John Tapscott

Well, Schildkraut was mostly in the band when Konitz was there. Not to put Dave down, but golly, in that case I'd tend to give most of the alto solos to Konitz, too. PLUS, Schildkraut always took the fairly lengthy alto solo on Kenton's "Concerto to End All Concertos," which was played at every concert. So Kenton must have thought he was OK.

I think he deserves all the ridicule he gets. Sure the police had a tough time at the summit, and there were some real trouble-makers there, but this woman was clearly not among them. Even the officer beside him looks uncomfortable and rather embarrassed by his tirade. The police got quite a bit of public support for their actions at the G20 summit, but this just makes them look idiotic. Put this guy behind a desk and never let him out on the street again. The lawsuit is a friggin' joke.

A great final episode. As you said above, Lon, I think he's going to regret dumping Faye. You couldn't miss the real pain in her tears as she hung up the phone after Don's break-up call. She'll probably use her professional contacts to undermine the firm somehow, in a jilted lovers' revenge. Interesting how he dumped a highly paid and beautiful professional woman(who clearly would have married him) for an equally beautiful but lowly-paid (though obviously intelligent and gifted) secretary. I do think Megan's easy way with the kids had a lot to do with it. Next season year the kids will want to live full-time with Don and Megan, causing Bets to completely lose it and go off the deep end. I was assuming all along that Joan had the abortion, but apparently not (perhaps I missed something). So she's going to pass Roger's kid off as her husband's. Guess that sort of thing happened more than once with service men returing from overseas. So much to look forward to next season. This show really is addictive.

Fan here. Lean toward the more swinging sides.

Have a Good One!

Tal Farlow Complete Verve Sessions - I really enjoy this set, really enjoy it. So glad I pulled the trigger when it went into last chance.

Jam-A-Ditty is the opening cut on the Prestige two-fer reissue from the 1970s, "The Golden Duke". I always thought it was a compelling opener, rather exciting. No one commented on my previous post: Going back to "Rockin' In Rhythm", I find the version which opens the "70th Birthday Concert" album to be quite exciting. That album is a favorite of mine in general. Has anyone else heard "70th Birthday Concert", and if so, what are your opinions? Yes, I own it and generally I like it. The performance is very good. I must say that I find some of the newer Ducal compostions on it not quite as substantial as his earlier works (eg. The Great Paris Concert from '63, probably my favorite live performance by the Ellington band).

Thanks, everyone, for the birthday greetings.

Nice article. Looking forward to the next Mosaic shipping sale!

Denny Zeitlin Select

Happy Birthday!!

Guess I'm just not a sophisticated enough listener to be able to pick up on playing that is "full of cliches and empty gestures." Seriously.

I have it as well, and I agree with Mike's comments. Shearing is not my favorite pianist my any means, but I do enjoy him when I play either the Mosaic set or the 5 or 6 other recordings of his that I own. One I particularly like is Live at the Cafe Carlyle, a duet set with bassist Don Thompson on Concord.

Me too. Painful. Give te music a chance! It gets better after the first two minutes and Mobley sounds more in focus. Nothing like prime Mobley but worth listening to... Thanks Dan for putting the link in! Agreed. The first couple of minutes are pretty rough, but then Hank pulls it together for a reasonably decent solo. If I'd heard this on a blindfold test I don't think I would have gotten him. Edited to say that on a 2nd listen I think it's better than I first thought - it's actually pretty good under the circumstances - Hank's tone is rough but the ideas are still there. The rhythm section is very good and that helps. You can hear Hank get on a bit of a roll as Fournier begins to push. This is the kind of jazz solo I really like more and more - telling a story, putting the phrases together in a logical and satisfying way, easy for a layman to follow. And yes, there are some typical Hank phrases and especially phrase-endings that mark it out as clearly and only Hank, though the tone is so different from early Hank that I kind of missed missed them first time through.

Donald Byrd - "Little Boy Blue" from Byrd in Flight (BN) - all around a superb recording with great contributions from Duke Pearson

Alternating between the McCoy Tyner Select and the Johnny Richards Select - obviously very different, but both are excellent in their own way. One of the joys of jazz music is its' incredible vareity.

Happy Birthday Ken, and thanks for the reviews.

Since we've already the alto thing, why not start a new one with tenor or baritone? But for either, you'll need a longer list.

Well, I never quite get what year they're in. So in '65 it's more likely you would have heard jazz like that in a Playboy club. Still think they were pushing it a bit.

Count Basie 50's Verve

Great episode last night. Don was incredible. ( Jon Hamm, magnificent performance). Waiting for Roger to implode. It seems inevitable. I know they're into historical accuracy but I was wondering if in a Playboy club in '64 you'd have heard a piano trio as relentlessly modal as that one seemed to be? '68 maybe, a few years after Tyner left 'Trane, and all that had become more mainstream, but I would have thought that in '64 the music would have been more along the lines of the Bill Evans or Ahmad Jamal or Red Garland trios, espcially in a Playboy club, which was not a hard-core jazz club.

Charles Tolliver Select

Could really have picked several from Shelly Manne and His Men, Complete Live at the Black Hawk, but I'll go with "Cabu" by Roland Alexander from Disc 4 - wonderful solos from Richie Kamuca and Joe Gordon. On this and so many of the tracks Manne gets the tempo just right for the soloists to really tell their story. Rhythm section has a great feel. Outstanding stuff all around. P.S. Ira Gitler is mildly critical of Richie Kamuca's playing in his review of Vol 1. (reprinted here). May I say that I think Ira was wrong. Richie was really at the top of his game on this session.

Shelly Manne and his Men - Complete Live at the Black Hawk

Detroit is a really fine CD which I've listened to quite a bit over the past few months. Typical strong Wilson themes, those fat and satisfying Wilsonian voicings, lots of hard swing. Great stuff. One question - on the long track "Everywhere" (not part of the actual Detroit suite), there is a long but uncredited trombone soloist - it's either Dennis Wilson or Luis Bonilla. My guess is Wilson. Anyone know for sure? Since trombonists get too little appreciation anyway, I'd like to set the record straight. Mack Avenue is a bit careless when it comes to listing soloists - they kind of screwed up the listing on Monterey Moods too, but I don't think they left anyone out.