Brad

I loved Am I Blue from the first time I got it. Can't contribute more than Soul Stream said. Another great GG album since we're on him is I Want to Hold Your Hand. Hank is Hank and Stella by Starlight is wonderfully done. Speaking of Blue, how about Born to Be Blue. Haven't listened to it in a while but it deserves a mention here.

To me True Blue is one big rip. Their prices are inflated. They put out a nice catalog but that's it. I've only given them when business when they have this combined Mosaic - True Blue sale. Other than that, never. Plus if it's listed at .23, they have to sell it to you for that. Their mistake, their problem.

Ditto to what Tod said. My only criticism is that the discography doesn't indicate what record the session corresponds to but I can figure that out. The book is quite nice with many nice photos and a section by some of the sidemen on their reminescenes of Dexter.

Lon, What do you mean by his 70s stuff. I believe most of his 60s stuff is not out there either. Plus, I don't think any of us need to be dismissive of the other tastes. I'd like to see a Hutcherson Mosaic and I'll buy the Berigan also, not to mention the Eldridge. On another point, it seems to me that a lot of BN stuff is now Select material. I'm wondering why.

Minor Move for me but Procrastinator is a great idea. Too bad Alfred "procrastinated" at the time.

I just got off the phone with Peter Crawford of Stateside and it's as Alan said. He's the distributor but he said he also sold the set to other buyers and they're free to charge what they want. He said he suggested a price but they're free to disregard it. He said in future emails he'd try to correct the erroneous impression that Stateside was the only place where you could buy a Steeplechase product.

Alan, That's probably a good point, which I hadn't taken account of. Stateside is free to sell product to whomever it wants and that person, subject to any agreement it may have with its source of supply (the distributor) is free to sell product for whatever price a willing buyer would pay. As comparison, you can buy direct from Fantasy (which I have done) or from a third party such a local record store or an online retailer, like cd universe (which I have also done).

As far as cancelling your order with Stateside and ordering it from cd universe, that doesn't appear to be an option. One person at AAJ said he'd already received it. However, I will be calling tomorrow. The announcement does clearly said they would be the exclusive distributor. Now I realize that they don't have to stick to that forever. However, changing so quickly is not very good. And I don't think Stateside's statement is what might be called "puffing". At the very least, for doing what they did, they should throw in an extra cd or 2.

I thought Stateside was selling this exclusively. Obviously not, plus that a pretty nice compared to Statesides'. Darn.

Hendrix Iron Butterfly (In a Gadda Da Vida, or however you spell it) Early Stones (pre-69)

So, are we to presume that it's in the country and ready for shipping? I thought this set wasn't supposed to ship until April 7 or something like that.

I just got my copy of the April Jazz Review and besides having articles on Wardell, Freddie Redd and Tal Farlow, the following jumped out at me: Proper is putting out 3 new box sets, one on Johnny Hodges, from 1937-1952 (which should nicely dovetail with the first Mosaic box), Mildred Bailey between 1929-1942 (I assume if you have the Mosaic you don't need this) and one called Swing: Tanzen Verboten Swing Music and Nazi Propaganda Swing During WWII. As a historical study, that sounds very interesting. They also reviewed Mike DiRubbio's cd on Criss Cross called Human Spirit. Heard one cut of that on the radio and sounded like well played hard bop. Features Jim Rotundo (tp), DiRubbio (as), David Hazeltine (p, who also wrote the arrangements), Peter Washington (bass) and Joe Farnsworth (drums). This is a cd I want to pick up. In their miscellaneous review section ("Fast Taste"), they reviewed a new cd from Definitive called John Coltrane Complete Recordings with Dizzy Gillespie. If there's a poster boy for truth in advertising, this appears to be it. He's heard just once on this cd. This is probably a partial rework or copy of Dizzy's School Days on Savoy. Not a great cd but I can't imagine selling off any Dizzy cd that I have. There's also a 2 CD set from Proper of Stuff Smith's between early 1936 and 1945. Jazz violin is not my bag but as far as it goes, I'm sure it's good.

Is it time for Prozac or Effexor when the Red Menace is quoting our Viennese colleague or vice versa. By the way Red Menace, did any of our colleagues escape to Berchdesgaten where they may be establishing some sort of a redoubt?

RDK, Thanks. That internet archive is pretty cool. The internet never ceases to amaze me. Can we even remember what it was like pre-internet days. Hard to imagine I'd have a decent jazz collection without it.

Due to a space problem and my fetish of still buying cds, if I buy something and it just really doesn't move and I think I'll never get interested in it, I'm going to get rid of it. However, I don't try to purposely cull my collection. Yes, there are somethings I may not listen to but I'll let them sit there. Some recordings may not grab me immediately but I'll put them aside. Others I just know in my heart that they're just not for me. For me, I'd keep the Harris. Never heard anything of his I didn't like. While Bullseye may not be my favorite, I don't think I'm going to get rid of it.

I didn't think you could even access the archives. I'm curious as to how that was done. Anybody clicking on would have seen it's frozen back in February of 2001 or whatever. The best April 1 gag was done a couple of years ago by Alan Lankin who said that Mosaic had announced that they were issuing the Complete BN 50s Sessions. Too bad it was a joke.

Well, if it's a death watch, they refuse to go quietly into the night. The Jacquet has hung around the running low list for at least a year.

Are these anomalies perhaps or just a way to distinguish between club and non-club pressings (i.e. the real thing). The only differences I was aware of was the silver and blue for cd for pre-90/91 and the better well known blue/white of post 91, which in my book is a useful cut off point for signaling better sound.

Did you ask about the Jacquet? That's got to be getting near the end.

P.D., thanks for the tip. I'll check 'em out.

Unity was one of my first jazz purchases ever. I was curious about him after seeing a listing of Mosaics and saying to myself "who is Larry Young?" My favorite of his still remains Inta Something. Honorable mention to Grant Green's Talking About, however. I thought Larry not to mention Grant and Elvin are fantastic on that session.

Well, I guess I'm one of the few to not fall prey to their blandishments. Haven't looked at the site for a while. I have bought stuff from them though. Maybe should just mosey over and take a looksee.....

The RTE was recently on ebay but I missed the auction (busy) and I want to kill myself for missing it. Aargh!. Haven't seen it listed on other online sites. If it is, they say it's out of stock.

This is a little bit late in this debate but when I was a kid people would call me Bread and I didn't like it then but if someone kids me now, I just shrug it off. Actually, they call me worse things. Anyway, from my end no insult intended. It turned out that I have the Apartment and I never got around to listening to it so I listened to it today. Excellent. Really looking forward to the box.

After hearing from Spinach and the Parrot man, I went ahead and placed the order. For those who are interested (and I hope this doesn't violate any anti-spam rules), you should call Peter Crawford at Stateside Distributors in Chicago and his number is 773-862-8573 or 888-776-0436. B)