DrJ

Yes, I think you're right Lon. But I could have sworn I saw two separate ones - one that had the cover they used on the U.S. CD that brought all the material together, and one with the green cover. You're right though, in both cases there was just the original 10" tracks, no extras.

Yes, another good one - had forgotten, thanks Joe. Any others out there?

I agree, it's quite good in the version I have (straight Polydor reissue CD from 1991). Not complaining, glad to have it! But the music is so good and the recording would lend itself to the newer format, I think. I also think the idea of there potentially being vault material that could be included is an interesting one with records as perfect as this one...on one hand, it would be great to hear, but on the other it's almost better not to hear it unless it's equally wonderful. To sustain a comparison, I understand the main reason BN has never released any of the outtakes from OUT TO LUNCH is that they are (at least per Cuscuna) pretty awful. I wouldn't be surprised - again, the original album makes it all sound so easy but what they do on that album defies all laws of science and reason. On any other day, it might never have gelled. And so it is with EXTRAPOLATION. At very least, if there is other music from the EXTRAPOLATION sessions to get out, I am hoping they would never alter the sequence of the original tracks.

Interesting! And if you were able to increase the resolution of the COOL STRUTTIN' cover photograph, you'd be able to make out Stanley Turrentine's reflection in that hubcap just in front of Ruth's leg...see, they were on a tight budget, so Stanley was crouching down just to the left of where the STRUTTIN' photo ends, as they were trying to get the "reflection in car chrome" type of effect later used on the front of his JOYRIDE album at the same time they were capturing Ruth's legs. Wolff hoped to crop the shot into two separate ones later, but it didn't come out so they had to reshoot Stanley and THAT was the shot used on the cover of JOYRIDE...

EXTRAPOLATION is just wonderful, totally agree with the assessment that it's a timeless classic. It's over before you even know it, listening is so much fun and yet not without its challenges. Very hard to do that. It has the same sort of impact on me (albeit with a different musical vibe) as Eric Dolphy's OUT TO LUNCH - the musicians make it sound so perfect and easy, yet albums as coherent, fresh, challenging, and consistently great as these only come around once in a blue moon. About due for a deluxe reissue, wouldn't you say? Would make a very nice hybrid SACD.

Nope, haven't seen anything about this yet. Just visited the Columbia/Legacy site but nothing there - I got the news from Jazzmatazz site. Knowing Columbia, the release date of August 12 for CARAVANSERAI, MOONFLOWER, WELCOME, and LOVE/DEVOTION/SURRENDER are somewhat approximate and will probably change. Hoping there's some good extras - under the list of these titles on Jazzmatazz it just says "expanded editions." Tease, tease, tease!

Late - unless I'm totally mistaken, I think there were a couple of Japanese RVG's of the early Elmo Hope material issued by Blue Note...I remember seeing them at Tower in Mountain View, CA. Anyone else confirm that? I passed on them, just based on cost considerations, but agree it would be wonderful if they could get this stuff out in better sound in the U.S. Also, the Japanese discs were straight reissues of 10" albums, so no bonus tracks as I recall, and with a U.S. issue they could get all the music out. I do think the sonic upgrades of the Doug Hawkins stuff have indeed been the most remarkable ones in the RVG series so far.

I now keep a post-it in my copy with the correct listing. It's pretty apparent from the liner note descriptions of the tunes, but a pain in the arse to refigure each time you sit down to listen, I got tired of recreating the wheel every time: 1. A Night in Barcelona 2. Goin' Down South 3. Procession 4. Ummh 5. Jazz 6. Prints Tie

