John Tapscott

Conversations With Myself is a great record, esp. Blue Monk. I had forgotten about this one. I'll have to give it a spin soon.

I agree totally. I think the best drummer for Evans was Philly Joe. He brought out the straightahead side of Bill's playing that for me is often missing from his other work. With Philly Joe Evans had no choice but to swing hard. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Evans and his recordings. He really is one of the most important pianists in jazz. But when the music starts to really swing, he seems to cut the piece short or let the bass or drums have a solo, and I find it a bit frustrating. Like some others, I can only listen to Evans for relatively short periods of time, a recording here and there. Somewhere Gene Lees says words to the effect that Evans sometimes got lost in himself. What he's saying I think is that Evans often got so locked unto his unique harmonic concept that he tended to forget or downplay some of the other dimensions of his playing, like straight-ahead swinging. One of my favorite Evans albums is California Here I Come - a live double Verve LP with Eddie Gomez and Philly Joe. Interesting that it is one of Evans more straight-ahead recordiongs and wasn't released until after his death.

Yes, I have a late '80's Verve Cd of "Sweet Rain." No extra tracks, origianal liner notes, I believe. I don't know of another Cd issue has ever come out.

Many happy returns, Jim. You're now the same age as I am. Ah - the age of wisdom, also an age when the waistline begins to expand alarmingly (at least in my case - too much time at the #@!$ computer!) BTW, if you want to get that Eldridge set in the shopping cart, you have to use the LEFT HAND! (Thanks also for the Blindfold CD's - they arrived safely).

First thing, buy a new turntable. Then I'd hop on the next plane to Chicago, hit the Jazz Rrecord Mart, and dig into that recently delivered collection.

Holy smokes! What I want to know is "How did she deliver the collection to the store - with an 18 wheeler?"

I would have to go with Free For All on this one - The Thad/Mel set is the one I would keep if I could only keep one. What 5 after that - The Basie live, the Thad small groups, the Mobley, the Mulligan Concert Band, the McLean, & the Kenton Holman/Russo charts Oh, that's six, probably I would scratch off the Thad small groups. It's great but too short (only 3 discs!)

I have just been listening again to the first three discs of the Shank set and I would have to agree with this. I was more enthusiastic about this set when I first got it. (Discs 4&5, with Carmell Jones on a couple of the sessions are better and I'm looking forward to digging in to them). The music on the first three 3 discs is OK but Shank was not yet the fiery player he later became (but he certainly takes a big step forward on the "New Groove" session). It probably didn't help that I was listening to the Phil Woods set just before the Shank (though these days, Shank is probably just as good an altoist as Woods). OTOH, I really like the Giuffre set, except for the session with the overdubbed saxes which I think has mediocre sound. Brad, don't give up on this set too soon. Give it another try, esp. the sessions with Jack Sheldon, and the trio with Brookmeyer and Hall. Also, the first two discs of the Serge Chaloff set are difficult to listen to because of the sound. Probably they did they best remastering they could but the original tapes/masters must have been in very bad shape. I don't regret buying any Mosaic set really, but the problem is that you get it "all", meaning everything from great to mediocre. Thankfully, the stuff on most of the sets I have is at least good or better.

If you looked in my music room you would say I was a collector, but I don't consider myself a collector in the classic sense. I buy music not to collect it but because I am genuinely curious about it and want to hear it. I don't have anything unheard in my collection at the moment (well except the CD that arrived in the mail today!). I am also quite selctive about what I buy now, just because there's so much out there, and I don't exactly have money to burn.

OK Chuck, I respect your opinion, and I agree that the music is far more important that the photos. But Chuck, I honestly doubt that you would do such thing on any of your releases. If I were a record producer, I sure as heck wouldn't allow that to slip through. BTW, is there any significance to the fact that it's the Verve Mosaic reissues that generally have these little slip-ups, as opposed to the Mosaic sets from other labels? That does make me wonder if Cuscuna has a little less input on these.

This is a great list, for sure, but I too, am surprised there's no Mobley in sight.

Well, I haven't got this set yet, but I concur with you, David. All this does speak of an uncharacteristic carlessness on Mosaic's part. Could it be that Michael Cuscuna is not paying as much personal attention to each set as he used to? I have been listening to some of my Phil Woods Mosaic set today. I'm sure glad they didn't reverse Phil's picture on that. It would drive me nuts to see his hands upside down, so to speak, especially on the cover.

