garthsj

I thought that some of you might enjoy this ... http://www.transbuddha.com/index.php/buddh...ants_on_parade/

There are two labels (among many) that could still be mined for very interesting, and necessary selects. Those are ABC ... with Brookmeyer, Raney, Farmer, Sunkel, etc. and Metrojazz with Gigi Gryce, and others. These selects might be more along the lines of the recent piano one with Fischer, Rowles, Twardzik et.al. I would also be obvious in ponting out that there are many Buddy DeFranco albums on MGM, Verve and Polygram that I, for one, would love to see on CD. Also, isn't it about time that the Emarcy Mulligan sextet material (including all of the takes, each of which had their own charm), and once available on three Japanese LPs were reissued, probably on a double-CD album.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "recorded"? (Do I sound like Bill Clinton here?) ... If you discount Duke's sitting at the piano during all of those sessions over fifty years with the orchestra, and include all of the sessions a pianist did as a sideman/accompanist, then I think that Oscar would win outright. I looked that the listings for Evans on CDUniverse, and there are lots of duplications ... not quite as many for Oscar, and many of his albums are OOP (pun intended!).

There is also a "Blue Mitchell Plays For Lovers" (RCD-6201-2) in this series. starting of with "The Nearness of You" .. and going from there. These are all Riverside recordings .... I know this becaise up until they were sold to Concord, Fantasy used to send me freebies of all their new releases (not the OJC reissue series unfortunately!) This was a legacy from the days when I had my radio show here in Houston. I have ALL of these compilations, and will wait for the day when a complete set can command an enormous price on eBay!. Anyone out there interested?

Interesting .. I just did the "math" on ordering the Basie set, and it comes out to $85.00 or $97.00 depending on the postage that you choose. It is worth it, I wonder, considering that most Mosaics seem to hold their prices on the aftermarket when you go to that big jam session in the sky?

The DeFranco-Peterson Quartet album has also never been reissued on CD (and it is a very good album) .. there was a very good remastered Japanese LP several years ago .. long unavailable .. I am not sure that the Herb Geller Sextet has previously made it to CD either, although the Quartet album has (I am looking at it now) and is also available on the Verve Vaults list. Is there a U.S. source for these? .. strictly for car play, of course .... quote name='brownie' date='Dec 27 2005, 02:43 AM' post='453194'] I don't think the MGM 'Hot vs. Cool' and 'Cats vs. Chicks' has been reissued in full since their original vinyl releases.

I was away from the computer so that others have already responded to Larry.. but I would certainly get the "Artistry of Artie Shaw" ... for some perverse reason I am also very partial to Joe Temperley's albums ... Those lovely bright yellow MGM 78's were the first "modern jazz" records I bought ... after wetting my teeth on RCA Goodman's and Shaws. I will never forget the shock when I first listened to DeFranco's version of "Carioca" .. it was enough to make this budding clarinet player want to give up the instrument. It still sends shivers up my spine today. No one can really play the clarinet that way! Most, but not all, of the MGM 78's have been collected in Japan, first on an LP (which I sold with the rest of my collection) called "King of the Clarinet" (which was the title of the very first 10" LP I ever purchased, and which I still have in a frame on the wall of my study where I am writing this note), and now available on a Japanese CD entitled "Gone With The Wind" (Verve Polydor POCJ-2608). There are a few titles still missing ... IF ever there was a MAJOR jazz artist calling out for the the full Mosiac treatment it would have to be Buddy DeFranco! They did a great job with the Sonny Clark - DeFranco music .. but why not the rest? Just look at the price that set goes for today ... I would even settle for a DeFranco-Tommy Gumina Select .. that would fit nicely, and the music is very harmonically "progressive" ... I am very pleased to see that Buddy has so many fans on this list ... and he continues to play great modern jazz! "

Actually I rather enjoy the Double Six album (as I do the Double Six with the MJQ) ... Dizzy plays very well, and this is what Charlie Parker with The Dave Lambert Singers should have sounded like in a perfect world ... I do hope that they include it in the set. Of course the real gems are "The Greatest Trumpet of Them All" (never reissued on CD) and "Have Trumpet, Will Excite" (recently reissued on a very poorly remastered CD .. but great Gillespie and Junior Mance solos ... listen to "My Man" for example.

