Shrdlu

E. (If you're Ron Carter, then C.)

Wayne Shorter is easily the best sax player with the Messengers (and there is a lot of competition) and "Free For All" is probably the Messengers' most intense album - very hard to beat. "Mosaic" would be another contender. [Just got to hear some more Wayne with Blakey, on dailymotion.com - do a search on Blakey. That alone would back up my claim. There was also some serious Lee on that site. Check it out or be square!]

Hans, the Feb 67 session is not soft jazz. I have it on LP and really enjoy it. Stanley digs in quite a lot, and you can even hear the drummer urging him on at one point. The Jobim tracks are wonderful, and "Night Song" is a stunning performance and arrangement - the highlight of the session for me. I'm looking forward to hearing the unissued session, too.

Seeing this thread led me to stick "Soul Sauce" on again. That's my favorite Cal, but I have a lot of his albums. I have the 1994 CD, which sounds very good. It adds a new item, Mamblues, to the main session, and I think the original LP would have been better if that had replaced Afro Blue, which is an odd track from a different session. The other tracks on the LP are by Cal's regular working group and are very well locked in. A good Latino performance, when the percussion and bass locks into a groove, is hard to beat!

Du bist nicht allein!

Pharoah's "Message From Home" album is fantastic, and it always reminds me of the Impulse days - the vibe and the studio sound. You should check that one out. There are some fabulous grooves and some very catchy melodies. It makes you want to join in. My kids like it a lot, and we used to grab some home-made percussion and play along with some of it. There is a lot of Trane there, too. Pharoah has sounded more like Trane in recent years than he did when he played with him, and we now get to hear the lyrical side of him as well as the fiery screeches.

The same principle applies to any air column or a string. You have the fundamental note, where the whole thing is vibrating and the two ends are still, then the first harmonic, where the two ends are still and so is the center, this being an octave higher. Then, still higher notes (or overtones) with still patches at various intervals along the pipe or string. The "still patches" are called nodes. The second harmonic is a 12th (= 12 notes) above the fundamental, not two octaves. This has nodes 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along. As the harmonics get higher, they get closer together, not as far apart as a whole octave. With the trumpet, where the three valves give you three different pipe lengths, the fundamental notes are seldom played. It's mainly the higher harmonics, which are more close togther. So this, plus the operation of the valves, gives you a way of playing all the 12 notes in the chromatic scale. As was said, you can do this on a saxophone. For example, you can finger the bottom Bb and by altering the embouchure, you can get Bb an octave higher, then the F above that, and so on, including the top F and beyond. But with all the keys on the horn, you don't need to do that.

Art Blakey's Impulse album "A Jazz Message" has some fine Stitt. (It's a quartet album, with McCoy Tyner and Art Davis.) And the "Stitt Plays Bird" album has been a favorite for many years. John Lewis adds a lot to that. I am another who only listens to a bit of Stitt at a time, because he does play a lot of the same riffs over and over. But Sonny sure was a master alto and tenor man.

Benny has always been my favorite clarinet. I don't care about the fact that the innovation was over by the early 40s at the latest. He had a perfectly developed style, and he just sounds good! Why change? I didn't like Artie Shaw criticizing his style (Artie didn't think Benny was sufficiently adventurous harmonically). Benny was fabulous and I always enjoy hearing him. Plus, he sure knew how to set up a great big band! His original four sax section, led by Hymie Schertzer, is my all-time favorite (above Ellington and Basie). What a sound!

You can't go wrong with Stanley! With players of that high quality, you can listen countless times and never get tired of them. I have all of his Blue Note sessions, and regularly keep coming back to them. This particular session sure is a great one. The Three Sounds are also a favorite of mine! Once again, I always enjoy hearing them.

Yeah! It will be great to see the youngsters walking down the street with earbuds and a huge turntable around their waist.

I'd have to say that his enormous talent has often been wasted. However much a guy needs to earn a living, it's a great waste to have him playing stuff like the Seinfeld segue sound bites. Maybe he likes playing that stuff. But Ron Carter managed to make a living with studio work (after leaving Miles) without having to lower the standards. Ron would typically record an album like Jobim's "Stone Flower", and contribute so much. BTW, I'm not especially against the electric bass. I like it on many albums.

Jostber, I agree with the Blue Note recommendations. Some fantastic stuff. "Ju Ju", with McCoy and Elvin, is really intense! If you're a Wayne fan, you will also like his quartet session, "Second Genesis", for Veejay, which is in the Lee Morgan/Wayne Shorter Mosaic set, and is available separately on CD. A friend of mine said it well when he said that there is an inevitability about his playing on that. (It has Art Blakey, as an added inducement.) That is from before he made the Blue Notes.

