randyhersom

I don't see Michael Ray on either list. Anybody have info?

Sunnysides starting to show up, two by Luciano Souza and a Beat poetry date by Steve Lacy. A new conversations with Sun Ra album that curiosity will drive me to check out sometime. Two new Braxtons on New Albion. The Matthias Lupri sounded great on first listen. Other items of curiosity include Danny D'Imperio, Khan Jamal, Brother Ah and Pepper Adams.

The other half is the Horace Parlan date Happy Frame of Mind which is on the (in-print??) Mosaic. It came out as a separate CD but has since gone OOP.

For the Rollins, you have to scroll way down to the Live Performances section. Chiaroscuro appeared in quantity today. I've been wanting a CD copy of guitarist Jack Wilkins - Merge for some time now, with some nice mainstream playing by Randy Brecker. So that was my first grab, but the Mary Lou Williams and Earl Hines beckon too - I feel a booster pack coming on. Another Jeremy Pelt on MAXJAZZ and many nice looking west coast items by Richie Kamuca, Jack Sheldon, Herb Geller, Pete Jolly and Conte Candoli on VSOP.

Would the first disc of the Curtis Amy Mosaic Select qualify? I found the playing enjoyable, blues oriented in keeping with Curtis's style but quite different from the organ style I'm used to hearing.

1. Nice. Richard Galliano just because I know very few names. 2. The drums are much more active than usual for piano trios, leading me to guess Great Jazz Trio with Hank and Elvin Jones. 3. Nice mellow hard bop era tune with emphasis on the composition. Duke Pearson, maybe? 4. Maybe early McCoy Tyner from Tender Moments? 5. I think Bobby Hutcherson recorded on marimba. 6. Kurt Rosenwinkel and Mark Turner? Also reminded me of mp3s I've heard of live Brian Patneaude. 7. Bill Evans is first to mind. I also thought of Brad Mehldau and Frank Kimbrough. 8. It doesn't seem edgy enough for Gil Evans, but a little left of mainstream for say Gerald Wilson. Maria Schneider? 9. Toots Thielmanns with Stephane Grappelli? 10. This sounds like early Sonny Rollins. 11. A little touch of latin percussion, lots of McCoy Tyner influence. Maybe it is McCoy? I had also thought of Fort Apache Band. 12. Curtis Amy came to mind, although there's valve trombone on disk 1 of the Mosaic Select with the similar organ style. 13. Sounds like Wayne Shorter's more experimental side.

Very nice. 1. Artie Shaw? I wavered toward Duke, then back. 2. Donald Byrd with Pepper Adams? 3. There was something very familiar about the style here. I'm thinking it's Hamp Hawes, although Herbie Hancock ran through my mind too. 4. A guitar with an edgy musical showmanship, but rooted in bop. Jimmy Bruno? 5. Kenny Dorham with Cecil Payne? 6. Count Basie? 7. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers? 8. Earl Hines? 9. Sounds like early Walt Dickerson. 10. This might be my tenth Jones-Lewis Big Band guess without getting one right! Is that a record? 11. Miles? 12. Is this Dolphy from Out to Lunch? 13. Is this a Duke Ellington small group? 14. Monk? 15. Nice trumpet battle, could be JATP. I'll guess Fats Navarro is one of them. 16. Seems like kind of a classic swing band ensemble sound. Maybe a Cootie Williams big band? 17. Marty digs the booting sound of the bari sax and I say hell yeah. Might be the tenorists date. Lockjaw? 18. Sounds post hardbop with just the slightest touch of out. Kind of like Thomas Chapin's Arabesque dates.

Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Van Morrison - His Band and Street Choir Joan Armatrading Keith Jarrett - Solo Concerts Bremen-Lausanne, Death and the Flower Oregon - Winter Light The Gentle Side of John Coltrane Hampton Hawes - High in the Sky Walt Dickerson - Peace Cecil Taylor - Silent Tongues Most particularly I've Been Working from Band and Street Choir among the first three, incredibly intense and entrancing at the time, and still quite powerful. I took to Keith Jarrett and Ralph Towner quite quickly when I started exploring jazz. It wasn't long before I got the Cecil, but that took many many listenings to get a handle on. The Trane anthology was mainly about the originally released version of Living Space. I have acquired all of the albums of Walt Dickerson since then but Peace was the first to capture me with the unearthly lyricism of bass and vibes. The Hamp Hawes is something that I listened to over and over and loved the mood it created.

Mary Lou Williams: Presents Black Christ of the Andes, Zoning and Zodiac Suite all hit today along with lots of other Smithsonian/Folkways material. James P Johnson from the jazz side, Lucinda Williams, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and various Seegers included in the folk/blues. Also Monk Live in Paris on Hyena. Other recent highlights are Woody Shaw Live Volume 4, Sonny Rollins latest Without a Song: the 9/11 Concert and Sonny Fortune/Billy Harper: Great Friends.

Discs arrived Tuesday.

I love Song For My Sister, it has some suprisingly Blue-Note-ish moments led by the title track.

1. Um, Cannonball Adderly?? : ) 2. David Ware's strings album? 3. Johnny Griffin? Dexter was my other thought, but I think his strings album had more modernish string arrangements. 4. Abbey Lincoln? 5. Lee Morgan a possibility 6. Steve Kuhn over Chick Corea 7. I'll try Jones-Lewis big band here. 8. I'd expect something by Andy Narrell to sound slicker. Definitely thinking steel drums, not hubkaphone. Maybe it's the trombone's date. Robin Eubanks? 9. Sounds like Weather Report. 10. Harold Mabern Jr.? 11. Unusual fragment here. Dave Bryant?

