Shrdlu

I saw Pharaoh just over a year ago, with William Henderson and a pickup bassist and drummer. He only plays tenor saxophone now, and he had a sparking new Selmer. He played great. The venue was terrible, and we couldn't get anywhere near the musicians.

As far as I know, the U.S. is the only country that did away with surface mail. It is utterly stupid. It has severely limited sales outside the country. A lot of bulky items are not needed before surface mail's one month delivery time. I had to mail a cuica and some other large percussion items from Denver, and it cost me over $300 to mail them all. Nothing was urgent. And who is going to buy one LP or CD when the postage is of the order of $20?

All American people should rise up and force the Feds to re-introduce outgoing Surface Mail. The export of, say, a vinyl LP, costs over $20, and the thing goes unnecessarily by air. This has severely reduced sales out of America. I once had to mail a tumba from Denver. By airmail!! Ridiculous.

No, it features all four players, and it is not a warmup. It is just as good as everything else from the session. It is a blues in F.

Scott, I appreciate all you said, and I have listened carefully to all the late Trane. He knew what he was doing, and his technique is excellent, but the bottom line is that I don't really like it. The piano just rumbles and that drummer is no Elvin. There is nothing like his playing on "Wells Fargo", with Wilbur Harden, for example. He is so satisfying on a thing like that. I have the 4 CD "Live In Japan" set. I think I played it once. Yamaha gave Pharaoh and Trane a new alto each, and they play those. Why not tenors? (The Yamaha saxophones are good: I have played an alto and a tenor. The keywork is pure Selmer, of course, but whose isn't, these days.) For me, it's Trane's Prestige, Savoy, Atlantic and Impulse recordings up to "Transition".

Maybe if he gets a haircut.

I have just about all the recorded Trane. I bought and listened to all the late Trane. I am confident enough now, after years of listening, to say that I think that his recordings after McCoy and Elvin left are just a damned noise. All that screeching with Pharaoh. Pharoah can play nicely, and I saw him live a year ago - it was great. Alice just rumbles aimlessly on the piano, and the group doesn't swing. It was crazy to drive away one of the finest pianists and drummers. Elvin's comments are not printable.

This is great to see, because the 90s RCA box sets are long gone, now. I have all of those, and I am happy with the sound on them. My only complaint is very minor: in the (chronologically) last set, alternate takes of a few items are said to be there, but they are just the originally issued tracks. A friend in France came up with some alternates, which should have been included in the set. It was a delight to get these sets, because when I was about 4, I used to play my Dad's Waller 78s, and, in the early 60s, we got some of the "R.C.A. Vintage" vinyl albums. They missed an alternate take of "Black Raspberry Jam", which I have on one of the "Vintage" LPs. Presumably, they mislaid the metal part when the LP was prepared, so it was not where it should have been when the CDs were made.

One is not supposed to like Trane's Prestige recordings, but I defiantly love them all. Furthermore, their existence does not push his later recordings aside.

For financial reasons, I missed the Armstrong 40s and 50s set. I have loved "Ambassador Satch" since the 50s, and I saw that lineup (Louis's best ever, in my opinion) live in 1955: Pops, Trummy, Ed Hall, Billy Kyle, Arvell Shaw and Barrett Deems.

WTF? That doesn't look anything like Eric Dolphy. The idea of Eric playing a baritone gives me the creeps, for some reason.

Very sad news. Just the other day, I was listening to Tamba 4's album "Samba Blim", where they play "Watch What Happens". That is an electric tune. Much respect.

Ha ha, none of the above. My daughter doesn't like jazz at all, and is into pop and what they incorrectly call R & B today. Actually, I don't know why some people dislike the soprano. I first heard it on "Live At The Village Vanguard", where Trane's sound makes one's hair stand on end.

I recently played my (B flat) soprano in the kitchen, and my daughter thought it was annoying. The regular soprano goes high enough for me. I could play the E flat horn, but I have no need for its tessitura, and they cost a fortune.

