skeith

Well Brad, As I have said before, this a one great CD and I think it is one of the best of Stitt's career. I play this one quite a bit.

I saw this one a couple of weeks ago and liked it very much, sort of a thinking man's apocalyptic zombie movie. Warning to inhabitants of New York and Washington, DC: the possibilities this movie presents may be too disturbing for some viewers.

Congrats Tony. They are little treasures, aren't they?

I guess it is too obvious, but my all time fav is BB King's "Live at the Regal" Goosebumps every time.

Thanks everyone for your recs which I intend to pursue. What about John Renbourn's "Sir John a Lot"?

Thanks Simon and Michael for your recs, Simon, yes the majority of the album John Barleycorn by Traffic is electric and not folkish at all, but the particular track of the same name is not electric - Sounds like just acoustic instruments to me. That is the sound I am looking for.

I was listening to the marvelous John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic the other day and it sparked a vague memory that I was exposed to either Pentangle or Fairport Convention in the late 60's/early 70's and quite liked some of it. I am looking for the British folk music aspect, not electric stuff! Isn't some of it like John Barleycorn (I mean that particular track- not the whole LP, of course I love the whole LP)? Can anyone make any suggestions for cds with some explanations as to what it would be sounding like?

I know it is a bit late, but I wanted to say I am a big fan of this album.

Yeah DRJ, I agree that Extrapolation is due for a remastering given that the only edition I know of has been available for 10 years, because I would like it to sound even better. On the other hand I have heard much worse sounding Cds from that time. I think the recording engineer did a good job on this one.

Impossible, I do have and like very much Where Fortune Smiles, but I disagree that it is very different from Extrapolation- both albums feature John Surman and several of the ballads from Where Fortune Smiles would have fit nicely on Extrapolation. Where I do agree with you is that a couple of the tunes on WFS are more "out" than anything anything on Ex - but I think the intensity level on Ex gets just as high. Clunky, I love that track too, funny the booklet calls it "Binky's Beam" and the tray insert calls is "Binky's Dream", one of several discrepancies with the booklet and tray. My problem is I love every track on the whole CD.

Probably this has been said before, but here I go. I have been listening to this one for 30 years and it always, every time, sounds fresh. All Brits as far as I know and playing like monster musicians:McLaughlin, Tony Oxley, and John Surman stand out for me, but that bass player is great too. The compositions are great-McLaughlin was such an underrated composer- and while it is most definitely not fusion you wouldn't mistake it for a Wes Montgomery album either. Given that this was recorded in 1969 or 70 - the originality of the compositions is striking. I'm not sure where they came up with this music but it is exceptional and brilliant. I haven't said it very well here - and somebody else could in words to more justice to this album, but I have to say it is just marvelous.

Well Templejazz, Henderson is one of my favorite sax players. If you can do a search on this site, I believe a lot of posters here have discussed their favorite Henderson material or maybe that was the BNBB. IF the only BN material you have with Joe as a leader is IN AND OUT, I would not be too quick to ignore his other BN releases, since they are consistently among his best work, things such as Page One, Our Thing, Mode for Joe,etc. His Milestone stuff has a few clunkers, I am less fond of the fusion and avant garde stuff, but a lot of it is very good. It's all available on the Milestone box set, not all of it is on single cds, but Power to the People, and Live in Japan which are singles are particularly good. He's a monster, enjoy!

Jsngry, Well there is one thing you are forgetting Jim. Either Tune Up or Constellation was voted best album of 1972 by Downbeat or else it won a Grammy for best jazz album of 1972. That's how bad it really is! My memory is slightly foggy too.

I don't have an SACD player so I am listening to the regular CD layer and comparing it to my MOFI cd. The first thing I noticed is that the image on the RVG is much more in between the speakers where the MOFI puts the sound more to the sides. Also there appears to be more front to back depth on the MOFI and more of a sense of 3d delineation of the instruments, not a huge difference, but my initial preference is for the MOFI, although the RVG may be a tad clearer.

JSangrey I want to go back to your point on the connection between a musician's personality and his music. Thanks for taking a stab at analyzing Hodges and Desmond. Although from what I have read, regardless of what his pictures may look like, Desmond was not in the least bit a nerd. However, if I get your point, you seem to be saying the the paradox of one's music being unlike one's personality is solved by recognizing that there were other aspects to their personality and that everyone has these. That is true, but then doesn't that make any judgements about the connection between personality and one's music meaningless, because everyone is multifaceted?

Jim, So why don't you take a crack at reconcilingl the personalities of Hodges and Desmond with their music? I can't make the connection and am interested in your theory. And by the way, I don't think you should have come down so hard on Tony for making comparisons with Mobley and Rollins. We all do it. I seem to remember a while back you were spilling a lot of cyberink comparing Stan Getz to Joe Henderson. And yes, I think recommeding Silver City seems rather faint praise- I mean it is only 2 cds from about 30 years of work. I expected you to recommend the individual cds. I have most of them, and frankly it is not my favorite Rollins period and the sidemen are not always of high quality but there are a fair number of good solos. My biggest problem with Silver City is that when I look at the tracks chosen for that compilation, I often think that I would have made other choices.

