DrJ

Given Kevin's recent posting about SWEET HONEY BEE appearing as an RVG in Spring 2004, perhaps they have similar plans for the stellar RIGHT TOUCH eventually. One can only hope...

That's interesting, didn't know about that one GoM. Maybe KOCH or somebody would eventually get that out. There are some real gems lurking in Columbia's 70's jazz catalog - still some Blythe that hasn't seen CD, and Joann Brackeen's great albums for Tappan Zee, and Bill Watrous' two stellar big band dates (MANHATTAN WILDLIFE REFUGE and TIGER OF SAN PEDRO) just to name a few.

Thanks for the opinions on the music, guys. It is a Van Gelder recording, so I'm assuming it's worthy of the upgrade. Think I'll go ahead and take the plunge!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I have the JJ and Hodges. I would have predicted my liking the JJ set more, and it is in fact outstanding, but the Hodges has turned out to be one of my favorite Mosaics. The music is stellar - I have a copy of the earlier Hodges Mosaic, and while it's good, I prefer this box of slightly later material by quite a large margin. Best Hodges I've heard as a leader, hands down. And the sound quality is gorgeous. A great box - don't miss it. 'Course, my REAL advice would be to buy the JJ first (next to the BN's, this is my favorite JJ), and THEN the Hodges and THEN the Stitt, since that's probably the order they'll go OOP and you'll eventually want them all.

I've been eyeing the DVD-A version of this Red Rodney classic recording. Anyone have it who can vouch for the sound quality in comparison to a straight CD reissue?

Well, I miss a few days on the board and come back to something like THIS! Great news, thanks Chuck. A new baby, new vintage Parker and Gillespie - does it get any better? Can't wait for this pending Uptown release!

Been getting quick listens in to a piece here and there between feedings, burpings, and diaper changes (er...the new baby's, not mine!). Wonderful, just great. Worth every penny. Excellent sound, nice packaging, but the music is of course king. Fresh.

It is very cool, Aric, I like it as well as the material in the Mosaic box for sure.

There was a recent thread with some discussion on Rikers: Elmo Hope thread A lot of stuff pieced together from heresay and liners...Chuck, are you in the know about what actually went down in terms of running the session, whether Hope/the others were exploited by Frey, etc?

Wow! This is sounding ever more promising. Hopefully people will send Mosaic some e-mails about this...

Congratulations Vajerzy! What a wonderful feeling being a daddy is. Yesterday Alex and I did our first jazz listening session - we did a kind of memorial to Benny Carter. I figure you might as well start with a true master and someone who embodies the whole history of the music. I played some selections from his 1930's material (including the stuff with Hawkins and Django), then Keynote sessions, Capitol big band recordings, Granz dates with Oscar Peterson, ASPECTS (United Artists) to capture his "studio work" period, and finally the wonderous FURTHER DEFINITIONS (Impulse!), one of my favorite jazz recordings. He dug it, if kicking and looking around was any indication!

Thanks sincerely, everyone, for the good wishes. Home from the hospital today - not much sleep these past 3 days, but a whole lot of silly grins between us! To answer a question posed above, his name is Alexander. Not a family name or anything, we just liked it as well as the shorter "Alex" (the nickname is the downfall of many otherwise perfectly good names, IMHO) and especially appreciated the fact that it has equivalents in just about all of our ethnicities (between Lisa and I we have Italian, Croatian, Mexican, Filipino, English, and Irish represented...so Alejandro, Alessandro, Alexei, etc). Won't be checking in much in near future, I can tell - it's taken me all day to get to this brief post and it's now 8:30 PM - but will when I get a chance. Back to the fun for now...

Our first child, a son, was born on Tuesday at 5:40 AM. 8 lbs 11 oz and very vigorous! Mom, dad, and baby all doing well. Just wanted to share this wonderful, exhilirating news!

Whoah! I know NOTHING of these but they sound really interesting! Hope others will chime in.

I need to hear more Jordan, but CLIFF CRAFT (BN), THESE ARE MY ROOTS (Atlantic), and LIVE AT ETHELL'S (Mapleshade) are my personal favorites of his so far. The latter is a remarkably good live recording, too, agree with Mike Weill's comments above. As a sideman: his turn on Art Farmer's BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH (Contemporary) could hardly be bettered.

