Joe M

Leibman selling in the same league as McCoy? No way. Not even close. I'd be willing to bet McCoy sells at least twice as many copies as Liebman of any new release in the last 10 years.

Carolyn Leonhart her new cd on Sunnyside "New 8th Day" is one of the finest jazz vocal albums this year.

Thanks.

Major name artists like Wynton, Lovano (some records), Wayne Shorter may move 15,000-20,000 units, but that's very rare these days.

No. Two words: Kenny Kirkland. Kenny's case is a tragic one, and there's stories of other current, high profile jazz musicians, having similar problems. But I don't think drug use in jazz today is any higher than it is in the general population.

Yes, thanks for the link to the other thread. A few of those, like the Jazzwise blog, don't seem to be active anymore. (an all too common fate).

I think there's a place for blogs, since they serve a different purpose than a BBS forum like this one. 600 posts a day is part of the problem. A good blog is something you check every day, once a day (or maybe you subscribe via RSS) and you get updates via email, and get the essence of what's going on, hopefully from someone who has something unique to say, or unique insights.

I want to know why they didn't do more with the DVD. It's not like the production values were too high! I'm sure there was a lot more material from the interview that could have been included.

It seems like there's blogs for everything these days, but I haven't seen many good jazz blogs. I've come across a few, but not nearly as many as I expected to find. So I started my own (where is that shameless self promotion thread?). Here's a few of the ones I've found: Red House Jazz Jazz and Conversation be jazz and here's my jazz blog JazzPortraits Jazz Blog I'm sure there must be many others - any suggestions?

Well, if musician XYZ only sold 1,000 copies of his new cd, rather than the 2,000 which he currently sells (you'd be surprised at sales figures for most jazz records) my cd collection would be worth a lot more! But seriously, why wouldn't anyone want jazz to be more popular. It would never be pop music, but I know these musicians and want to see them have success, and all too often, that's very difficult. I know one musician, who recently spent $25,000 on his cd project, of his own money, nice cd, good band, complete with a well respected guest star, and maybe sold a hundred records nationwide.

Benny Carter's Songbook session, with Benny, Joe Williams, Peggy Lee, Jon Hendricks, etc might be up there, but there's some younger people on that one too. Ellington's later big band sessions had to be up there as well.

A nice cd, again, what you would expect from guys of this level. Frank Wess's alto didn't quite sound right to me though. I'll give it another listen. Must have cost a fortune to make this record.

Fascinating! This will come out, you can be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a few years, due to issues with the estate.

Exaclty what you would expect from these guys, nothing more, nothing less. Classy stuff. Looking at the cover though, Scott is starting to show his years. He used to be the young lion, now the older veteran!

Gave it a quick listen last night. I'm not a huge fan of his alto work, and there's quite a bit of it on this record. Eric Harland sounds really good though.

Any more info on this. Previously unreleased???

The new one is better. Holland's skills with the arrangers pen have improved with time.

Both Freddie and Lee were BAMF's. Freddie has a lot of Coltrane in his playing. Lee not so much. Lee had a deeper blues feeling in his playing, Freddie less so. Check out their playing on Soulfinger (Blakey's record).

Info is available here: Link

I would call a compser who lacks focus just that. I'm not sure if it's necessary to have a different ensemble every time you want to play a different type of music. It's very postmodern, and I know that's what Dave is all about, but it has its downside too.

I've only listened to portions of this, and I'm sure Douglas fans will like it, but in all honesty, I'm getting kind of bored with his work, or any artist who has as many different groups as he has pairs of shoes. It's like a bad cliche - "oh, DD has a new cd, featuring his new side project XYZ, which is in addition to the 12 other bands he currently leads." His work seems to me to lack focus. Flame away!

Just try singing the main melody that is used in the opening of part one. There's not much to it. What makes it a memorable theme is what's going on in the way of harmony behind it.

Metheny's work in its grandest setting and scale yet. I'll let the PMG heads debate if this is his best work, but it is very well thought out and unified in thematic concept for such a substantial work, that is quite an accomplishment. Cuong Vu adds a lot to this one. It's a very dense work, meaning it takes a lot of close examination to really piece together everything that's going on, and appreciate some of the sophisticated composition devices, etc. It really is symphonic, rather than cinematic in scope. The main theme is brilliant, I love how the "theme" is really not the melody, but rather the harmony (see the first six minutes of Part One. I think its sophistication is one reason the Amazon reviews have not been uniformly excellent. It takes some time to absorb, and isn't just a record of pretty Metheny/Mays themes, though there are some. I see what the people who say "it doesn't go anywhere" mean, I'm not sure if I agree though.

I think that study is flawed because I know saxophones will respond with different tonal quality with say, no laquer, or silver plate, or gold plate, rather than standard laquer.

This was probably planned as a tie in to the film, for any who question the timing. And I have no problem with that at all. David deserves his share of the limelight.