John Tapscott

Junior Mance - "For Dancers Only" from his latest Sackville Cd "Groovin' With Junior" - a swinging, romping, bluesy performance which just keeps building and building for 11 + miunutes. Don Thompson and Archie Alleyne are excellent in support.

Every Braff Arbors CD I've heard and own is fine. "Watch What Happens" is especially nice. Perhaps a bit hard to track down now - but "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" with Scott Hamilton on Concord is excellent (I think it's under Hamilton's leadership). Also "The Canadian Sessions"- a 2 CD set on Sackville has duo performances with Gene DiNovi plus a superb quartet session with Ed Bickert, Don Thompson and Terry Clarke. Really, really good.

$3.98 was the norm, IIRC. Maybe $4.98 for stereo. Or maybe at one (earlier) point, a dollar less both ways. I bought my first LP in 1968, and that's what prices were then. Considering price inflation since 1968 (not to mention since the '50's) the average CD price today (say $15) seems like a bargain, especially when you often get twice as much music per disc.

Buck Clayton - Complete CBS Jam Sessions

Stan Kenton - '43 - '47 Capitol Sessions - I'm really enjoing the advanced (often very advanced!) writing of Pete Rugolo

Absolutely to all of the above. Jimmy's Mosaic set is a real favorite of mine. My 13 year old daugther was in the cast of her school's production of "The Music Man" which my wife and I attended last night. As I listened to the music, I couldn't help but think of Jimmy's hip but respectful arrangements of those tunes which are on the Mosaic set. I also love his work with Brookmeyer and Hall, and of course "Four Brothers" for Herman which certainly broke some ground back in the day.

I really enjoy Don's Solo Piano Record on Sackville. A small portion of it is very challenging and quite difficult listening from this listener's perspective, but most of the music is very melodic, rhythmically strong, and often quite beautiful. At least on this recording Don seems to know when to pull the "out" sections in again. Very satisfying for the most part. edited for spelling

That photo of the Downtown Music Gallery brought back memories of the old Jazz and Blues Record Center on Yonge St. in Toronto, run by John Norris and Bill Smith in the 70's. That's almost exactly what it looked like from the outside. I used to work a 10 minute walk from the store and bought many records there. It was a funky little place - real small and cramped, a bit dingy, with a mysterious back room, but lots of records, new and used (loads of imports) on rickety home-made racks (you were afraid to run into one for fear it would collaspe). There was a stereo system constantly playing, but had only one speaker. I remember a sign by the turntable saying something like, "Please be careful. We can only afford one needle per year." They would open records and play them at your request (and that usually resulted in a sale), and you could hang around for an hour or two and pick up all kinds of jazz knowledge from John and Bill and the customers. Every sale was recorded in a ringed notebook and they had one of those old-fashioned lever-type cash registers. Later the store moved further downtown to Toronto's so-called entertainment district and was upgraded somewhat, but it was never quite the same. Those were the days, though. I miss them.

Not the US, but Canada (still North America, however). The Woodville CD's are available from: John Norris Sackville Recordings Box 1002, Station O Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4A 2N4 No email; John takes all orders by fax (416) 465-9093 and provides excellent service.

Thanks, Marcello. I saw the band several times in '76. That was the band that had (at least for part of the year) Lyle Mays on keyboards. I remember a true hit and run they did in Kingston, Canada (where I was going to university) on a bitterly cold January night. The band bus pulled up to the back of the theatre, unloaded musicians and instruments, and stayed running there for the next three hours during the concert. Band members were already heading for the bus as concert-goers walked out into the frosty night. It was a fine concert, though I remember now that Woody had a bad cold that night. Just a slice of what it was like to be a road musician. BTW, the Herman '58 Cd is fine, with some excellent Bill Harris solos, but a significant notch below the Herman Mosaic Select.

Thad Jones - Mel Lewis - fabulous stuff - probably my favorite Mosaic set. The sound quailty is amazing.

Pulling SS from my shelf also gave me an excuse to listen to perhaps my favorite Mobley disc (not saying it's the best, mind you, but it's a real good one), namely, "Far Away Lands" from '67 with Byrd, Walton, Carter and Higgins. A touch of soul here and there, a couple of minor keys, but overall this recording is a real uplift. Hank sounds very good and happy on the disc (4 of the comps are his; one by Byrd; another by Jimmy Heath). The rhythm is excellent, esp. Higgins. To be honest, this is not only one of my favorite Mobley recordings, it's one of my favorite hard bop records, period. A bit overlooked perhaps, but definitely deserving of RVG treatment.

Man, this is a great set in every way. I am very glad I got it. I've listened to it through 4 times now, and whenever I need some music to lift my spirits, this is a dandy for the purpose. I just have to comment on the EXCELLENT drumming by Mel Lewis on sessions L & M, as good, if not better, than any drumming on the set.

