JSngry

"Early rock performer" doesn't begin to describe it. He was a force of nature, period. RIP, to one of the foremost bedrocks of post WWII American Popular Music.

It's a finer, fun record that has a bounce befitting the time and place of it's participants and their contributions therein.

Well, that's what I get for buying stuff just because and then never reading the liner notes. I do think it's great, truly great, how Cuscuna put that stuff out on Muse and totally disguised its real source. Guy was still working with BN, still working with Woody, and oh, here's these "demos". Heroic, it is.

How many known existing copies of Blue Note contracts are there? I have no idea myself, never been the type of thing I'd be consciously aware of. Another factor to that might be, ok, he got a deal and Sidewinder was a smash, so did he renegotiate his contract with BN right away (or they with him)? If so, for how long, and was it done in such a way that he never had to re-up with Liberty, then UA, then Transamerica? Were there options that kept getting picked up, things like that? I have what I think is an OG copy of the LP, and the label is talking about UA, and the inner gatefold doesn't even mention BN, it all UA and then fine-printy a division of Transamerica/et. "Blue Note" is basically just a microscopic logo down in the corner of the front cover (and maybe elsewhere?). If Helen was really handling all of his business, then Helen would most likely have had the papers, right up until the end, right? Is there any record of Lee actually retaining council? Becusae without being Captain Obvious, Helen's life kinda went into disarray there for a while. Point just being, the longer you go into corporate ownership re-upping a contract, I'd think you'd need to engage legal if there was ever a dispute or a question about where the money was to rightly go. Because if there's "real money" involved, there's gonna be legal to have their say, period. Of course, if nobody's worried about rightly, then hey...we all know where THAT money gonna go! I would say to talk to Donald Byrd, Donald Byrd was ALL up inside the business of that label all through the transitions, but that's no longer an option. (said Captain Obvious). And the more the actual participants disappear, the more the lawyers are going to have their say about who owns what.

You must clean your heads religiously, or not play any one tape more than a few times, or never rewind a reel after playing it, and/or all of the above? b/c otherwise you WILL get a combination of hiss and/or high-end dropoff that is nothing personal, it's just how the science of that shit works. Now if you do do all those things, kudos to you for treating your archive like a true archive, seriously.

That's one of my Favorite Frank Records, bar none. Gorgeous arrangements, impeccable vocals, damn near perfect in every way. Don't know how into it at this point I would be to go in for all this, but it's a damn great record, and if you've never heard any Sinatra session tapes, you owe it to yourself to remedy that. All the talk about how the guy could hear everything and make adjustments (including/especially to his own place in the chart) on the fly is totally legit. I have played other such session tapes for people who thought that all that talk was hype, and they've all pulled it back, like WHOA! Ok, yeah, alright, I GET it now. Taste is of course subjective, but skills be skills, period. Hell, I'm talking myself into buying it. STOP!!!! Oh hell yeah, just 1 CD at a good price? The one have now done been clicked. https://www.amazon.com/Nice-n-Easy-2020-Mix/dp/B0863VPRRK

I'm not going out enough or up close enough to do that, but the last time I did, I wanted to do that to a few people, especially the lady who was hacking her way out the door at the Target with her little girl giving her an unmistakeable MOMMY?!?!? WTF???? look. Other than a kind of assholey attitudinal disposition, though, I see no real reason NOT to wear one when you're around other people, especially indoors. I mean, no matter what you think the "real" infection rate is, it's just a common courtesy right now, imo. Simple as that. We had a few guys come out to give us estimates on fence repairs. One guy did not have a mask and rolled his eyes when we gave him one to put on. The other guy put one on before he even knocked on the door. Who do you think is getting the business? Respect for your customer, not assuming anything other than you don't want your customer thinking that they don't give a rats' ass about you - a total stranger -not respecting their property and all that comes with that? Common courtesy, really. Even if you think it's total bullshit, not everybody does, and again, right now, what does it hurt? ...and I know one motherfucker who ain't getting hired because of that lack of courtesy.

What is the actual science about masks in general? Is there a provable benefit to masking in general, or is it more a "can't hurt!" thing. I know there's a certain type of mask that provides 2-way protection, but most people still don't have easy access to those. so what about all the other stuff? What's the provable there? and yes, I wear them the few times I go inside anyplace (ONLINE ALL THE WAY!!!!), but not just to go outside in general. I look at it like chicken soup - it won't hurt anything!

Cassette never sounded as good as a perfect reel system. but a perfect reel system was one of those things that tended to exist far more easily in theory than in reality. I mean, I still have one of the 70s models Sonys that you could do track-to-track overdubbing on, bouncing the tracks.. Used it a lot back then to learn with Beach Boys harmonies and stuff like that, even did a three man "big band" like that (it sucked, of course, no headphones, no click track, and...NOTHING other than three people with 2 mikes and a deck dicking around one afternoon). And going for slow/slower speeds, you could load up a BUTTLOAD of LPs onto both sides of 10" reel. But damn, that was then, this is now, and I don't see ANY reason to entertain the notion of the technology today, at least not for home use. I did have a chance to pull the Sony out of the closet a few years ago to show a younger tech-geek, who was AMAZED at how SIMPLE the whole thing was, like, TOTALLY analog (duh!). I plugged it in, turned it on, it still worked. But the either the tapes ahd stretched and/or the belts had stretched, because the music was running waaaaay slow.