I think this is a good example of how rumors get started. Dickerson, from what I can see on the liner notes, was NOT actually listed as a producer on SOUNDS FROM RIKERS ISLAND - he simply appeared to help get the record made by having the initial idea and conversing about it with the producer, and MAY have provided a service somewhat akin to musical director (the liners are vague on this). All Music Guide has him listed as a producer, but the liners DO NOT ever say that. The person who I'm sure was the actual producer, clearly mentioned in the liners, was Sid Frey. His name (NOT Dickerson's) IS in fact co-listed on some of the tracks written by Hope, so it is certainly possible that HE tried to make off with some of the dough (although certainly I think he ought to be considered innocent until proven guilty - maybe there were reasons behind this). I listed this in my initial posting of the liners, but I guess people missed it. Personally, I doubt very much Dickerson would have been involved with any such shenanigans, whether producing or (as it turns out in this case) not. I just wanted to make sure to clarify that Dickerson WAS NOT listed as a co-composer on those tracks, because I don't want to be responsible for besmirching the name of someone who seems to be brimming with musical and personal integrity. Dmitry: As I also mentioned above but probably should have elaborated on - SOUNDS OF SYNANON (Pacific Jazz), which has Joe Pass on guitar and Arnold Ross on piano, is a similar deal - bunch of folks who were actively addicted to drugs at the time, but it even kind of goes one better, being recorded while the musicians were still ensconsed in rehab at the Synanon facility. Kind of a "rehab house band." That album was actually recorded a little earlier than Hope's, so it actually may have been the first to start a very small "trend." Can still be had as a Japanese TOCJ CD reissue from last year. Excellent music, not included on the Joe Pass Mosaic unfortunately.

I only have FANFARE but agree with Jim's assessment wholeheartedly on that one.

Well, Tom in RI, it may sound insulting without knowing the details. But the concept and motivation behind the session were certainly not intended to be exploitive or degrading. As noted above, Walt Dickerson was one of the prime movers behind this album getting made, working with producer Sid Frey on the concept and lining up the musicians. The liner notes I can make out on RIKERS - written by the always classy Nat Hentoff - tell a very different story than one of exploitation or insulting premises: "A major catalyst in the production of this album is Walt Dickerson...the album was first conceived during a conversation between Frey and Dickerson. They were talking about those musicians who had "problems" - a euphemism for those who have had to divide their energy and spirit between music and such exacerbating preoccupations as addiction or other conflicts with societal norms which have brought them for varying periods of time to Rikers Island and similar waystops. It was Frey's contention that adding to the pressures of a jazz musician is the fact that 'often, a musician's worth in this society is not judged by his ability as a musician, but by his ability to sell liquor.' A further negative factor in some jazzmen's failure to retain an emotional center of gravity are the conditions under which they often work - 'Some of them,' said Frey, 'become easier victims because of the places where they're forced to make a living -and they don't even make a good living. For some, the circle of frustration and anxiety is exceedingly hard to break.' It should be noted, of course, that most jazzmen do survive without yielding part of themselves to the shadows. Addiction, for example, is much less prevalent in jazz than it was during the 1940's, but it does still exist. And addiction outside of jazz continues to exist. Something vital is wrong with the way this society treats addicts and, for that matter, with the way it handles most of those who have broken its laws. As Hal Hollister, an expert on the problem from the inside, wrote in HARPER'S: 'Measured strictly on performance, the American penal system is a scandalous flop as a correctional institution. This conclusion is unarguable because more than two-thirds of the population of the country's 'correctional' institutions are 'repeaters' - that is, inmates who have received the prescribed treatment, but were not corrected.' In any case, the 'outsiders' among us have a very rough time getting back in. 'I felt,' says Walt Dickerson, 'that the public should be made more aware of the existance of this kind of problem; and more specifically, the public should be aware of the kinds of pressures in jazz - including economics - which make it so difficult for some musicians to get back inside society.' Dickerson himself has not been in trouble with the law, but he sees the problem of the outsider every day and every night. 'What I hope this album will bring about,' says Dickerson, 'is a greater awareness among these people who can do something about the wase of talent now lurking in the shadows. Some program - or programs - should be set up so that musicians with proven ability can work with a minimum of economic pressure. At least some part of the music business can be reorganized and revitalized so that a man with something to say musically can have a chance to perform without that kind of persistent scuffling which drains his spirit.'" There's a lot more, but too much for me to hand-type in from a microprint photocopy - you get the gist. Hentoff goes on to talk about Dickerson's (and his) convictions about the way people with drug habits were treated as criminals in the U.S., rather than the more favorable approach involving treating them as patients, exemplified by Great Britain at that time. Then they get to the music. Personally, I find this all anything BUT exploitive. It's refreshing to see one of the major social problems dogging jazz and American society was being dealt with out in the light, with great reason and candor and a refreshing lack of judgementalism. And great to see a producer working with a thoughtful, respected musician like Dickerson to give some guys trying to get their lives restarted a chance to play and record and earn some money. Certainly, nobody "incarcerated" the musicians in the studio and forced them to play on the record, so I doubt THEY felt insulted. The SOUNDS OF SYNANON (Pacific Jazz) album with Joe Pass is one of the only other examples of this kind of thing I can think of, and on that album the notes (by Joe Tynan) are equally candid and interesting. I personally disagree with some of Dickerson and Hentoff's assertions, but their case is articulately stated, with an absence of lurid sensationalism, and much of what they say was dead-on true and remains so today. Too bad Hope never turned it around, but at least he had some folks giving him a chance.

