John Tapscott

An absolutely ridiculous call. In the replays I saw, I sure didn't see any movement on the ball. In fact, the replays show the ball was caught cleanly. I have no particular favorite in this Series, but now I'm rooting for the Angels. I also hope that from now on in this series, whenever an Angel batter strikes out, he immediately takes off for first base, no matter where the ball is caught!

DAMMIT, ditto. I was going to wait until my funds were in order. But after reading that, I'm picking this up today (along with Jackie Mac's CONSEQUENCE). ←

Just got this today and listened to it. A fine, swinging CD, which I will revisit for some more spins tomorrow. On first listen "Raoul" is my favorite track. Nice sounding recording too. There's some "space" between the instruments yet it sounds tight, too. Not quite as "up front" or "in your face" as many Van Gelder recordings (though maybe I've been listening to too many RVG's lately).

Phil Woods Quintet - Heaven (Blackhawk) earlier today - Mal Waldron/Gary Peacock - First Encounter (Catalyst) - a fine album, seriously underrated in AMG

Yep. There was one released this year on the British Jasmine label called "Artistry in Paris." It is the complete Kenton Paris concert from September '53 ( "Zoot" on the Mosaic set comes from this concert). Sound is rather mediocre, though. The Kenton '53 European tour has been documented on CD's and LP by a variety of small labels like Artistry, Astral, Status and others. Don't know how how many of these are still available, but they have generally better sound than the Paris concert. Bird was not on that tour. I think it was in either in late '53 or in '54 that he toured with a festival package that included the Kenton band and had some solo features with the band backing him up. One CD of that tour is on Artistry called "Kenton Plays Holman Live" (extensive and marvellous Lee Konitz solos on that CD, too).

They need a big python in that basement.

Man, that phython must have one bad stomach ache! This is going to cast a pall (so to speak) over my lunch today.

Capitol deleted it about 2 years later. Very hard to find now.

Well, it's quite a discovery for those who like this kind of thing. No big deal for those who don't. But I think many people would be surprised at how good this music is, and also at the variety. If you don't like lots of brass ignore it, because there IS lots of brass, but hey, there's one long Clare Fischer chart which has NO TRUMPETS at all.

Concert 1 & Concert 3 from the Los Angeles Neophonic Orchestra's inaugural season (1965) conducted by Stan Kenton, and released earlier this year on 2- 2 CD sets on Tantara Records. There were something like 12 concerts from 1965-1968. All were apparently recorded, but only these have survived, for some reason. Forget your preconceptions of Kenton. This is brilliantly played and recorded (by the house sound system at Chandler Hall) orchestral jazz. (No strings, but a slightly augmented standard big band instrumentation). Excellent productions, as well. http://www.tantaraproductions.com/

If you go for the Roach, I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed. An excellent set.

What Guy said. Fill up the CD, but put them at the end.

I would think the Mobley has to go soon. Just finished listening again to all 6 discs. This is BEYOND DOUBT one of the very best Mosaic sets. I suspect that once it hits the running low category it will go real fast. So if you don't have it , grab it NOW.

Thanks for posting this a week in advance. I've considered this CD several times, but finally ordered it this morning on the basis of the strong recs. I'll have it in time to take part in the discussion next week.

I agree with Brownie. This is a very good set, with excellent playing throughout; the only quibble being the mediocre (but very listenable) sound quality on the first couple of sessions. But overall

Today - Hank Mobley - Discs 1-3

I've listened to them both recently and I think "Far Away Lands" is a significantly better date than "The Rajah. " To me Byrd sounds just fine on "Lands." The band is tight and Mobley is in excellent form. Great comps, too. For some reason I've never dug Lee's playing on "Rajah" all that much. To me, he doesn't really dig in as much as usual. It's like he's skimming the surface. I really dislike the long quote from "And the Angels Sing" in his solo on the first track. Seems overdone and out of character. All IMHO, of course.

Kid Ory - Disc 8

I just remembered that Steve has a nice straight ahead session called "Smile" on Red Baron - w. John Hicks, Christian McBride, and Marvin "Smitty" Smith. Going to listen to that tomorrow.

Indeed. Steve can be heard and seen in action on several Buddy Rich CD's and DVD's. A great player, whose tenor playing reminded me a bit of George Coleman. Wonder if Steve ever studied with him? Anyway, in jazz musician heaven, Steve is the bandleader and Buddy is the sideman!

Wow! Agree 100%, but man,

I'm got to agree with Jim's take on this, and maybe even go a bit further. I'm not trying to defend Columbia when I say this. But the fact is that in the time when fusion and disco were king, Columbia recorded and released FIVE albums of pretty straight-ahead, often fairly ambitious modern jazz albums by Shaw. Not bad. Brubeck, Hubbard, Gordon, Davis and many others, some lesser lights and some greater lights, were all dumped by Columbia sooner or later. The truth is that straight ahead jazz albums, even by the giants, and on widely distributed labels, rarely sell all that well. Even Wynton's sales at Columbia were apparently in the dumpster. Nothing happened to Woody Shaw, label-wise, that hasn't happened to at least 90% of jazz musicians. Seems to me that when you sign on with a label like Columbia, you've got to be realistic. This is not a life-time deal by any means. It's like a professional athlete signing the best deal he can with a team for a certain period of time. It's going to come to an end. So do your best, and reap the benefits of it while you can.

I suppose we could also mention bassist Steve Gilmore and drummer Bill Goodwin who have been with Phil Woods for 30 years now.

Tenor saxophonist Steve Marcus with Buddy Rich for 12 years, which, given Buddy's nature, would seem to be a VERY long tenure. Steve says somewhere that was fired by Buddy a number of times, but simply kept showing up for the next gig, and Buddy seemed to have forgotten all about the firing.