John Tapscott

Yes, that's right Jim, - a great baritone player. Anyone who's not convinced try to find Maynard Ferguson MF Horn 3 on Columbia or especially MF Horn 4&5 Live at Jimmy's. I believe he lives now in uptate New York and still plays a mean baritone, appearing on the recent Mike Vax "On the Road" CD on Summit records. He solos on a couple of pieces including his own comp. "Sunrise Lady" (which he had previously recorded with Woody Herman). But the Maynard days were really his high point.

When you reach for a recording with a baritone saxophonist on it, what album, or artist, do you find yourself most commonly reaching for? Mulligan, Adams, Brignola, in that order • Are there any baritone saxophone-led recordings that you would personally consider a "hidden gem" in the vast sea of improvised recordings? Cecil Payne's Delmark recordings from the '90's.

Blue Note's classic era gets my vote, as the sounds of "Blue Train"come through my speakers.

I know it has been much maligned by the critics, but I really love the Ellington "Three Suites" Cd, which includes "The Nutcracker Suite," "Peer Gynt Suite" and "Suite Thursday." Other Favorites: "The Queen's Suite", "Afro-Eurasian Eclipse"

No question about it. Defintely Hank Mobley's Roll Call.

Wes: I agree 100% with your comments (and Soul Stream's) and have the same kind of questions as you have. I also get the same kind of uplift and inspiration from jazz as you do. I always try to play some jazz when I'm shaving and getting dressed in the morning. It definitely gets my day off to a better start, and is usually much more uplifting than listening to news and traffic reports and sports scores repeated endlessly. I just think that jazz always has and always will appeal to a small but significant minority (even in the swing era, the most popular big abnds were not necessarily the most jazz oriented). I don't know why some people "get" it and some don't. It doesn't seem to have much to do with musical ability, since I have very little yet I seem to somehow connect very well with jazz. I do think that to love jazz you have to be a bit of a lone wolf type person, not caring about being part of the "in" crowd or following what's popular. Even though all of us probably have a few jazz friends, you have to be the kind of person who doesn't mind standing alone and going against the grain. Ask yourself where would you rather be, as part of a huge stadium crowd cheering on your favorite football team, or home listening to your latest Mosaic purchase (or any other fine jazz recording for that matter). For me, even though I enjoy sports, it's defintely the latter. For me, that is peace and joy. For others, it would be akin to hell. Some people just seem to need the presence and approval of lots of people. Others are more content in their solitiude (and if you're a jazz fan, you'll likely have lots of that). For all that North America talks of encouraging individuality and independent thinking, I think our culture really encourages conformity to whatever is popular at the moment. Personally, I could care less about conforming to what is popular.

I haven't bought many of the more recent Criss Cross CD's, but have perhaps 20-25 in total. Two which come to mind that I really dig are Ralph Lalama's "Momentum" and Gary Smulyan's "Saxophone Mosaic", both roughly a decade old. As I think of others I'll post them. Here's another - Jimmy Knepper's "Dream Dancing".

Happy Birthday, Chris! Can't say I always (or even very often) agree with your politics, but musically speaking, you're OK!!!

Art Blakey - 1960 Messengers Mosaic Gerry Mulligan - Concert Band Mosaic Wayne Shorter - Adam's Apple (RVG sounds great!) Earl Hines - The Father of Modern Jazz Piano - 5 LP's Duke Ellington - Jazz Party Cat Anderson - Americans Swinging in Paris Ike Quebec - Congo Lament Jim Widner Big Band - Flying High Buddy Rich - Wham! Sammy Nestico - This is the Moment Jim Snidero - Storm Rising Phil Nimmons - Vintage Air Checks '59-'64 Hank Mobley - Roll Call Lee Morgan - The Rajah David Schnitter - Invitation Wayne Shorter - JuJu

A fine recent Lanny Morgan recording is "Pacific Standard Yime" on Milestone (from around '96 or '97). Lanny is a 'bopper supreme and I mean that very positively!

Thanks, guys. I guess I'm like everyone else here, really glad to be be a member of Organissimo. I'm looking on the Mulligan Mosaic as my birthday gift to myself. (Hey, I'm worth it!) It is a very nice set, perfect for birthday listening.

The Jazz Messengers at Cafe Bohemia Vol 1 &2 never, ever fails to lift my spirits. This music is like a tonic for the soul (and Dorham at Cafe Bohemia, too). The RVG's of this music are wonderful.

Hey Ed, congrats! Maybe you could just buy out Mosaic records and sort of like spread around the stock to Organissimo members. I'll take the JJ Johnson plus the Green and Chambers selects, if you don't mind. BTW,on a more serious note, what a scam these things are. I've probably received four or five of these e-mails at work. They all seem to originate in Africa. The last time I e-mailed them back told them that if I ever received another e-mail from them, I would report the whole thing to the RCMP (Canadian police, who are apparently already investigating some cases). Haven't heard anything more from them. But boy, these crooks sure know how to play on people's greed.

