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Shrdlu
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Posts posted by Shrdlu
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What an amazing lineup listed in that sign. (Same as on the record.) If only we could have dropped in there! And an avatar shows a Tommy Flanagan Trio. Mmmm, that would have been tasty. Tommy was subtle. His entry, after the fireworks in Kenny Dorham's "Trompeta Toccata", is wonderful. Check out his chords at the start of Kenny Burrell's "Moten Swing".
The Savoy recording of that Bohemia lineup is very satisfying. Cannonball steals the show. I noticed that Oscar Pettiford is not on that session. I have three takes of one selection. They are all fine, but it's amusing to hear the fours. No-one organized the solo order, and the guys trip over each other; you would think that that would have been straightened out after the first take, but the second and third takes are still indecisive.
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You're probably right, there. But before the new tracks came out, I always felt that the album was a bit out of balance, the trumpet being only on the last two, of six, tracks.
Anyway, in its original form, and now enlarged, it's a great set. The opener is a real cooker. It's my favorite Braith, too.
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They only now got around to it? What a worthless publication.
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I have TOCJ-9351 here, and it says that it was mastered by Rudy. He also did a CD of "Watkins At Large" in the same series. These two are not part of the "JRVG" series, though, which is Blue Note only.
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As with all of the extra, previously unissued Blue Note takes that Michael Cuscuna added to Japanese CDs from 2012 through 2015, the ones here are great. He added everything that would fit, but had to leave out two tracks from the two sessions involved. One, with just Patton, Green and Dixon, is on a later Patton session, and the other item is on a Braith album (without Patton).
All of the new tracks from this "swan song" series would fit onto at most four CDs and should be issued that way. I would issue the two "Blue John" sessions, with the two unissued items, as a 2-CD set. A digital download of everything would be acceptable, at 320 mp3.
For this particular CD, it might help to check out kupiku.com. Type UCCQ-5008 into the search window. This site has helped me, and it avoids the Discogs fee, though Mr Amazon usually pokes his nose into the proceedings. Amazon Japan refuses to mail outside the country.
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Yes, but that is just a U.S. version. I do have it, though.
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I find this file-size limitation frustrating, especially in this era of Signal and Whatsapp, but I assume that the limit is to save on expenses. The result is that I don't add any relevant pictures.
By the way, Whatsapp linked up with Facebook (i.e. the ghastly Google), so I don't trust it anymore.
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It is worth mentioning that the Japanese RVG CD of "Byrd's Eye View" has an extra track, "Crazy Rhythm", that did not fit onto the original LP and isn't on the other Japanese CD reissues. That track is on the Transition sampler, TRLP-8.
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I saw that lineup in Australia. I knew it would be my only chance to see those legends, so I decided to see them in two cities. I was on the same airplane with them one day.
I agree with Art Blakey that the project was a bad idea. It was an opportunity to see these greats, but the music was just a matter of going through the motions. Monk played well, but I saw him offstage and he wasn't all there. Diz was ministering to him.
As mentioned above, the tour enabled Monk's solo and trio recordings in London, England, to be made. They are superb, and, for me, more enjoyable than his late 1940s Blue Note material. The Mosaic set, for some reason, didn't include all of the tracks, but the (three) separate CDs, with everything, have always been easy to obtain.
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The Curtis Fuller/Pepper Adams session produced three tracks only. Michael Cuscuna found a tape of them and issued them. I have them on a CD of the Jazzwest Paul Chambers album. It's an RVG version with excellent sound.
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That was arson. Ancient wood doesn't burn without an accelerant.
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Ewww, three baritone saxophones in one sitting? No, thanks.
At least, the picture John posted has the proper model, without that horrible extension. (Gerry Mulligan, Pepper Adams and Danny Bank hated it and refused to play it.)
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There's an interesting story about intonation.
The M.J.Q. was booked for a concert in London, England. Most of you will know that John Lewis was a perfectionist. The contract required a grand piano, freshly tuned to A440. The English regularly expect to be able to ignore things like that. The Quartet arrived at the venue, and, sure enough, the piano had not been tuned. So, John took them all away and there was no concert. He was right: he didn't want to harm their reputation.
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Re intonation, I used to go to many "blows" (as we called them) when I was a teenager. At the time, I was armed with a worn-out Selmer "super action" alto saxophone (the model before the Mark VI) with tarnished lacquer and a clarinet.
That was in Australia in the 60s. None of the houses had central heating back in those days. The piano was often in a freezing room. Pianos go terribly sharp when it's cold (the strings contract and tighten). Clarinets go flat when cold, even with the mouthpiece and barrel pushed in all the way. The result was a pitch gap that couldn't be bridged. The pianist once played an A and an Ab simultaneously for us to tune up. Good experience for a young musician. I had the clarinet's barrel shortened, to try to cope with those pianos, but if you push the barrel in an appreciable amount, the intervals get thrown off and you have to lip every note to play in tune. Saxophones are much more forgiving when one moves the mouthpiece along the neck.
Playing outdoors on a cold day is also fun.
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I'm still waiting not to buy the Mosaic Mobley set.
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It is interesting to see this old thread.
