[who knows about Tranes OM session?]

Maybe too much is made of the whole thing.

That's my take.

My understanding is that Trane was using acid when he recorded "Om". I see no evidence that this had a particular impact on the recording. Unlike Simon, I think it is a largely successful outing, though it has more of the feel of a "jam" as opposed to a carefully constructed session like "Meditations". I think Trane's tenor solo is better than the one on "Meditations" and I think Pharoah's main tenor solo is one of the best he ever recorded and one of the outstanding tenor sax recordings in this idiom. There is some disconnect between the rhythm section and the horns, to be sure, but that is characteristic of most of the late '65 dates where Elvin and McCoy are playing behind Pharoah and with Rasheid, though I would freely admit that "Evolution" is quite the exception.

Over the years, the acid thing has been dredged up to "explain" or critique Trane's movement from the music of the quartet to that of "Om" and "Meditations", the implication being that if Trane wasn't literally tripping he never would have begun to play that way. If you look at the whole thing and listen to all of the recordings, this just doesn't hold water.

Clem's right. Everyone was getting high back then. There's a lot that could be said but it certainly doesn't explain what happened on any particular recording session, Trane's or anyone else's.

BTW, the "wierd" chants are a piece of Hindu scripture, the Bhagava Gita (sp?).

Something else to throw out there...

The opening ensemble after the recitation, which Pharoah anchors for a bit by alternating high notes with low blasts, is likely something that Pharoah brought in from Sun Ra's band. Compare it to the entrance of the saxes about mid way through "Magic City". Gilmore does almost exactly the same thing, though he stretches it out for considerably longer.

[The New Wave in Jazz]

IIRC, Ra and Carter declined the recording.

Baraka and several people associate with Ra...most recently Ahmed Abdullah...have indicated that Impulse backed out on recording Ra. Ahmed mentioned on the Saturn list that Ra was quite angry about this.

[Frank Mitchell--what's the story]

Here's the reference from Tom Perchard's Lee Morgan bio:

Tenor saxophonist Frank Mitchell, who regularly played with Morgan at Slugs' and made two of only a handful of recorded appearances under the trumpeter's leadership, was found in the East River, apparently having fallen foul of a dealer.

No info on whether or not Mitchell was a Newark-ite.

I'd still like to hear that Blakey record...

It's been a long time but...

I saw Frank Mitchell with Blakey at the Jazz Workshop in Boston circa 65-66. A lady I knew from St. Louis said that he was one of her home boys. I believe Bill Hardman was the trumpet player. I remember Blakey introducing him as "the return of the prodigal son".

I had Buttercorn Lady and gave it up. I wasn't impressed with the record or the gig.

I'm surprised to hear about the New York demise. I didn't pick that up when it happened. Frankly, I didn't know he had moved to New York.

Trane and Mobley...I suppose...though none of that struck me at the time. He just sounded generic to me. Competent but not exciting.

[Don Cherry]

I have the Durium also (and I'm a young fart, as you know!).

It was issued in France on the Freebird label, in addition to the US Inner City pressing.

Yes, I've heard there was more material from Don's Paris 5tet let out of the vaults, but I have not seen the discs myself.

Check here and here. This material is much closer to "Complete Communion" than it is to "Togetherness", particularly with regard to Barbieri's playing, which is about halfway between "Complete Communion" and "Symphony for Improvisers".

This discography is a pretty good reference for Cherry's issued material. This one is a companion site that lists unissued material, though the dates that Haidenbauer gives for the two Magnetic recordings - March 17 and 31, 1966 - are also listed by Kassman. Kassman shows 15 or 16 live recordings by various Cherry led quintets with Barbieri between October 1965 and October 1966, mostly from Europe but also including performances from New York.

Don't know about those "vaults", though. I doubt if any of this is the property of a record company. The Magnetics were boots and this looks to be all privately recorded, though I imagine much of it is available on the trading circuit.