I have several of those Phil Wilson Lp's on Famous Door. The best one IMHO is the quitet date he made with Vic Dickenson. Without looking, I believe the title is NY-Boston Axis. A great date with two contrasting but very complementary trombone styles. During some of Phil's time on Woody's band the second 'bone was a guy named Henry Southall. I think he almost upstaged Phil at times, playing in a brash Dixieland meets bebop style.

As the former owner of two wonderful Dodge cars. (Actually to be fair, the '87 Shadow was Ok; the '91 Spirit was a piece of junk), I will never buy another Chrysler product again. I now own a Ford Taurus which is OK. I read recently that Daimler Chrysler is putting mega bucks into sponsoring a football game at half time of the '04 Super Bowl between two teams of bikini clad women. Not that I don't like watching women in bikinis play football, but I think Chrysler would be much better advised to put the money into assembly line quality control (an area in which they are sadly lacking).

Absolutely they exist. Here's three off the top of my head in which valve trombone is the ONLY horn. Bob Brookmeyer Quartet - Live at Sandy's (I think that's the name of it) - a live double LP on Gryphon rec. 1978 - Jack Wilkins, guitar, Michael Moore, bass, Joe Labarbera (I think) drums. I believe this has been reissued on CD. Loads of valve 'bone on this one. Rob McConnell - Trio Sketches (Concord) 1993 - Neil Swainson, bass, Ed Bickert guitar Rob McConnell - Three For the Road (Concord) 1996 - Don Thompson, bass and piano, Ed Bickert, guitar Of course, I could mention all the big band recordings by Brookmeyer and McConnell, but on these their horn (as opposed to their composing/arranging) is up front.

Some notable valve trombonists off the top of my head; Bob Brookmeyer Rob McConnell Maynard Ferguson (through the '50's and '60's). Later he played a Superbone, a combination of valve and slide. It was kind of wild watching him play it. Listening to Brookmeyer and or McConnell will give you an good idea of what a valve 'bone sounds like. Peronally I think the sound is a bit more "hollow" and perhaps less focussed than the slide' bone, which makes some sense since the air has to pass through more tubing. McConnell can really play the thing loud at times, though. My guess is that it probably takes a bit more "air" and effort to play than the slide 'bone, though on the other hand, valves are easier to play than the slide. Also, with a valve you don't get the Dixieland-type smears and I imagine the valve gives more tuning problems.

I'll also add Frank Rosolino, bop trombonist supreme (Notice I left out the word "the"). His sound sparkles with joy.

Dicky Wells, Vic Dickenson & especially Trummy Young, whose broad and brash sound always makes me smile.

Hey Deep (Danny): I dug the first Bloviation Big Band CD (even wrote a review of it). Can you give us a run-down of tunes and personnel on the new one? Thanks

The short answer is "NO." What I need a break from is all the other music one hear in our culture without choosing to listen to it - in the malls, barber shops, supermarkets, radio, TV, CD stores (they're the worst), etc. 99.5% of the music I deliberately CHOOSE to listen to is jazz.

Sonny Clark. A very tough call, though. I picked him mainly because he's the pianist on "Go!" my favorite Dex album. Considered George because he's the only one I saw "live' with Dexter; also Kenny, for the sheer number of fine recordings he made with the Tall one. George and Kenny are both fine with Dex, but had to go with Sonny on the basis of that super album. Obviously a very special hook-up there.

What about something like Lou Donaldson's Blues Walk? It's been remastered because it's in the Mosaic set. And for that reason it's not likely to be RVG'ed very soon. So if you want it by itself (which I do), you'll have to pick up the old version.

I thought 80 minutes was the limit. I have some LP to CD burns which are between 79 & 80 minutes and play fine. 20 minutes per side was supposed to be the LP limit until Columbia began issuing live Miles LP's with 30 minutes per side. You know the old saying, "if they can put a man on the moon..."

Why not buy the Mosaic set? I plan to as soon as I have enough money saved in my "secret" Mosaic "envelope". About half way there already.

Of the 20 (or more) new big band CD's I've I've heard this year, this one is my favorite. I would say the "best" but that is highly subjective, I know. In any case, it is an outstanding big band CD in every way.