Teasing the Korean

I've known so many people who named a cat or dog Miles, I thought this was about someone's pet.

I have two versions by Stravinsky but am not familiar with the others. Isn't it interesting that the most ubiquitous version for so long has been so hard to find on CD?

Has anyone compared the Mickey One LP to the CD? The CD apparently has a lot more music. It's my understanding that these are alternate takes. Beyond alternate takes, is there any music on the CD that did not make it to the LP?

Well, the Bernstein arrived. The cover art is nice, but not up to the level of the Dorati (with the tiki) or the Ansermet (with the topless virgin). Performance-wise, it is very good. The savagery works in those passages, but some of the brooding mystery is lost in other passages. The brass is very out of balance in places and the woodwind/string detail can get lost. A very solid performance/recording but not what it is cracked up to be, IMHO.

That's fine, it would be a boring world if we all agreed! I do think the arrangements on the Cole Porter set are a little better than the R&H, but harmonically, they just don't go in the directions that I want them to. I keep waiting for certain resolutions that end up being on the vanilla side. I think Riddle's arrangements on the Gershwin set are really top notch. Sinatra typically brought out the best in Riddle, but I get the sense that Riddle applied the same levels of care and thought with Ella on the Gershwin set as he did with Frank. I wish he would have been involved with more of these.

The arrangements are, in general, L7. I will say that the Cole Porter arrangements are a tad better than those on the Rodgers and Hart set. A missed opportunity: Great songs, great singer, third-rate arrangements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IktXk2PhwMk

I'm not a fan of the sets with Buddy Bregman arrangements (Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter), although both contain a few gems.

Not to get off topic, but "Mickey One" was on TCM last night and I taped it. Really looking forward to watching; I've had the LP for decades but the film has been very hard to find, in my experience at least. I watched the opening credits, and the host described it as the closest thing to an American French New Wave film that she has seen.

Considering the small percentage of people who go out of their way to actively listen to jazz, think of how many people in the US heard those amazing drum fills of his every night of the week going into and out of commercial ads. RIP. EDIT: I might add that Ed played drums on one of the greatest albums ever made, Mundell Lowe's "Satan in High Heels." I will spin this in his honor, along with volumes 1 and 2 of TV ACTION JAZZ!

Thanks. I must have about 40 Cal Tjader LPs/CDs, but I will have to fill some holes with those OJC CDs; That red and blue vinyl is getting pricey these days!

I was browsing Amazon looking at the CDs of the (first) Fantasy era and had no idea that many had made it to CD. (Most of my Cal Tjader is on vinyl.). How is the sound on those OJC/Fantasy CDs? I may want to pick up a few...

The Bernstein is en route. A professional musician friend of mine who listens to every version of Rite he can find told me he listened to the Bernstein on Pandora after it was released that it was "amazing."

Exactly when was Don on Blue Note?

I have a couple of those Cadence LPs. His arrangement of "I Cover the Waterfront" is gorgeous.

Libraries sometimes gave tunes different titles to differentiate them. For example, Keith Mansfield's "Powerhouse Pop" had a different title when recorded by Maynard Ferguson with the identical arrangement. Same thing happened with Les Baxter tunes from the "Africa Blue" album. So, even if these are different recordings, you may recogonize much of what you hear from other albums.

For what it's worth, Duke didn't write this tune. It was written by Jim Farmer and J.B. McNeely. Duke's name, and that of the publisher, were added to the credits, as was common at the time.

Inspired by Allen Lowe's comment about the Eddie Sauter/Stan Getz "Focus" album (in the Stan Getz thread in the Artists forum), I'd like to discuss some pieces/albums along these lines in which the match works. I will have to revisit "Focus." I remember liking it quite a bit when I first picked it up, but it's been ages since I've given it a spin. One example, for me at least, is the Gary McFarland/Steve Kuhn "The October Suite."

Les Baxter's Capitol Exotica albums: Le Sacre de Sauvage Tamboo Caribbean Moonlight Ports of Pleasure African Jazz Jungle Jazz The Sacred Idol Jewels of the Sea 8 LPs on 4 CDs. Of course, even if they were cool enough to do this, the cover art would be ugly, as all the others are, and I wouldn't buy it. Still, a girl can dream, can't she?

Coltrane could not have played with those musicians in person, true, but it is well known that he and Diz were able to record together by e-mailing pro-tools files. How do they keep screwing this up?

Not the most exciting I've heard, but at these prices, worth a listen.

Listening now to the Tennstedt 2-CD set on EMI.

Possibly a silly question, but have any of these made it to CD, and if so, how did they do the transfer? Did they run at tape machine at these sessions, in addition to going direct to disc? I am listening to the Wagner LP with the LA Phil and it sounds amazing.

Well, she's being sacrificed, so I'm assuming that someone else did the research and spared me of the responsibility.

Yes, but he's not as hip as a a bearded guy suspending a topless virgin over his head.