[Pat Patrick]

I honestly don't remember who told me it didn't happen - the only thing I wish I could accurately remember, in terms of the Vanguard, was whether Ware was playing with Monk or just in the audience -

When I saw them Ware was in the band. Pat played tenor and the drummer was James Black. I remember being disappointed because I had been told it would be Ed Blackwell.

There is a tape of this band. They played it on WKCR...maybe a Pat Patrick festival. I remember that in person Pat sounded a lot like Charlie Rouse. I spoke to him a bit at the bar and he suggested that was intentional, that he did not want to impose a Sun Ra sensibility on Monk's music. He spoke proudly of "making the gig", playing what was appropriate. When I suggested that it would be cool if he played baritone, he responded positively, though.

He spoke very reverantly of Monk. Called my attention to Monk's approach to the keyboard.

I was lucky to hear that one, though I would have guessed closer to '72 or thereabouts. Only a guess. I really don't have a clue as to when it was.

Helluva band...

[LPs to Computer]

I haven't used the Import. For those interested in a somewhat different approach my setup includes 1) A standard turntable, 2) a phono preamp (I use an Adcom that was connected to one of my home stereo setups), and 3) The M-Audio audiophile 2496 digital audio card which sells for around $100 on Amazon. It looks like this:

It connects to any available serial port on your computer's motherboard so it does require you to open the case of your computer but that only takes a few minutes. Then you simply connect your phono preamp to the audiophile 2496 using standard stereo interconnect cables.

In addition you will need a digital audio editing software. I use Goldwave (available only via their website for around $55 US) but other packages are out there that can do the job including Audacity which is free-ware.

I have found the results to be very nice indeed and far superior to simply using your standard on-board computer soundcard which I regard as low-fi at best.

Don

I use a similar approach, except that the sound card I use, the Emagic Audiowerks 2, is apparently no longer in production. The Emagic fits in a pci slot and has RCA jacks, stereo analogue in and out plus digital in and out. My computer stays connected to my hifi as if it were a tape recorder. The downside is that the computer needs to be near enough to the hifi for this connection and you do need some sort of editing software. The upside is that these cards are indeed audibly superior to what comes with your computer, you can record any signal that passes through your hifi such as your tuner, any tape decks, vcr's, cd players, and the editing software generally precludes the concerns some people express about things like markers and gaps between tracks, sound levels, clicks and noise, etc.

[Sonny Rollins]

Sonny Rollins with Henri Grimes and Pete LaRoca play 'Weaver of Dreams' in Laren, Holland, in early 1959

Fabulous piece of video...

My Rollins disco sources do not show a Laren date in the '59 tour. I do show a 2/21/59 date in Amersterdam at the Singer Concertzaal with Art Taylor on drums. That's the only concert I show with "Weaver of Dreams". Can anyone clarify? Bownie, can you doublecheck?

I have no reason to doubt the accompanying description:

29 year old Sonny Rollins with just bass and drums is playing "Weaver of Dreams" in the Netherlands in the Singer Theatre in the small town of Laren in 1959. A Dutch collector was able to make me some unique video clips.

Singer Theatre probably equals Singer Concertzaal. The only questions then would be what Laren's relationship is with Amsterdam and whether or not it's LaRoca or Taylor on the drums. Can anyone identify the drummer from the video?

[Sonny Rollins]

Sonny Rollins with Henri Grimes and Pete LaRoca play 'Weaver of Dreams' in Laren, Holland, in early 1959

Fabulous piece of video...

My Rollins disco sources do not show a Laren date in the '59 tour. I do show a 2/21/59 date in Amersterdam at the Singer Concertzaal with Art Taylor on drums. That's the only concert I show with "Weaver of Dreams". Can anyone clarify? Bownie, can you doublecheck?

