king ubu

The Zurich concert is highly recommended (and I did so here at least once - or maybe it was over on AAJ - in some Jeru-threads). It's a TCB release. TCB's a small and still young swiss label with quite a good catalogue. They should be distributed statesides, as far as I know. Also some of their productions are done in NYC (Buster Williams, Steve Nelson and Louis Hayes are among those recorded for TCB in the US). TCB Homepage One of the best features of TCB is their "Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series" (I have recommended these earlier, too): Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series They have 13 CDs out now, by Mulligan (CJB & Quartet), Blakey (the Morgan-Shorter Messengers, two separate volumes), Cannonball, Dexter/Ben Webster (each alone for two tracks, then two they did together), Louis Hayes/Woody Shaw, Jones-Lewis BB, Buck Clayton all stars, Quincy Jones, Don Redman Orchestra (1946, very cool disc!), Clark Terry-Chris Woods, and Coleman Hawkins. Here you find some more information about the Mulligan CJB release. The personnel is the same as on the Paris discs (which I do not have), and I like this concert very much, indeed! (Other favorites from the series are the Jones-Lewis, Redman, and Hayes/Shaw discs, by the way) These recordings are neither Granz nor bootleg things. They were produced by Swiss Radio (and thus probably -partly- broadcasted sometimes). TCB has acquired them from Swiss Radio, and this seems to be a perfectly legal deal. ubu

Ascenseur in its Jazz in Paris reincarnation seems to be quite rare, too. At least in my JiP catalogue this one is not listed (together with vol. 8, Chet Baker's wonderful "Broken Wing"). There is a french release (with some ??-bit remastering sticker on it) widely available here. I only have the 80ies CD so far. Maybe it would be time to update. Though I would have to keep the booklet. Would be hard to live without the photos! (Is the one with Miles & Jeanne M. also in the booklet? That's my favorite) ubu

Another for the Brownie box! I'm with Jim as far as the first three on your list are concerned. Do not have any of the others except for the HatArts with Shepp. I think they already are OOP, maybe relatively easy to find, though. They're good, too. Enja had a nice 2CD set out featuring Roach in various settings (quintet, m'boom, with voices, solo), which is a very nice portrait of the man and his abilities (I recently got mine from Amazon Germany), called "To The Max". ubu

Oh, no worry, I had some Hal Russell with me to relax And some Dave Holland (the new one), Mingus' Revenge, some hot jazz on Blue Note stuff... Sweets is a favorite of mine, too, but somehow, that date just does not bring results as good as the others - maybe the two previously unreleased takes of "What Is This Thing Called Love" are my favorites. Who does the singing on the long opening track by the way? The DeFranco sides are very good, too. Have to listen again to the Eldridge stuff. Only been through it once. And Webster's pyrothechnics, they're right there: no one else could ever get that sound! ubu

I'm a HUGE fan! The discographical information (with some mistakes, maybe) to all these (and one other) Camden release are listed in the Kippie Moeketsi thread (here) Those are all great albums. Voice of Africa and particularly African Sun are among my favorite Ibrahim albums. African Horns is a very good one, too. A compilation featuring some of the best south african musicians of that time. Zimbabwe, is together with the other Enjas featuring Carlos Ward (Montreux, South Africa), among the first Ibrahim albums I have heard, and still one of my favorites. Then, African Marketplace (Warner) is a true masterpiece. There you get the typical, slightly polyphonic, horns paired with african beats, and good solos mainly from Ward and Ibrahim himself. A stunningly beautiful album! African River is a very good group date, featuring, among others Robin Eubanks, John Stubblefield and Howard Johnson. His two duo albums with Johnny Dyani (sp?) are beautiful, too. As is some of his solo stuff - African Piano (ECM), and his two Sackville albums come to mind, as well as some Enja stuff. Africa - Tears & Laughter is a rather sparse album, but it grew to become one of my favorites. If his more recent stuff, Yarona is a marvel. One of my favorite piano trio records (and I really mean that)! Marcus McLaurine is on bass, and George Johnson on drums. Recorded live in a club in NYC, this is a very moody, sometimes happy, often rather dark, beautiful album. I saw him live in Zurich (where he was discovered by Duke Ellington many years ago) three times. Solo in a small church, an intimate and very strong concert, in duo with Max Roach (rather disappointing, but not really a bad concert, only, they did not live up to expectations), and in trio in a small jazz club. He is still going strong! Hope he will give us much more great music! (And hope Enja comes around reissuing some stuff currently lost) ubu

