Shrdlu

Well it's been a long time since I bought a CD, and I have not bought many for a few years now.

Sad to see these going OOP. I guess it's part of the move from physical CDs to mp3 files on the pc. But I like to have the artwork and liner notes and I will never buy just a file. I have everything I want from their hit list. There's a lot of fantastic stuff there, e.g. those McLeans. I got "Domination", by Cannonball, when the LP came out. I love that session. There's some great blowing, and Oliver's arrangements are gorgeous, especially the clarinet choir on the slow number. The sound on the vinyl is stunning stereo. I have not heard the CD, so I don't know how well it emerged from the McMaster wringer. After all these years of BN CD reissues, I find it hard to work up a lot of interest in it really. It's so mid 90s.

Slim and Slam both rule! I love both of them. The reviewer needs a kick up the reety vooty. No Charlie Parker fan will ever forget "Slim's Jam" and the Red Norvo session with Slam on bass. Funnily enough, I saw Slam on a Youtube a few weeks ago and he was playing in a very modern style. I had always thought of him as a (top quality) swing bassist, but he was much more versatile than that. Top drawer bassist. Hey, his arco style was a big influence on Paul Chambers.

He's hot on Elvin's "Dear John C" album (not out on CD though). And also on "The Return of El Chico".

As one of millions of Bb tenor players (not to mention the soprano and the regular clarinet) I can't understand why it disorients you. It is not easy to find C tenors these days - I've certainly never seen one live. To me, the tenor is a piece of metal that I blow into and it makes a sound. I used to play alto and that's in a really weird key, namely Eb of course, so to play a concert A, say, you have to play an F#. The C soprano that I saw in the clip I mentioned sounded great, but not really any different from the Bb. The Bb bass sax goes only a fourth lower than the baritone, less if the baritone has a low A. So a C bass sax has little to offer, being a mere minor third lower than the baritone, and only a tone lower than the low A baritone.

Well said, Chris, lol. The Miles Davis Columbia box set booklets are often terrible to read. Some pages have weird background colors under the text. And the things snap shut so easily. In every case, I took the CDs out of the sleeves and rehoused them in jewel cases. Otherwise, the dog would have some of them by now.

We can thank the world of house music for this, cos lots of house (family) DJs spin vinyl, and quite a few hate CDs. (Not me though - vinyl is a pain in the ass when you are beat-matching, compared with CDs on a Pioneer CDJ 1000.) Much though I love LPs for jazz, I wonder about the sound though. A new LP will have been processed digitally at some stage(s) and so we are not going back to the pre-CD era soundwise. Plus, as one who grew up with analog records, I really enjoy nearly all of the CDs that I have (heresy, I know, lol) and, dare I say it, I'm even happy with mp3 and ogg and the other suffixes.

I take it that you are not including electro house, Jim, lol. I've been having a ball with that during the last 18 months or so. If anyone wants a copy of my new mix, message me and I can send it over msn.

I have had this set for ages and I just love it. Just a groove! Horace is a very interesting player and really draws me in when I'm listening to him. I rearranged the set in chronological order, having never heard any of the original albums - there was too much else to try to get back in those golden days of jazz. The collection starts with just the trio, which is very absorbing on its own, and then leads up to the priceless sessions with the Turrentine brothers. Welcome on my hifi set at any time. Horace, George Tucker and Al Harewood made a terrific section. As Stanley Turrentine once said, "Al is tasty". George reminds me of Mingus a bit, with his aggressive plucking; you can always tell when it's him. The same can be said of Horace! Hans mentioned the TOCJs. (Alas, long gone; the definitive Blue Note reissues.) There are not a lot of alternates in the Mosaic set, so you are pretty well set up with those. For those who enjoy these sessions (and what's not to like?), check out Horace's work on Roland Kirk's "I Talk With The Spirits" album. His playing is in the same vein there and it makes a good complement to the Blue Notes.

Give the guy a break already. I'm so tired of all the pomposity and bickering on this board. Everything inspected and dissected to the n'th degree. It's only a bulletin board.

Ah, the spelling reassures my faith in our wonderful education system, lol. I remember grading university math papers and seeing the number 2 written as to.

Meanwhile, Red was a fantastic bass player. I first heard him with Bird on a couple of Dial sessions.

The Desmond set is not all that exciting and can safely be missed, I think. (Speaking as one who likes a lot of S & G.) I've always liked the Burrell set. Get that if you're a fan. (And what's not to like about Kenny?)

I imagine the C bass sax only exists in theory, lol. The Bb one is so similar that surely it would do. I saw a video of a guy playing a C soprano, but, again, the Bb does the job.

