their selling blurb) and they not only didn't reimburse the shipping costs I paid initially (€ 3.40), they didn't reimburse my return shipping costs (CHF 5) either, even though - and that pisses me off very much! - they did contact me to tell me that they are able to reimburse shipping costs up to 10$ for international customers (such as I). (Amazon itself made good by offering me a 5€ reduction on my next order - fine enough, but it's not their task really.) Why I'm telling this here is: yes, it seems times have changed. I've not yet run into any problems with Dodax or with musique_pour_vous yet though, so cross your fingers! Recent trouble with privately sold items were solved in a very kind manner though, so not all world's gone bad quite yet. (edited for typos)

Got mine today, all unsealed as expected. French might seal them 'cos they're cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, remember?

I wondered about that, too! The actual film soundtrack ... well, it's been ten years at least since I've seen the film, but I remember it as being *very* good!

Off topic, slightly, but a friend presented me with this book for my last birthday, and it's amazing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Architectural-Cultural-Guide-Philipp-Meuser/dp/3869221879/ At the same time lots of what you read and see (plenty of photos) is astonishing, but much of it at the same time is pretty shocking and utterly disgusting. Baby dictator just held a speech in which he announced a possible mild glasnost regarding their relation to South Korea, but still, the entire system is unbelievably wrecked, it seems.

They will most likely not be sealed - Universal CDs are most often not sealed over here (at least the Impuse 2-on-1 weren't, if I'm right ... and those jewel-case-packed "Verve Originals" weren't either, I think). Link: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?__mk_de_DE=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=jazzplus I had a look at the booklet of the Hammond Smith (not sealed!) at a store today and indeed they do look rather nice. I've ordered a bunch in that 3 for 15€ sales but am still waiting for them to be delivered. The Hawkins really should have been made a 2CD set as the bonus material there is, in my humble opinion, rather substantial, and goes far beyond just another take thrown in length-wise, too.

Happy Birthday! :party:

Sorry Eric, didn't see that the box I referenced was from RCA - thought it was a larger edition of the one you mentioned. Not sure I need to get into Stokowski at all, I might try some some day, but not right now.

Please do report, whoever gets them! Vol. 2 looks tasty ("Shadows"!), but I'm not sure I really need either of these, so having some first-hand reports would be nice!