Back in the day, a goor R2R playing a good tape @ 7 1/2 IPS through a good home system was a GREAT sound. But head maintenance was/is a pain, tape degradation is a real concern, and, geez, a lot of improvements have happened in the last 60 or so years. I can't see them having any value today except as a fun thing. They DO make for cool objects, still.

Well, I ordered within a few hours of getting that email hand have not yet been billed...

Yeah, all you know is that you got paid a little extra that day.

I'm old enough to have heard all those records, full sides of them at a time more than a few times enough. I know what they sound like, and it's not prejudice that keeps me from loving them, nor is it a disdain for tacos, which I love as much as I dislike TJB. It's simple fucking real life real time experience, that's it. Period. But let me tell you a funny story anyway... I had a college buddy, a trumpet player who always had an instinct for "entertainment", right? Had a good ear and good taste, wasn't a great player, but still, a really shrewd guy about what worked as entertainment, why, and what didn't (and also why). He could do a good Herb Alpert imitation, and laughed hiss ass off about how if HE could do it.... So...10-15 years pass, it's like, 1987-88, we've long ago lost touch, and one day in a Kroger, here this guy is. I don't see him, he sees me, comes up and I'm like WHOA!!! DUDE! What the hell have you been up to???? And he's gotten into local TV production, gotten a good gig doing both salaried and freelance work, married this gorgeous local model/actor, this cat's doing well for himself, so I ask him, you still play??? and he says, nah, I gave it up after I damn near went broke on a Tijuana Brass cover band. Oh REALLY??? Tell me more... And he's all like, yeah, I got investors, I got uniforms, I got charts, I made a top-shelf demo, man, I got photos, COLOR photos, spent everybody's money, got the TOTAL package ready and then took it to the streets. I'm thinking, hey, this is Dallas, cheese capitol of North America, I'm gonna clean up with country clubs and anniversaries and Cinco De Mayo For White People gigs, ANYPLACE where people would want to LOVE to remember HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS. Yeah, and? Not one call. Not one. NOT ONE GODDAMN CALL...(long pause...) I THOUGHT THERE WAS A MARKET!!!! Ok, I tried not to laugh too much, because this was obviously bringing back bad memories. But try is all I could do. And to this day, whenever I see an obviously and spectacularly bad miscalculation about product, that's my go to line - I THOUGHT THERE WAS A MARKET!!!! True story.

Not unrealistic to imagine a successful bandleader with a pretty serious (or so it's been said) cocaine hobby not quibbling too much with Morris Levy.

Yeah, I figured as much. So...Michael did his own vault-theft to do Woody a solid? I know, don't ask...

This stuff? but not recorded by Rudy, so...I don't ahve a discography, but there were actual attempts by alfred to do a Woddyshawrecord? That is interesting!

Is that the stuff ("demos"?) that later came out on Muse, or something else?

Well, also that the wider hub will stretch the tape less over time, possibly. Wider radius and all that stuff.

I've always looked at it as Alpert giving John Pisano a chance at some some real revenue. which, btw, would have been a real solid thing to do, like giving somebody a B-Side of a 45. Pays the same as the A-Side...or paid the same, I should say.

PLUS - the first NFL team (that I know of) who utilized that palate/color spectrum on their uniforms. VERY unusual at the time!

I heard about a far-later bacaharach solo conducting gig where he was trying to get the trumpet soloist to get that sound, and his alleged direction was to "play it like fog, like mist....LIKE HERB ALPERT..." and you know to most trumpet players that's like a knife in the back and gut all at once, and quite understandably so, but still, that's what it is. No matter how cheezy (and not the taco kind) that shit was, Herb Alpert did have a sound. Personally, the TJB stuff pretty much sucks to me (I mean, crap, it was between-innings music in the Astrodome in its first years, that's how long it's been grating on my nerves), but to deny that there is a sound there is just foolish. And a sound is nothing more than a tool with which to construct. So Christ, Herb Alpert might well have been one of Burt Bacarach's muses, right? I think that that sound has some very useful uses (sic), see Gary McFarland, but the TJB themselves? YUCK!!!!!

No reason NOT to consider it reel-to-reel, that's exactly what it is. It's just a bigger hub to make it look fancier and also like there's more tape on it than there really is.

Well, for this record anyway, it's like he's mostly there for ensemble color and occasional solo relief. It's really more of a "trombone quartet" record with an occasional tenor coloration than it is anything else, and it's a pretty darn nice quartet!

Moore is unobtrusive enough.

Cool Herb, Mean Herb...