[Fats Navarro/Tadd Dameron]

In August 1996 a similar thread came up on rec.music.bluenote. I made an inquiry and Jack Woker wrote me back off list with the following discography and cross references. I have apparently deleted the email so this listing was OCR'd from my surviving hard copy. I proofed it against the original email, which means that any mistakes are mine, not Jack's. He gave me permission to reproduce this almost 11 years ago so I expect he would not mind doing it here. From Brownie's post it would appear that Ozone 5 is duplicated on the other disks, though a quick glance suggests you would need Jazzland 50 and 68, Sneaker 829, Beppo 505 and 506, Talcrip 10230, and Ult-Tadd 1500 to collect all of the tracks.

Anyway, I hope this is useful or, at least, interesting.

By the way, Chewy, these are all lp's.

The rest of the text is from Jack's email...

These are the records referenced: (A,D,E,F,H,I are Rose releases)

A - ALTO 702, "Count Basie - Anita O'Day"

B - JAZZLAND 50 (these comprise the Milestone two-fer/CD)

C - JAZZLAND 68

D - JUNG CAT 948, "Great Jazz Concerts at Royal Roost"

E - OZONE 5 (Don't have this one, believe it's all duplicated elsewhere)

F - SNEAKER 829, "Tadd Dameron - Fats Navarro"

G - SPOTLITE 108, "Anthropology"

H - TALCRIP 10230, "Fats' Gang"

I - ULT-TADD 1500, "Tadd Dameron Vol. 3"

J - BEPPO 505, "Fats & Tadd at the Roost 1948, Vol. 1"

K - BEPPO 506, "Fats & Tadd at the Roost 1948, Vol. 2"

L - JAZZ LIVE 8032, "Tadd Dameron/Dodo Marmarosa "Keybop"

8/29/48 - Navarro, Eager, Dameron, Russell, Clarke, Hagood

Anthropology B E F J

Kitchenette Across the Hall E F J

Lady Be Good B E F J

The Squirrel E F J

Good Bait B E F J

Pennies From Heaven E F

ca. 8 or 9/48 - Eager, Gray, Dameron, Russell, Clarke

Now's the Time G

Lady Be Good G

Just You, Just Me (Spotlite) G

9/4/48 - Navarro, Eager, Jackson, Dameron, Russell, Clarke

The Tadd Walk F J

Symphonette C F J

The Squirrel F J

10/2/48 - Navarro, Williams, Eager, Dameron, Russell, Clarke, O'Day

Good Bait H J

What Is This Thing Called Love A H

How High the Moon H

The Squirrel B H J

10/9/48 - same as previous

The Tadd Walk B E H K

September in the Rain A H

How High the Moon, H

Dameronia B K (not on H, although listed on cover)

10/16/48 - Navarro, Williams, Eager, Dameron, Russell, Clarke

Anthropology F K

Our Delight B E F K

The Tadd Walk F K

10/23/48 - same as previous

Our Delight H K

Good Bait C H K

Eb-Pob C H K

The Squirrel H K

10/30/48 - Winding, Eager, Dameron, Russell, Clarke

The Chase H

Wahoo H I L

Lady Be Good H

The Squirrel I

11/6/48 - same as previous

Anthropology C

Wahoo C E I

Tiny's Blues C

11/13/48 - same as previous

Lady Bird I

Good Bait I

Dizzy Atmosphere I

2/12/49 - exact personnel unknown, similar to next session.

Good Bait I

Webb's Delight I

Focus I

Wahoo I

2/19/49 - Davis, Winding, Shihab, Lundy, Payne, Dameron, Collins,

Russell, Clarke, Vidal

Focus D L

April in Paris D

Good Bait D L

Webb's Delight D L

2/26/49 - same as previous

Milano D

Casbah D L

3/5/49 - same as previous

Good Bait I

The Squirrel I

[in the wall speakers]

Obviously in wall speakers disappear into the room, making it easier to decorate.

However, installation is not as easy as bookshelf speakers where anyone can run wires outside of the wall. Value per $, is not as easily obtainable if you take this into account.

