king ubu

Pee Wee Russell Pee Wee Ellis Pee Wee Moore

PM coming, all hurdles done away with!

Great to see he's still doing his thing!

not even a lousy reply for me they have... bugger off!

Have you sent them an email? Don't know anything, myself, but that's what I'd try.

Wow, never would have expected an official release of this! Hoping for a major upgrade in quality to what's "in circulation"! Thanks for spreading the news!

Mr. K's phone shall be ringing tomorrow... will keep you posted as soon as I know more.

I wish for the Washington to be around for such a great price some day!

Ok, I'll check again...

I've never seen this packaging, except for, maybe, in pictures. What made it a nightmare? I had to call Columbia customer service to have two of the four discs replaced. Glue from the sleeves got onto the discs making large portions unplayable. Same here! No amount of cleaning would make one of the discs playable after the glue got on it! Also, the Armstrong Hot 5 & 7s set is pretty good for scratching the discs -- I would recommend storing the discs in some other way away from that box. On the other hand, Sony's customer service is good at replacing defective discs with a minimum of fuss, which is more than I can say for some other behemouth companies! I don't recall where it was discussed elsewhere, but I had the same glue problem... got' J.A.W.'s set and it had it as well (so I gave one away to a friend whom I had given the 2CD edition already, previously)... now as a result of some baaad teeth surgery I've got going on, I have these alcohol prep pads (good thing their name is written in English on the box, else I'd have no idea what to call them) and with one of those, all of the glue was easily removed and the whole disc 1 just played through as it used to in the beginning! Let's hope the alcohol will not eat itself through the disc... I rinsed it with water immediately after. Will have to wait another few years to see if this did the trick. Anyway, with the 40th anniversary big box in my collection, it's not such a loss, but I guess I'll pass on one of these pads to said friend, too...

Happy Birthday, Allen!

Quite a steal! Ordered the Cole for this price, although I'm sure I have most of the music in some form (not the Decca Cole singles, the first sessions, nor the Dexter, but the stuff with Pres and the JATP material, too).

One more thing... who's that guy Talib Qadr, heard on "South Africa - Tears and Laughter", which ranks among my favorite Ibrahim albums? Anyone knows more about him? Does he also go by another name, or is he a virtually unknown saxophonist who popped up on that album and then vanished again?

And here's a beautiful late performance by Robbie Jansen: Cape Town 2005, w/Hilton Schilder (p), Steven Erasmus (b), Jack Momple (d), Alex van Heerden (t) Got to dig up Jansen's "Nomad Jêz" after that!

Here's a short Robbie Jansen & Spencer Mbadu documentary (in part 2 documenting, in part 3 promoting, the Western Cape Musicians Association):

Catching up bigtime on the old Ekaya albums... just started playing side 2 of the so far magnificient "Ekaya (Home)" (Ekapa-005), of which I got a NM or even better vinyl. Magnificient SOUNDING album, too - Cecil McBee's bass is gloriously captured by RVG! Also recently got hold of "Water from an Ancient Well", "Mindif", and finally a real copy of "African River" (used to live with copies of lots of my dad's Ibrahim CDs, about to finish my buying them all), as well as "Mantra Mode" and "Duke's Memories" with different bands (well, "Mindif" isn't quite Ekaya either). I guess "No Fear, No Die" will remain a sentimental favorite as I've had it for years and love several tunes on it (Calypso Minor, Angelica, Nisa...), but "Water..." might after all be the most excellent of the bunch! Ricky Ford often sounds rather tame here (in his own apeshit-measurement, that is) - and all the better for that! "Duke's Memories" is from the Black & Blue label and has been totally off my radar until recently when I saw it on some website and immediately ordered a copy! It's all Carlos Ward, from 1981 - in the middle of the period when Ward was most often the lone horn on such great discs as "South Africa" and "Zimbabwe", as well as "At Montreux" (where Craig Harris is added, nonetheless it's the least favorite of the bunch). "Mantra Mode" is from 1991 and was recorded in Cape Town with some old friends from South Africa: Robbie Jansen and Basil Coetzee stand out on alto/baritone/flute and tenor, respectively, Johnny Mekoa is on trumpet, Errol Dyers is on guitar (an instrument rarely heard with Ibrahim's groups... he had Lawrence Lucie on banjo for a second on "African Marketplace" though), Monty Webber keeps the good groove, and Spencer Mbadu plays bass. The disc contains some classic Ibrahim tunes such as "Barakaat", "Mantra Mode" or "Tsakwe", one track with Ibrahim on drums ("Beautiful Love" an Ibrahim tune, not the standard), and there's also the great "Tafelberg Samba/Carnival Samba". Ultimately, the album falls short on its expectations... or rather my expectations. It's a delight to have more of Jansen's and Mannenberg's blowing and it's a lovely disc, but it's not as great as I'd hoped for (in vain actually, as I played half of it in a store several years ago and actually knew - but I still got to have it!).

Got that one in the mail today! Looking forward to giving it a first spin later on! It was partly (four of the six cuts, I think) on CD, as was the entire (I think) "African Herbs" - sure those Kaz/Camden discs are (to my best knowledge) bootlegs, but I don't think there's any market for reissues of these. And they're anyway pretty far from what Jonathan is looking for, I think.

I see Niko has filled you in there... they played Willisau in 1997 and I think that concert is even better! That's still my favorite Tiny Bell disc! Better than "Constellations" and the disc on Arabesque, I think! Another idea might be to check out some reeds/cello/drums trios, such as Clusone? Sure, the cello can fill the traditional bass part much easier than a guitar can (or rather: it sounds much more natural done by a cello than by a guitar), but with far out guys such as Ernst Reijseger, you still might get a few clues? Also Clusone 3 has done lots of standards! This might be a good starting point (I think it was reprinted recently and should be around):

Ellery Eskelin / Marc Ribot / Kenny Wollesen: mighty fine disc! :tup

Got the BoB Live at Willisau - no sign that it's a reissue. Either they found some more copies in the cellar or they had it repressed. The only date shown is 1994, the © & (p) date of the original CD issue of it.

i have these in their standalone edition, which i think you are referring to. and i also have some of the older editions, like grey december. an advantage of the newer ones is that they replicate the original edition, with its proper cover and its choice of songs. so they're no compilations, like some of the old ones used to be. but they would duplicate material. that's for sure. but, on the other hand, you would get a better sound (at least only because they're contemporary. well, as contemporary as a cd from 2004 can be). as for your question, i'm not sure. i would prefer the newer editions. but if you already have the material and are happy with it, or its sound... I forgot to add that in the meantime I did get nearly all the new versions replicating the original albums! I gave away the older discs (Grey December was one of them), still need the 2004 reissue of "Big Band", got the old one (that adds the Sextet date, but the 2004 Sextet reissue has the most intriguing Bob Zieff bonus session!) Another old one I'll keep is "Young Chet", with a few overdubbed quartet tracks (several titles w/Bill Perkins, one with Jimmy Giuffre added) and the remainders of "Chet Baker & Crew" (of which, too, I'll stick with the older version). One of the reasons it took me so long - actually the main reason - to get these updated editions is that they all stem from the short period when EMI yurp threw out copy-crap editions hence these only turned up in such versions in the local bins.

Joyeux anniversaire, Claude! :party:

Gave that one a first spin yesterday - very, very nice! And yes, the Billie Holiday tribute is great!

Why are liner notes specially trustworthy? Of course the time distance is much shorter... but if some writer gets some info and a test pressing, why would his information be particularly accurate? Or were the liners written by Dick Bock and was he present during the sessions? Not doubting any of the information on display here, just wondering!

someone better grab that "radio box"!