John Tapscott

Listening again. Such a fine recording.

That seems to be the case. You know, as Phil Woods used to say, if you had to choose between becoming say, a lawyer or a brain surgeon, or becoming a jazz musician, best to choose law or medicine.

Now:

Most of the Pablo albums are range from quite good to excellent, with a few duds thrown in. Sometimes I find the after music production values sloppy, like they didn't put a whole lot of thought into it or were trying to do it on the cheap. After Benny Green stopped writing the liner notes for Pablo, the notes (if there were any) were often not very good or very informative. Sometimes personnel were incorrectly identified or not named at all. The Basie big band albums are a particular pain in this regard, with the soloists or even the small group personnel hardly ever credited

Disc 4 of 4 - such a tremendous set. The fountainhead for modern jazz piano.

Thanks. I will have to listen; that is a fine set.

You have to ask yourself, "Do I really want/need these?" In these albums the band mostly covers pop tunes for AM radio play. Very little real jazz. I had 2 or 3 of these which I junked.

Now: Disc 3

Producer Michael Cuscuna mentions them in the notes to the Columbia box set. Lots of big egos involved. Cuscuna had asked the musicians to rehearse some Cedar Walton tunes the day before the session. When Cuscuna flew in from Europe the day of the session, and found out they hadn't rehearsed, it seems he was none too happy. Finally, Art Blakey came to Michael's defense and got the musicians to lay something down. It's surprising the session happened at all, let alone come off as well as it did. You will notice that it has rather short playing time.

Excellent Thad Jones on this.

I really liked "Sophisticated Giant" when it came out in the late 70's, but I was mildly disappointed after listening to it recently on Gordon's Columbia box set. Kind of lifeless. On the other hand, the "Gotham City" session, which was beset with problems in the studio, is a really fine recording, which I had not remembered. Time does change one's perception.