She could look into even smaller monitors. Totem Mites or Dreamcatchers are extremely small though more expensive than EPOs and she might like their furniture like finish. They also sound nice!!!!

Just my $.02.

I agree. In wall speakers are specialty items that require a fair amount of work to install and don't offer the same sound per dollar value as comparably priced stand alone speakers. That said, you can look here for a company that specializes in these kinds of speakers. I just looked at the sight and did not recognize any of the products but I do see that they still sell in wall speakers. By all means, check it out.

[Lester Young, LOC acetate recording - full story]

On the subject of unissued recordings, there are still the John Coltrane quintet tapes with Wes Montgomery that nobody was willing to put the money up for many years ago. So these kind of delays could be indefinite.

I'd be interested to know the reference for this. I follow the Coltrane discography rather closely and AFAIK the only known recording of the quintet with Coltrane, Dolphy, and Montgomery is a poor quality audience tape from the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco that is in the possession of the estate. Commercial release of this material would almost certainly have to come through Ravi. There are many issues there but the question of "putting up the money"...at least as it applies to the LOC Pres recording...is not one of them, at least not to anything like the same degree. There is a large body of unissued Coltrane work that the estate controls, some of it unissued material from Impulse, some of it privately recorded, and some of the latter in the posession of the estate, e.g., the "Titans of Tenor" concert from February '66 at which Ayler performed with Coltrane. The basic consideration for commercial issue is whether the estate wants to do it.

P.S. We will never know what Boris Rose left unissued regarding our subject. According to brief look at Pres discography, so many examples of live broadcast material remained unknown and unissued.

It is not clear that this is the case. There was a thread on this at,

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...p;hl=Boris+Rose

See Mike Fitzgerald's comment re: Doug Pomeroy. The Pomeroy link is at,

http://www.smokebox.net/archives/rootcella...otpomeroy2.html

If Pomeroy has access to the entire collection through Rose's daughter, it's reasonable to assume that he has or can index the entire collection. The unnamed university could also do it.

Note also that partial copies of Rose's binder - a list of all of his recordings - do exist.

ps- can you copy stuff there, cause i have sworn ive seen that blakey tape on peoples lists and stuff when trading, etc...

I'm not clear as to whether you can copy at the LOC but the existence of the same material in private tape collections is not necessarily evidence that you can. The Mingus Newport '56 and '59 material that surfaced in relatively clean dubs from the LOC last year or the year before have been in circulation for quite some time, albeit in substantially poorer audio quality. Also, the earlier dubs differed in some details. The recent LOC dub of the '56 session is missing Mingus' spoken intro that is present on the older copies. And the '59 LOC dub has the tunes out of order. The older dub has the correct order and the tracks play continously, something that is not the case with the LOC material. The older copies could be sourced from the LOC but they also could have been copied from the original VOA broadcasts. My guess is that some of the duplicate material is from Rose's list.

[Ipod Questions]

When listening to my ipod I not infrequently get short gaps or interuptions of no sound (less than a second). Any idea what might be causing this? Don't think its a short in my earphones because the gaps aren't related to movement of the cord or anything like that. Thanks.

Ipods do this. It's one of the basic problems with the device. It's related to the battery issues...even if the battery is new...but it's not a battery problem as such.

Ipods skip under specific circumstances. If you use the device in a way that requires the hard disk to move around accessing different files, part of the fallout will be excessive drain on the battery and, in worse case scenarios, skipping, i.e., what you described. Also, if the cache becomes depleted in the midst of playing a long piece, there can be a pause while it fills up.

I used to get a lot of skipping. The Apple support site addressed this. I modified my usage in accordance with their suggestions and it ameliorated the problem, though it didn't stop altogether.

I also have found that the ripping process sometimes results in a corrupted file, which, in turn, causes a very noticeable dropout in playback. I have a couple of titles that will not play all the way through, though there was nothing wrong with the source cd. The difference here is that the interruptions are always in the same place and for the same durations.

