Swinging Swede

Do you still get commissions from purchases done from the old query page? I'm talking about this: http://www.organissi.../aff_search.php I have continued to use this link up till now, and it has both European Amazon sites and CD Universe as options.

That sums up how I feel about it too. When I once upon a time sampled Byrd's 70s Blue Note albums, I realized that Ethiopian Knights was the last one chronologically I would be interested in getting (and also did get). With Black Byrd and the other Mizell albums it was clear that Byrd had crossed a line into something I as a jazz listener had no interest in. Have retried Black Byrd several times afterwards, thinking that I might remember it wrong, but it is equally difficult to sit through each time! By the way, when Blue Note recorded some of their artists on the 1973 Montreux jazz festival, they released albums by Bobby Hutcherson, Ronnie Foster, Marlena Shaw and Bobbi Humphrey, but they also recorded a fifth set with Donald Byrd, which for some reason remains unissued. Being a live set, this might be marginally better than the studio albums of the same time, but I guess we will never know.

"Retouched Cover to come"! A true classic!

Looked for an English translation online and found this: "Only Michael Phelps, when competing in the 1972 Munich Olympics, over there in Hitler's Germany, won as many medals. Adolf Hitler, who presided over these 1972 Olympics (in a chauvinistic snit fit, it appears), refused to personally award the medals to Michael Phelps."

That's a disappointment. The listing says "CD" and the cover says "2 CD Set". I guess it should have said "2 CD-R Set".

Tutti Camarata

1. Blue Nun 2. Nermus 3. Village Blues 4. Azure 5. Coming Home 6. Concepts In Blue 7. Mohawk ... but I also saw this with the same tracklist as the other: 1. Squatty Roo 2. Tribute to Louis Armstrong: When It's Sleepy Time Down South/Confe ... 3. Them There Eyes 4. It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) The first track list is from another but unrelated Pablo album, namely J.J. Johnson's Concepts In Blue. The Johnson album was reissued in the OJC series as OJCCD-735-2 and the Carter album as OJCCD-736-2, so the close numbers are probably what has caused the mix-up.

With 200 titles already out and more batches coming next year this is a great reissue series! Sure, many titles have been out on CD before, but appear here in better sound and with original cover art. There are also a fair number of titles not on CD before or where a track was omitted on Collectables twofers. The only thing I think could have been improved is that there should have been a foldout with the liner notes, as there is on the Japanese Blue Note CDs also coming out now. The liners only appear on the back cover and are difficult to read due to the small size. All things considered this is a minor quibble, as these are definitive releases in all other ways and moderately priced. I am glad now that I never got that many Collectables CDs. I was intending to buy them eventually, since I figured there would be no more CD reissues of these albums by now. With all the talk about the death of the CD, I must admit that I did not see this massive Warner reissue program coming, nor did I the Blue Note LT and LA series that now simultaneously is coming out. The CD era is not over in Japan at least!

Presumably a needle-drop but whether it was done by Fresh Sound or "found" elsewhere...who knows. However it sounds pretty good to my, admittedly, "non-hi-fi" ears. There has been an excellent stereo rip of Breezin' available in the blogosphere, so that could very well be the source.

I'm sorry to say that I have never really liked Joe Williams. He sounds more like a cabaret singer than a jazz singer to me. I think Jimmy Rushing was an infinitely better fit for the Basie band than Williams.

It wasn't a question of doing it right, there was no room for that track; at the time the capacity of a CD wasn't what it is now. If you do it "right" you either combine albums where you aren't forced to cut off tracks or you put it out as separate CDs. I fully agree. That is how it should be done. Also, the length of a CD has not changed; it has always been 80 minutes. The Redbook standard has been in place for 30 years, after all. There have however been some experiments with "overburning" to get some extra seconds in - I think there was a Connoisseur that did that - , but that is a marginal gain, and not all players may be able to play it correctly.

Actually it has been out on this CD: The story behind this is that Ammons recorded a couple of albums for Argo in Chicago 1961, but since he was under contract with Prestige, Argo had to pull the albums from the market, and they were later released on Prestige. The other one was Just Jug, which reappeared on Prestige as Live! In Chicago.

But can you do it using another search engine than Google? Could one say that one has googled something on Bing or Yahoo?

Lloyd Glenn comes to mind. Born in 1909, he played with a number of territory bands in the late 20s and 30s. He only recorded once during this time, namely with Don Albert's big band, which cut eight sides for Vocalion in San Antonio 1936. Glenn not only held down the piano chair but also arranged for Albert's band. Although unrecorded, Glenn also played with some other notable territory bands, such as Nat Towles and Boots And His Buddies (which would record later, but then without Glenn). Even during his R&B heydays, Glenn somewhat surprisingly had a regular job as pianist in Kid Ory's traditional jazz band.

All these tracks also appeared in Chronological Classics' Hodges series. The Swing session (including the Baker track) was on 1945-1950, whereas the Vogue sessions were on 1950-1951.

I think it is a definite improvement too. Time is not standing still technically and AMG was in need of a modernization - which I think they have successfully achieved. I find it useful too. A recurring problem, however, is that they mix up different albums bearing the same name. Sometimes the track list is different from what the cover shows or the review talks about. There should be better quality control regarding those things. But hey, it's free. I have noticed that too and that is an important improvement!

In general I feel that Byas's 1944-46 American recordings are his most important. He recorded prolifically for Savoy and various other labels in those two years before going to Europe with Don Redman's big band and not coming back. There were a number of Chronological Classics releases covering it all. The Definitive set is probably sourced from the Classics CDs.

Discombobulation

I recently bought their new hybrid release of Sonny Stitt Blows The Blues, a Verve album never before officially released on CD (although there is a Fresh Sound release). I can only play the CD layer, but the sound is amazingly good! Made me realize what a difference a good remaster can make.

CD Japan and HMV Japan are about equal in price and shipping time in my experience. The biggest difference is that CD Japan takes Paypal whereas HMV Japan wants your credit card details (if that matters to you).

Someone did. It is coming out in June.

Spot on - and here is Waters at the very club where this is filmed - La Cigale in PAris But who is the explosive trumpeter? He sounds good and must be someone we know, but I can't come up with any name.

Not Benny Carter. I think it is Benny Waters.