I just wonder if this might be an interesting Mosaic box...and one that could be achievable, since Mosaic seems to be on good terms with Time/Warner labels (putting out the Duke Reprise box not too long ago, and some of their Atlantic label collections, for example). This idea was triggered by reading about Matty Matlock's series of traditional jazz recordings made for the label in the 50's in All Music Guide. They sound intriguing, taking the Bob Crosby Bobcats configuration and expanding it to include 6 horns. For example, on AND THEY CALLED IT DIXIELAND (1958), some great musicians like George Van Eps (guitar), Nick Fatool (drums), Eddie Miller (Tenor) and Shorty Sherock (trumpet) are on board. They all look good and are highly evaluated by AMG at least. Along the same line, there's a nice Eddie Condon called THAT TODDLIN' TOWN I have a CD-R of, thanks to a fellow board member. Pee Wee Russell, George Wettling, Max Kaminsky, Bud Freeman, and others on that one. Fine music. I have looked on the Web extensively and can't seem to find any kind of comprehensive listing of Warner Brothers jazz recordings from the 50's and 60's. I know of a few very fine ones though - the Dollar Brand Trio's first U.S. recording (sponsored by Duke Elllington) which is a neglected gem, and the Ben Webster date that were reissued by Warners a while back, for example. I also have CHICO HAMILTON WITH STRINGS, which is an excellent example of his approach with the group that had Dennis Budimir, Fred Katz and Eric Dolphy...that one I don't think has seen "legit" CD reissue, although I think Fresh Sounds had it out for a time. I would think there would HAVE to be some others...but not so many that they couldn't be collected into a reasonably sized Mosaic. Seems like a perfect project for Mosaic if so, because Warner just seems to have very little to no interest in getting their jazz material from that era reissued and it would collect a lot of otherwise "isolated" and unjustly obscure music. The recording fidelity on these Warner dates was excellent also - reminiscent of the big, warm Capitol records sound from the same era. The range of styles represented might argue for separate collections, but I would like to see 'em all in one place, with stylistic shifts simply represented by different discs within the set. Anyone in the know about the Warner classic era jazz recordings who could provide a listing of some others? Any enthusiasm for this idea?

Hi Gigolo, Too bad the old Blue Note Bulletin Board archives are not available right now, 'cause boy was THIS issue discussed at length! Suffice to say that there are very real differences between the RVG and non-RVG reissues, that much everyone agrees on, but personal taste dictates preference. I'm assuming you mean U.S. RVGs - Japanese versions are a different story, much spottier in terms of sonic quality in my view although there are some stunning ones (e.g. the Sonny Clark Trio complete 2CD set). I tend to prefer the RVG's way far over all but the most recent non-RVG Blue Note/affiliated labels 24-bit remasterings by Malcolm Addy (for example, his job on the recent Basie CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD reissue is nothing short of stunning). Newer McMasters are OK, not bad, but they just don't do it for me - it's a style thing, I don't like his work very much. Everything sounds tinny and tiny, even though there may be a little more "dynamic headroom." I agree the RVGs sound a little heavier on the midrange, but I find the high end roll-off makes the music sound more natural, more like being in a club or listening to vinyl - not that harsh, sibilant "brightness" that is associated with CD. The bass is much fuller to my ears, too. Whether RVG achieves this with compression or not, I'm really not sure, but it doesn't sound OVERLY "compressed" to me as it does to many. I also notice that I can listen to RVGs for a long time without getting ear fatigue, which is not true of all the McMasters up until the last couple years or so, and I think that's also due to lack of harshness in the high end. Finally, I prefer Rudy's soundstage - much deeper and less "panned" than the McMasters in particular, which are "shallow" and often (artificially) widely panned, especially the older ones. There have been a few "flubbed" RVGs where either he overdid it or the manufacturing process introduced a problem, but overall I am a huge fan of that series. Nice price point, too!

I am really looking forward to those Santana reissues coming up - especially CARAVANSERAI!

I'm reminded of Paul Desmond's story about how, during his long tenure with Brubeck, stewardesses all over the world would routinely ask him, "So, how many of you are there in the quartet?"

I've always loved this cover and photo, for some reason - the black and white, the simple font (which spells it out for us oh-so accurately!), the casual nature and fact Thad was captured away from the bandstand for a change of pace. Also really nice "NYC" feeling:

Come back SOON, Soul Stream, you hear? Otherwise, I might have to do a hostile take-over of your Big John Patton avatar!

