Teasing the Korean

Thanks all for the replies. I do have one of those Harold Vick albums, the Caribbean one. But I'm not 100% clear on George Avakian, and maybe I didn't ask my questions clearly. Presumably, RCA wanted Avakian so he could recreate his Columbia jazz magic at RCA, correct? So he starts out by pilfering from Columbia 2/3 of LHR, and 1/2 of Dave Brubeck Quartet. These were known quantities and there must have been a presumption that they would sell reasonably well, correct? So they were a fairly safe bet. And he also signs Sonny Rollins, and Joe Williams (whom I just learned about; I have never seen his RCA albums). So did RCA say, "OK, that's enough jazz for us, we're good."? Did Avakian think that this would grow into something bigger, or was it common knowledge that this would be the extent of a jazz catalog for a major label in the early 1960s? And how about Sonny Rollins? He must have been happy with the paychecks, but was he somewhat isolated at RCA? I realize that most of you were not with RCA in the early 1960s, so I guess there are no hard answers, but I wonder if this has ever been discussed or reported in any depth. Just trying to get an idea of the likely expectations of the label, the producer, and the artists. Would the RCA jazz thing have been viewed as a success, a failure, or something between? This also gets into the larger question of jazz - or lack thereof - on major labels.

Rescued from the dollar jazz bin at Stereo Jack's. I love how each of the 12 signs is correlated with a different key, and how the soloist on each track is of the corresponding Zodiac sign!

John Dankworth - The Zodiac Variations - Fontana

I have, I believe, the complete Black Jazz discography. This one is a real favorite, and a nice easy listening album for cleaning (which I'm stuck with doing today).

A couple of questions about George Avakian's run at RCA. His initial artists seemed to be Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan; Paul Desmond; Joe Morello; and Sonny Rollins. (Maybe I'm missing someone.) How did Columbia and Dave Brubeck feel about Avakian signing half of Brubeck's quartet to do albums as leaders? How did those Sonny Rollins albums do? Did Avakian/RCA have high hopes for Rollins? I realize that later RCA had Gary Burton and, for a hot minute or so in 1966-67, Duke Ellington, but it seems like RCA's interest in jazz was pretty short-lived.

Santa is bringing me this!

This one has eluded me, which is surprising, because Herbie Mann records were everywhere for a long time.

I would have to lead up to that one!

Do you have their masterpiece A Wilder Alias on CTI?

I get it, and you're right. It's just that I burned out on piano trio records many years ago, and I've never fully come back to them. Maybe it will happen one day.

Well, there's that!

Interesting. I tend to like the solo albums, because of the lack of restrictions placed on the pianist. I also like piano and bass albums. My issue with the trio albums is that they offer neither the intimacy or spontaneity of solo piano records nor the range of color variations you would get if a fourth or fifth instrument were added. That's just me.

This would also be great for a club sequence, with the protagonist and his date at a table watching the performance.

As I've written elsewhere, the piano trio approach grows tiresome for me, and I wish that Evans had done more in different configurations. When I reach for a Bill Evans these days, I want to hear him with either Miles, Cannonball, Jim Hall, George Russell, Claus Ogerman. Some trio tracks sprinkled across a various artists playlists work well, but they get tiresome for me on a full album.

I have a Doxy LP of The Hustler by Thee Great Kenyon Hopkins, and the sound is great. It is clearly not sourced from vinyl. That said, I don't know what Doxy does for their other LPs, and I'm not about to find out for that amount of money. But if my Doxy LP of The Hustler is truly a bootleg, then I'm OK with bootlegs. And I paid less than ten bucks for it.

"Forewarned is forearmed, it hurts. I'm leaving." - Mike Nesmith

Do you have the press release for The Velvet Underground and Nico?

OK, that's it. I don't associate with people who don't eat tofu sandwiches. Just kidding. Maybe we can meet for some green juice, like Elizabeth Holmes drank. Positive vibes to your father.

I won't hold that against you. I will be happy to enjoy a tofu sandwich with you. But this begs the question: How did you get into jazz? Don't jazz and drinks go together?

All is good, and sorry if I took your words out of context. Let's have drinks next time I am in Ohio.

I will grant you that, but within the context of the conversation, it may have been easily inferred. Are we friends yet?

Do we know if Eastern Moods has been reissued on LP or CD?

Eastern Moods is the one I'm missing. I have the other five.

"They" are worse now, as things have become openly regressive in the US, at least in certain states. But we are teetering into a topic that we're not supposed to discuss here, correct? At any rate, I have only a few Mingus titles on CD, and I need to explore the LPs to find more examples of his private eye sound.

"Bird Calls" would also work for some intense chase scenes.