I was amazed to hear complaints about Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter. I never heard them out-of-tune. Ron has one of the richest bass sounds in jazz. I'm speaking double bass here: I hate jazz cello, because it always has painful intonation; it would peel the wallpaper.
Jackie Mac played in tune in ensembles. He blended in superbly. In solos, any variation of pitch was essential. This has partly to do with the fact that (he said) he was trying to sound like Dex.
There have been some terribly out-of-tune alto saxophonists on Blue Note sessions. The worst was Leo Wright, though his sound was a good fit on the Johnny Coles album. But Jackie Mac is always welcome, and, of course, Lou Donaldson is always spot on.
I used to play with a bass player who (believe it or not) didn't like Paul Chambers. He said Paul was flat. But Paul gave a group such a lift. Apart from one or two tracks with Red Garland, I have never heard him to be off-pitch. Actually, it amazes me that bass fiddle players know where to place their left-hand fingers and that they can do that at breakneck tempos.
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I first heard Jimmy on the album "Back At The Chicken Shack". I found a copy of the LP for $3.00 in a used record store. The cover looked like it had been dropped into a sink full of water, but the vinyl was pristine. I was knocked out. That B3 sound, with its own bassline, Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Burrell and Donald Bailey. A perfect album. If you've never heard Jimmy Smith, this is an excellent starting point.
Later, I acquired more Smith. I have the early 57 three-day Blue Note material, but it doesn't do much for me. As a result, I avoided the 56-57 live dates. But recently, I decided to hear the live date at the Baby Grand Club in Wilmington, Delaware - two CDs' worth of material. It is just the trio -no guests.
This collection includes an amazing version of "The Preacher"! I have never heard anything by Jimmy to top that. It is very long, and he is the only soloist. It is an amazing, room-filling noise. Absolutely shattering. This is an example of what Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff heard when they first heard him. They were blown away.
The piece is in F. I love it when Jimmy holds down an F with his right thumb and solos with the other four fingers. The tension is terrific.
Jimmy's best-ever recorded performance? Suggestions to the contrary welcomed.
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How about one of Red Garland's Prestige trio albums with Paul Chambers and Arthur Taylor?
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This is so frustrating, because Gary's arranging is superb. "Soft Samba Strings" should have been a major album for him. I can't understand why the serious error was not noticed immediately.
It was a bad idea, in the first place, to record part of the mix in England and part in America, and the England musicians add nothing special. It should all have been recorded at Rudy's.
If the separate parts still exist, it might be possible to adjust the tape speeds and make the album properly.
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A very worthy project. Cal achieved such a lot.
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I will slightly distort the thread by listing a couple of jazz LPs that my parents bought before I was old enough to get any.
They had a 10" compilation of Fats Waller called "Fats Waller Favorites" and Vol. 2 of the Decca recordings of "The Benny Goodman Story", which were the ones used in the movie and had a lot of the original guys, plus guests such as Buck Clayton, Stan Getz and Urbie Green.
My Dad was into jazz in the 30s and knew his stuff.
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Fair enough, and yes, Gary was an excellent scorer. But that album made no impression on me, and there are very many albums of his that I like a lot.
It was interesting to hear where the Latin bass riff comes from. I have only heard it on "Bloop Bleep" and "You And Me Baby". Gary and Cal Tjader were very tight (later forming Skye Records), so no doubt Gary got the riff from Cal. Gary turns up on some bonus material on the CD of Cal's "Soul Sauce".
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Well, it's movie cues etc. Not as enjoyable as his other work. The actual theme was recorded several times by Gary and is fine.
I might have figured out what caused the pitch mismatch on "Soft Samba Strings". I read years ago that if a 78 rpm record was recorded in America and played in the U.K., then it was slightly off-pitch. That had to do with the gear ratios of the turntable mechanism and the fact that the U.S. uses 60 cycles power while Britain uses 50 cycles. In the case of the McFarland album, a tape was recorded in England and the rest was dubbed in in America. You would have the 50 vs 60 cycles issue, and perhaps the U.K. tape, on playback, was not running at precisely the right speed. That is purely a guess, but recall that the first session for "Kind Of Blue" was recorded at the wrong speed and the issued LP was a quarter-tone sharp.
Late 60's Early 70's Blue Note Lesser Known Gems
in Recommendations
Posted · Edited by Shrdlu
This is not exhaustive, but a few post-Lion sessions that I recommend are Bobby Hutcherson's "Total Eclipse" (superb cast and playing, though not a van Gelder recording, so deduct one point; the album transcends the lesser engineering) and his sessions with Harold Land, Joe Chambers and the rest. Wayne Shorter's "Odyssey Of Iska" is a good mood album. Anything by Duke Pearson (other than the ones with four singers).
With the departure of Al Lion, and Reid Miles's artwork, and the use of other recording studios, and the interference from Liberty, it wasn't the real Blue Note after late spring 1967. The artwork was very cheap and nasty: they could have retained the use of the album number inside the musical note.
The Blue Note Works series tells it all. Go onto Discogs and look at that series. The plan was to release everything, not just the same old favorites, and they put out all of the 1500, 40xx, 41xx series, and half of the 42xx series, but once you go beyond 4299, the issues thin out a lot.