I think you may find sites other than Apple support that deal with this kind of thing. If the skips are very frequent and happen every time you use the device, it may be defective and you should take it to an Apple store or otherwise secure some service.

Ipods are great little devices but they have a lot of problems like this...IMO, too many problems for their price.

[ozone discogrpahy?]

...the last thing you noted-- i was thinking, are there any other key points about how boris rose operated and his biography i should be aware of. ALL THE RECORDS I HAVE OF HIS ARE VERY SPECIAL TO ME. although i dont have the print discogs like you do w/ the bird espically, ive been good about not really duplicating-- the ones i have bought are amazing ones i have not seen on cd, even if that are on cd- eg. bird w/ the herd.....

I believe Marty Jazz and others filled in some details on that old thread that you were referred to when you opened a thread something like, "Who is this guy Boris Rose". I don't have much to add. Rose lived on East 10th Street (12th?...I think it was 10th) in what is called the East Village (NYC). He had a rack of Crown tape recorders during a period when Crown was the most expensive consumer tape deck you could buy. He taped a bunch of stuff for several decades and issued some of it on his own lp's and a couple of cd's (the cd label was Yadeon). Most of the live stuff from the 40's recorded at the Royal Roost - Bird, Miles, Tadd Dameron, Dizzy's big band - originates with Rose. A ton of Birdland and Cafe Bohemia material from the 50's - Miles, Mingus, Trane - and Mingus' Birdland dates from the 60's...and I'm focusing on the stuff that I've collected. There's a ton of big band material...just about everything you can imagine that dates to the decades in which he was recording. A lot of it has turned up on "legit" labels. Columbia's "Birth of the Cool" live material was licensed from Rose as was the early 50's...1950?...Birdland set with Bird, Miles, Fats Navarro, et al, that came out on Columbia Contemporary Masters.

But I'm really not the one to supply these details. I mean...Mike Fitzgerald is on this board...or use to be...

My point to you is best illustrated by Coltrane's Half Note material. Rose taped at least three of the 1965 broadcasts: March 19, April 2, and May 7. He may have also taped the March 26 date. The only thing he issued was half of the May 7 date, on Ozone 21. The flip side of that record has the February 23, 1963 Birdland date.

Now...if you want the Half Note material and you're thinking in terms of commerical issues...boots or otherwise...the Blue Parrott - "Brazilia" (AP705) - is more complete. It has the whole May 7 date, albeit with the announcers voice overs edited out (which chops off the version of "My Favorite Things"). The new Verve/Impulse is also complete and has the added advantage of being in stereo...because it's sourced from the station airchecks rather than Rose's mono home recordings. And then there's the issue of the other three dates, one of which is included in the Verve issue.

So...do you want Ozone 21 or do you want the Coltrane Half Note material?

[ozone discogrpahy?]

wow! thanks guys-- i did a google - didnt come up w/ anything o ther than the mingus info!!! what was the tiimeframe these lps were pressed? how long did he offer these for sale?

I note that chewy has bounced up against the Ozone cum Rose thing in a couple of recent threads. There's a current one on Wardell Gray that covers much of the same turf. And chewy asked some questions about Rose awhile back and was referred to earlier threads. I didn't comment then because Marty Jazz is the best source of info on Rose anyway so I figured what's the point. But since it keeps coming up here's 1 1/2 cents...

It's something of a losing battle to treat Rose's output the way you might treat Blue Note or Prestige disks. None of these were labels in the same sense. It was all Rose and, for instance, he sometimes issued the same material on different labels...I'm thinking here of some Coltrane dates that came out on both Session and Ozone. I mean...if you want to treat them as collectables in their own right, fine though even there it will be all over the map. The Jazz Record Center use to routinely sell Rose items for $8 long after they were out of print...which is a fair indication of what most of them are worth. OTOH, the ones that everyone is after disappeared long ago and I have no idea what you'd have to pay on ebay. Also, the Rose disks are not necessarily the best source for the music. Much of the material has been issued more completely in the cd era, e.g., Fresh Sound. And Rose's stuff has been re-booted mercilessly by the Europeans...which means that critical dates are available on all sorts of lp's and cd's besides the original issues. This goes from Parker to Mingus and beyond.

