garthsj

'I asked Chet Baker about all those deep wrinkles in his face,' said Jack Sheldon. 'He told me they were laugh lines. I told him that nothing could be that funny.'

You are indeed correct, Sir!!! (As Sydney Greenstreet says to Sam Spade) There it was under my nose all of the time .... Perhaps the time has come for me to stop buying albums, and start listening to my own collection. That would probably take me the rest of my life ..

Hahahaha .... Danny Bank was a big session musician in New York ... I laugh because many years ago, when I was lucky enough to take a course in jazz history with Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen (!!!) at Oscar's then School in Toronto, the Miles/Gil Evans "Porgy and Bess" had just been released. It was Oscar who pointed out to the class how hastily this album had been put together, and how difficult Gil's orchestrations were, especially on the up-tempo pieces. Even today whever I listen to "Gone" and a few others, I hear Danny Bank not being able to quite make it (he is on bass clarinet) .. if you know what to listen for, it is quite evident ... he comes in late in several places... When I heard the recently released box with all of the rehearsal takes, this problem became even more obvious. But still .. he was a fine musician on lots of good sessions. I am sure that Mike Fitzgerald can fill us in on that ...

... but isn't the Chappaqua Suite essentially ALL music by Ornette? Is this a different set from the actual soundtrack? The Ornette music didn't get used. The soundtrack is by Ravi Shankar (really!). Thanks .. as a film scholar you would think that I might have seen the actual movie, but I have not! At one time the French 2-LP set of the Chappaqua Suite was a hot item, and much sought after in the U.S. I am not sure that it has ever been officially released in this country.

I thought that this might be a good place to ask this question: Has this little gem of a session ever been issued on the U.S.?

Geez.. it must be the generation gap .. I pass on my duplicates to my 32 year old son, recently weaned on to "real" jazz .... his hip-hop friends are aghast! Damn! I just looked at Marco's list .. by rough count I have about 80+ of them .... so kill me, but I am not a big fan of organ jazz, Ornette's Golden Circle albums, Cecil T., and Night of the Cookers. I do have those on earlier versions though. Several years ago, after I sold all of my vinyl, and filled with ennui at that loss, I decided to go for the challenge of acquiring the entire BN catalog available on CD for the 1500 and 4000 series. I managed to get most of them, one by one, through eBay, and other lists, to #4279 (what is THAT, you mavens), and then stopped doing the collector thing. I acquired the odd ones here and there as I liked them after that. Now I am "sprucing up" my favorites with the new RVG's.

... but isn't the Chappaqua Suite essentially ALL music by Ornette? Is this a different set from the actual soundtrack?

I am now a very big KCSM fan ... intelligent presentation of great, mostly mainstream jazz. I switched from KKJZ after Chuck Niles passed away .. their presentation has really detriorated in the past year ..

When I first got this as an LP many years ago, the name immediately conjured up visions of all those Arabian Nights fantasies I saw in technicolor on the screen as a kid .. shades of the great Maria Montez, and John Hall, flashing swords and girls in veils languishing around in harems ... NOW ... I have to think about dead bodies, car bombs and the Bush policy of world domination .. what crap! ...I think that I will hang on to my Conn .. it sounds just fine ..

As John said, this is a fine album, played with verve and confidence. Phil Nimmons is a wonderful clarinet player, vastly underrated because he has spent all of his life in Canada. He released two albums on Verve, both of which are worth owning. I must confess that I did not know that this had been reisued on CD ... I just bought a copy for a pittance ... check here... don't pick the first one, as I already did! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=music

Hmmmmm .. not us single guys ..... how about playing the Pepper select at 2:30 a.m. this morning at full tilt? ...

This is an issue that lots of personal resonance for me. I have written and had published five books, edited close to a hundred, and been the editor of three book series ... and after all of this I am still not sure of the business model for many publishers. I can say that in the last ten years there has been an increased emphasis on the infamous "bottom line" ... and yet, there are always some publishers who are willing to take a chance on a book that they know will not make a great deal of money. I have dealt with major publishers (Little, Brown), aggressive academic publishers (Sage), and university presses (Cambridge, Minnesota), and there is one common factor among all of them ... once that baby is born (all books are like babies to their authors) you are basically on your own! Every publishing quarter a certain amount of money is set aside for promotion, and you have to fight for your share, but the bulk of these funds go to the books that the publisher feels will give the greatest return. (My first book was up against Lillian Helmann's "Scoundrel Time" .. so what chance did I have at Little, Brown?) Yes, authors fill out those information sheets requested by the promotions and marketing department, but they seldom translate this information into action. Getting reviews is one way that promotion departments help, but even there the author often has to provide the list of potential review venues, and the names of prospective reviewers (I wonder how many reviews are set up in advance?; I confess to doing this at times.) I have known many authors to spend their own money on promotion efforts. Back in the mid-eighties one young author of a wonderful book on the effects of television published by Oxford U.P. hired a woman working out of a basement in New Hampshire to do publicity for him. The result was a number of very prestigious awards, all sorts of radio and newspaper interviews, etc. Like Larry Kart's experience, all Oxford offered him in return was a hearty "Congratulations" ... no offer to reimburse him the $4,000 or so he spent out of his own pocket. The book continues to sell, so I am sure that he has made it back .. but still ... With the advent of the internet there has emerged new possibilities to market books ... I wonder, for instance, how many extra copies of his book Larry Kart has sold as a result of just this board .. not a great number in the grand scheme of things, but certainly more than he would have just relying on reviews and the battle for shelf space in Borders. In my own case, my most successful publishing efforts has been with an academic publisher like Sage, which has a very aggressive mail marketing program, targeting the primary user group ... there you have the classic potental for sales success ... a consumer looking for a product, and a supplier offering a choice. Finally, the quickest way to an immediate payoff is to get your book in some sort of book club ... Pity the Jazz Book Club is no longer in operation, but then I am not sure that was a very financially successful setup at the time. Yes .. it is a wonder that the publishing business still continues to operate .. and more books than ever get published every year!

