John Tapscott

Well, Ellington wasn't the first jazz I heard, but I do remember the first Ellington I heard. It was on the late Phil MacKellar's "All That Jazz" Toronto radio program which aired on Sunday nights (10 PM - 6AM). One night Phil played the opening track from the Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (Chinoiserie) and I thought it sounded great. This would have been around 1975. Shortly afterward I bought "The Great Paris Concert" 2 LP set on Atlantic. To this day, it remains my favorite Ellington record.

Checking in from a distance. I've always liked George's work. Saw him live once in Toronto. Good stuff. Also the Big George Octet LP is a favorite. The CD Brownie mentions I have here with me on vacation. Just listened to it the other day. George's playing on this CD is as good or better than anything I've ever heard from him; in fact, to be honest, even among this heavyweight band, he may be the "star" of the set.

Right, Charles Ellsworth Russell appeared with Monk in '63, the earlier date is a Miles Davis Sextet appearance. I'm very fond of this official release. It came out at one of the lowest points of my life and still cut through my haze and dazzled me. Yes!! Get this one. IMHO it is a wonderful Monk recording, one of my favorites.

A solid set, worth getting. Not quite the Curtis of old, but very respectable nonethless. On first listen, I marginally prefer the studio tracks to the live tracks, but it's all good stuff.

Good for Frank. Hope it works. I wish him all the best.

I must name 2 1) Lee Morgan playing "I Remember Clifford" from the Art Blakey Live in '58 Jazz Icons DVD 2) Scott Hamilton - "Castle Rock" from Organic Duke (Concord) w Mike LeDonne, Dennis Irwin and Chuck Riggs

A sad story, for sure. He seemed like quite a pro with those smokes. Nut-case parents. Did I catch the end of it right - that he's now in the custody of the child care authorities? But hey, you know how it goes. Smoking this year - next year he'll be drinking booze and having sex. Just a few years ahead of the curve.

Happy B'day Robert, belatedly. Hope you had a good day!

Tommy Flanagan - "Goodbye Mr. Evans" from Nights at the Vanguard (Uptown)

Thanks for the rec. I just ordered it. It's on sale today at http://www.cdconnection.com for those interested. I also ordered the new John Fedchock NY Sextet CD live at the Red Sea Jazz Festival. On a side note, one of my very favorite underrated LP's has always been Curtis' "Fire and Filigree" on the old Beehive label. That label put out some excellent LP's in their short life span.

Yep, I remember those days too (mid 70's - mid' 80's). I worked in the Yonge-Bloor area of Toronto and every 2nd week we got paid. So every 2nd Friday, sometimes by myself and other times with a jazz-loving friend, I would start just a bit north on Yonge Street at the Jazz and Blues Centre (until they moved downtown), then walk south to Sam's and A & A's. It was a great adventure and a real adrenalin rush. The selection between those three stores was really massive. None of the other "attractions" on Yonge Street caught my eye (though they tried hard at times!) I was single-minded in my pursuit of those jazz LP treasures. At the end of the hunt we would sometimes wind up at Bourbon St. or some other club to hear a jazz artist. But either earlier or later I would take the subway home with 10-12 LP's tucked under my arm (some rare; some widely available), and read the liner notes on the way. One thing I remember about those days was that if you saw something you wanted (often a rare import like the Miles Plugged Nickel LP's), you had to buy it THEN, because it would likely never show up again. Today, collecting is not nearly as hard, nor as exciting, IMO. Just enter a recording into Google and you'll find it somewhere. No challenge.

Listening to Disc #3 of the Tyner - what a magnificent set! Next up - Stanley Turrentine

Indeed. I just received an email from Fred thanking me for working with them and saying that they are resending my order including the Basie set on Monday. This will all have a good ending, at least for me and hopefully for Mosaic, as long as they get cooperation from the guy in Belgium....??? My order arrived yesterday, with the Basie added as per agreement. No taxes, no customs, no hassles. A few weeks late, but the addition of the Basie makes it all worthwhile. Very good customer service. I'm glad I could help Mosaic out, too.

Today - alternating between two of my recent purchses - McCoy Tyner and Andrew Hill (solo) Selects.

started today - listening through the Tal Farlow set

"Loverman" from Stan Getz at the Shrine (Verve)

I second those who say the WH Select and Young/Basie. (I presume you are choosing from one of the three and not the Herman Columbia and Shaw together). Nothing against the others (I don't have the Shaw), but what a great variety of great swinging music these 7 discs would give you.