I'm a Mosaic nut, so I would definitely say the Chico Hamilton because it's on their Running Low list and will be gone for good (unless you want to pay E-bay prices) soon. This is a box filled with excellent music, always great for when you're in the mood for something different than the standard fare of the era - and it sounds like that is what you're looking for. The ensemble work is wonderful - quiet but adventurous, and I've come to realize by listening to this box that Fred Katz was really a very neglected talent. You can also listen to the box and enjoy just for the percussion clinic Hamilton puts on, a very musical and subtle drummer. And if you're a jazz guitar fan, Jim Hall is captured in great form on the earlier dates. Excellent sound, with transfers and remastering by Malcom Addey. Very unlikely we'll see the majority of these sessions reissued any time soon as single CDs, certainly not with the excellent liners etc. If you're not 100% sure you want to take the plunge with a $96 set, you might check out the single CD ORIGINAL ELLINGTON SUITE (Pacific Jazz) from a couple years back. It's NOT collected in the box because they hadn't located any masters for it at the time the Mosaic box was created. Then as I recall someone found a test pressing in a record store in a small town in England - go figure! But it's from the same era and is an alternate version of the Ellington Suite contained in the box and features a young Eric Dolphy in the line up. Despite that difference, the general sound of the music and approach is very much like what's in the box - excellent. I don't have the Holman et al and Wilson sets yet as I tend to pick Mosaics up in order, from oldest up, but can definitely vouch for the excellence of the Tristano et al box. Still, it's likely to be around longer than the Hamilton, so go for Chico!

Goodbye, Benny - no words could do justice to the countless gifts you've given us all.

Jim, that one is indeed a howler. As I recall, the Penguin Guide guys said in at least one edition of their Guide to Jazz that it makes Parker look like "a hip dentist from Barksdale." Funny that Savoy is now reissuing some of the stuff just reissued by 32 Jazz because they certainly had their share of bad covers. There's the one you reproduce, plus my personal "favorite":

So, with Mary McGoon correctly pointing out that the Hall/Desmond has already been out on Mosaic, and so far a dearth of "modern" jazz recordings being mentioned, it appears this could be evolving toward a traditional jazz focused box...again, personally I'd also be happy if they had different styles represented, but a traditional jazz focus would be fine with me and might be easier to market. Hopefully others will keep chiming in - even if Mosaic never does a WB box, it is nice to know what to hunt for out there in the vinyl bins!

Funny Jim, the title list you provide from the label of the vinyl is the exact same screwed-up listing they used on the CD! What happened, indeed!