DrJ

A technical question - is it worth trading in my French RCA 2 CD edition of this session from a few years ago for the USA Bluebird 2-fer? There appear to be quite a few additional tracks on the U.S. version but they also are all false starts and incomplete takes...anything illuminating? Sound quality comparison? The French version sounds fantastic as is, and my inclination has been to hold off on "upgrading."

I'm diggin' it!

I would never have picked Lester Young as a major influence on Desmond, whether via his clarinet or tenor playing. Sure, there's a vague kind of connection there, just as there is between Lester and almost every single jazz reed player who followed him, but nothing more than that. They both played long flowing lines with a beautiful and at times almost fragile tone, which I guess may make for some understandable comparisons based on surface similarity, but beyond that their approach to playing, especially harmonically and in developing ideas during solos, couldn't be any more different as far as I can hear. Likewise, I agree with danasgoodstuff that Konitz and Desmond are only VERY superficially similar, and highly doubt either was influenced much by the other. I think unless you're a musician, you have to become more familiar with each man's styles to begin to appreciate the differences but when you do you'll be surprised you ever considered them to be that close together (or at least that's the way it worked for ME!). There's a lot of parallel development in jazz (or in aspects of various players' styles) that I think sometimes gets misattributed to influence of one player on another. I tend to listen carefully to the players' account of who they were influenced by -even if you can't "hear" it initially in the obvious ways, once you live with their music for a while, you may start to pick up some of the ways they've worked the other person's stuff into their own concept. So Pete Brown, I'm intrigued, thanks for the bios Lon!

Thanks for the detailed reply, Kevin. I have been quite pleased with my DV45-A, nothing wrong with it at all and phenomenal value for cost ratio, but like you I am looking for a step up. I'll certainly give the higher end Pioneer player a very careful look. Thanks also for the surround speaker suggestions - that was my thought too, go with full range speakers throughout. Currently in our family room home theater I have some really nice Cambridge Soundworks Newton MultiPole S300's. These are three-way, have four-speaker cones, and three dispersion settings via an easy switch: direct, bipole and dipole. So you get lots of mileage out of these, with each setting sounding better for a specific application (e.g. some sound better with old Dolby ProLogic signals, some with 5.1, some with SACD/DVD-A). However, they are small speaker cones and they're still rather weak for SACD/DVD-A, obviously not going to reproduce the full spectrum like a full size speaker, so I will probably leave those where they are and go the type of route you recommend for the listening room. I can put all the speakers at proper placement the listening room too without worring about messing up the family room decor...my rear surrounds in the family room are also mounted about 6 feet up the wall and way too far behind the listening spot, just based on room layout and esthetics! It really saps the audio potential of the system, I have to sit in JUST the right spot to even HEAR the surrounds most of the time...

David, my sincere condolences to you and your family.

I got my Sonys for around $400, they list for much more but you can easily find them for about what I paid. I have not used a headphone amp. The Sonys are apparently easier to drive efficiently at low output than some of the other top end headphones...I bought them planning to use them only temporarily with just the headphone jack on my receiver, but have since decided to forget about a headphone amp all together since they sound so good without one. I'm sure there'd probably be an incremental improvement with a headphone amp, but it's not worth it to me right now, maybe sometime in the future.

Clem, you're dead on with the Rundgren influence on Prince. I hear it in many ways, particularly as far as both men in their earlier years: 1.The insularity (especially in the early years) - guys holed up with their studio gear making great pop 2. A certain similar worldview - jaundiced, perverse, funny, downright odd 3. De-emphasis of the bass line - this has always freaked me out about Prince especially, here's a funkateer, playing some incredibly intelligent and danceable music, yet on albums like DIRTY MIND the bass is tinny and almost non-existent, and then on 1999 and PURPLE RAIN and even up to SIGN O THE TIMES, whole songs have NO BASS LINE AT ALL and even on those that do it's often skeletal. Check it out if you don't believe me - "Raspberry Beret," "Little Red Corvette," "When Doves Cry," nearly all of the great singles from the heydey, NO BASS. Yet even though nobody's playing bass, his writing is so hip that the bass line is strongly implied, and the lack of an actual line allows a sophisticated musical ear to run wild filling one in that is probably far more interesting than what would have been there anyway. Really cool. Anyway, Rundgren's arrangements are often much the same in that regard, bass is there but way de-emphasized. 4. When they did assemble bands they did so very cannily, going for less than obvious but outstanding choices Gotta disagree with you about DIAMONDS AND PEARLS, love it, love it, love it. Not generally a compilation man and it's flawed in many ways - friggin' EDITS of all the singles - but that Prince 3 CD collection of hits and misses and obscurities/B sides is in constant rotation in our car player on road trips, just right for that. Someone at Warner (or Rhino) needs to make peace with Prince and do a comprehensive box.