Jim, it's hard for me to even make out the photocopied liners on my copy (I literally had to get a magnifier out to try!) but as far as I can see, there are no credits given for the lyric. However, the liners appear to say: "'Groovin' High' is in large part a vehicle for the intriguingly idiomatic scat singing of Mercelle Daniels, a vocalist for whom Hope has great respect. 'He's been around a long time,' Elmo observes, 'and he deserves a great deal more attention than he's received yet.'" Thus maybe Daniels (who doesn't appear to have a listing in the All Music Guide) came up with the lyrics, but again hard to know for sure. At any rate, I agree this is a hip album. Each song is approached with a lot of care in terms of varying arrangements and moods. It gets off to kind of an odd start with "One for Joe," not that I ever dislike hearing Philly Joe solo a bit but a little strange to lead off the album with a track that is predominantly Joe's vehicle...not necessarily bad, just odd. Hope contributes an absolutely heart-rending 3 minutes plus change of piano trio artistry on his own "Three Silver Quarters." There's a lot to like here, and I'm really glad in one sense to see Fresh Sounds getting this out so more people can hear it. From what I understand of their business practices, I personally generally try to avoid their stuff, but this is one instance where it's likely nobody else is "losing out" because the music has been languishing in the vaults for so many years, in the U.S. anyway.

John L - I hadn't either until it was featured sometime about a year ago in the "Vinyl Freak" column in Downbeat and given a nice write-up, which prompted me to try and get a copy. Speaking of that, not to be nitpicky but technically I guess it actually didn't belong there since the Japanese CD I have a CD-R of would disqualify it from being featured in that column, no? I guess maybe they are talking about stuff never released on CD in the U.S., not anywhere in the world. Just checked and the Fresh Sound reissue looks it's available at both CDNow and Red Trumpet. Dusty Groove has it listed but "out of stock," but my experience with them is for new releases they usually get them back in stock pretty quickly.

SOUNDS FROM RIKERS ISLAND - 1963 (I have a copy of the older CD from Audio Fidelity) is another fine Elmo Hope excursion, with John Gilmore on tenor and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Hard to find until recently, but I believe Fresh Sound has just reissued it on CD. Strong music. Hope fans, I'd suggest snapping it up before it disappears again.

I have had the same problem as Lon with the vinyl route - Jamal was really pretty popular and so most of the vinyl out there that is available at reasonable price is played out. To pay top dollar for all his many Argos on pristine vinyl is not something I care to do, personally. Plus, as Lon points out, in addition to his music really benefitting from a good digital remastering (Malcom Addy, anyone?), there has to be some unissued stuff. So I too am bummed to learn that there are legal tie-ups preventing a boxed set a la Mosaic or Universal...I've been asking for one from Mosaic for years, so I guess this helps to explain why they haven't appeared to have been listening! Come on you lawyers, plaintiffs, and defendants...SETTLE! SETTLE! SETTLE!

Maybe it's just that there was so much great music out in that time, but I actually think McCann was WAY overly critical. Christ, we're talking about glory period ART PEPPER and the freshness of the young ROLAND KIRK here, Les...clean the wax out! Actually, I'm just kiddin', he's certainly more than entitled to his opinion, knows his stuff and expresses himself well. It's both funny and kind of true to talk about some of the more boppish stuff as sounding "nervous" as he puts it. Clearly he's more a fan of laid back, soulful jazz - not surprising given his own style! But Pepper and Kirk, hey, we're talkin' about 2 of my favorites there. All I can say is if I'm at home "rating" those records alongside anything by Les McCann (not much of his stuff really floats my boat), I know who's going to come out WAY ahead!

