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For what it's worth, the Clifford Brown Complete Master Takes tin can from 2009 I bought the other day has a nice warm sound. Not harsh. It was done by Kevin Reeves. I agree the Verve Master Edition digipaks and jewel cases are generally crap sound wise (or at least the ones I've heard). I'm no Hoffmanite either, but I hate bright remasters. It looks like I won't be getting the Evans box then.

Clifford Brown - The Emarcy Master Takes Starting at £12.49 from Amazon.co.uk third party sellers.

Fox misses the mark while handling facts.

Amazing book. I couldn't put it down. Explains Heart of Darkness amongst other things. Try 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz' by Michela Wrong for an account of more recent horrors (the Mobutu years and after). I read that first and got the recommendation for the King Leopold's Ghost book from there. Thank you both for the recommendation. I ordered the book this morning.

It seems like you're going to have to include a free bottle of Scotch with Maiden Voyage, Skeith. It got some bad feedback, but I do not believe many people here have heard this SHM. I didn't think it was a disappointment.

In or out of office? Otherwise I'd say The Gipper.

What's left.....? At least Andrew Hill and more David Murray.

I believe it is/was mostly to neighbouring countries. So for The Netherlands both Amazon UK & DE. Since when has the UK been a "neighbour" of the Netherlands?........ Oh, I forgot. For Brits the North Sea equals the Pacific in size, while New York is only an overnight ferry crossing away.

I mainly order CDs from third party sellers like All Your Music when using Amazon UK. Books are a different matter. And this also affects pre-orders like the recent Miles Fillmore set, Amazon UK would no longer be cheaper than DE. I believe it is/was mostly to neighbouring countries. So for The Netherlands both Amazon UK & DE.

My guess is the discs with 'DIDX' are real CDs, but I'm also interested in knowing this for certain.

I do like some of Dick's novels, but he is one of these unfortunate SF authors who seemed unable to write in interesting prose for the greatest part of his career.

I've just received an email from Amazon.co.uk stating that from 3 April Free Super Saver Delivery to The Netherlands is no longer available. Could Amazon.de be far behind? How about people from other EU countries? Did you receive notice that Free Super Saver Delivery from Amazon.de, for example, is no longer available to your country of residence? ------------ As you've previously had orders delivered to The Netherlands, we wanted to let you know that our delivery options to The Netherlands are changing. From April 3, 2014, FREE Super Saver Delivery will no longer be available. You'll have the option of Standard or Priority Delivery for orders being delivered to The Netherlands. More information about international delivery rates and times can be found here. We strive to provide our European customers the greatest possible selection at low prices and hope to see you again soon. Regards, Customer Service Department

B.B. King: The Life of Riley

I'm not sure I follow you completely. From my own modest collection of his albums, I really enjoy "Like Someone in Love" from Lush Life, "In a Sentimental Mood" from the Duke Ellington album and of course "Blue in Green" for example, and count them amongst the best of his ballad playing (there is a lot of Coltrane material that I haven't heard though especially late Coltrane). Would you say that those are "mystically infused"? How about "Naima"? I would definitely call the intense and intensely beautiful material from 1965 like Dear Lord, Dearly Beloved, and certain pieces from First Meditations for example mystically infused ballads. They probably wouldn't qualify as ballads by definition. These pieces are profound.

After I got rid of the Quartet box, I never got another copy of Ballads. Like others before I prefer to listen to later songs like Dear Lord, Dearly Beloved, Seraphic Light, etc. when I'm in the mood for a Coltrane ballad type tune. Dear Lord sounds amazing on the SHM of Transition.

I considered the Bird, but yesterday I went for the 3 CD tin can Master Take set. It is supposed to sound very good, and it would be nice to have at least some Charlie Parker surpassing the earlier stuff in sound quality. I'm still considering the Clifford Brown Emarcy, and Billie Holiday and Bill Evans Verves.

Yes, more more more!

Getting the Japanese discs while they're available is probably the smart thing to do. It seems Verse's own re-issue program is going nowhere.

Did I miss something, because according to the release schedule on page 1 Mal Waldron's Left Alone and Booker Little & Friend were supposed to see a US release on 26 March, yet these titles are nowhere to be found on Amazon.com, not even as a pre-order.

Nowhere was I saying Van Gelder had anything to do with that scheme. It is just one of the causes of my unhappiness with Blue Note. You're misrepresenting what I was saying. And a large percentage of the RVG remasters are clearly not good. PS I respect his original contribution, of course.

I'm not going to get into a further discussion of RVG CDs - We've been there and done that. However, if it weren't for that "geriatric clown", you'd have very few BN SMH releases to listen to. Or you might buy a decent turntable and pick up a few King, Music Matters, Analogue Productions, whatever LPs and hear what that "geritric clown" did in his younger days. As someone who has done work with RVG, I find this revolting. Rudy deserves much better than this from "internet experts". I see myself as a very unhappy Blue Note consumer with respect to the RVG series and the copy protection scheme for EU releases (which lasted several years). And doesn't the Blue Note catalog deserve better treatment than it got the last decade and a half? From my perspective Rudy Van Gelder made a fool of himself by releasing so many subpar sounding CDs with his name on them.

It's currently only possible to view inside the Kindle. According to the link in your initial post the word count of the Kindle is practically double. Are both the bonus chapters and the appendices missing from your paperback?

My copy just arrived. It says at the back that the extra material in the e-version will also be available to download at some point so as not to penalise those who bought the print version. Nice fat book of nearly 500 pages. The first half is set in Britain up to '68. Free of charge?