JSngry

I think Arthur Brown is a house painter in Austin these days. Beware, Lon! I know that Sam the Sham is a shrimper in South Texas.

Not that it's necessarily my "favorite", but I keep coming back to ON THE CORNER. Seems like that's some sort of distillation of Miles' personal essence to be found there, although a distillation of personal essence sounds like something more suited to being found in certain theatres....

Quite an eclectic personnel, that's for sure!

What do you mean by "making it big"? They stayed together & recorded for quite a while, Mel kept the band together after Thad left the country (and there is a "Vanguard Jazz Orchestra" on Monday nights to this day, I believe(?) ), and they even toured some, which was really a triumph since the band was originally formed as a one-night-a-week rehearsal band. The records caused a bit of a stir upon initial release, moreso the earlier ones than the later (I'm w/Lon on their relative interest to me, although they all had moments of interest, and POTPOURRI on Philly International was an above-average later effort). The band was never supposed to be a full-time working band, so I think they did all right. Thad's charts got published by Kendor, a major publisher w/good distribution, and they are played by bands across the world even today - they've become part of the "common repertoire" of modern big band jazz. The mid-60s saw a mini-revival of the big bands, and Jones-Lewis were in the forefront of that revival. They did what they set out to do (provide an outlet for writers and players who needed one), and a whole lot more.

...and not really concerned enough to do my own research. Any updates on these seemingly "here today, gone this afternoon" stories go here!

Has to be a compilation. And a good one it should be! Unless they've uncovered an unknown session.

Has to be a compilation. And a good one it should be!

Pretty sure that Chico was Hall's first "name" gig.

Yusef plays some HELLACIOUS tenor on THE GOLDEN FLUTE. You should be well-pleased.

The music is fine. The acting is hideous (or unintentionally hilarious, take your pick...), making "The Gene Krupa Story" look like a work of great delicacy and subtlety in comparison.

Yo, B - check it out: Before forming the Family Stone, Sly Stone gained a lot of experience in the studio as the virtual in-house producer for the San Francisco-based Autumn label. The sessions he worked on during this era (performed by both himself and other artists) have appeared on numerous scattershot compilations. This 28-song anthology is the most comprehensive and intelligently assembled of these, including Sly solo performances, Sly collaborations with Billy Preston, and obscure soul-pop sides by Bobby Freeman, Gloria Scott, George & Teddy, and others. Over half of the cuts were previously unissued, and the lengthy liner notes provide an in-depth overview of his early accomplishments. Only serious collectors should seek this out, though. While Autumn afforded Stone the opportunity to experiment in the studio and devise various primitive collisions of soul and pop, his compositional, instrumental, and vocal skills were still in a very formative (if very promising) stage. Much of this is routinely pleasant, if lightly eccentric, period pop-soul, with occasional bursts of inspiration like Sly's wild scat vocals on "Scat Swim," and the folk-rockish "As I Get Older," and a few songs that would be reworked for inclusion on the first couple of Family Stone albums. — Richie Unterberger AMG Autumn was, of course, the Brummells' first label, and, yes, Sly produced them. Not sure if he was their ONLY producer there, but fersure he produced "Laugh, Laugh".

Just curious, Jim, but are you saying that there is not a single "legit" Miles album that you like better than these bootlegs? Wow! Columbia (or someone) needs to get their hands on these! He he. I think it could also be construed as "the favorite mountain is the one that hasn't been climbed yet". Absolutely, and add to that that I'm just now getting around to the Columbia Box Sets, and LOVING all the new material therein because it's SO different than all the "official" stuff that's part of the jazz subconscious by now, how do you NOT get stopped in your tracks by such revelatory material? Same w/the boots (a few of which are of still-unreleased studio material, btw) - you hear a live date by the ON THE CORNER band that is TOTALLY in the pocket and kickass, and totally non-abstract, and you say to yourself, "Is there ANY studio album that sounds even remotely like this", and the answer is, of course - hell no. Or the whole Lost Quintet - that's a whole MAJOR chapter of Miles' career and evolution that's yet to be documented officially. So yeah - I'm defintely preferring the unofficial stuff these days, not necessarily because it's "better" (although there are times when I think it is), but because, unlike some artists, whose live work is about the same as their studio work, only less self-conscious, with Miles you can enter a whole 'nother world, one that just doesn't exist (yet) on official releases.

Please oh PLEASE post that story in a seperate thread, along with the photograph. I'm BEGGING you!

Just curious, Jim, but are you saying that there is not a single "legit" Miles album that you like better than these bootlegs? Wow! Columbia (or someone) needs to get their hands on these! Perhaps it's the "forbidden fruit" aspect of it, or maybe it's just that I like the "verite" approach and find the difference between what the various bands were doing live and in the studio (a difference that became more pronounced as the years went by), but yeah, that's essentially correct. Also a possible factor is that I pretty much committed all the "official" albums to memory. more or less, a long time ago, and the bootlegs are coming at me fresh. But yeah, I love all the "usual suspects" as much as anybody.

Various bootlegs.

YES! Produced by Sylvester Stewart AKA SLy Stone!

If you like The Larks, you'll LOVE The Ravens.

Now that they have their/your money, I would go about reporting this woman to her supervisor for inappropriate behavior, and if that gets no action, to their supervisor, and so on up the chain until somebody cuffs this miscreant. The "I'm going to make your life miserable" card can be played on either side of the table, depending on who's got the hand, and since you don't owe them any more, I'd say that YOU'VE got it now. Play it, and play it until it wins.

Indeed. Pay no attention to people who complain about the "sound quality" of 1951 airchecks and the like. I can respect that some people don't care for such things, but that's the nature of the beast, and the historical value alone (to say nothing of the outstanding level of playing) overides any complaints based on standards that simply do not apply to material such as this. Just my opinion.

I finally got around to getting the IASW box yesterday, and I gotta tell ya', it was a revelation. Nothing less than a revelation. There is such a logical progression to how the various material develops, and hearing it in context like this packs a punch that hearing it in the original issues (when applicable) doesn't. And I nearly peed my britches when I heard the rough cut of "Sshh/Peaceful". I was listening at work, hadn't looked at the book, and didn't know what was what. I hear this little guitar bit that sounds REALLY famiiar, but then there's this whole STRUCTURE that was totally new to me, so I'm thinking it's something else that they pulled an excerpt out of for an insert, but then that GROOVE begins, and I realize what I'm hearing, and I nearly go apeshit. A lot of the individual cuts fall into the category of "almost there" or "dig what they're TRYING to do" for me, but as a whole, as a story of the linear development of an album, how concepts get introduced, altered, added/discarded, all that, as a HISTORICAL DOCUMENT, I have to say that this is a truly amazing set, and one that begs to be listened to in its entirety for maximim impact. It literally tells a story, solves a mystery, introduces and develops individual characters (both players AND musical ideas) and is really like no other box set I've ever heard.

The sound is good enough to hear everybody play, and for stuff like this, that's good enough for me.

I actually suggested this to Cuscuna in a letter ca. 1991 - "The Complete Mosaic Fuckups" I called it. He wrote back saying that he loved the idea and the title. But let's get that Braxton/Arista box out before we focus on this, ok?

Hall's on some of the Hamilton Trio album. I think the 10" was originally w/Roberts only, but the 12" added some (later) cuts w/Hall. It's been on CD in Japan (what HASN'T? ), and is indeed an outstanding album, one which would likely raise more than a few eyebrows were it more widely available.

Hathy Burpday!