I also note, chewy (switching now to the 2nd person), that you have complained about buying the same music multiple times because you don't know what's on a record vs. what you may already have. My sense is that most of the people on this board have gotten to the point...for many of us it happened a long time ago. That's what pushes you into more systematic discographical studies and the world of artist sessionographies. I've found it's the only way not to waste my money. Bottom line, you go by artists, you become familiar with the dates, you decided on which ones you want, and you learn what commercial issues contain them...and you can concern yourselves with details like what's the most complete and what has the best sound quality. If you do it this way then the original Rose disks become just a part of your strategy. Again, if you want to treat them as collectables, that's another thing...I wish you luck. If you want the music, you should be aware of what instances Rose is the source...and there are a lot of those instances...but buying every Rose disk you come upon will give you some fairly spotty results.

This is not great news, I know, but I promise you that I've been where you are and after awhile....

FWIW, the documentation I have seen shows Rose recordings from 1948 to 1974 but many sources say that this is incomplete. Most of them were never issued commercially. I thought for sure that there were some recordings that date back to 1946 but that could be those fissures in my brain acting up. Most of the 40's material was from the Symphony Sid show and I believe some of the announcements may have the radio station call letters...though I haven't the slightest idea what they were. At one point it was WADO but I think that's later. Also, you should know that Rose taped a lot of other material besides jazz. He was big on radio theater and radio broadcasts of, IIRC, broadway shows. I was also told that he taped things like major political speeches and some of his earliest acetates were of material like that.

As for when most of the disks were pressed, I'll defer to folks on this board who say it was the 70's. My own corroded recollections push it back a little farther then that but there's a lot of interference in there...

Rose is a very interesting story but I recommend you follow the music first.

[The Jazz Composer's Orchestra / Michael Mantler]

To those who were there--was the Cecil number arranged as on the album?

Yes...essentially the same arrangement with no pause between parts 1 and 2.

[Intermittent static driving me crazy]

Well, I have one on my cheap Kenwood amp (which is why I don't bother having it fixed) which causes static in the right channel and sometimes the channel goes completely dead. The fix is to move the volume knob and then the static goes away and the sound comes back, for the time being.

I have tried messin' with the volume knob and other knobs and switches and that doesn't seem to effect anything.

Based on a combination of ignorance and intuition I have thought:

A. It could be the cheap old rca cable that connects the pre-amp and the amp

B. A loose connections at the female rca connectors on the amp

C. The whole unit needs to be grounded.

by the way, it's running great today

You may have done this already but...

The traditional way of isolating which component is generating the static is to switch one end of the cables for a specific connection. E.g., if you switch the amp to preamp connection at one end and the noise stays in the same channel, it's either in the amp or the speakers, i.e., downstream from the switch. If the noise changes channels, it's upstream, i.e., the preamp or sound source.

If the noise is in your preamp it could very well be the volume controls or any other knobs in the circuit. But if turning those knobs does not seem to directly affect the noise then chances are it's elsewhere. Cables are indeed a possibility but, again, if you manipulate them and get no response that seems directly related to the movement, chances are it is an electronic component. Tubes and even transistors, IC's, op-amps, etc., can sometimes generate intermittent noise when they are about to give way. Sometimes it clears up on its own, though that's usually temporary. If that's where you wind up you can take it for service or wait until it crashes.