AT LONG LAST!! This music may not be of interest to everyone (although it should be) but Hep Records have just released a wonderful album of all of the music recorded by the Buddy DeFranco Big Band in 1949-1951. This music had never been all pulled together in one place before, except for a very obscure and rare Japanese CD, which was not as complete as this issue. The music ranges from the George Russell "experimental" "Bird in Igor's Yard" to fine a "dance band" treatment of Jerome Kern's "Why Do I Love You". The album concludes with six early cuts of DeFranco's small groups recordings for MGM (with Kenny Drew, Jimmy Raney. Teddy Kotick, and Art Taylor) which were among the very first 78's I purchased at age 12! These small group recordings demonstrate why DeFranco was so far ahead harmonically of most of his contemporaries then trying to play bebop. (I wonder if he had played a different instrument than the clarinet, say, the tenor sax, whether he would have been considered one of the absolute giants today ..?) Allegro has a sale on Hep CDs .. there is some great stuff here: http://www.allegro-music.com/online_catalo...?sku_tag=HEP377

Thanks Larry ... I have not been a regular on here these past months, and missed that very interesting exchange ... I do love the fact that there are those of us troglodytes who still find a great fascination with all things Tristanoish ... and Yes, that Ind solo bass album is a stunner in many ways ... I was never sure why I enjoyed it, but your eloquent words captured some of the mystique for me ... We do have Ind to thank for providing us fans with Konitz and Marsh material during the very dry spell of the 70s with those weird albums of edited solos on his Wave label ...

Well .. as a DeFranco fan, I think that his prowess might also have something to do with it, too! I am intrigued by this price, because all of this material has been reissued in the last few years on very cheap sets (but good quality audio) by the Spanish and Andorrean labels ... I own a pristine LP set, which I can no longer play ... I wonder what that would be worth today? ... and thanks to the kind Organissimo friend who made me a CDR of this set, which I can play!

My copy of Peter Ind's book, JAZZ VISIONS: LENNIE TRISTANO AND HIS LEGACY has just arrived ... unfortunately I do not have time to read it immediately, but will do so over the holidays. Has anyone read this yet? A brief glance shows the book to be quite anecdotal, but with lots of biographical detail on Tristano's day-to-day life ... There is so little available on Tristano that this should be a valuable contribution ... after all Ind did have a close personal and working relationship with Tristano.

As an update .. this was not a one-of-a-kind special .. I noticed just yesterday that Half Price Books had five copies for sale at $14.99. I assume that all of their branches may have this item ... At least two of their Houston stores have it at that price ... It is a big sucker, taking up a large space on your wall ... but the photographs are the usual evocative material that we have come to expect from Claxton. It is particularly gratifying to see that famous shot of Art Pepper walking up the hill in a large format. I have loved that photograph since I first saw it sometime in the mid-fifties. As a total aside ... and perhaps this belongs in another thread .. But, my reason for frequenting Half Price Books all over this vast city is that I am doing a project on Nazi propaganda for the Holocaust Museum, and have been acquiring the latest material on that era. of which there is a considerable amount. Have you any idea what kind of looks one gets when checking out with six books on Nazis in your arms..???

This was always considered to be one of the greatest "double entendre" albums covers of all time! Congratulations on finding it .... Surely you are going to frame it and hang it up on a wall somewhere?

I just noticed this in my local Half Price Books last night for $14.99! I succumbed ....

You should live so long!! Ah Well ... If I still that 8,000+ LP collection I would have gladly spread the joy around ... now it would just be copies of CDs that everyone else already has. Which could be the subject of whole new thread .. what are the "rarest" or "most desireable" jazz CDs? Hey! Was I mistaken here? I thought that these were only available as online downloads!! I hope that I am wrong ... but the handwriting is on the wall, and I have given Santa a Christmas list that includes a CD burner (as well the Mosiac Basie - Complete Studio Verve, The Claxton book, and an iPod Nano!) ... Last, Larry Kart is absolutely correct ... The Raney with Brookmeyer could use a remastering job ... but this is true of most of the ABC jazz albums ... and there is still a lot to be mined in that catalog? "Zoot Sims on Three Altos" anyone? Am I missing something? Aren't these going to be regular retail reissues? That was my impression. But he should buy a burner anyway. So he can burn copies of everything in his collection for the rest of us?