All the phones being mentioned are compared with the Sony MDRCD3000's on the review links page I posted above, and the Sonys stacked up very favorably (in most cases they were preferred over the others). Not trying to hard sell anyone, not like I own stock or anything, but I would strongly recommend that people not be put off by the fact that this is a Sony product, it's top notch and quite high end. I did personally directly compare them with the Grado RS1 and the Sonys won, hands down, for sound and comfort...RS1 won out only in the "cool looks" category, but that was of secondary concern!

Well, 2 more Mosaics now sold! Thanks for the heads up on this, Reinier (didn't doubt you but just wanted to make sure before shelling out the dough!).

A pretty remarkable ear had Mr. Coltrane. Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for the additional info, Jacknife! The speaker placement site is interesting.

I just read a couple reviews on this one and it's makin' my mouth water. There is mention about not all speakers being "tube friendly" - what is your speaker set up, jacknife, and do you have any words of wisdom in selecting speakers for tube amps?

Thanks for the recs so far, folks...I'm keeping track of all of them and doing research, giving each very serious consideration. Will ultimately post on decisions and hopefully add some photos to the growing gallery of audio geek images on the board! Please, KEEP 'EM COMING! Lon, thanks for reminding me about the Decware stuff, I know you'd given me a link to a universal player a while back that looked mighty tempting...the pricing on these seems incredibly fair. mgraham333 - I've been consistently amazed at the audio quality of my Denon AVR-3300 receiver, really outstanding considering it's a home theater-oriented rig. They were very forward thinking with things like including 6 direct ins well before SACD became commonplace, having a direct pass to allow turntable signals to bypass the digital downsampling circuitry, etc. It also has a PCM switch that allows one to get the full benefit of higher resolution CDs (a feature I didn't even discover until last year, after having had it for several years!). Clearly they were aiming at folks like me, who wanted great listening and also needed home theater capability - and it's not going anywhere as far as the family room surround sound theater set up goes, will hopefully be a mainstay for at least a few more years. A longwinded way of saying given my happiness with that product I'll give their universal player a VERY careful look for my listening room! One question for you about the Denon - when you were buying, did you compare it against the less expensive Pioneer DV45-A? That's the universal player I currently have. Would be interested in your comments if you did.

Reinier: Can you elaborate a bit on this - where did you get your info? Is it straight from Mosaic or is this well-informed speculation? It's an important distinction to me, because if you have it from Mosaic that this is the case, I will be pulling the trigger on the VeeJay sets very soon. Thanks in advance for clarifying.

That Columbia NEW YORK SESSIONS is indeed great - and unlike many of the earlier Columbia / Legacy CD reissues, the remastering is excellent. Still having said that, Hayes' playing does wear a bit thin on my ears over extended listens. It's probably my own inadequacy rather than anything "wrong" with his playing, but those long long lines with few breathing pauses are exhausting after a while! Kind of like listening to Art Tatum on piano, a few tracks at a time is the best way to really appreciate that kind of thing for us mere mortals. I really like the two Emarcy live CDs mentioned below also.

Claude is right about the stereo mix on TOMMY TURRENTINE, it's WAY extreme...but I also had a prior Japanese CD issue of this, and it must be somehow preserved that way on the original tapes, definitely not something Hoffman did just for this reissue. The sound upgrade otherwise is phenomenal, and musically I like this one a lot more than Claude (although must admit it had to grow on me).

Label: Glory, number: 292

That's the same as THE WAY IT WAS then.

Chuck, I'm not sure if by "highs went away" you mean that somehow blow impacted on their ability to hear in the higher end of the range, but if so, that would definitely explain the sound on APOGEE as I hear it. Never heard the LP, but even on CD, which I'm sure has been improved, it's almost painfully bright and brittle sounding. Musically, for people who are contemplating taking the plunge, this is a good one, easily worth it for die hard fans of jazz tenor and/or Marsh, although to me the parts are way greater than the sum. For example, it's fascinating to hear the contrast between Christlieb and Marsh's playing styles, but the music doesn't really sound like a compelling group effort beyond the almost unbelievably tight interwoven playing by the tenors on the heads. Marsh sounds much more in sync with what's going on with the rhythm section here than Christlieb, who often sounds as though he's wandered into the wrong session. Other than his playing on pop records like with Steely Dan, I'm not that familiar with Christlieb, but on the evidence here his playing, while technically amazing, sounds like more bluster and emoting than deep substance. It's almost comical sometimes when set alongside Marsh's way more lived-in and mature playing. Listen to the opening track and the contrast (both in temperment and musical quality) between the two tenor solos and you'll see what I mean...I literally burst out laughing in delight, listening in the car on the way home, as the music moves to a whole other level when Marsh comes in and starts working his idiosyncratic magic after Christlieb has spent several minutes gratuitously napalming the studio.

