John Tapscott

You can always tell an American from a Canadian by the way they pronouce the city name "Toronto". American - "Tor-on-TO" Canadian - "T-raw-na" In this case, the Americans are right!

Don't know about this one, but I've never really warmed up to Mintzer's composing/arranging. I have 4 of his CD's, I think. But as they say, your mileage may vary.

When I was around 16 and a high school trombonist, I began exploring jazz by listening to quite a bit of jazz on the radio (thanks to Ted O'Reilly). I enjoyed most of it but I recall three specific sounds that stopped me dead in my tracks - the trombone section of the Stan Kenton Orchestra, JJ Johnson's trombone solos, and McCoy Tyner's piano playing on the Enlightenment LP.

I quite like Gnu High .

Guys like Teekens are just taking advantage of young up and coming American musicians in order to further his own cause. I find this to be a strange statement in need of further explanation. So in your ideal world, all these young American musicians who record for Criss Cross (and the veterans, too) would be recording for ECM where they would not be taken advantage of for some producer's personal "cause?" I don't know anything about Teekens but it seems to me that he must allow the musicians quite a bit of freedom; after all there is a fairly high percentage of original material on many Criss Cross recordings. Did you ever consider that these musicians record for Criss Cross because they actually want to - that this really is their sound and their music and that they are well served by recording for this label? You make it sound as if recording for Criss Cross is some kind of slavery. I'm sure they ccould say "no". I'll bet they even get paid. Let's take two musicians who record for Criss Cross - a veteran like Ralph Lalama and a relative newcomer like Adam Rogers. I'm not putting down ECM, just wondering how they would necessarily be better served by recording for ECM rather than Criss Cross or how their music would be different if they did?

Perhaps not as many of us as you might think. I can't speak for all these labels, but I know that for at least two of them, sales are hardly at a rip-roaring pace, rather anemic, in fact. I'll bet the average ECM release sells at least as many copies as releases from any of these labels. Granted that ECM has strong marketing and distribution.

Hey, that's me...and you forgot Reservoir! I'll admit I don't go out of my way to buy ECM dates, but I do have and enjoy most of the Jarrett trio dates. Plus there are some others I have and enjoy. Kenny Wheeler's Gnu High is a long-time favorite, plus Steve Kuhn's Mostly Coltrane is a fine date. Jarrett's Survivor's Suite also, plus some others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Great book. Parts of it read like an exciting spy novel, except of course, this was for real.

I have Buddy's Maybeck recital as well as the Sharp Nine date Noj mentions. I recommend both of them.

Music does NOT have to swing to be good. Do you really think that Eicher is telling Kuhn, a musician for over 50 years, to cut an album that is ethereal, and not what Kuhn intended? As a matter of fact, I'm almost positive that the Venuses that you so love are the ones where the artists are being told what to play. Avant doesn't swing. Energy music doesn't swing. Hell, most Nessas don't swing. And yet, a lot of you guys are ALL OVER those. More misplaced ECM bias. No one would have to be told anything. But I don't care who you are. If you walk into the ECM studio, you know what's expected in general terms and you deliver. You record for Venus or Reservoir, well sure, you'd make a somewhat different kind of album, no doubt about it. Good thing Steve records for both types of labels. If the ECM style is to your liking, listen to that. If it's the other labels, listen to those.

I was there on Saturday afternoon. So was I. It was my 3rd visit in 4 days. I was staying about a 10 minute walk from downtown Princeton.

The Mosaics I saw at the Princeton Record Exchange last week were cheaper than that - usually in the $100-150 range, a few closer to 200, and the price didn't seem always related to the size of the set, or to whether or not the set was out of print. The OOP Selects were almost as much as the black boxes. If you really want some OOP Mosaic set, I would check with them first. I got a bargain, though. I bought the Duke Ellington Reprise set for $50. Only disc 1 had been opened; discs 2&3; 4&5 were still in shrink wrap. Also got the John Coltrane Interplay box for $20. They had a note on the sticker saying Disc 4 was scratched - more scuffed than scratched, I would say, and it plays perfectly. At least they were honest.