Blue Note records came with an ear in the day. Cheech and Chong's "Big Bambu" LP came with a massive spliff paper. I didn't copy them and fill it with old socks.

His Master's Cat:

The Japanese mini-LP CD of this is excellent, and includes the three tracks with Pepper Adams. It is a good sample of Paul Chambers and Philly Joe in their prime. It is also nice to hear Trane with them, without the trumpet. Yes, they did make an extra effort to record the bass (two mikes were used) and it paid off.

I don't currently have a cat, ha ha. Back when I only had LPs, I looked after them all and they were never scratched. It disgusts me, to see how battered a lot of "VG+" LPs are if you buy them second-hand. As you probably know, nearly all sellers say VG+ and you get a noisy LP. LPs from the 70s (e.g. the Blue Note twofers and the LT series) are usually safe to buy, but up to the mid 60s, it's junk or $2000 for a Blue Note with the ear and the nose etc.

My first LPs were Hank Mancini's "Peter Gunn" (the first one) and Dave Brubeck's "Southern Scene" - though my uncle bought the latter. The "Peter Gunn" album is a masterpiece, with some of L.A.'s best musicians. The Brubeck session has been mainly overlooked over the years, and isn't on CD a lot, but it is excellent, especially "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen".

Top trombone. Will be missed. Yes, he was great with Tom Jobim.

Well, the "new" track from the "Here 'Tis" session is an un-named Donaldson tune, and it is just as good as everything else. It runs 10:11, so it wouldn't fit onto the original LP. When Michael Cuscuna issued it on the Japanese CD, he arbitrarily named it "Blues #4". This is NOT a track that could possibly be marked as not worthy of issue.

I also want to expose the youngsters to this superb body of music, especially when pop music is largely very low-grade (looking at it totally objectively, not as an older person). They just aren't hearing it through the media. You don't have to settle for crap. We are up against what Cannonball said: "Being hip is not a state of mind: it is a fact of life.". It is my experience that one has to be born with the love of jazz. It got to me when I was a toddler. My daughter (who lives with me) will hear a top-notch jazz album being played, and say "Dad, that's awful!". Ha ha, she also said that when I was doodling on my soprano saxophone in the kitchen - maybe she's right. Anyway, after years of hearing jazz, she is as deaf as a post toward it. I did manage to "seduce" a friend of my son's into jazz, and he's now well acquainted with the likes of Sonny Clark and Grant Green (not just the most famous ones). Currently, we are digging Lou Donaldson's "Here 'Tis", which I only got to hear recently, because there is a new extra track on a CD of the Oriental persuasion. Man, that session really grooves! It is easily the best of "Baby Face's" four Blue Note sessions. That organ cooing behind the solos is awesome. Typically, the top note of the chord is a 7th, and he drops it a half tone, to give the 3rd note of the 4th chord, on a blues. This is out of Freddie Green, of course. I could play that album all day.

I assume that you have considered returning this disk for a refund or a replacement. Usually, a defective disk can be read by a computer. My daughter had a pop CD that got scratched, but the computer read it in perfectly and I put the music onto a CDr for her. Windows Media Player is, well, "Who's the leader of the Club that's made for you and me ... ". It usually turns its nose up at anything I ask it to do. I use VLC for audio and video, because it works. For ripping, I always use the old Winamp. The company shut down, but it still works. I rip at 320 mp3, which (perhaps after years of house music, which I DJ) sounds fine to me. If you want WAV, you will need different software. If I couldn't suck the data off your disk, back she goes to the dude.

Thanks for the tip about the "Showboat" album, Jim. I somehow missed that one. The lineup sure is good. Kenny plays superbly on a Hank Mobley Prestige album called "Mobley's 2nd Message", July 27, 1956. (Not to be confused with some other albums from the time with almost the same title. A lot of messages were floating around at the time.) Those trumpet-tenor quintet albums can get a bit samey, but this one stands out.

I think Rob is referring to the fact that, on the organ, you can press and hold a note steadily for as long as you like - which, of course, you can't do on a piano.