Shrdlu

I think all 45s were mono only, but the 1958 session was recorded in stereo and is stereo on the CDs. They used to shorten a lot of tracks when they put them onto 45s, so even though I could tell you which baritone player plays when on the full version, I would have to hear the 45 to see which solo they left in - if there's only one. Fortunately, Pepper Adams has an unmistakeable sound. Why not just settle for the full versions (and full sessions) on the CDs? I do have one indespensible 45. It has two tracks from a 1964 Impulse session led by J J Johnson, with Toots Thielmans, McCoy Tyner, Richard Davis and Elvin Jones. The third track from the session was included on the "Proof Positive" album, and so it survives, but the other two tracks were only issued on a 45. As the session reels for most Impulse sessions were destroyed during the 70s, this rare 45 is the only way to get those two pieces. When Michael Cuscuna was reissuing "Proof Positive" on CD, they were unable to find a copy of this 45. Maybe, one day, Universal will get civilised and a reissue of the CD can be made, including the two 45 tracks.

That studio price list sounds like music minus a lot of dollars.

It's a wonderful set, Mike, with excellent sound. You will love it. Of course, like me, you have probably known a lot of it for years. My buddies and I used to play the "Four and More" and "Funny Valentine" LPs over and over. It felt odd hearing this material in chronological order. On the LP, the closing theme was spliced onto the end of one piece (not the last piece played), and it wasn't there on the CD. The actual playing order works very well. One thing is very clear. George Coleman was not the inferior tenor that most writers say he was. That guy was fantastic with Miles and on Herbie's "Maiden Voyage", and there is quite a bit of similarity between his sound and Wayne's, to my ears. (Wayne played different licks, of course, and is a superb composer and arranger.) The sad thing is that the drastic reduction in price of these CDs can only mean one thing.

That's because Paul and Philly Joe were such a lousy rhythm section that when Gil heard them on the one piece, he made sure that it didn't happen again.

Good point! Point of the month! Miles's repertoire in the early 60s has been described as stale in at least one set of liner notes. However, we all know what wonders his various groups were able to perform with that material, the Plugged Nickel date giving probably the most stunning example (just at the point when Miles was about to drop nearly all of those tunes permanently). It would have been great to hear Miles playing some of those Mobley tunes. After all, he didn't exactly mind playing Wayne's tunes not long afterwards. It's a pity Hank is not still around, so that we could all give him a hug and let him know how much we appreciate him.

We mustn't forget that he also played soprano real well. I don't have any records where he plays it, but I saw a video of a concert where he included it. It was some North Sea type Festival - some name like that. Of course, it's not exactly rare for a woodwind player to play several members of the family, lol. It is particularly easy to move from one size of sax to another. (Well, maybe not the bass, and the lower monstrosities!)

All Americans know that that asshole Carter reduced the freeway and U.S. Hwy limits back in the 70s. Fuel crisis, save lives, blah, blah, blah. Those reduced limits lasted for ages until they were finally done away with, in the late 90s I think. Anyway, in 1991, I had to drive in a hurry from Liberal, Kansas to Ft Worth, TX. The route was U.S. 83 for quite a spell, then set at 55 mph. I was doing 67 (nowhere near a town) when Sheriff Coltrane, having finished his donut, came around a corner and zapped me. He let me off though, but he said "Slow down and arrive in one piece." I.e. 67 is dangerous on this road. In 1997 I drove that road again and the limit was 70 outside of the towns! Nuff said, it's all pious, money-making bullshit. And don't anyone start chanting about towns and school zones. I go real slow though those and watch like a hawk.

Ludowici, Georgia used to be famous for that! I was warned before I went there and drove about 20 through the place. Sure enough, you could see the vultures waiting to pounce. There was another town in Georgia where they had a scam going with a remote control that operated a traffic signal. They would wait for an out-of-towner to go through the light at green and suddenly make it red as the victim went through. Nice little source of income for the town! They did it once too often though, hee hee. They trapped a State Senator with that little scheme, and he saw to it that the whole town was disincorporated and essentially dissolved.