James Moody - great entertainer, great musician. I'll always remember the one and only time I saw James live. This would have been the late 70's, I think, at Toronto's old Bourbon St. club where visiting soloists played with a Toronto rhythm seciton. Anyway, a jazz-loving friend and I turned up early for the first set one evening (we were both in our early-mid 20's). This friend had Moody's "Feeling It Together" album, and we really dug the version of Anthropology on that LP. So the musicians start gathering on the stand for the first set, doodling around, getting ready. I recall that James was warming up on alto. We were usually pretty shy about speaking to the musicians but James seemed approachable, and we were seated right in front, only a few feet away. We said hello and one of us asked if he could do "Anthropology." "Sure", he says, "no problem, but where did you hear that?" 'On "Feelin' It Together"', we said. I remember his reply, "Oh, you must be the one who bought the album.'" Well, we figured he'd program the tune into the set somewhere or maybe use it as a set closer. Instead, he turned to the rhythm section, called "Anthropology" and kicked off a punishing tempo, before these guys were really warmed up or ready. The drummer, Claude Ranger, was particulary ticked off and it sure took him four or five choruses to really settle in. (Claude liked to smoke as he played and have an open beer at hand, neither of which were possible at that point, and I don't think he said a word to James the rest of the night). James, of course, sailed through it, and after the tune ended, just looked at us and grinned.

Neat. I dig the bass sax guy - he's well recorded too.

Going to have to get me that one. Lonehill, but what the heck!

Mine arrived moments ago, 2 weeks after ordering. #5722. Though I have probably 60% the music on the set in other formats (which is why I had put off buying it for so long), I'm really looking forward to hearing it all again, as well as the stuff that is new to me.

Happy Birthday, FFA!! Enjoy the warmth down where you are!

I am one of the sick individuals who owns them all. I didn't really plan to acquire the whole series, but one day I discovered I had 20 or 25 of them, so made it a goal to get them all, a goal I accomplished about 10 years ago. It's not really a big deal. For the most part they were readily available back then, and there's only 42 volumes, so it's not like I'm one of those really sick individuals who owns ALL the Mosaic sets. I think the Kenny Barron is my favourite; others that rank highly for me are Adam Makowicz, John Hicks, Hank Jones, Andy LaVerne, Roger Kellaway, John Colianni, Monty Alexander, Kenny Drew Jr., to name a few. Biggest disappointment of the series is that Tommy Flanagan wasn't included.

Not bad today though clouding over now and the wind is blowing in an ominous way. 8 in. of snow yesterday; another 8-10 predicted for tomorrow and Saturday. We are nearing the record annual snowfall amount in the Greater Toronto Area, set back in '38-39. May even beat Buffalo this year! And it's been darn cold, too! Not sure how this fits into the climate change model.

I would have to name Slide Hampton as one of the stars of the band too (I dig his "Mark of Jazz"). The band was in good form and the writing is very good. Benny Golson's piece "Starfire" is a beauty as is his "Night Life". The trombone section is excellent (Hampton and Don Sebesky) and it's good to hear altoist Jimmy Ford getting lots of solo space. The overall thing I noticed was the "boppish" nature of the music, which is not surprising given that by 1959 bop was the common language of jazz. But I think this is an important point in assessing Maynard's own playing on this album. Maynard played things on the trumpet and played them in a way that no one else could (or at least couldn't before him). Maynard leading a trumpet section (as he does here on Lonely Time) is a thrilling one of a kind sound. But if there's one area where Maynard was more middle-of-the pack it would have been as a bop soloist - certainly good enough but not really in the class of Clifford or Dizzy or Fats. That's why I think Maynard doesn't come across quite as well here as on some other recordings - the best things to showcase his playing are the showpieces like "Ole" and "Maria" rather than the bebop things, on which he is fine, but not really outstanding. In fact, on a piece like "Three More Foxes" I find the playing of the other trumpet soloists, Jerry Tyree and Don Ellis, as effective, if not more so, than MF's. On "Oleo" Maynard spends too much of his solo wailing around in the high register, and it might have been fine to hear live, but gets a bit wearing on disc, especially given the "hot" nature of the recording. Better and more coherent, I think, is his solo on "Sea Isle Stomp". Both Ferguson and his fellow Canadian Oscar Peterson (both born in Montreal 3 years apart) had their roots in the swing era and I think that both had established their basic styles before they really had much exposure to bop. Bop was something they both "grafted on" to their styles rather than the style that they grew up with. Maybe that's why both struggled a bit to feel at completely at home in bop.

Garth, a belated Happy Birthday!

http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=200-MD-CD I, for one, am glad Mosaic is doing this. I believe the reason that the Ellington Reprise set sold out so quickly after going to running low was that customers were buying more than one copy. (Probably one customer bought a whole lot of them, hoping to make a bundle later on e-bay)

I would hope Mosaic has a bit more integrity than that. They're going to sell all they have on their shelves anyway, whether it's this week or next month. Remember how the Ellington Reprise set went from Running Low to Last Chance to gone in about a week. I still kick myself for missing that one. So I'm glad I ordered the Hodges in time, and I'm glad for the warnings. I also wonder whether the Hodges is an end-of-lease sale or a sell-out of 7,500 copies. Probably the former.

Just ordered the Hodges. What the heck. It just cost me $800 on the weekend to get my furnace fixed, so what's another $100 on top of that!!!!