Ghost, it includes the complete recorded contents of a Red Garland Trio gig at The Prelude, a NYC club, from Oct 2, 1959, 3 CDs worth of material with only a couple of titles repeated. Specs Wright is on drums and Jimmy Rowser on bass. Much of the music had been released on several LPs and then on I believe 3 CDs in the past, but this set brings it all together in a nice remastering and with 4 previously unissued tracks - 3 are definitely up to snuff, while a 4th is a false start so not really a big deal to have it in my view. I decided to pull the trigger because it seems quetionable to me whether Fantasy will issue this in the U.S., although they might. That would be good because the liners are in Japanese except for basics (musicians, track titles, producer, etc). I got mine by doing an Amazon search and then going with one of the partner discount retailers they often have selling things for less (in this case an outfit called Imported that gave excellent service): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/store...8861106-3659343 It's a bit pricey, but personally I think worth it. Others might want to wait to see if U.S. Fantasy gets it out for less.

Rooster, I hear ya in one sense. But having just listened again to the often remarkable "Wildflowers" loft sessions - originally produced by Alan Douglas and Michael Cuscuna from recordings made at Sam Rivers' fabled Rivbea loft and last reissued in complete form on Knit Classics as a 3-CD set that I HIGHLY recommend, I think the main problem was that the people running the record labels were, by and large, not listening to all the great stuff going down. And by that I mean the big labels. Either they were not recording it at all, or in someone like Joe's case, they sort of tried to make him into something he wasn't (and Joe by all accounts played along pretty willingly for a while, for reasons that I'm sure were good to him, but I'm glad he left some of the experiments behind relatively quickly!). That Wildflowers set is filled with amazing, creative music that still has clear ties with jazz tradition, yet my guess is only a handful of people on the board, let alone the rest of the world, have ever heard it. It was recorded right in NYC in 1976 over the space of about A SINGLE WEEK! (I can't imagine how much great music went down at Rivbea loft over the few years it was a thriving entity!) - right in the heart of the Gerald Ford "era" - and it took some young turks going down there with relatively crude equipment and production values to capture a host of the finest of the era doing the cutting edge thing. The list of musicians represented in this set is truly remarkable (cut and pasted from AMG, so I hold no responsibility for hilarious errors and typos, but you'll get the gist): Ahmed Abdullah - Trumpet Barry Altschul - Drums Hamiet Bluiett - Clarinet, Sax (Baritone) Charles Brackeen - Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor) Anthony Braxton - Alto, Clarinet, Sax (Alto), Contrabass, Contrabass Saxophone Marion Brown - Sax (Alto) Dave Burrell - Piano Jerome Cooper - Percussion, Drums, Saw Andrew Cyrille - Drums Anthony Davis - Piano Julius Hemphill - Sax (Alto) Michael Gregory Jackson - Performer Oliver Lake - Flute, Sax (Alto), Sax (Soprano) Byard Lancaster - Flute, Sax (Alto), Sax (Tenor) George Lewis - Performer Jimmy Lyons - Sax (Alto) Ken McIntyre - Flute, Sax (Alto) Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre - Performer Roscoe Mitchell - Sax (Alto) Sunny Murray - Drums Sam Rivers - Performer Randy Weston - Piano Khan Jamal - Vibraphone Stafford James - Bass Charles Bobo Shaw - Drums Wadada Leo Smith - Performer Abdul Wadud - Cello Richard Evans - Performer Fred Hopkins - Bass Steve McCall - Percussion, Drums, Performer Olu Dara - Trumpet, Flugelhorn David Murray - Performer Lyle Atkinson - Bass Alex Blake - Bass Joony Booth - Performer Hayes Burnett - Bass, Drums Butch Campbell - Guitar Stanley Crouch - Drums Teddy Daniel - Trumpet Jack Gregg - Bass Jerry Griffin - Drums Richard Harper - Piano Jerome Hunter - Bass Paul Maddox - Drums Gil Markle - Producer Famoudou Don Moye - Conga, Drums Bern Nix - Guitar Billy Patterson - Performer Jumma Santos - Conga, Drums Rashied Sinan - Drums Sonelius Smith - Piano Henry Threadgill - Sax (Alto) Andy Vega - Percussion, Conga Azzedin Weston - Conga Harold White - Drums Chris C. White - Bass, Bass (Electric), Performer Benny Wilson - Bass Harold Smith & the Majestics - Drums Phillip Wilson - Percussion, Drums Arthur Bennett - Sax (Soprano) Karen Borca - Bassoon Leo Smith - Trumpet Andrei Strobert - Percussion, Multi Instruments Henry Letcher - Performer David Ivy Ware - Sax (Tenor) Sunny Murray & Untouchable Factor - Performer Flight to Sanity - Performer Mahujaa - Performer Leroy Seals - Bass (Electric), Performer Maono - Performer Don Moye - Percussion, Conga, Drums George Lewis - Trombone In a lotta ways this is the lost generation of jazz greats in terms of major label documentation of what they were doing. Many/most are still thriving of course, but the times had changed since the classic BN era. The pioneers no longer had the ears of the general public OR, probably more importantly, the major labels. Sorry to digress, but there actually IS a link to the discussion at hand here: I think Joe's fate in the mid 70's-mid 80's - relative "obscurity" followed by a "come back" - reflects very little on the quality of his art during that time (save maybe 1 or 2 failed experiments with electronics, I'll admit, but hey, you can't blame a guy for trying to eat!), but rather on the economic and social circumstances at play in that era. When I listen to the Milestone box, he was mostly at the top of his game, certainly as a tenor saxophonist. And so it was for so many others. Hell, I read some interviews even into the 90's where Joe was pretty pissed off at Verve for not recording his trio stuff the way that BN had done with STATE OF THE TENOR and the way the Red label from Italy did a bit later, contemporary with some of the Verve "concept" albums - fine as they are and as much as I enjoy them, it is a shame that someone of Henderson's stature was STILL being told basically "here's what we will record." Thus, the three million "tribute" and "concept" and "all-star" CDs on the market, and the general dearth of anything resembling working bands except on independents (a few major exceptions exist of course).