Well, among the 20 CDs I took with me for my two weeks vacation (which had to end, alas, yesterday), were the Tatum solo, group (both recently acquired via 2001 and unlistened till then), the Capitol and the 20th century piano genius sets.Sounds like an overdose, and, indeed, I was overwhelmed more than once. I started with the Capitol sides, then went on to the Verve stuff, then the solos, and finally the group masterpieces. The Solo Masterpieces is certainly one of the very most impressing sets I ever heard! Yes, you got to take it in small doses, but after having heard the Capitol and Verve stuff, I was familiar with quite a few tunes (& their arrangements), which made it much easier for me to listen to those 7 discs of piano genius. I have had similar feelings about some (actually about all) of the Group Masterpieces sessions as EKE. Tatum needs no drummer (hardly ever the drummers start a tune, or establish a tempo - Tatum usually handles this on his own, the others - the drummer being among them - enter later on), neither does he need a bass player (and, sorry, but Red Callender is just a little bit too stiff, cuts his notes short without letting them really sound. He certainly was no bad player, but he's just not one of my favorites). The drummers are great, and do a good job, too (nice to hear Bellson and Rich for once not showing their pyro-technical skills), but, hell, Tatum could do all this himself! Then regarding the horns (and Barney Kessel), it does quite often seem like they do just sort of "play along", yet there are so many delightful and beautiful tunes in that collection (my favorites would probably be the Webster sides, my least preferred the Edison/Kessel date, but they're all very close and all at least good, and all include stunning Tatum solos, of course...). I find the liner notes to be quite helpful regarding the problem of interaction (or rather of the difficulty of it) with Tatum, by the way. ubu

Oh, well after having read all your friendly recollections, I took the plunge and got me a Mach 3 today. F**king expensive! I paid like 10 $ for the thing itself, and about 17 $ for 8 blades!!! Hell, I could have gotten a CD for that despite our usual ridiculously high Swiss CD prices... To answer the other questions: - manual (and only that) - before taking a shower - daily (actually, not really, but I would sure like to... no metrosomething either) - up, down, left, right - alcoholic and non-alcoholic lotions (depending on my morning mood...) ubu

Yes indeed! But I did never own any of the others. You get very good liner notes and comments, too, fat booklet. And definitively DON'T get the definitive release... ubu

Thanks guys! I'll take the CD with me and hope for a lively discussion upon my return home! ubu

As I will be leaving tomorrow, here comes my AotW: An incredible album, witty, funny, full of great playing by Russell, Mars Williams, Kent Kessler, Steve Hunt & Brian Sandstrom, and certainly one of my greatest discoveries within the past year. And in no way a typical ECM record, by the way! Actually, I wanted to pick the Vienna Art Orchestra's "Minimalism of Erik Satie" (hatOLOGY), but that one is OOP - I strongly recommend everybody interested in that one to pick it up as long as it's still around. It has certainly not been OOP long. Another candidate (maybe some other time?) was Sam Rivers' solo disc "Portrait" (FMP). ubu

Nope, Abe Lincoln actually played the trombone. He can be heard on some sessions included in the Capitol Mosaic (Wingy Manone, 3/7/44; Eddie Miller, 2/4/44). Dead serious, by the way, ubu B)

This one seems to be very good! I read an enthusiastic review recently in a swiss newspaper (written by one of the very few really good swiss jazz critics). ubu

No recommendations come to my mind, but I do LOVE that CD! Really wonderful and unusual music! Yes, there is one (maybe too obvious): Herbie Mann At the Village Gate (Atlantic), one of my favorite flute CDs. ubu

Let's hope so! Some of it was on the box, but the box covered nearly everything Monk did in his Columbia years. It's a real nice box, in my opinion, even if you have all the single reissues. Generally, I love the Legacy reissues of the Monk material very much (even though I'm far from having all of them yet). ubu

Anyone knows if this is coming out soon in a new (restored/remastered) version? I always kept my hand off of it in hope of a new reissue. ubu

Thanks, Pepe! Somehow, this all does make sense. Haden-Bley (A.I.R.)-Gato-Cherry, there are connection between all of them, yet without clear knowledge of connections to Garbarek, somehow this comes out of the music on "Witchi-Tai-To". ubu

I just received Jazz In Africa Volume Two (in its Kaz incarnation from 1992). It's a very nice CD, containing a Kippie Moeketsi album called "Tshona", also featuring Basil Coetze, and Pat Matshikiza on piano. The most famous track, of course is the title-track, which also features Dennis Phillips on alto. This album has a playing time of only little more than half an hour. The CD then has a 17 minutes long track featuring Barney Rachabane, Basil Coetzee and Duke Makasi, as well as a 23 minute Dollar Brand track with Robbie Jansen, Coetzee and Arthur Jacobs. Very good music, indeed! I got the CD from jazzhouserecords.co.uk. They still list it, so it's yours for 5£ + shipping (Paypal), and very fast service, indeed! ubu