Don't be so discouraged ... Here is something to think about ..... The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. Hunter S. Thompson

Here is mine ... Here is your completed order: ID________Name/Title____________________Format___Price____Quantity___Total 81626j Pepper Adams & Jimmy Knepper _____ CD 12.99 1 12.99 --- Pepper-Knepper Quintet 374715j Conte Candoli ____________________ CD 11.99 1 11.99 --- Modern Sounds From The West (Best From The West Vols 1 & 2) 359127j Jim Hall _________________________ CD 11.99 1 11.99 --- Jim Hall Featuring Buddy Collette -- The Unreleased Sessions (Swinging Shepherds/Porgy & Bess) 363897j Phil Woods _______________________ CD 4.99 1 4.99 --- Song For Sisyphus --- (NOTE: CD case has a small cut out notch.)

DIE, YOU DEVIL!

WOW! DOUBLE WOW!!! I have just listened to disc 3 .. what I call the "Omega material" which was originally released only on Omega tapes ... the only jazz taped album I ever purchased ... perhaps that is why it sounds so great. Carl Perkins on piano is just fantastic. I have had several iterations of this music since the mid-fifties, and I have NEVER hear it with this much clarity and presence .... So far this is a great set .. by far the favorite among all my selects. I have just one complaint ... the answer to which is obvious -- space ... but what a pity that they could not have included that album with Marty Paich on piano originally on the Tampa label. I would love to hear a remaster of that album.

Banned? BANNED? Who.. me???

No Brad .... they ship according to your membership number ... the lower the number the greater the privileges you get! Mine is #1293 ... what's yours??

From the Unscrupulous Blackmarket Department: FOR SALE: A CD of "BASRA" by PETE LAROCA. A rare Blue Note album, now censored and withdrawn for political reasons. $645 or nearest offer. G.W.B.

Stan Freberg's wonderfully funny (and accurate) takes on jazz musicians on many of his satires are worthy of a thread to itself .... as that frustrated pianist on "The Great Pretender" says ... "dig, like Garner, Shearing man!" .... or the equally frustrated jazz drummer on "The Yellow Rose of Texas" who keeps playing jazz breaks ... Very funny stuff even fifty years later ....

I would like to know what "jazz kitsch" you secretly have enjoyed over the years. Stuff like those Jackie Gleason albums with Bobby Hackett, or George Shearing's "White Satin" ... or Martin Denny's "Exotic Sounds" .. complete with bird calls ... "Tiki Music" ... Go for it gang! Confession is good for the soul! In my case I had/have a great fondness for a series of albums that the pianist Paul Smith did for Capitol called "Liquid Sounds" ... I have never been able to find those in CD format ... anyone else a fan of this stuff?

No Kenny G's to be honest, but I did have a Lonnie Donegan on the Dot Label, and lots of George Shearing with strings on Capitol! This was "make-out" music from the 60s .... I think that this will force me to do something I have wanted to initiate for some time .. a real "guilty pleasures" thread... NOTE! I just started this thread in "Miscellaneous Music" ....

Hmmmmmmmm... if you can't think of any, well there are many "good" Jewish jazz musicians listed in this thread ....

Oscar's version of "SAX NO END" on the "Exclusively .... " set always makes my friends trained in classical music from the UH music school sit up and take notice .... his rolling thunder just gets better and builds chorus after chorus ... it is a sight to behold! Of course, it is this incredible display of sheer technique (as well as swinging) that annoys many jazz fans who dispute the quality of Oscar's improvisations ... Allen is not the first astute jazz expert that I have encountered who finds dubious merit in O.P.'s playing ... As a bragging aside ... when I finally sold all of my LPs ... I had 103 Oscar Peterson albums .. by far the most of any musician in my collection ... Ellington was second ... and trying to be a completist for both Art Farmer and Buddy DeFranco, these two followed ...

My Pepper Select (together with the Woody Herman) arrived this morning. I feel justified in selling my original "Pepper Returns" on Jazz West several years ago for nearly $400 to a Japanese collector on eBay. The remastering is superb, and certainly better than fifties vinyl in this case ... It is amazing to me how wonderful some of these fifties "west coast" albums sound with remastering today. Even without remastering Pacific Jazz and Contemporary albums sound so far superior to East Coast labels at the same time, of course IMHO ... so flame away!