As to personality and its relation to one's music. I have read that Paul Desmond was a rather wild person in his private life, but I would say that his solo style is by intention rather restrained. Back on the Soapbox: Clementine, you were not surprised that two jetliners were hijacked in this country by mostly Saudi nationals living in this country and flown into the WTC and they collapsed. Jeez, you may be the only person in America, wish you had alerted someone. By the way, included in my definition of a hero is anyone who goes into a burning building to save someone's life he or she doesn't even know. I am not aware that any member of the NYFD has killed anyone, black or otherwise. And yes those 400 firefighters (a number of whom were black) and other uniformed service people, including the cops who put their lives on the line to help others but died on 9/11 are heroes in my book. What am I missing here? In hasn't the war on terrorism produced a frightening cache of materials by terrorists, showing plans of the NY City subway system, landmarks, bridges, etc. You aren't grateful, the US military is rounding up a lot of these guys? I guess you are not happy they caught the guy who was planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge? Wasn't that just last week? Oh I am sorry, you have already managed to get over it.

JSangrey and Clementine, Sorry but I guess the impact of 9/11 on a person apparently has a lot to do with how close you were to it. As someone who watched it from 5 blocks away and know several people who were directly impacted, I guess I have a different perspective. And as for telling people to get over it, Clementine, maybe you would like to tell that to some of the kids who are missing parents or some of the people who were until quite recently going periodically to a refrigerated morgue to take home the body part of a loved one. Glad you are over it, but please don't lecture the rest of us. Ok, I'll get off my soapbox. JSangrey, I have seen Sonny Rollins live at least a dozen times since the mid 70's and I agree for the most part, allthough I would not compare it with 9/11, with a lot of your comments about the transforming power of a good live Rollins concert. I have one quibble with your analysis of personality relating to one's music. It seems to me that often times there seems to be an inverse relationship. A good example might be Johnny Hodges, if you have seen film clips of the guy on the bandstand, or read stories about him, he seemed to have been taciturn, or perhaps not particulary emotional as to his facial expression, body movements, etc. But man, he seems to me to be one of the more expressive players when it comes to the sound that came out of his horn. I can think of other examples.

JSangrey, Not sure what you mean by "safe"- I agree it is not "Our Man in Jazz" in terms of outside playing and there are no duck calls like on "Sonny Meets Hawk", and maybe you are referring to the high percentage of classic tunes (standards) on it, but I find Rollins's solos on both "The Bridge" and "John S." to have some remarkably adventurous playing on what many consider to be a sort of ballads album. And as for the ballads such as "God Bless the Child" or "Where are you", I find the playing to be not safe in this sense, it is some of the most emotionally charged ballad playing I have ever heard. The guy is pouring his heart out and that is never a safe thing to do. The ballads also contain some remarkable intros and cadenzas that express a lot of adventure to me. My favorite RCAs would be this one, the Standard Sonny Rollins, and the Sonny Meets Hawk.

Soul Stream, You didn't ask me but I"ll put my 2 cents in. I like the Stitt Mosaic and I'll grant that Lon's comment about much the same instrumentation has some validity -it's mostly Stitt, with piano, bass and drums, sometimes another horn - but that's Sonny's forte and I really don't prefer him with big band or another format. Maybe it seems like a lot the same since it is a whopping 9 cds. But I suppose you could make the same criticism of Hank Mobley's Blue Note sessions. (On the other hand, there is quite a good date with Stitt and an organ on this set) If you are afraid to take the plunge on the Mosaic, you can probably find 2 of the best single sessions from that box, "Sonny Stitt Plays" and I think the title is "Sonny Stitt and the New Yorkers" - they were both available from Fresh Sound in the 90's and didn't sound very audiophile quality, but I think they have come out in that blue note mini lp series from japan done by Ron McMaster which sound very good. If you can find it the 32 jazz cd called "Endgame:Brilliance" is quite good.

Yes, I am also mystified at the general view of this album. I like it so much better than other Stitt albums that critics and fans seem to like such as Stitt Plays Bird or Only the Blues. New York Jazz is much better than either of those.

Several posters have commented on these and please excuse my inarticulate description, but I hope you know what I am talking about. It seems Verve and BMG releases in digipaks have gone to these and it is so hard to get the cd off of it, you practically have to bend it in half. Does anyone know if they sell trays to replace these solid ones that have teeth and whether it is hard to replace without tearing up the paper under the tray. This can also come in handy for those of us who wish to replace broken trays in those digipaks.

Soul Stream - the actual title is called New York Jazz and yes I agree it is a killer. I have tried on several threads here to generate interest, but it seems I am invisible, probably my Mobley comments. Poor Sonny Stitt - he never really gets his due credit. THis one has Oscar Peterson on piano and great Basie drummer Joe Jones.

My other favorite Frank Morgan is called I think "Double Image" and features duets with George Cables. It's great.

I picked up the latest US release and yes it sounds a bit better than the French 24 bit digipak