RIP. Just listened to the Ventura stuff in that Mosaic set. Jackson does a fine job. Also like the Big Band sides he led featuring Gerry Mulligan (on CD from Fantasy together with some Mulligan Quartet sides). ubu

Well, as I will be off on vacation tomorrow, some thoughts on this album, though its week has not yet started. Garbarek is blowing really hard and hot on these tunes. There is an underlying mood to much of the music reminding me (!) of the Coltrane quartet - some of Garbarek's lines bringing up Trane, and also some of Stenson's playing bringing up Tyner. I found some resemblace to Gato Barbieri (!) in Garbarek's playing here. Neither the Trane not the Gate thing are sort of audible through all the music, also he's certainly not trying to emulate them, but yes, I can (or at least think I can) hear some similarities (not to speak of influences, which might stretch things). Well, I do not like the mixing of Christensen very much, but he and Palle Danielsson (sure one of the very best bassists around in the last decades) have a very strong influence on where the music goes. Danielsson's bass-vamps strike me as particularly strong, driving the music with quite much force, while Christensen rather has the "embellishing" part. The tunes are a very fine bunch. One might call it ecclectisist, but I think things melt together just fine, creating a musical style/world/mood quite of its own. While I don't know anything about Don Cherry and his stay in Scandinavia, it is certainly evident that these four musicians have huge open ears and succeed in melting together influences from several different musical cultures and styles. The Carlos Puebla track really is in a Haden/Liberation Orchestra mood (did he do it, too?), and is marvellous. In short I think this a hauntingly beautiful and at the same time very strong record. Thanks very much SEK for chosing it! I will return to it many times in the future, I hope! ubu

This happens tom me mostly with vocal stuff, such as Sinatra's wonderful "Songs for Swingin' Lovers", or some of Diana Krall's albums (up to "Love Scenes" - confession time: I like them ) Another played out album for me is Coltrane's "A Love Supreme". I have not listened to that one since I got the Deluxe edition. (Well, only a couple of months before that, I got the single CD for the second time, having sold the one I had after having acquired the Classic Quartet box... so I seem to like that one) From the list of Noj, I don't think I have outheard anything. But by somehow trying to regulate what you're listening to when (and with all the new stuff coming in all the time), I don't find it difficult not to out play my stuff. And then, I'm into jazz only for some 10 years, and still young... ubu

I only have one disc from the Tzadik label, Marc Ribot's "Yo! I Killed Your God". Quite a noisy affair! I have enjoyed everything I have heard yet by Zorn's Masada outfit. Then I heard some broadcast of Steven Bernstein's Diaspora Soul project, which I like very much, judging from that. Generally, these albums are extremely expensive over here (almost 30$ !!). Anyone knows a good place to buy them online with not too much shipping cost to Europe? ubu

I love the Monterey album and Electric Bath. The other recent BN/Pacific reissue was a little disappointing, in my opinion, too. The early Candid album, which I have in its recent Past Perfect incarnation (it has been mentioned in the Past Perfect thread in the reissues forum), is quite interesting, too. Byard (also on alto), Carter & Persip make for a very good rhythm section. ubu

Been more and more impressed of Shim after having heard his CD several times. Certainly was (is? - guess my chances over here are small to hear anything new, unless he makes a new CD) one of the most interesting of all those young tenors. And he's a master of his instrument. ubu

One of the advantages of being in bed with some fever and a hell of cold: I started listening to my Ventura / Phillips Mosaic! I head none of the Phillips stuff before, the Ventura maybe two or three times. Generally, I like him well. He get's a nice sound on all his horns, the bands are playing some good arrangements. I would not need the vocal-backing on that one session, Ms McCall, though, is good for my ears. My favorite sessions would be the quartet dates with Napoleon and Hank Jones, as well as the last date in the box, the one featuring a larger band and some very good playing by all. I would not say I like the music for the sidemen only - though many of them do deliver very good work. I enjoy the way Ventura handles the material on hand. Maybe he is a little bit vulgar from time to time, but, so is life... Seriously, I like it a lot! ubu

Yes, it is the Jim Pepper song. And Stenson is very good on Lloyd's "Canto". Anybody looking for more fine Stenson sideman dates would be well-served with Tomasz Stanko's "Litania". Another very good record! ubu