I'll join him for that! I got big eyes for anything Latino. Why else would an inveterate reed player go out and buy some bongos, a cowbell and a temple block, hee hee. One of the delights of house is that you often get Latino rhythms, such as samba, tango and bossa nova, and they regularly use Latin percussion. There is even a song called "I Need More Cowbell".

Aww, sorry, Lon. I didn't know where it was recorded. I got the LP when it first came out, and didn't like it a lot. Johnny Hodges died halfway through the making of it, and that has an effect in two ways: his absence from the sax section is really noticeable, and then there's the sadness about losing him. With the exception of the Far East Suite, I never did like Duke's suites and tone poems a lot. He could get a bit pompous at times. That's why Johnny left the band for awhile in 1951 - so I am not alone with this view.

Aric, baby, please tidy up the grammar and punctuation a little. There's casual, and then there's messy. With a North American college education, you can pull up your socks a little.

I (really) had no idea that Mosaic sets could be torrent downloaded. Never even thought to look. That's really low! Though I don't mind it if the set has gone OOP, and the downloading won't hurt the folks in Stamford, CT.

I was very glad to get the Columbia box several years back. I already had about 1/3 of the tracks on single no-name budget CDs, and it was time for a definitive collection (no pun intended, lol). It does lack about half-a-dozen alternate takes that they really should have included, but hey, it is 10 CDs, and, realistically, how often are you going to play them all? The book is awkwardly set up, and they very annoyingly placed all the outtakes in the Siberia of CD 10. It takes a lot of energy to listen through chronologically. (Why does that always happen with these "Complete" box sets? I always sigh when I read "We decided to ...." Mosaic does that almost every time, and it means hopping back and forth between CDs.)

I think I agree with that, H G. Hank's BN sessions are real good. It was rough on Hank to have to follow Trane with Miles. I'm a tenor player too, and I sure wouldn't have wanted to do that. Mind you, no amount of money would have made me play with Miles. Awesome player and innovator, of course, but personally, ........ (Another difficult guy that I would love to have played with was Monk, though. I can do his repertoire, partly because I worked with a pianist who played opposite Monk for 6 months on tour. Someone once said "How could you play a solo with Monk comping like that behind you?", but I don't see any problem at all.) After all we have said in this thread, though, Hank was a superb player, and even those Blackhawk recordings are excellent music.

Hi! Welcome to the board! George was a great bassist. Played with just about everyone! He once said "Is there anyone I haven't played with? Well, suggest a few names. There might be somebody." (Or words to that effect.) Did you hear about the Music Minus One taken from an Art Tatum solo session? It's just an LP of silence, because no pianist could ever get close to Art.

This is all very interesting! I'm sure glad I started this thread. I'd love to hear that session with Gerry on clarinet with Tom Jobim! (By the way, Gerry's quartet, and the rest of the "cool school", was an influence on Tom and other Brasilian guys back in the 50s.) Gerry is superb on the clarinet on the Limelight LP "Feelin' Good" - kinda reminiscent of Pres on the clarinet. The one place where I heard Gerry playing alto was on another Limelight LP, called "Something Borrowed, Something Blue". He plays alto not just on one track, but for about half of the album.