1. Nice organ groove. Don Patterson? 2. Gotta be Pops. Firmly wedged in my mind. I gotta struggle to avoid singing it out loud at inappropriate times. Gobble Gobble. 3. Mongo Santamaria? 4. Reminds me of G-Man, but that's not the track. I still say Rollins 5. I first thought Paul Desmond, which would have meant that Brubeck was in a particularly delicate mood. Sonny Criss came to mind on second play, and that's my guess 6. A tart alto in a 50's style who's not Bird. How about Stitt? 7. Tune sounds like Rainy Night in Georgia. Jug? I wouldn't even be surprised if this was particularly hip filler off a seventies R&B date. 8. Billie, but some of the tenor phrases sound shockingly like Shepp. Probably Ben. Duke's I Got it Bad. 9. Woody Herman? 10. Gerald Wilson? 11. Randy Weston's Hi-Fly on vibes. Jay Hoggard? 12. A very familiar tune from the lat 13. Moon Maiden from The Intimate Ellington 14. Stylistically like Louis Jordan. I remember his voice being a little deeper, so I'll try to dredge up another jump blues name. Jay McShann? 15. Shirley Scott and Stanley Turrentine? 16. Pretty cool beer commercial. Anita O'Day? 17. So who sounds like a cross between Helen Merrill and Mabel Mercer at a Shirley Horn tempo? I should be able to come with a better guess than Helen Merrill, but I cant.

Thanks John. Keen eye there. Hope you liked it.

Grabbed four of the five new James Finn sets. Liking what I've heard so far. Tending toward the Avant Garde, but also some nice flute work. The new design requires an extra click to get to the latest new releases so I don't consider it an improvement. Not bad though.

Wonderful set, left me feeling quite clueless. 1. I'm not good with big bands. Maria Schneider? 2. This lovely muted trumpet may come from Art Farmer 3. Guessing Anthony Braxton here. 4. I heard a lot of clarinet on the new Art Ensemble of Chicago sets on Pi. 5. Of the two names that came to mind, Dave Holland has recorded with vibes, and I'm not sure Ken Vandermark has. I'll go with Dave. 6. La Banda's my guess, an opera influenced ensemble including Willem Breuker. 7. Elvin and McCoy with Pharoah? 8. No idea at all! Maybe a group featuring Michael Moore? 9. Oscar Brown Jr? 10. Later Louis Armstrong? 11. John Mclaughlin - My Goals Beyond?

#1 would seem to be this group.

Arabesque is now showing up. Think I'll start with Jane Ira Bloom's The Red Quartets, 8 Bold Souls and Tony Malaby. More will have to wait until downloads refresh the end of next week.

Tribute is brilliant, enhancing the spanish guitar feel of Charlie Haden's bass lines with a couple of guitarists and Carlos Ward on some tracks. Very hypnotic.

Oh, yes, a recent favorite. Yo La Tengo covers Sun Ra's Nuclear War. It's an EP with 4 versions. One of them features childrens voices singing Sun Ra's lyrics that would not be permitted on network TV, unsettling but somehow appropriate.

If either of then solo piano pieces were 90's or later rock, then Brad Mehldau is likely to have played one or the other.

Santana covered Coltrane's Welcome on the album of the same name. He also dropped a quote from Afro Blue into his Lotus live album. Blood Sweat and Tears did God Bless the Child. Steely Dan covered Duke's East St. Louis Toodle-oo on Pretzel Logic.

I liked track 3 - fire away

2-1 Jazz version of King Crimson's Red, fabulous. I'm inclined to credit British musicians. Maybe John Ethridge? 2-2 Paul Bley comes to mind. 2-3 Some subtle hip-hop influences here. Graham Haynes perhaps? 2-4 Bossa feel. Bobby Watson perhaps? 2-5 Reminiscent of Keith Jarrett, but no vocalisms. Frank Kimbrough? 2-6 Quite lovely. Maria Schneider? 2-7 Pronounced rock backbeat. Maynard Ferguson? 2-8 A tenor tearing it up on Stevie Wonder's Sunshine of My Life. Joshua Redman? 2-9 Sounds like tenor and alto jamming over Rhodes rhythm section. Very fresh. Donald Harrison maybe? 2-10 Burning organ and tenor track. Agonizingly familiar, but I can't put a finger on it. Don Patterson? 2-11 Herbie's Mwandishi Band? No, that trumpet is just too Miles. Bigger band than I'm used to hearing with Miles. 2-12 More good solo piano. I hate to HAFC so I'll try Roland Hanna 2-13 Live organ date. Soft Machine?

This set seems to be about fusion in the best and most organic sense of the word. Disc 1 1-1 I'm going to guess that this is Andre Previn conducting a late Romantic piano concerto ... 1-2 ... segueing into Andre Previn, solo jazz piano 1-3 is this Wynton Marsalis - All Rise? 1-4 Something off Joe Farrell - Moon Germs? 1-5 Miles with Wayne and Herbie? 1-6 Electric Miles 1-7 More Wayne Shorter? 1-8 Kind of an inside-outside vibe here. Ted Curson? 1-9 Solo trumpet isn't done very often. Could be 50s or 60s, or a later player paying tribute. My wild guess is Leo Smith because he did a solo album, Kulture Jazz, but this isn't the style he commonly plays in. 1-10 Art Ensemble of Chicago 1-11 Blue Note era McCoy Tyner? 1-12 Piano trio is wide ranging stylistically, with an unusual vocal contribution at the end. Don Pullen? 1-13 Trumpet trios were very hard to find before the 80s. Roy Campbell? Once again, not as "out" as I'd expect for this player. 1-14 A Blue Note style with some percolating wah-wah guitar added in. Gary Bartz? 1-15 Nice. I'm going with Sonny Rollins against my better judgement. 1-16 Reminds me of Herbie Hancock's The Egg from Empyrean Isles. Whether I'm right or not, I love it.