Couldn't find CONQUISTADOR at my local store, which I went in seeking, so picked up NEVER LET ME GO instead - and it's sounding mighty fine in this RVG remastering! Love what these RVGs do with the BN organ jazz dates, it's either the 24 bit process or something that just allows layers more of the B-3's complex, lovely sound (particularly the bottom end) to show through. This always has been one of my fave of Stanley's albums with Shirley Scott, they just sound sooooo relaxed and in the pocket.

Wow, great news about the Reuben Wilson date! Hadn't heard about that. Have the Eddie Gales, they're terrific reissues!

We're moving, to a bigger place, 1st week of May. One of the many great things about the new place is that I finally get a dedicated music listening room! In the short term, I'll be using some stuff I have on hand to fill in there (the main surround system will remain in the living room), but over the next months to couple of years, I plan to assemble a nice dedicated music listening set-up (no home theater doubling!). That's where you good people come in! There's so much collective audio wisdom and experience here that I'd be crazy not to tap into it and get some ideas for optimal setup. Room dimensions are 11.5 x 14 feet, and probably the speakers will be oriented in the longer direction. The floor is going to be hardwood, but will have a large area rug to dampen reflections. The windows (2, relatively small), will have fabric blinds to further dampen reflections. I'm keeping a very open mind for now to any suggestions, although I have some things I'm interested in. This includes a range of costs. I'm not so much worried about all but the most expensive gear costing "too much," but I am very much interested in getting the most bang for buck - I don't have a deep need to have the most expensive option for each element, I just want great sounding stuff. SO - I'd like to get a range of opinions on any or all the following planned elements - what would you go for if you had the money and opportunity to do it? 1. Amplifier (I seldom listen to the radio and can do so in the family room when I do, so won't have any need for a tuner). I'm open to all options - tube, etc. 2. SACD/DVD-A/CD ("universal") player (I would like a top quality combo player - I know you can get high end CD players that probably sound better but it's just not going to be an option, at least for now). The new Teac Esoteric player looks VERY nice, great write up in Downbeat recently. 3. Speakers. Since I will have SACD and would enjoy the option of surround, I need recs on front, center, and rear speakers. 4. Cables/connectors - what's your poison? 5. Other gear - can include racks, comfy chairs, and other accountrements (nothing is too silly to mention if you feel it enhances your listening experience). I am sticking with my current turntable so no suggestions needed there. So have at it - please, help me get set up real good!

Sounds like this will be my chance to delve full tilt into Ayler's music. I've dabbled - I have the Impulse! live 2CD set, SPIRITUAL UNITY, and have heard some of the other Impulse! stuff - but not enough. Will definitely be picking up the box, hopefully at a decent price!

I think Chuck is talking about metal groups that have the umlaut over one of the letters in their name (usually the O)! Funny stuff, Chuck! Seriously, though, Husker Du never really belonged in that category. Mould wrote some great pop tunes, they were just filtered through an enlightened garage band filter that was this band. Fun stuff. I always felt that the claims of their decline with WAREHOUSE were more based on biases against indie bands going to major labels than musically based. It's a fantastic album, by far their most consistent from song to song, and it has for me their crowning pop heaven achievement, "Friend, You've Got to Fall" with those amazing 60's California AM radio single harmonies layered over the guitar mayhem. They also did a good job avoiding the overproduction trap, it still sounds nice and raw. Before that album, in retrospect to me they were primarily a great singles band - none of their albums, including critic favorites like ZEN ARCADE, really hold interest over their full length, at least now for me. In fact ZEN ARCADE as an album may be one of the most overrated of all time - mostly overblown sludge and experimentation that doesn't come off. At least with the next few, especially NEW DAY RISING and FLIP YOUR WIG, they got back to doing what they did best, writing short pop gems. Nice, concise, melodic stuff like "I Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely," "Flexible Flyer," "Makes No Sense At All," "Never Talking to You Again," and the aforementioned covers of "Eight Miles High" and the Mary Tyler Moore theme, are 80's alt rock pinnacles. CANDY APPLE GREY has some of their best and worst tunes. In the former: "Hardly Getting Over It" is another masterpiece, not a "single" type tune but still brilliant, and "Eiffel Tower High" is sheer catharsis.

The Billy Mitchell really blew me away, I need to hear more of him. Archie Shepp's ATTICA BLUES is fantastic. One of my favorite of his Impulse! dates. "Steam" is groovy, a great lost FM soul hit! I'm picking up the Lateef today - the stereo LP copy I have sounded good and I'm expecting even better based on Lon's comments. Musically, it's first rate, perhaps his best Impulse! date. I agree that his tenor playing is very strong on this one. I'll just also mention a couple that others haven't. Alice Coltrane - UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS - whoah! Heavy stuff. I like Dizzy's AFRO a lot too - have to be in the mood, but when you want intense, driving, downright exhilirating music, this is your ticket!