Aha, I just spotted this session: "Stan Getz Five Brothers" Al Cohn, Allen Eager, Brew Moore, Zoot Sims (ts), Stan Getz (ts, bars) ,Walter Bishop Jr. (p), Gene Ramey (b), Charlie Perry (d), Gerry Mulligan (arr). NYC, April 8, 1949

This 1957 session is one that I have known about for years, but never heard until a few days ago. It's a really good session, with plenty of the counterpoint that Gerry always played with the other horn. One thing that had always made me want to hear this album was the fact that Gerry and Stan swapped horns on three tracks. This kind of thing can be a session gimmick, a spur of the moment idea from the producer, but it really works here. It's really no surprise that Gerry was great on tenor, given that he also played the clarinet and alto well. He's very convincing. An Amazon reviewer said that his intonation was bad, but I sure didn't notice. The big revelation is how well Stan played the baritone! He had a lovely sound, and played it as if it were a regular thing. It is further evidence of what a fine musician he was. I guess he must have played the larger horn a few times when he was with the big bands - maybe to fill in when the regular baritone player was absent. I've heard it said that this session didn't gel, but I think they play very well together, with excellent interaction. It's not as if they were strangers to each other. They played together, with fine results, in about 1954, and recorded together for Verve earlier in 1957, as well as on this date. I was interested to hear Stan play the opening phrase from "Sister Sadie" at one point. I don't know when Horace Silver actually composed that, but Horace's recording of it came later - about 1959. Horace used to play with Stan, and either one could have picked up that lick from the other. Or, maybe it just came out naturally at this session, and it's just a coincidence.

Yeah, that's the dude. Great sound. There should have been more harp on jazz sessions. It has an electric effect on "Sketches of Spain".

Well it's easy to go to Amazon Dot Com. I'm amazed at the vast amount of recordings that they have available - just about anything you care to name. And almost always, they list sellers with very low prices. If the Amazon price is $12.99, say, there will be someone offering it for something like $3.69.

That's right. Most of today's musicians and house mixers welcome it, as it publicises their work. I have tons of 73 minute promo mixes of house. The mixers post them on their websites for free download. The money today is in concert and club appearances.

I'm with you, Hans (and others), on Pres's 30s work being superior to most of the Verve material. If only the LP format had been available back then! As I posted elsewhere, I have some 30s airshots where Pres is able to stretch out, and they are marvelous. Re the Decca vs the Columbia Basies, the early band (on the Deccas and the first few Columbia dates) was much better, as things were more casual back then. I really love those recordings. As time progressed, there was a transition to what is, for me, an over-arranged and over-rehearsed feel. The later recordings, from that point and for the rest of Basie's career, are boring, I think. It was just a formula. ("One more time", hee hee. Thad Jones, for one, got so sick of it that he eventually left.) Of course, if you take the 50s, for example, the soloists were nowhere near the caliber of the 30s guys such as Pres himself, Buck Clayton, Harry Edison and so on. And the original rhythm section was at the top of the list for all time.

I was about to say that too. I have good memories involving it. I was playing in a quartet in Jo'burg, and the first time we did it, I told the audience the story of the tune and the Monk session. We used to get requests for it after that. The pianist, an English guy called Stan Jones, was superb. He toured the U.S. alongside Monk for 6 months and could do all the Monk voicings and comping. What a treat it was to be able to play Monk songs with a guy like that!. Based on that, I'm sure I could have fit in with Monk himself. Stan's wife recalled sitting on Rouse's knee, hee hee.

By bringing out the 4 CD set of the Blackhawk material, Columbia destroyed any chance of issuing a 6 or 7 CD box set along the lines of all the other ones. In the case of the Blackhawk set, it's too much of the same thing for me to play all at once. It doesn't keep my attention for very long. If only Philly Joe had been in the group at that time. The electricity that he provided would have made a big difference. But I do like the Carnegie Hall album.

You'd have to include Art Blakey at the top too. Bill Evans did say that Philly Joe was his favorite drummer. That surprised me, because I didn't hear that until recently, and I had assumed that Paul Motian, with his delicate touch, would have been more to Bill's taste. Getting the Verve box set put things more into perspective, because it includes a late 50s session with Philly Joe (and Paul), and, particularly, a large number of tracks from about 1968 where Bill had Philly Joe in his trio. I also saw Bill on TV, from the 70s, and once again Philly Joe was on drums - and I wasn't expecting that.