The thing is, that whereas you hear about this massive thing, you can actually listen to it on that clip, and see the guy playing it. Prior to that, all I had ever heard was a five-second clip of a grunt or two on one. There is another article (that Google brings up) about a guy who ordered a new one. He tells how he go on when it arrived. Downsizing a little, I'd love to have a bass sax. It has a nice, rich sound all of its own. And, at the other end, I'd love a Selmer sopranino too. I love low flutes, and there are some great examples of the bass, such as Joe Farrell playing one on the "Tide" album by Jobim. I wonder how much volume you can get out of a contrabass or sub contrabass flute though. The sub contrabass, despite its name, would only go down to C two octaves below middle C, which is not ultra low. In the clarinet family, the Eb contrabass is a fine horn. You can hear that on "Canto de Ossanha", by Duke Pearson, where Frank Foster plays it. Michael Cuscuna erroneously listed it as a an alto clarinet, but it's an octave below that one, and also has a low C extension (sounding concert Eb). If a guy is going to go to bass clarinet, he might as well use the Eb contrabass.

When I was an eager kid wanting to get a sax, a mentor friend wrote out a list of the various sizes, and he included the contrabass, with a note saying "workshop curiosity". He was pretty much right at the time, but a few manufacturers have worked on the design in recent years and made it a viable proposition - if you are pretty rich. In case you don't know (and how many on earth do?), this is in Eb, an octave below the baritone, and twice as long. Yes, I have never seen a live specimen! The expansion of sites like Youtube in the last year or two has been amazing. (Suddenly, tons of video clips of the top jazz musicians have been uploaded. You would do well to Google your favorites.) I was amazed to find this performance a few days ago: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4748127359655445832 It's a guy playing a blues on a contrabass. I had expected this enormous horn to sound like a weird physics experiment, but, much to my surprise, it is very musical. Hope you enjoy it too.

Well said, Lon. Aric, why restrict yourself to Hank Jones? I love Hank but there are tons of other excellent trio recordings. Getting back to Denny, try to find a copy of his 1973 LP, "Expansion". It's very interesting! Not just a standard swinging trio album at all.

Nice pics! Thx for posting those. Trane's 1951 tenor is not the balanced action Selmer that he played from the mid 50s until it (presumably) broke and was replaced by a Selmer MK VI in about 1965. What a pairing, Trane and Diz!

I still think the Mosaic sets of BN recordings should have included (color) copies of the original album art and facsimilies of the original liner notes. I sometimes stick the album art inside the front cover of the booklet.

So it's something neither of us can hear anymore... "All the highest notes, neither sharp nor flat / The ear can't hear as high as that / Still, I thought I'd please any passing bat / With my High Fidelitee ..." (Flanders and Swann, "A Song of Reproduction", from "At The Drop of a Hat", ca. 1959)

I don't remember where I saw the interview, but in it, Norman Granz said that he coined that expression as a put-on, and that he (Granz) was the fan of Münster cheese. All very much a part of that 50s era. I'm sure it would have been taken seriously by some - it was all so exciting and new back then. I also remember the use of "hifi" for mono, vs "stereo", and, as a very young kid, saying to the neighbor that surely stereo was hifi too. One of the greatest advantages of that era over the last 20 years was that we just accepted the LPs that came out as definitive issues, without all the worries and arguments about which remastering was the best.

I love this album. Chuck sounds great, Frank cooks, and you have to hear Keith Jarrett's solo on "My Secret Love" to believe it. The tempo on that one is unbelievably fast.

I'm not voting, cos it's a flügelhorn - and I'm busy mixing an electro house set.

How disgusting to hear that this great musician was beaten by the police. Add him to the list with Miles, Pres and who knows who else. I never knew that Bud played at the 1965 Parker Memoorial Concert. It's sad that he wasn't in form, when you consider who else was there - Diz, JJ and so on. Anyway, this is an excuse to recommend the released recordings from that concert. Some great stuff, especially Diz soaring into the high register. I got the original LP (on Limelight, with a stunning gatefold cover) when it first came out, and recently got the Japanese mini-LP CD reissue, which has about three extra tracks, including some more Diz.

By "title track", I mean "Tones For Joan's Bones". I say this because the 1988 U.S. CD mis-issue () is titled "Inner Space". (It has an excuse printed on the papers twice. I hate it when they do something wrong like that and make it clear that they know it's wrong by adding an excuse.) It was nice to hear that track again. It's a trio cut, very much in the Bill Evans tradition.