There has been a rather lengthy and vigorous discussion about this very track among Kentonites. The consensus at the present time based on examining the score (but even that evidence is not totally convincing and there is a strong dissenting position), is that Tres Corazones was NOT part of the original Cuban Fire Suite, though recorded at the same session. Tres Cor. was apparently written by Johnny Richards for the Music '55 summer TV series for which Kenton flew in every week from wherever the band was playing to conduct a NYC studio band for the show and do the MC'ing. I don't know whether or not TC was ever played on that show. So TC was not part of the original LP because it was apparently not part of the CF Suite. However, it fits well and IMO provides a fitting close to the Suite. If it was an earlier composition it certainly provided a model for Cuban Fire (which was written in early '56). Wasn't 30-35 minutes just about the usual length for LP's in the mid '50's?

Not "rare" perhaps (easily obtainable), but this is a marvelous recording IMO:

I have a 20+ hour round trip coming up in 2 weeks. So I'm also asking myself, "What music will I take to listen to in the car?" I'm travelling solo so that solves one problem. Right now I'm leaning towards CDR's that I've recently received in trade from Board friends. A nice variety of jazz music. Hence, that's my vote for you, Dan.

"Brownie Speaks" from The Clifford Brown Memorial Album (Blue Note), with an amazing trumpet solo that must be still sending trumpeters to the 'shed nearly 60 years later. I can imagine Lou Donaldson waiting to solo and thinking, "Oh man, I hope my solo is going to be OK. I don't want to screw up this take." He didn't, but it's really all Brownie. Wonderful.

Just received mine in the mail today, along with the Dexter, direct from Champlain, NY.

A hard swinging version of John Coltrane's "Red Planet" from . Outstanding tenor solo by Chris Potter. In fact, the whole CD is very good with an excellent rhythm section of Gary Mazzaroppi (bass ) and Glenn Davis (drums). Honorable mention- "Gloria" from a private CDR of the Clarke-Boland Big Band, May 16, 1968, Stuttgart, featuring a wonderful tenor solo by Tony Coe.

Social reasons absolutely played a big role in my musical tastes. ANTI-social. I suppose it was somthing of a revolt against my peers - or, more kindly, a desire to establish myself as an individual, not a "sheep" - that I gravitated away from the "pop" music of my times and classmates. I suppose one might add this to a long list of things I did to define myself as "unique" (my leisure travel destinations, my early career choices, the high school I chose to attend instead of the one I was expected to attend, my political leanings...) On the end, it circled back, and I was at least superficially accepted as a token everything-we're-not in various groups. The guy that listens to that strange music. Oh yes, most of that I can relate to. 40+ years as a teenager I started listening to jazz partly because all my peers were listening to rock (which I didn't really like anyway), and I wanted to be a "snob" in a way, an "expert" in something that no one else my age knew much about. Actually I did like jazz, esp. big band jazz at the time (which I still enjoy), and I found it takes a certain dedication to keep listening to jazz when hardly any one else you know really gets it. What I didn't know at the time was how danged addictive the music would eventually become to me. A couple of things helped broaden my jazz horizons. One was the existence of some good jazz programs on Toronto FM radio stations including Board member Ted O'Reilly's "The Jazz Scene". The other was meeting one or two friends at college who were really into jazz. (I met them while browsing in the jazz section at record stores, naturally!) But there weren't too many of us. Oh, people would go to concerts and clubs, but not that many really listened to jazz seriously and collected good jazz records (not even the music students, as I recall). One day the guy in the college residence room next to me came into my room while I was playing Cannonball Adderley's "Somethin' Else." I will never forget it - he said, "You listen to some weird sh**!", as Miles took a solo. Actually made me feel pretty good!

thanks. close, or perhaps mary lou williams? Of course, Roland Hanna didn't play saxophone, but his stylistic versatility was in the same ballpark IMO. Likewise Dick Hyman.

Actually two, and they may come from last week: - Scrapple From the Apple on Jim Hall Live (Horizon/Verve)- it's not just Hall's great playing but the interaction of the whole group that really grabs me. Collective improvisation (without being 'free') at the very highest level. No wonder Hall loved this group. (And yet another incentive to think about getting the Hall set on artistshare, in spite of the $$$) - Blues for Philly Joe from Sonny Rollins' Newks's Time (Blue Note) - always loved this performance; one of my favorite jazz tracks of all time.