I don't think it matters whether the electricity supply is grounded, but (as has been said) you MUST have a good ground connection between the turntable and amplifier. But that's easy to do. The power wire to my turntable has no ground. [You also have to run a ground from the turntable to the computer if you are ever going to transfer your LPs to digital format.] If you have checked this and still have hum, try removing any other electrical equipment that may be near your hifi.

I've always felt that Stanley was one of the later giants on the bass - especially the bass fiddle. He has a staggering technique! How does a guy get around a bass fiddle so fast? Lovely tone and intonation. A real master. There are numerous examples of him playing superbly well. His own albums in the 70s, and some with Chick Corea at that time, are kinda frustrating to me, as you get about 6 tracks of (to me) boring, shallow electric crap and one tantalising acoustic track (such as "No Mystery" and the tribute to Trane) that absolutely blows you away. I know a guy's gotta eat, but you sure want more of the good stuff.

Yeah, a very happy birthday, Jim! (belated?) And thanks again for this board!!

I'm a big fan, Dmitry! They made TV cartoons of a lot of the stories and we taped them years ago. The music was pretty good, too.

Well I can't let this go by without saying that the Lord Jesus Christ gives everlasting life (John 3:36) if you accept him as Saviour, and also you get a new, indestructible body when you go to be with him. It's all a gift, so why not do so? There might still be a spell in a nursing home before leaving this world, but what's that compared with eternity? And God takes care of all your needs here on earth, too. Jesus said "I am come that they might have life, and that more abundantly". Check it out!

Isn't that sad, if it's true? I like to have some artwork and notes. I guess Ipods will rule. All your music hidden on the drab little thing.

There are three Mainstream albums by the Clark Terry/ Bob Brooomeyer Quintet. All terrific. You can get LPs easily and there is also a 2 CD Lonehill set with all three albums in it. (You can just make out part of the cover of one of those LPs in my pic.) I recently got Harold Land's "Choma" and "Damisi", on LP, and didn't enjoy them much - too much jazz-rock blither, with little variety in style or dynamics. (This was a common problem with jazz albums from about 1969 onward.) I'd like to hear his earlier Mainstream album, "A New Shade of Blue". I am a Land fan. I got those LPs because I like his work with Bobby Hutcherson on Blue Note so much.

"Dear John C" is an awesome album, Felser! I have not heard the CD, so I can't comment on the sound quality on that, but I strongly recommend the album itself, especially if you're a Mariano fan. There's an intense vibe throughout, and the lineup is first-rate: Hank Jones, Roland Hanna and Richard Davis. The first track (which is the title track), a modal piece, is really electric. (Wish it lasted longer.) Several 50s and 60s sessions were marred by mediocre alto players (bad intonation the worst problem) and so Mariano, being such a good player, is extra welcome. I would look out for the LP on eBay, as that sounds wonderful. eBay has a lot of Impulse LPs in good shape. Look for the orange-black label, or black with red outer ring. Those are by Rudy van Gelder. Charlie is also well-featured on the Impulse Chico Hamilton album "The Further Adventures of El Chico". You would enjoy that, too. LPs of it are on eBay, and there was a Japanese CD.

You might want to check out the Limelight album 'S Make It, Aric. That has Lee and Gilmore and it's a pretty good album, from about the same time as the live dates. Also John Hicks and Victor Sproles, plus, Curtis Fuller is on it. I think it's on CD, but LPs are easy to get on eBay.

Greetings, TCD! It's a long story, but basically, the situation at the Verve Music Group/Universal has been a mess for several years. A recent email from Blue Note's Michael Cuscuna said that things were still not great. It seems that the high ups are not very sympathetic about the massive amount of great jazz recordings that they control. Your post is a timely warning that anyone who wants any U.S. Impulse reissues might want to think about getting them soon. But I'm not an insider, so I'm no authority on this. The U.S. (or, rather, non-Japanese) reissue program of Impulse albums on CD has been mainly produced by Michael Cuscuna, of course, though it's several years since he did that. If anyone does miss out on any Impulse CDs, it's good to know that there have been a lot of LPs in good shape on eBay for the last few years. The pressings of these through 1972 sound way better than the U.S. CDs.

He isn't on every track, but he's nicely featured on the Impulse LP "Americans in Europe, Vol. 1". I remember my Dad being very impressed with his performance there. We had never heard of Idrees before.

Another point that was made by one of the LP liner note writers was the wonderful way the two blended together in the ensembles. A friend of mine once griped about Jackie's intonation in his solos at one period, but he played off pitch deliberately, as part of his style (which, he said, was to try to sound like Dex on alto), and during the ensembles he is perfectly in tune.