BruceH

Ellen Degeneres has a talk show?

I know what you mean. I HAVE used that feature, but I find it to be a pain in the ass. Now if they made a CD player that "recognized" the CD and automatically followed your program for it, well, that would be great. As it is, I've given up programming individual CD's because I hate having to do it every damn time. (By the way, one listen to the alternates of, say, Charlie Parker or Sonny Rollins proves their potential value. I say release 'em and let the listener decide...but I like my albums straight up. To the back of the disc with them!!)

Didn't Mummer have "Love On A Farmboys Wages"? Always really liked that song. And I liked English Settlement just fine, even sprang for the double-LP import. (My only problem with it, as I recall, was it seemed to have a playing time of one-and-a-half albums. But I'm sure the whole shebang is available on one CD now.) I'll admit, I'm overdue for some catching up with XTC. Thing is, every time I'm about to buy CD of theirs, I end up spending the money on a jazz album instead.

I hate to admit this, but my history with XTC almost exactly parallels Kalo's. The two differences are: 1) Mummer helped to shock me out of following their career. I remember actually feeling burned when I got it, like I'd been ripped off; there were only a couple of songs I liked, and the rest just left me cold. Then I got sucked too deeply into jazz to keep up (Early Mosaic Years, etc.) I missed Skylarking entirely. 2) I haven't really caught up with them in a big way, despite having gotten more back into rock lately. Everyone recommends Skylarking so highly that I strongly feel I should get that, but haven't done it yet. Kalo was good enough to send me a tape of Chips from the Chocolate Fireball, which I got a huge kick out of. Then when I saw it in a store, I couldn't quite justify spending full price on the damn thing when I already had the music. There are times when I regret selling all my XTC albums other than Drums and Wires (which for me remains the "touchstone" album), but hey, that's life.

Quite so. But I'd have to add that, often enough, even when writing about the bop he personally disliked he displayed a capacity to actually hear what's going on in the music and describe well to the layman. For instance, he would review, say, a Monk record by warning the reader that he didn't care for Monk's approach, then would go on to describe the piano playing in a very not-technical but very apt way. Must have been the poet in him. So yes, he was a conservative in many things, and a moldy fig with respect to jazz, but there was nothing wrong with his poweres of observation and description. (And he gave Clifford Brown his due.)

Except for the lack of new liner notes.

My family and I are big Wallace and Gromit fans, and we plan to see this soon. Sad to hear about the warehouse fire.

Any good?

I've got the 2-CD reissue of this. It's perfect. Original LP on CD1 with all the alts on the 2nd CD. And the alts on THIS particular album are all master take worthy and wonderful. ← All the alts on a 2nd CD----that sounds great. All the alternates ARE worthy on this, but for godsake, give us the album first THEN the alternates. That's all I ask. This is another thing about Mosaic...if you wait long enough, most of their sets will be commercially issued by SOMEbody, and these days it often doesn't take too long.

So? "A Day In the Life" wasn't ever a single, either, and IT'S on the list. I'd vote for almost any song from Labor of Lust as far as Nick Lowe goes. As for Bowie, how about "Joe the Lion"? I recently listened to the Heroes album again, and that song still does it for me. Elvis Costello: "This Year's Girl" (or "Radio, Radio"---both more relevent than ever.) Graham Parker: "Waiting for the UFO's" XTC: A difficult choice, but as a confirmed F&G fan, it's hard to get "No Language In Our Lungs" out of my head.

Heroes. Gee, that wasn't hard to say.

That's what came to mind for me. I agree that it's not as big a discovery, but the story of how this was discovered is as improbably amazing as the story behind the Bird and Diz at Town Hall discovery. ← Indeed. The fact that you can just go out and buy an album that came so close to total oblivion is pretty damn wonderful.

Very, very good. One of the two or three best Ellington live recordings.

Personally, I would have included Mingus Ah Um in the "top 25 essentials" list. Probably Rollins's Way Out West album too. But I liked the earliest (1917-1942) list the most----way to go on that! I don't feel particularly qualified to discuss post-1965 jazz.

That's right, Harry Carney as far as I knows, was always Ellington's band. ← Plus the fact that Hodges left the Ellington band for five years in the fifties.

Well, I gave it several more listens yesterday, and yes, it's terrific music. One thing I'd forgotten, though, is the bad case of "altake-itus" it has. This has always been one of Mosaic's drawbacks, and when there are four or five takes of composition, and you have to burrow into the liner notes just to find out which take is can be considered the master, that almost becomes consumer abuse. It reminds me of why I've got so many edited tapes of Mosaic collections littering my house.

Just get the type of seat with a groove in the middle.

Grachan Moncur also made some claims of bad dealings at the hands of Blue Note. But I agree with Jim; if you want to look for who "killed" Tina Brooks, look to the drugs. He got paid for the sessions he recorded, whether or not they were released (and as someone pointed out, the decision to release or not was and is ultimately a business one.) Even if one of the tracks from True Blue had become a hit single, who can say for sure that Brooks would have lived much longer? (Perhaps the pressures of a suddenly enhanced career would have conspired to kill him sooner, though I hope not.)

Hey, maybe THAT'S why I can't stand them.

I agree that "Life On Mars" certainly IS one of the best songs from the Bowie album Hunky Dory. But that Hunky Dory is Bowie's best album??? That's where we part company.

They enjoy pissing people off? That's my theory.

I can't really choose one over the other. They're both great finds, great music, and sound good enough considering the recording limitations in each situation. The Bird/Diz may have slightly more historic significance...birth of bebop and all. But I enjoy them equally.

Total agreement here! (Will have to re-listen to Wynton Kelly!----I remember liking it a lot when I first got the Mosaic, but I haven't listened to it in a while.)

Same here.

What about them? "Waterloo Sunset" has got to be the best pick on that list. But what about Eno's "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More"? Also, one song each by Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and XTC would have been nice. But that's just me. ← I thought it was common knowledge that "Burning Airlines..." was the best song of all time. I love the artists that you've selected above, but which songs of theirs, man, which songs?!?! Perhaps Lowe and Costello could be collapsed into one: the latter's rendition of the former's "What's so Funny 'bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?" How old are you 'moose? I'm the same age as BruceH. Is this an age-dependent thang? ← Not necessarily. But I suspect that 'moose being a mere four years older than us doesn't hurt. In any case, I'll leave the choice of songs up to the individual. Mayber a list of top ten British rock artists would less objectionable. BTW: ("...the ultimate sonic rendition of what it means to be British"?? Wha? You might as well choose The Lumberjack Song, by Monty Python. What? Did I say something wrong?)