If the volume, balance, or tone controls on the preamp are at fault, you can try to clean them but that involves opening up the unit. It's not the most technical thing to do but you ought to have some sense of what you're doing. You don't just want to spray contact cleaner all over the place. For the most part, there is no similar fix for a transistor. If tubes become microphonic, there are things you can buy to put on them that will damp the vibrations and quiet the noise. The problem can also be in an on/off switch but that's trickier to diagnose because it is problematic to turn an amp or preamp rapidly on and off to see if the switch is deteriorating. If the problem seems to occur with power ups and downs you can try cleaning or replacing the switch, though the latter generally means taking the unit for service unless your reasonably heavy into it.

Grounding problems usually result in hum rather than noise that sounds like static.

Hope this helps.

[The Jazz Composer's Orchestra / Michael Mantler]

Yeah, the Pharaoh rev up is great...and the Cecil is terrific, what with Cyrille's drumming....I rememeber hearing something like this live, can't remember where. Mantler was always around that scene at the time.

It was at the Electric Circus. Cecil did his number straight off the record but Pharoah did something other than "Preview". I remember he was playing a contrabass clarinet rather than a tenor...I think it was a silver colored instrument. And Gato Barbieri was in the section, just like on the record. And everyone was whispering about...I think his name was Ron McClure...the guy who played in Lloyd's band with Jarrett and DeJohnette. He was flying all over the bass but nobody could hear what he was playing. The bass players were placed all around the performance space. Actually, you couldn't hear any of them too well. But Cecil and Cyrille tore it up.

[John Coltrane Temple University 1966]

Who is the alto player on Crescent?

Per the Coltrane-l listserv, page 376 of Porter's bio (chronology) says, "Two altoists sat in, one named Steve Knobloch."

[What James Brown Are You Spinnin']

One night at the Martinique they played a live version of "Let Yourself Go" that morphed into a lengthy treatment of "There Was A Time". The bridge to "Let Yourself Go"...Da - Deeeeh - Da...is the refrain to "There Was A Time". I think the second time they hit that bridge they stayed on that phrase and then brought in the theme to "There Was A Time". Then Maceo takes what I remember as a long tenor solo which stays in my mind as the baddest thing I ever heard on an r&b record...almost like if John Gilmore had done it...building like Gilmore might have.

Any of you album mavens know the album this came from? The segway seems obvious after they did it but I never heard this particular combination again.

James was the shit.

[What James Brown Are You Spinnin']

I don't think I own a single James Brown lp but I've got a stack of the 45's...

Saying I "grew up" on his music doesn't really convey the right vibe. There was a long period in my youth...coming out of high school up to when I got married...about 15 years...when James was a reference point for my social life. I mean...we danced our asses off to his music. He literally grounded our party thing. The dances depended as much on what was happening with the next James Brown record as anything else. My wife grew up going to the Apollo and watching him throw off his cape. Back then, I could care less. But I had my chosen dance partners for every banger he put out from "Popa's Got A Brand New Bag" through "The Big Payback".

It's strange to me...nobody has mentioned "Good Foot" in either of the JB threads. I thought...still think...that GF is maybe the baddest dance record ever...with "There It Is" and a few others right in there.

"Cold Sweat", "Sex Machine", "There Was A Time", "I Can't Stand Myself"...

Nobody has said anything about "Lickin' Stick". People would break their legs gettin' up out of their chairs...

Another one..."Hot Pants". Let me tell you somethin'... In 1971 when the club scene wasn't yet called "disco" and black folks were piling into the Martinique and the Ginza...this is NYC..."Hot Pants" had people snaking around the floor doing the Penguin in a line. The leader sometimes had those light wands that they use to wave in the planes at the airport...and you could get 100 people on those lines...and we'd do concentric circles and figure eights...folks had whistles and tamborines...

Man...

I was a dancin' fool back then and James was the very pulse of my body. When he said "Take it to the bridge..." I was dancin' over that water.

I never go to church except for funerals and weddings but James, god rest your beautiful soul. This weekend, when my life straightens out a bit...Ha!...I'm going down into the basement and party my ass off.

