HutchFan

Oh man. I love this stuff so much. It's like Buster's sayin' to the band, "Just climb on my back. I'll carry every one of y'all!"

Duke Ellington - Togo Brava Suite (United Artists, 2 LPs) Five stars isn't enough.

Discs 5 & 6

Yeah, Don Schlitten was doing outstanding work back then. And not only with Xanadu. Between the sessions that he produced for Cobblestone, Muse, MPS, and Xanadu, his productions crop up again and again on my survey. Certainly, Schlitten is one of the most important jazz producers of the 1970s -- right up there with names like Nessa, Eicher, Cuscuna, Keepnews, Michel, Porter, Winckelmann & Weber, et al.

Hmm. That does look interesting. Thanks for the heads-up, Jim. I dig Mason's organ work. He's fantastic on Rusty Bryant's LPs Fire-Eater and Wildfire.

This CD collects 2 LPs that were compiled from five different recording sessions, so it's a bit of a grab bag personnel-wise. Ammons, Stitt, and McDuff make it rock solid regardless.

I'm now listening to Ashkenazy's excellent recording of Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony with the Concertgebouw, as heard on this set:

Yes.

Recap for the Last TWO Weeks - PLAYING FAVORITES: Reflections on Jazz in the 1970s Mike Westbrook Orchestra – Citadel/Room 315 (RCA/Novus/BGO, 1975) Clifford Jordan – Night of the Mark VII aka The Highest Mountain (Muse/32 Jazz/Savoy, 1975) John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette – Gateway (ECM, 1975) Jimmy Giuffre – River Chant aka The Train & the River (Choice/Candid, 1975) John Hicks – Hells Bells (Strata-East/Charly/Pure Pleasure, 1980) Barry Harris – Plays Tadd Dameron (Xanadu/Elemental, 1975) Dizzy Gillespie y Machito – Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods (Pablo, 1976) Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond – 1975: Duets (A&M Horizon/Verve, 1975) Von Freeman – Have No Fear (Nessa, 1975) and Serenade & Blues (Nessa, 1979) Mark Murphy – Mark Murphy Sings (Muse, 1975) Al Cohn – Play It Now (Xanadu, 1975) Jim Hall – Live! (A&M Horizon/Verve, 1975) Enrico Rava – The Pilgrim and the Stars (ECM, 1975) Stone Alliance – Stone Alliance (PM, 1976) 1975 was a magnificent year for jazz, IMO. Only one other year in my survey is represented with more selections.

I wish I'd ordered the RCA set when it was available! ... Over the last few weeks, I've ordered the Munch Conducts Berlioz and Munch Conducts Romantic Masterworks budget sets as substitutes. I already had many of these recordings (particularly the Berlioz), but I decided to order the sets anyway and then give the duplicates to a friend of mine. I wish Sony/RCA would do a comparable Munch conduct French Masterworks budget set that would scoop up his RCA Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Franck, Honegger, Roussel, etc. Again, I have many of these already -- notably Munch's Ravel on a couple SACDs, which I will NEVER give away -- but it would be convenient to have all of it in a box. ... Per your recommendation, I still have my eye on the Munch Warner set. By the way, Chuck, have you (or others) read Kern Holoman's biography of Munch? Seems like it might be interesting. Holoman's biography of Berlioz was very good indeed. But I've not read his Munch book.

You can't go wrong with Charles Munch & the BSO performing this sort of French repertoire.

The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts, December 1947 (Prestige, 2 LPs)

More Ellington: Duke Ellington - Cornell University Concert (MusicMasters Jazz) from 1948 Yes! Incredible music. Perhaps my favorite disc from The Private Collection.

That's terrific! Continuing with Vol. 5 of The Private Collection:

NP -- More wonders from "the stockpile":

Earlier: This volume features Paul Gonsalves extensively.

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 / Rozhdestvensky, Moscow RSO (Angel-Melodiya)

A salve for the soul. Outstanding!

Berlioz: La damnation de Faust, Op. 24 with David Poleri (Faust), Suzanne Danco (Marguerite), Martial Singher (Méphistophélès), Donald Gramm, McHenry Boatwright Boston Symphony Orchestra, Harvard Glee Club, Radcliffe Choral Society Charles Munch (conductor)