Teasing the Korean

I went for about 15 years without a TV. It was great. Then I moved in with my girlfriend, who had other ideas. But she had a great record collection, so it was worth sacrificing my principles.

Slightly off topic, but related: One of my pet peeves is getting a later pressing of an LP, with a later label design that does not match the aesthetics of the music. For example, I mentioned elsewhere spinning a copy of Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" with the orange 70s Dynaflex RCA label. It happens to be a great pressing so I held onto it, but it's offputting. With Blue Notes, I prefer to see the older white and blue label with music from that era, but beggars can't bee choosy. The way Blue Note vinyl has skyrocketed in recent decades, I'm mostly hearing Blue Note on CD now. But, yes, I love the Blue Note logo on ablum covers - an unusual design compared to other labels.

Stanley Black - Exotic Percussion - London Phase 4 (green & white label, mono). One of my favorite non-Baxter, non-Denny exotica albums. Mono is much better than the stereo.

Spinning some jazz/pop vocals while cooking dinner: Tony Bennett - The Beat of My Heart - Columbia (6-eye, mono) with Sabu, Candido, Art Blakey, etc. Peggy Lee - Black Coffee - Decca (10" mono, black label)

Listening now to "Twisted Nerve." This is the only jazz-oriented score I've heard by him other than "Taxi Driver."

Thanks for sharing Allen!

The episode in the 5th season of "Hell's Kitchen" when someone burned a wellington and Ramsay called him a donkey. I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it.

Yes, I love "Buddwing," maybe my favorite overall. Over the years I've found many of his best ones, but a few have eluded me. Why would any one of those titles be any harder to license than anything else? I could see the problems with a box set. Yellow Canary and Buddwing are both on Verve - that would have been a nice twofer.

"Shock" and "Panic" have been reissued as well: http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=wmyty47tsd&ref=browse.php&refQ=kwfilter%3Dshock%2Bpanic%26amp%3Bincl_oos%3D1%26amp%3Bincl_cs%3D1 A friend of mine told me that these used to be available through comic books and monster magazines! Allen, did you ever dig up the info you had on Hopkins from your forthcoming 1950s jazz book?

It's a great record cover. If I find one with an LP inside, all the better.

I won't - especially if he monkeyed with technology for the full duration of the tune instead of the first four bars.

Why didn't they just spend the time fixing the opening bars, where the flutter occurs, and then crossfade this into the analog master for the rest (vast majority) of the tune?

I hear you. I suspect that more and more of the music I care about will be available only through pricey limited edition CDs or cheap digital downloads.

Thanks, I'll try that!

"Print" feature was greyed out. Any trick around that?

???

I didn't mean to imply that mp3s were a superior format to LPs, CDs, or reel to reel tape. I was trying to say that the mastering on these is much better than the mastering on all that 90s Ultra Lounge stuff, which were probably mastered to match the levels of then-current rock/pop CDs (the bass on the Ultra Lounge series is artificially heavy). I'll take a superior mix/mastering job on a compressed file over lousy mixing/mastering on a CD quality file. Of course, if these superior mastering jobs were available on CD, that would be my first choice. But that is not likely to happen.

I've never found a better-sounding version of this album than the original turquoise. The CD sounds like it was mastered from a cassette.

Regardless of whether the mono albums were folddowns or not, I prefer everything on Blue Note through at least the late 60s in mono, and I always hit the mono button on stereo BNs. It brings everything into focus better, and you get a little more bass and piano in the process.

While I appreciate those labels, and have many releases by them, their Les Baxter titles are mastered from vinyl. The downloads are from Capitol master tapes and, IMHO, sound much better, despite the digital format.

The full albums are the same price on Amazon and iTunes, for whatever that's worth. If you mean the two-disc "Exotic Moods of Les Baxter," the sound on that was not very good - lots of limiting, noise reduction, fake stereo, etc. Judging from the sound samples of the downloads, they are an improvement.

Just found out on another message board that Capitol has made many of Les Baxter's classic exotica albums available via iTunes. Each album is $6.99. I'd been hoping for CD reissues, but the only CDs since the Capitol "Exotic Moods" comp of 1996 have been EU public domain albums, likely mastered from vinyl. Available titles from Capitol include: Ritual of the Savage Ports of Pleasure Tamboo The Sacred Idol African Jazz Jewels of the Sea Space Escapade Skins

PM sent (you better sit down) OMFG!!!!! Is that the same guy that was on Letterman for a while? He was wild! Yes, he started in the 1950s, was on Merv frequently, then disappeared for a while until Letterman brought him back in the 1980s. When asked in an interview how he described his act, Brother Theodore called it "stand up tragedy."

I really LOVE this album, which may be a ringing endorsement AGAINST your buying it.

I am STILL looking for those hard to find 1950S records by THE GREAT BROTHER THEODORE. They don't show up anywhere. One was on either Kapp or Cadence, I forget which. Has anyone seen them on a blog or anything?