Steve Gray

Humphrey Lyttelton , who is an obvious candidate, was offered a knighthood but refused it, presumably because of his leftist attitude.

According to the notes in the Mercury box, the tenor player only plays on 'Beer Drinking Baby' Billy Valentine I believe was a West Coaster, he replaced Charles Brown in Johnny Moore's 3 Blazers which I guess lends credence to it being a West Coast session.

Sorry, I don't have any deep knowledge here. All I meant was that the only reference to this that I am aware of is the personnel listing in the box stating that it is JC. I have never seen any other reference to this session elsewhere.

This was recorded for Mercury. It was included on the 8 CD Mercury 'Blues & Rhythym Story' set. The notes state that it is JC. It certainly sounds as if it could be but there does not seem to be any actual proof.

I saw John Coltrane play in London at the Walthamstow Granada. The date was November 17th 1961. This, of course, was just a few days after 'Live at the Village Vanguard' was recorded and it was essentially the same group : JC, Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones. They did the first half of the show before the Dizzy Gillespie group with Lalo Shifrin and Leo Wright performed. This was the first Modern Jazz group I saw live, before that I had been a fan of British Trad bands. I was 14 years old at the time. I remember they played 'My Favourite Things' and I suspect they also played 'Impressions' but this was of course before 'Impressions' was issued on LP and there were no announcements. I enjoyed it all enormously but my memories are a bit hazy now. The one thing I remember vividly was the large bulge on Eric's forehead when he was soloing.

I am not familiar with Duke's Mixture. What's on it?

Is it true that the van Gelder family lived/lives there? It is not that I am doubting you, I really don't know. The reason I ask is that I have the Google Earth location of the Englewood Cliffs studio and it does not look much like a residential area.

I don't think this has anything to do with OJCs Try this link Coltrane/Monk There are just some crazy prices out there.

Another thumbs up for the Kempff 50's set. This is my 'Saturday and Sunday morning' music, the first thing I play on the weekends. I just rotate through the disks, although I also regularly play the Schnabel set.

I just loaded disc 6 of 'JC - the complete Prestige recordings' and ITunes recognised it as 'Fearless Leader'

All of these tracks (with the exception of the unissued ones) are available on the Hawk Proper box. I know how some people feel about Proper, just stating the facts.

I saw Miles on this tour in London. The Miles Ahead site says that the Monk Quartet, Archie Shepp, Gary burton, Sarah Vaughan and others were on the same bill. Of course, they were not all on the same night. I think they were spread over a week. I know I saw Archie Shepp (with Rudd and Moncur) about this time so I think it must have been Shepp on the bill with Miles. I didn't see Monk, I have no idea how I managed to miss that. Never did see Monk.

Thanks erverone for the help.

Thanks for the link but reading it prompts another question. Does this new set have the mono masters that are said to be superior to the stereo versions.

I can't find any discussion of this new 2 CD set here. Maybe it's here but I can't find it. Does anyone have it and can comment on it? I am particularly interested in the sound quality compared to the complete Riverside box. Thanks

He also had an LP called 'Black and Decker'

Apologies. Looks like I was confused by the retitling of the tunes. I did think they might issue it with some alternative takes but no luck.

As far as their big boxes go, I am sure you are correct. However I notice that the 'Blowing a Fuse' series finishes in 1955. Suspicious or what? I suspect that with this series they are just as 'guilty' as Proper, JSP etc ...

'BB King sings Spirituals' is being reissued by Ace next month BB King sing Sprituals It states that this is the 11th and last issue in this series so it looks like 'Twist with BB' is not being reissued.

As OliverB also mentions Stan Kenton, I believe he just mistakenly said Columbia when he meant Capitol.

Nathan Davis was in the Paris Reunion band so you might want to look out for their stuff. I saw the Paris Reunion band at a festival in England in 1985. I can remember Nathan Davis, Johnny Griffin, Woody Shaw, Jimmy Woode, not sure who else.

I have this on CD and also have all these Alvin Robinsons on singles. Red Bird Sound volume 2 Unfortunately, as you can see, it is no longer available. Were there more than 8 tracks on Red Bird/Blue Cat? What were the titles?

I was at the Walthamstow show as well, second or third row. First house as I had to get to bed early because I was only fourteen at the time. JC, Eric, McCoy, Reggie and Elvin opening for Dizzy, Leo Wright, Lalo Schifrin, Mel Lewis and ... Who the hell was the bassist, was it Bob Cunningham?

I don't think ACE will be reissuing any RedBird/BlueCat material. In England , this currently seems to be in the hands of Snapper (the record lable previously known as Charly). They recently issued a 3-CD set of this material including about 5-6 Alvin Robinson tracks.

In my opinion, 'Live at the Regal' is highly overrated. In particular I do not like the way he segues from tune to tune on this album. The Modern singles are infinitely preferable. 'Singin the Blues' in this series is more or less a collection of his early singles and is highly recomended. There are also two other collections on Ace of his early and later singles which are very good buys. These are 'The RPM Hits' and 'The Best of the Kent Singles' Then there is the 4 CD box ...