Shrdlu

Every jazz cellist I have heard plays out-of-tune, usually painfully sharp, so I avoid recordings with it. They also tune it in fourths, which is wrong.

I have had the two Blue Note Willette CDs, and the one backing Grant Green, for years, and the mastering is fine on all of the versions I have heard. Just got "Here 'Tis" (the Donaldson session), with the "new" track, "Blues #4", which is just as good as the originally issued tracks. Tasty stuff. I assume that that extra track was omitted for lack of space.

I just saw this recently. I have, over the years, doodled on a B3. The one Fats is playing there looks very much as I remember them. He probably used one of those for his "Jitterbug Waltz". The other of his organ performances that I have are on the Camden, NJ, pipe organ - "Night Wind" being a masterpiece.

I first heard Jimmy on a used LP of "Back At The Chicken Shack". The cover looked like it had been dropped in the head, but the disk was fine. I was amazed to hear that he played his own bass line - I had never heard him before. His sessions with horns are excellent, of course. For me, the best session is the one that produced that LP. I have tended to avoid his recordings with his regular trio: there are a few performances that are nice, but not very exciting. But then, I decided to go through the 1956 trio sessions. I hit the Baby Grand live date. Well, what a shock! "The Preacher" is the most amazing thing I have ever heard him do. It is Jimmy all the way, baring his soul. He is a Smithophone player, an orchestra unto himself (as with Fats Waller). This is soo intense. I love it when he plants his right thumb on an F (and a C or an A flat) and holds it while playing with his other fingers. This is what Frank Wolff heard when he first heard Jimmy at Small's in Harlem: a room filled with this incredible noise. Frank signed him immediately, and then Rudy worked out a way to record the thing.

For the ukulele, I recommend this performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEhHXqWMpzs For me, at least, the instrument is a pleasant instrument that is usually played in a corny way. No real problem, but this lad manages to make it sound very cool. Give it a listen. His name is Robin Skinner, currently about 19. His performance is very mature for such an age. No apologies needed here. Most pop singers are handsome boys or pretty girls who are picked for looks and for being willing to co-operate with the system. I haven't heard many that can really sing. As you know, they run their voices through autotune. (There is a house music mixer that automatically pulls each note onto an exact concert pitch - that would be needed mainly to cope with vinyl, because you can lock the pitch for a CD or mp3, regardless of tempo.) Because there is so much junk in the pop world, I feel a duty to give praise where praise is due.

Ah, Gerald Wilson. Very good. I loved "The Feather", from his "Golden Sword" album. I haven't seen Bullwinkle in years. Used to love that show.

The next item: A motor for an electric tie rack! I'll take that!

WTF, Jim! Mercy! All this stuff. In genuine Münster Dummell High Fidelity! Dear old Norman, ha ha.

I feel that John's first recording of "Tin Tin Deo" should have been with that big band that recorded "Ow!", "Oop Pop A Daa" etc. Oscar recorded an electric version of that on those "Exclusively For My Friends" sessions in the 60s.

She must have been wondering where it had gotten to, Hans.

¡Feliz nuevo año a todos! May we all find, or continue, love in 2019.

The Jazz Discography Project website gives the order in which a session was recorded, so we can arrange "Gooden's Corner" in the order in which it was played. It comes out well that way. Like you, I got the U.S. 2CD set of Grant with Sonny. The music got kinda buried there (for me) and I got the separate Japanese CDs of it recently. Musical treasure! I love "Count Every Star", and let's not forget "Hey There", from another Grant-Sonny session - it was added to the CD of "The Latin Bit".

Very interesting, Tom! I would love to have been at that. Of course, Joe could play with anyone. I saw Blood, Sweat and Tears when they had Fred Lipsius on alto saxophone, and a good trumpet, too. They were a tasty sounding group. Claude Thronhill's band was superb and very original. A friend in France sent me the tracks arranged by Gil (and also Gerry Mulligan). You can hear Gil's trademark sounds already.

It isn't hard to chase up Bean's recordings manually, so zu sagen. Recommendations: his three sessions with Kenny Burrell for Prestige (especially "Tres Palabras") and his Impulse albums from the 60s, "Wrapped Tight", with its gorgeous version of "Intermezzo" being the last one.

The reference to the quartet version of "Punjab" is in the notes Michael Cuscuna wrote when he put out the (extended) CD of "The Individualism Of Gil Evans". Michael told me recently that the large group version of that definitely exists. Gil recorded those before the Joe Henderson album with "Punjab" was recorded, so he must have got the composition from Joe.

I hesitated about the Oliver Nelson Mosaic set, but a re-playing of Stanley Turrentine's "Joyride" settled that. This is an outstanding collection, most of which I would probably never have heard on the separate albums. It was fantastic to have that pool of excellent studio musicians in that era: Danny Bank (which instruments do you want me to bring?), Ernie Royal, Phil Woods, Grady Tate, Jerry Dodgion, etc. Amazing. Lots of punchy brass, and those incredible woodwind tone colors. It doesn't get better than that. Add the Cannonball "Domination" session to the collection - a superb album.