[COLTRANE LIVE AT HALF NOTE LP BOX SET]

Anyone familiar with this box set? I have a line on one and don't know whether to buy or how much to pay. thanks.

Depends on what you've already got and what you're trying to get. There are four Half Note sessions from '65. This box has the March 19 date - "Chim Chim Cherre" and "Impressions" - which is fairly rare in commercial issues. The sound is average bootlege mono, similar to the Boris Rose issues (Rose is the ultimate source of this session). Some of Garrison's opening bass solo on "Impressions" is chopped off because the accompanying voice over by Alan Grant was edited out. The May 7 date is also included, also mono, but that has already been issued in stereo in the recent Verve Half Note 2-cd set. The Audio Fidelity box contains the notorious error of two versions of the same piece from this date - "Song of Praise" - with two different titles and slightly different timings...a waste of about 20 minutes playing time. There is a tragically truncated version - 6 minutes vs. 20+ for the entire track - of the "Untitled Original", aka "Creation", from the April 2 date. This is all but useless. The remainder - "I Want to Talk About You" and "One Up, One Down" - come from the February 23, 1963 Birdland date. This has also been issued on various Rose and other boots.

So...you can do much better for the May 7 date and the '63 material is obtainable elsewhere. Between the duplicate May 7 track and the butchered April 2 track there is about 25 minutes of wasted space, a whole side of an lp. IMO, you're really paying for the March 19 date which is essential Trane but...if you can trade for it you might get a more complete version.

Your call.

[Do you clean the stylus?]

I've been using Last stylus cleaner and Stylast for 10-15 years on a Grado Signature 8. No damage to the canteliver, including with the brush, no build up, no damage to the adhesive. FWIW, I use Last products on the vinyl, too. Good stuff.

[Miles In Europe 1967 DVD]

Got mine yesterday. Watched the Karlsruhe date last night.

The disk is a bargain but the video is...fair. It was dubbed from a tape that was already a couple of generations out. Also, there is a bad noise bar...the kind that comes from folded or crushed tape...at about 57:30.

The '67 Stockholm and Karlsruhe dates are available separately for a lot more from Japan. I'm wondering if they used better source material. In the meantime, though, I'm glad I sprung.

Thanks, Jim.

[Miles In Europe 1967 DVD]

Karlsruhe is significantly more visceral than Oslo...

Do you mean Stockholm? AFAIK, there is no Oslo recording from this tour.

Karlsruhe is indeed more intense that Stockholm but Stockholm is perhaps more of the anomoly in terms of the audio from this tour. Antwerp may be the most intense set, though it's hard to choose. Stockholm is probably the tamest.

Isn't Karlsruhe the set that was excerpted in the "Miles Ahead" documentary?

[LCD vs Plasma]

A couple of questions to our US friends:

Do they broadcasting only -over the air- nor by cable or satellite?

Do you note the difference between a HD shooting program and non HD ?

I mean that a real HD should starts from the camera and ends on your HD screen.

Because HD cameras are quite expensive, I presume they use them in studio or for particular events really popular with big budget like NBA, ecc. In a football (soccer for you overseas ) match there are dozens of cameras, they all should be HD. Since the trend is light ENG troupes around the world to get the events, I suspect that most of what you are watching at is not HD from starts to ends.

Not clear what happens over the air but in NYC cable and satellite carry about 8-10 non-pay "hi def" channels and some of the premium services, e.g., HBO, come in hi def versions. I get CBS, NBC, ABC, TNT (one of Turner's channels), one of the ESPN channels, and some hi def only offerings from Discovery and PBS.

Viz whether it's hi def from end-to-end, it's difficult to tell. There's clearly some variation between the various channels and even between the programs on the same channel. Some look like 480 lines at 16:9. Some channels go back and forth between aspect ratios, suggesting that even at the source not all of it is hi def. But when it is hi def, you can immediately tell the difference in more than the aspect ratio. It's not subtle. I look for the grass.