Both "Ellis in Wonderland" and the "Raney with Brookmeyer" are fine albums, especially the Ellis. I have long wanted this to be available, together with "Sweets" which was released to great acclaim earlier this year. What a pity that these are not going to be available as "hard disks"! Looks like I will have to get a CD burner ... there is a DeFranco album that is only available in this format as well. There are so many unreleased treasures still in the Verve vaults (several Giuffres, and DeFrancos for instance), can I assume that this will now be the preferred method for reissuing albums with "limited" interest? If so, will Verve make a real attempt to have the liner notes and covers available for download as well? .. Just musing ... Those are the ones that caught my eye as well... and Lon, I, too, will be happy to finally hear that ELLA JUKEBOX V. 2. They were supposed to put that one out some time back.

Just a note to say that Part II is now up on the BBC site .. This really is very fine music and worth a listen .. Shank is playing like he is 25 again ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bigband/

C'mon .. why do you need another's opinion to validate your own tastes ... Show that you are able to stand on your own feet and GO FOR IT!

I am not sure if this has been mentioned on here before ... I have missed a lot of time on this list recently. As a very amateur alto player (I still own a lovely Mark VI), who never gets to play these days, I was very intrigued by a new book, THE DEVIL'S HORN: THE STORY OF THE SAXOPHONE FROM NOISY NOVELTY TO KING OF THE COOL, by Michael Segell (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005 -- $25.00). I was a little leery of it from initial reviews, but once I started reading it, it was hard to interrupt my enthusiasm to go back to more important writing chores. Segell was able to get a great deal of insight from current jazz musicians such as Branford Marsalis, Joe Lovano, and Lee Konitz (particularly interesting IMHO), about the relationship between the instrument to the player. Despite fooling around wih saxophones for nearly fifty years, I was never aware of how "alive" they are, and how the instrument can literally change in tone and playing quality from day to day. I guess i should have spent more time playing, and less time reading! I highly recommend this book ...

You can hear some great Barry Galbraith on "The John Lewis Piano" .. now available on a Collectables double album CD ... Col CD6251. Highly recommended ... And, of course, his important work with Hal McKusick on "The Quartet" album .. now available on Fresh Sounds FSR CD41. This is also now available in a new release .. see below ...

For those of you who would like to lift your soul a bit, tune into this great concert ... Bud Shank playing Bill Holman arrangements (and some Lennie Niehaus too), with the magnificent BBC Big Band ... great stuff, and only available for a short while. The interviews are very interesting too ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bigband/

Thanks so much for those Ubu ... intense would be a good description ... and you could really feel it when they played too!

Larry .. perhaps we should be having this conversation offline but I did want to tell how much I enjoyed your book. I took it with me on my road trip to visit my son in Toronto, so you were read in some strange motel rooms in red-state America, as my schanuzer Sam and I shared the bed. I do wish I had the same powers of description that you have, and you shot down some of my jazz favorites in places, but I have never been confronted so eloquently! An I do wish that you had forced them to buy you an index ... I know what you mean about being ambivalent about getting an agent. I have deliberated getting one for what will be my last academic magnum opus ... a "social history of American television" as bookend to my earlier social history of moviegoing ... but I really wonder what an agent can do that I cannot. I am also torn between going my ususal academic publisher route and being kept alive for a long time (as is true with my propaganda book) with average (2-3,000 copies) annual sales, as opposed to a trade house with a bigger advance, but where you can be on the reminder list in 18 months! How has your experience with Yale been? ... At least Sage (with whom have done several books and projects) market the hell out of anything remotely successful. Yes, I realized after I had written that earlier plea that it was Allen who was writing that book on early experimental jazz ... I do hope that he finishes it, as apparently there are at least three of us who would buy it. Actually, if the JWC list, and the attendance at Ken Poston's Jazz Weekends are anything to do by, there are a lot of us 50-60 somethings still interested in the music of our youth who would welcome a project of that nature. Also, I was hoping to get your take on those two Shelly Manne albums ... any insights on that music?

Here it is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brubeck-list