Jim, I got that LP back in 1973-4. The two quartet items were both mistitled. The lineup is Tony Studd (btb), Gil Evans (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Clifford Jarvis (d). The issued items are "Cheryl" (called "Blues In Orbit") and "Ah Moore" (called "Isobel"). I really like them, especially "Cheryl". They are not rough at all. There is nothing there that could damage Gil's reputation (as if). The same session has a version of "Punjab". There are other unissued early 60s Verve recordings by large groups, including another version of "Punjab". I want to hear all of these before the tapes disintegrate.

The C soprano does not have as rich a tone as the B flat, just as the C tenor is no match for the B flat - my saxophone mentor said that it is "neither one nor the other". Having the two B flat horns is enough for me. They actually made a sub contrabass saxophone, in B flat, an octave below the bass saxophone. Utterly ridiculous, but amusing to watch. There is an Italian guy who plays all the sizes - he's real good, too. I've never seen a sopranino saxophone live, but when I was considering getting a bass clarinet, a symphony guy lent me his (low C) Selmer. While I was there, he got out his E flat clarinet (a fourth higher than the regular one) and got me to blow it. It played very easily, right up to the (written) high C (sounding E flat). It was used very effectively in the "Rametep" scene at the end of "Young Sherlock Holmes". It really punches out the melody.

Great piece. I have all the versions. I am very fond of pedal points.

Ah, Tom, he was possibly autistic. That would fit. I have a new friend who is autistic, so I have been looking into it. Another friend of mine said yesterday that he thinks my younger son is at least partially autistic. It can go undiagnosed in adults.

Grant always sounded great. He is easily the equal of Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell (whom I also like). My favorite is the "Gooden's Corner" session, which I play in the order of recording. It opens with a very soulful "Moon River". Grant is ruthless on the title track and the modal "Two For One".

It is time-consuming to chase up all the Three Sounds tracks. The recent Japanese CDs do not correspond to the (few) U.S. CDs by the trio. The game plan changed over the years. It is even harder to find out what is really previously unissued. I have a plan to re-arrange the 1958-1962 Three Sounds tracks in session order. The unissued tracks are almost entirely on the October 8, 1959 , February 4, 1962 and June 27, 1962 sessions. The "Blue Note Works" CDs, plus the recent Japanese issues, provide a lot of tracks. For anyone who hasn't heard them, check out "Things Ain't What They Used To Be", on the "Moods" album. It is incredibly slow (shades of Basie's "Lil' Darlin' ").

Well, I guess the dust has pretty much settled after this exciting flurry of Japanese Blue Note CDs. I had "retired" from getting re-re-re-issues, but since about 2011, that has changed a lot. I now have all of the CDs with previously unissued tracks. Took a lot of online searching. I am absolutely thrilled with the "new" take of "Mode For Joe". The originally issued take (which is just before the "new" take 20) is, of course, superb. I got the LP in about 1970, and would never have expected another version of the title track - which is a modal piece in E flat. The groove (pulled along by Ron Carter, who only plays quarter notes during the solos) is captivating. I even can't resist playing along with it - on my clarinet, which I didn't use much in the days of tenor and soprano saxophone only and loud drummers. Joe's quotes are so hip: opens with "The March Of The Siamese Children" (after making you wait); later, he quotes the counterpoint from "I Hear Music But There's No One There", and a bit of "Scotch And Water" (the famous Joe's Avenue composition, lol). It is not right that these previously unissued tracks lurk in increasingly rare Japanese CDs, with seriously increasing prices. Blue Note U.S. could put together a 2-CD set of the "new" tracks. I did the arithmetic. To make it possible, I would issue a separate CD with all the tracks from the two "Blue John" (Patton) sessions, including the two tracks that Michael Cuscuna was unable to fit onto the Japanese CD, which runs about 77 minutes. I love the "Blue John" album. The previously unissued tracks have a totally different vibe from the ones on the original album, but they make up a tasty album on their own. So, let us lobby U.S. Blue Note. I know that Blue Note U.S. is not much interested in physical product, but you never know. Now that Michael Cuscuna is gone from Blue Note (he told me that himself), you aren't going to see any more unissued tracks. So treasure what there is. I got all the Three Sounds CDs, and am very pleased with the sound. There are several tracks that are hard to find. It was also great to have the two Stanley Turrentine albums, "The Look Of Love" and "Always Something There", on well-mastered CDs (I have the vinyl). The cast on those is nothing to be ashamed of. There is room on earth for these albums as well as Art Blakey. I loved the "new" "Trouble #2" alternate. What a groove. Both takes are great.

I don't recall ever seeing Tandberg tape. I wish it had been around back then, with the recommendation you give it, Chris. BASF, which was regarded as a top brand in its day, regularly gave me trouble. And Ampex tapes have not lasted very well, as witness the masters for the Gil Evans Ampex LP (a fabulous album, by the way).

Great. The cassette player's output will be at line level, so it can go straight into the line-in jack on the computer. As a curiosity, I did this once with a mini disk that a friend in France sent over to me to be transferred to CDr. Those mini disks disappeared fast, most likely because of the arrival of mp3. I used to have an open reel deck too. It was a (Norwegian) Tandberg, and it was very good at 3 3/4 ips. The main problem with those was tape dropout, even with brand new BASF tapes.