There another story from that same night. At the start of the first set Rosolino went over to the empty chair where Carl should have been sitting, curled his arm around the back of the chair, and said, "Hello Carl, I see you've lost some weight!" Only trombone players are crazy enough to think of these things (that's OK - I'm one of them, well, I was!).

Thank you Free for all and Amen! One of the greatest of all trombone players, perhaps not quite as explosive as Rosolino, but Carl was nearly nearly unbeatable for melodic flow. Bill Watrous was a really big fan of Carl's. Two fine recordings in my collection (besides this one) come to mine. Heavyweights - a mid-90's quintet recording by Bobby Shew and Carl (on Mama) Bobby Knight's Great American Trombone Company (from around '78). Carl and Ros' are guest soloists, and my memory is slipping here, but I think they play together on a couple of tracks. There is one funny story in the liners about how Carl was late for the gig one night because of a traffic jam. As soon as he stepped on stage Knight called an uptempo "I Got Rhythm" and let Carl take the first solo. Carl sailed through it. (it's on the recording). He said he figured Knight would do this and so had been warming up on his mouthpiece in the cab!

I got the Mulligan today (#119) and I've listened to half of CD #1 and so far I think the sound is fabulous. (I haven't hard the Verve mini LP). And it came through with no taxes or package fee added by the Canadian Post office. Thank you, Mosaic!

Thanks Pryan, I've heard enough Woody Shaw over the years so that I can probably distinguish the trumpeters. But we can compare notes after we've both heard the CD. It just bothers when liner notes expect us to be such experts that WE have to do the work. It tells me that the liner note writer is not such an expert himself. BTW, you may not have to wait too long for these. I'm in Canada, too. Check my recent posting in the Conn thread.

I haven't heard this disc, yet, but am really looking forward to it. I've got to say however, that it REALLY bugs me when there are two of the same instrument on a date and the liner don't tell who's soloing when. This REALLY, REALLY bugs me. Even if they would say left channel/ right channel it would be enough. I'm really surprised that Cuscuna would let this slip through. For what they're charging for the Conn's, they should give us this information. I was listening to Ike Quebec's Congo Lament Lp the other day and Michael does a great job in giving the solo order and telling when it's Quebec and when it's Turrentine.

Just ordered the Hill, Morgan and Mobley discs from hmv.com at $19.99 Canadian per disc (15$ US) and free shipping. They say 2-3 days shipping. We'll see.

Oh yeah, this is going to be a great set. My brother-in-law was asking me the other day what I wanted for Christmas. Now I know! Top of the list.

The fact that the web-site has dropped the price of the new Conns is almost an admission that the list price is too high. (Of course, most new releases generally sell well below list). But if the RVG's became more popular when the price was dropped, why wouldn't the same apply to the Conns? And it seems to me the RVG's must be as expensive to produce - at least they generally have new liner notes.

Until I joined the old BNBB, I never paid much attention to whether something was an RVG or a Conn, or just a Blue Note CD with no special designation To me, it was a BN and that's all that mattered. But if memory serves me correctly the first RVG I ever bought was Hank Mobley - Soul Station. Actually, I had several before that because a friend of mine was a Capitol/EMI rep and he used to give me some extra promos he had around. So before the Mobley I had already the RVG's of Dolphy's Out to Lunch and Rollins' Vol 2 on my shelves (and maybe a few others).

Yes, LFR is a great session, and Bob's notes are good on this one. I love the little story where Jackie talks about how Hank Jones would tune him up before a gig. Jackie would play and A, Hank a B, and they'd be off and running, as close to being "in tune" as possbile.

Gee, I don't know. Maybe for a symphony or studio musician, but I'm not sure it's a necessity for a jazz musician. This topic probably deserves its own thread. Now I will admit that Strozier is far from my favorite alto player (I have this session), but Jackie McLean is one of my favorites, and nobody ever accused Jackie of playing in tune. In fact, it's his wayward pitch which makes his alto sound so personal. I love it. To stay with altoists, I 'm not sure Art Pepper's playing (especially after his comeback) was in always in tune, either. But I wouldn't get rid of any of it.

BTW, what the heck is going on over at www.cheap-cds.com ? They used to be right on the ball with the new Conns and RVG's, even shipping them out before the street date. ( I have bought LOTS of cds from them). But they don't even have the new Conns listed. And their back stock has reduced to nearly zilch. Most CD's (except for the very latest) for most artists are listed as NONE.