king ubu

I'd love to see a Mosaic Select (or a full box) of those Bethlehem "Plays" albums by Williamson, Mariano etc. Mighty fine music! And in my opinion quite a bit better than what's on the Kenton Presents (with the exception of the Holman stuff, I think, but Holman's is partly non Kenton Presents, and Holman also doesn't turn up on the "Plays" albums).

Happy Birthday to the great alto sax player Herb Geller! To celebrate, I played the fine "Gellers" 2CD compilation on Fresh Sound (the Gellers being Herb and his then wife, Lorraine - here's a thread about her). A few years after he made the fine three EmArcy albums with his wife (plus an Imperial EP, all on said Freshsound set), he went to Europe, working first with the radio big band (or was that just a band, more an Unterhaltungsorchester really?) of RIAS Berlin, and after that for many, many years he led the reeds section of the NDR Big Band in Hamburg, helping to make it into one of the best European jazz big bands. I guess in America he was largely forgotten... which is quite sad, given the fact that he's a hell of an alto player (and also a fine tenor player). You can read up some about him here: http://www.herbgeller.de or here: http://www.herbgeller.com Right now I'm playing another Fresh Sound album, this one being one of their own productions from 1990, featuring Geller on alto with backing by Kenny Drew, NHOP and drummer Mark Taylor: This here's the fine set with the Gellers' recordings from 1954/55:

She really nailed Laura Bush now we're talkin' business

I ordered a used copy of this the day after your post... enjoying it right now!

so who are Zack and Miri and where can I watch that porno? link please!

found some of the new Rare Grooves in the bins - passed the Steig and Humphrey, which means I got both Three Sounds (Soul Symphony and Elegant Soul), the Eddie Henderson and the Reuben Wilson.

not selling mine, but this site might help: http://discplus.ch/ and for those eventually willing to sell some, I guess you might have more success if you put up a list of the discs, rather than just the numbers!

- good choice!

Jimmy Gourley is also on Lou Bennett's first French LP "Amen". Not sure what you mean about Thomas not being one of those cool guitarists. I don't have a contra opinion, just don't understand what you're getting at. MG Niko indeed answered for me, as you've noted!

And as for cool guitarists... if Jimmy Gourley does count, he's on the Jazz in Paris disc of Eddy Louiss' (a fine one!) Also of course René Thomas did quite some recording with organists. But then he's not that clearly part of those cool guitarists, I think?

Ray Crawford also is on Sonny Stitt's "My Mother's Eyes" with Charles Kynard (and Doug Sides - interesting band, good album, on CD on one of the Andorran enterprises).

Yes, that Jazztone set is marvellous! Great playing not only by Lucky Thompson, but also by Jimmy Cleveland, Ray Copeland, Kenwood Dennard and the leader himself. Oscar Pettiford on bass is always an added asset, too! Gus Johnson's on drums, I think... quite a band! It was discussed elsewhere, and mikeweil's another big champion of this session.

Oh, and in a different vein than the pre/proto/actual r'n'b from his wilder years, there's of course the marvellous sessions with Benny Goodman (there's an RCA 3CD box documenting all their studio sessions from the 30s, but I gather there are other ways to get these recodings).

The Verve box (I assume you mean the Hampton/Peterson?) is great! The session with Buddy De Franco is da shit, and the rest is mighty great, too! And yes on those other live albums from Paris! There's a two-volume thing in the Jazz in Paris series that's quite good (the one from 1956 I can't say, been a long time since I played it). The 1953 tour is now also documented on two TCB discs (in their Swiss Radio Days series), don't have them yet, they usually cost a fortune. The Impulse album is also pretty nice.

There are two double CD's on Musicmasters of the 1954 Gramercy Five sides: The Last Recordings, Musicmasters 65071 More Last Recordings, Musicmasters 65101 And these are not complete, but they are close. Obviously, the ASV set (which I have not seen) is far from complete. I see - I think that's what I had in mind... thanks! Will have to look for those MusicMasters sets some day.

Hey, for once I'm not late! (well... blame catesta! ) :party:

Wow, that's sad news! But I'd urge them to try a bit longer... I think I'm not the only one who takes a while to coming around to actually buy the Mosaic releases I want. I have only bought one Single last year (the Lee Wiley, plus the Tolliver, but that's not a real Single, is it?), but now I've started getting some more. As with the Selects, there's hardly one that I feel I don't want to get eventually, but it just takes a while to actually buy those. Like with the big boxes, where I'm mainly on a "buy when hits running low list" policy... The point I want to make is: it might just take a few years until people start buying stuff. (With some exceptions I assume, appealing sets like Ellington, or obviously the Eldridge, that come and go faster than most.)

Would that band be the one documented here, and would this disc be a good (or even: complete) sampling of said band? Or would there be a more legit way to get this music? Or a more complete reissue?

There's the Living Era 2-CD set "Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five - Summit Ridge Drive" (CD AJS 2007). As you probably know the Sanctuary Group has been recently purchased by Universal and it's likely that their reissues will become scarcer. According to the booklet, this set has the complete 1940 sessions, the complete 1945 sessions, plus the 1953/54 sessions with Joe Roland, either Farlow or Joe Puma on guitar, and Hank Jones on piano. More info here and here. F Sorry for my late reply. In the meantime I bought Hindsight's 3CD longbox with 1938/39 live recordings (some of which I've heard before). Very good from what bits I've played so far! Now I also finally want to get the 3CD Hep set, and this one above looks fine. But I've been under the assumption that the 1954 sessions alone were more than what would fit onto 2CDs? And this set linked above contains earlier sides as well... There's a 2CD Music Masters release of the 1954 which I've seen, and which I somehow thought contained only parts (or rather: half) of those 1954 sessions. Is that incorrect and this Living Era 2CD set is in fact complete?

All the best, Guy! And thanks for that Duke video - fun one!

another one... just because

That's great news!

Yeah, Daniel, wherever you are: all the best, and drop by again!

Hm, not for me... there's something to a book that no cool features won't replace. You can make side notes, mark phrases (and no, you can't pull them out in a new document or anything like that... if you want to find them again, you'll just have to go browse the pages again...). Reading a book is partly also a haptic thing. I guess I'm just old-fashioned...

Which Gwigwi? This one? Never came around buying it... looks good if the line-up is an indication!