gmonahan

Maynard Ferguson Roulette box, discs 1-2

Now, now, Jazzbo, you KNOW you want them! You NEED them! They call out to you!

Cool. Hope that happens. You're absolutely right about the May/Shearing stuff. Prime Cole.

Great box, though I sort of like the earlier "Star Dust" box better. Sure wish Bear Family would do one on the 1951-54 period!

The only Bach I've ever heard Lewis play is on the "last" MJQ studio album, "Blues on Bach." It's their *most* classical album, with some nice improvising around the themes, though it's even more buttoned down than their other albums.

I'm kind of amazed no one has mentioned the fabulous "Satch and Josh" duets of Peterson and Basie on Pablo. I love those!

You're absolutely right, 1940s/1950s R&B certainly wasn't monolithic, with all those big bands, small groups, honkers, shouters, balladeers, doo-wop and vocal groups, etc. By the way, I didn't say Hampton's Decca sides were all leaning toward R&B, but quite a few did. On the R&B side, if anyone is interested in Louis Jordan, Bear Family did a fine job of reissuing all of his Decca recordings. There is some cool stuff in there. Thanks for the heads-up on the Teddy Wilson Heps. Those tend to be hard to get over here in the U.S., alas. Does anybody have a good reliable on-line seller for those?

Yeah, I'm so old I bought it new. Liners by Stanley Dance. I wonder if he held the record for the most liner notes written by one critic? They're good liners, but I'd bet the Mosaic will be at least as good, possibly better. It would be cool to reprint them, but that's not Mosaic's style. Nice idea for a set, though. Didn't Teddy Wilson lead a similar series (without Billie Holiday as well as with her) for the Columbia labels during a similar period? I have an old Columbia two-fer with some of those.

That's a cool compilation. Brother Hubert was also on the "Dizzy Songs" cd I mentioned before and JiP volume 90 with Django as well as two tracks of the Sacha Distel "hors-serie" 2-cd set. I do love that Jazz in Paris series!

Yes, but once you set aside the box, nothing beats their books for ease of use. Same for the full-sixed Fantasy boxes (Monk, Evans, Montgomery). The Mosaic Selects are pretty handy too. Come to think of it, the Mosaics are probably my favorite. Seconds on the Heavyweight Champion, although I usually just pull out the individual CDs. I love the Mosaics because I can take the jewel boxes out of the big boxes and put them right on the shelf. Same for the booklets. Then I just store the empty big boxes in the garage. I find that if I don't take the jewel boxes out of the bigger ones, I don't play them as often. Laziness, I know, but there it is. I like the old Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone and Bear Family boxes for the same reason.

Raymond Fol appears on several other entries in the Jazz in Paris series. Vol. 66 is "Les Quatres Saisons" recorded in 1965 under his name with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. He's also on volume 24 with Guy Lafitte, volume 46 with Lionel Hampton, volume 54 with Hubert Rostaing, and volume 86 with Gerard Badini. He also recorded some sessions with Dizzy Gillespie in 1952-53 that were reissued on Vogue (titled "Dizzy Songs"). An interesting pianist.

Sarah Vaughan did some recording for Mainstream. Jazz Heritage reissued some Tokyo recordings. I think that's the only body of Vaughan recordings not to have been reissued on cd, isn't it?

How about some album recommendations from Shavers fans?

Ellington small groups, disc 1. Hodges on soprano--very fine.

I'm listening to volume 105: "Sonny Stitt Sits in with the Oscar Peterson Trio." This one was first reissued on cd by Verve in 1991 with three bonus tracks recorded by Stitt with O.P. in 1957 in LA (the Paris tracks were recorded in 1959). That one went out of print, to be reissued in one of those very expensive Japanese versions (which is still available--for a fortune). The Jazz in Paris version does not issue the three 1957 bonus tracks, sticking (logically) with the original album of 8 tracks recorded in Paris in 1959. So, it's short (39 minutes), but for those who don't already have it, it really is a wonderful album. Stitt was in top form, and O.P., Ray Brown, and Ed Thigpen hung in there with him. Peterson liked a challenge, and so did Sonny. As James Isaacs noted in his original liner notes for the 1991 cd, Stitt and Peterson never recorded together again, which is too bad. They were well met! Sound is very fine, typical of the series, with some fair liners by Alain Tercinet.

You will find details about the Pathe sessions here! Click on Sessions and go to 24-29. The Pathe sessions include the March 8, and December 5, 1928 dates plus the March 18, April 29 and September 10, 1929 dates. Awesome site that Duke Ellington Panorama! Thanks Brownie! Cool site!

Not counting the early Pathe titles, the Columbia/Brunswick/Master titles (not counting alternates and the small group stuff on Mosaic) runs to 7 cds. I have the Classics and deleted the small group stuff for some cdrs and have 7 discs (180 titles) covering 1931-1940. The Pathe titles were included in the French lp series but will probably be excluded in the future Mosaic box. I'd like to hear more about the Pathe titles. When were they recorded? Circumstances? Was this Duke's 1933 European tour? I have an old Prestige LP with four titles recorded, it says, for British Columbia, in December of that year. Same? Different? This is the kind of stuff I love to read about here!

Me too! This Select has been a real surprise. I didn't order it immediately from Mosaic. Instead (my bad) I took advantage of the deal at deepdiscount. Really great music. I especially like the valve trombone!

They're not quite so cheap over here in the US, but I went ahead and ordered them from Dusty Groove. Just *love* that series!

That's lousy news about Legacy. I didn't know that (I'm always the last grape on the vine....), and a real shame. There were lots of cool Duke things yet to be properly reissued: Bal Masque, Drum is a Woman, Indigos. Mosaic's Singles series seems to be picking up some of the slack, and as I noted on another thread, they're hoping to reissue the Ellington 30s big band stuff, but STILL, Legacy was doing so damned well. And with access to the RCA material, they could have really gone to town. Sigh.

I sent an email to Scott Wenzel at Mosaic suggesting a possibility for a Singles release (Bobby Hackett's wonderful "Creole Cookin'" on Verve) and added at the end of that message that I hoped we'd see an Ellington 30s big band set to go with the recent Small Groups box. He answered, "As for the Ellington, we're hoping to do the big band stuff in '08." When I asked his permission to post that news here, he wrote the following: "As long as you mention that NOTHING has been cleared yet by Sony/BMG. We have our projects already mapped out for '07 and will be sending in a track listing to be approved sometime later this year." SO, can we hope for an Ellington big band box of the classic 30s Columbia-owned Brunswicks in '08? Looks like it's possible! Way cool!

I'll be in Amsterdam in early July. Anybody out there know a great jazz cd store there where I'd be likely to be able to pick up these new Jazz in Paris cds at a fairly good price?

Over on the "New Releases" threads, they're talking about ten new releases coming up in the series: Buck Clayton 'and Friends' Raymond Fol 'Echoes of Harlem' Stan Getz/Michel Legrand 'Communications '72' Guy Lafitte 'Blues ...' Kid Ory at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées Sammy Price 'Good Paree' Sonny Stitt sits in with the Oscar Peterson Trio Maurice Vander 'Piano Jazz' George Wein 'Midnight Concert at the Olympia' Jazz et Cinéma 'Volume 5' Don't know how they'll be numbered, but it's good to know the series will continue!