I'm with Peter -- just checked my shelves and found I had a dozen CDs by Allen, and he's on others as sideman. Guess I like him! One that might have been missed by some is a nice one co-led with Joe Temperley "Cocktails For Two" on Sackville. Good rhythm section, too: John Bunch, Greg Cohen and Jake Hanna. I too like Harry Allen's playing. I really enjoy his early 90's recordings on Nagel-Heyer. I have 4 or 5 of them under his own name - one or two others as a sideman. On these live dates he really stretches out and builds up a head of steam. Some very exciting playing. Besides the date with Joe Temperley on Sackville Ted mentions, another excellent Allen outing is on Keith Ingham's Back Room Romp, also on Sackville.

Indeed. I just received an email from Fred thanking me for working with them and saying that they are resending my order including the Basie set on Monday. This will all have a good ending, at least for me and hopefully for Mosaic, as long as they get cooperation from the guy in Belgium....???

I received an email from Fred at Mosaic this afternoon asking me to mail the box back to their new address(at their expense). I did so, and it wasn't any more expensive to mail than I had expected ($27.92 Canadian). They are going to resend my order (wonder if they've heard from the guy in Belgium yet), and for my trouble, asked me to pick out another set to add to my order. So I selected the Basie '50's Verve set. Yes, I know it's a large and expensive set and it's one I've been looking at for a while. And because I picked that set, I told Mosaic not to bother reimbursing me for the postage. I think this is a pretty good deal for me.

In case anyone is interested, I thought I'd give an update on where it stands. I sent an email to Mosaic Tuesday monring, saying I was standing by, awaiting instructions. I received no reply, so called this afternoon. I was told that FedEx delivered the wrong boxes to Mosaic's new location, so everything has been set back a couple of days. Still no working computers or internet connection at Mosaic. No orders or emails have been getting through since at least last Thursday. Perhaps they will be up and running by tomorrow. One hopes.

Just finished listening to the Curtis Amy set - enjoying it more with each listen, really glad I picked this one up.

I believe that it has a lot to do with the sender. If they put a customs sticker on it, you might have to pay. But many shippers (including Mosaic who used to value the CD's at $5 each) often reduce the value significantly, so that the package comes in under whatever arbitary limit the government/post office sets. But if there's no customs sticker (much more common now), my sense is that the post office employees can't be bothered to open the package up and figure out what it's all worth. The Canadian and US dollar are roughly at par, so there's no big gain there, import duties are now either zero or almost zero between the 2 countries on sound recordings, and the only thing you could really get dinged for is sales taxes. That could be somewhat significant, but it rarely happens to me anymore. On this big box I have, the way the labels are attached makes it seem like the box was actually mailed in Canada. There is a Mosaic sticker attached, but another one which says "Mail Services Inc." with a Canadian P.O. Box & address . (I presume it might be those guys who pick it up if that is what is arranged.) In any case, a quick glance at the stickers would lead you to believe that it originated in Canada.

I only looked at one of the Mobley sets since they're all individually wrapped (quite tightly) and they're a bit hard to get out without ripping the bubble wrap. The one I looked at was #7441. I scratch my head over how it happened since you would think they would fill and label one order at a time. But to be fair to Mosaic, they really didn't tell me to call back next Tuesday. They were apologetic and said they would contact me and straighten it out on Tuesday. What the fellow (it could have been Scott or maybe even Michael) said was that they were in the midst of moving locations, and I presume the Memorial Day weekend is a good time to do it. Having moved offices a couple of times years ago, I know that once the phones and computers are disconnected and the boxes packed, you're helpless for a couple of days. Nothing you can do. I definitely want to send the box back as I have no need for duplicate copies of sets I already have. Furthermore, I want to see Mosaic thrive and this would be a fairly significant loss to them. Mistakes happen (I've made my share) and friends have to help one another out. I've been a fairly decent customer of Mosaic over the years and I greatly enjoy their product. I know it's business but there's a bit of a bond there. I have a UPS store almost directly across from my office and the post office is just a little further up the street. So it would be no problem to send it back as long Mosaic has some mechanism to pick up the cost or agrees to reimburse me. In fact, I offered to send it back yesterday, but the fellow said wait 'til Tuesday.

In fact, there is no postage amount on the box, just a bar code sticker, so I can't tell what the postage was to Canada, and of course, it would likely be twice as much to Belgium. It also didn't have any kind of customs form on it, which is pretty typical for Canadian shipments now (I don't know whether European shipments would have one). I haven't paid duty or taxes on a Mosaic order for a number of years (what with free trade and all). What's interesting to me is that our orders were not close in number though the 5/18/10 ship dates were the same. His order # was 384041; mine 384803. I could see a mix-up if the order numbers were one apart, but this gap makes the screw-up a little stranger. I have the rogue box sitting in my office by a book case across from my desk. Everytime I look up a see it. My goodness, it's a big sucker. I hate to think what it will cost me to send it back.