Various - COMPLETE WILDFLOWER NYC LOFT JAZZ RECORDINGS (Knit Classics) Red Garland - COMPLETE AT THE PRELUDE - Disc 3 Chick Webb - STRICTLY JIVE (Hep) Grant Green - COMPLETE QUARTETS WITH SONNY CLARK - the GOODEN'S CORNER stuff Ike Quebec - EASY LIVING (BN Collectors Choice) Johnny Hodges - COMPLETE VERVE SMALL GROUPS, 1956-61 - Disc 3 Outside of jazz: CACHAITO (World Circuit) - nice recommendation Lon! Love that Mingus influence! Pavement - SLANTED AND ENCHANTED: LUXE AND REDUXE (Matador) Aimee Mann - BACHELOR NO. 2 (SuperEgo)

I got the Garland PRELUDE box last week and have been enjoying it immensely. He was in top form for sure. Just listened to "Satin Doll" from the 3rd set this afternoon, lots of fodder for musical quote-mongers in there! Too bad that the piano sounds as though it could have used the attention of a TEAM of tuners, though. With music this good, and a remastering and packaging this nice, it really does mar the experience a bit to have such a crappy piano captured for all of eternity.

Just beginning to scratch the surface of this cheese! I have CONTRASTS (Verve Master Edition) which is excellent, and that's it. I'm eagerly awaiting the supposedly upcoming Mosaic COMPLETE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS to delve into his music for real (Brownie, take note!): Garner Mosaic - Do a Search for "Garner" In Your Browser Once at the link I also need to start gathering all his Emarcy dates -wasn't there a series of releases that came out in the early 90's that covered the lot?

Yeah, that Altschul record is a killer. I know you know this Jim, but for those who haven't become acquainted with this excellent, rather neglecte gem: Sam Rivers, Muhal Richard Abrams, Dave Holland, and George Lewis (the modern trombone and compositional genius, not the old New Orleans clarinet master - lest there be any confusion ) round out the group...now THAT was a line-up made in heaven!