Shrdlu

Don't miss these! Almost my first True Blue purchases were all the boxes in this series. Little did I know that they would soon vanish.

I feel a little nervous when handling some of mine, especially the Andrew Hill (CDs). Someone mentioned the Commodore sets. Who has those? I wonder if Uncle Bob found a buyer for the ones that he had for sale recently. I hope that the n'th hurricane didn't get them. Imagine the neighbor's barbecue landing on them (there was a post about someone's neighbor leaving all their stuff loose outside).

Recently, I listened again to the London sessions and the first five or six Riverside sessions. Why did so many people dislike him? The improvisations are very logical, and you can see that there's a superb musical mind at work. And there's a lot of technique - many runs would be quite difficult to execute if written out and stuck in front of a pianist. I recently watched a TV show in which a poncy talking head was grumbling about some of Monk's chord voicings and saying that it would have been hard for a horn player to improvise with that behind him. Rubbish! Man, I would have loved to play with Thelonious.

Looks like the opening of "Back To The Future I"! All it needs is dog food all over the floor and a cat clock with moving eyes. As Michael Flanders said, "People go to an awful amount of trouble to get the sound of an orchestra playing in their living room. There's nothing I would hate more than to have an orchestra actually playing in my living room."

I was amazed when I read an interview with Joe Zawinul in which he weally panned Miroslav. I greatly admire Joe, but I strongly disagree. For me, Miroslav is one of the all-time greats on the bass. It's not just his early work, when he appeared like a meteor; he has been consistently good.

A big favorite of mine. Nice to see it come up for discussion.

Paul Desmond was a master at quoting! Dave Brubeck, an employer of his I understand, tells the story of a time when Paul was driving and Dave was a passenger. Paul was over the speed limit, and was arrested and spent a few hours in a slammer. At the next gig, Paul described the whole episode, step by step, with quotes. Dave said that the quotes were brilliantly blended into the solo. That would have been something to compare with the famous Mulligan-Terry exchanges at the Vanguard!

There are several tenor squeakers. Stan did it all the time - you can tell when it's coming, and it's usually at the end of a long phrase. Others never seem to do it, that is, they can record a whole take without one quite regularly. As a sax player, I wonder why. Must just be their combination of mouth, reed and mouthpiece. It has not been a problem for me, for some reason. I use a very wide Link mouthpiece (# 9 or so, I forget) with a 2 1/2 reed, if that has anything to do with it. Maybe it's a sign of a wee bit of sloppiness in the years after most reed players were in the big bands of martinets such as Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Miller. A squeak with Goodman would earn a player one of his famous "looks"! Of course, Stan was in Goodman's orchestra for awhile.

Here's an LP copy of "Space", sold by "eggbert". I bought an LP from him and it was mint, as a guide as to whether he is O.K. Space LP Once again, I am not related to Mr Eggbert in any way. (Actually, would it matter?)

That account of the "Bags' Groove" session was precious. I have often wondered about the relation between the order in which the selections were recorded and the story of the "no piano behind Miles". It is likely that Miles got fed up with Monk's accompaniment after all the tunes except "Bag's Groove", and that that one was pianoless (behind the trumpet) as a result. Yet the box set gives "Bags' Groove" as the first selection recorded. If the order of tracks in the box set is correct, then Monk must have put his foot down after "Bags' Groove" and insisted on comping behind Miles. You sure can hear on "Bemsha Swing" that Miles isn't happy! And the recorded argument is a real cat fight. I don't buy Rudy's argument about the AM radio sound at all. We didn't just listen to our jazz on AM radios back then! Not only that, but we had vacuum tube record players, which had a rounder sound than transistor models, though those soon became very good. And why try to make a new CD sound tinny, as several RVGs and JRVGs most certainly do. When we have such as the TOCJs available for comparison, bad CD sound is not justified.

At the risk of being repetitive: Thanks a lot, Jim! That must have taken a long time. And I didn't see one typo. If I had typed all that, it would be a mess.

Someone posted a link to a very interesting Blue Note labelography website awhile back. Does anyone have similar details for Columbia's jazz LPs? (I guess that would be their "popular" music section.) The site that has the BN information has a good section for Columbia's Masterworks LPs (i.e. classical - jazz players aren't masters, of course, or, at least, they weren't back then ). It can be seen here I guess the other Columbia LP labels followed a parallel path (with just different colors), but I am not sure. The reason for my uncertainty is that in the 1959-62 period, there seem to have been at least two different label color schemes, both six-eye: red and black (with a little white), and maroon and silver. The fate of the world is not at stake, but it would be interesting to know which were the originals. Or perhaps they existed concurrently. From about 1962, the all-red labels were used, plus the "360 sound" phrase. My "Time Further Out" has one of these, and has superb sound. (I think that that album was first issued with a six-eye label.) I think that all these LPs are in the same category as the BNs, soundwise. They sure sound good to my ears.

Here's one Texas lover. And, it has Waffle House! I even like the Panhandle area, though I can see why some don't. Never did take up the 80 oz steak challenge in Amarillo, though! One day, I arrived at Dublin, TX, and asked why there were so many dead amarillos on the roads.

Thanks in advance, Jim. Here is one reader-to-be.

I agree with you, Bertrand. By the way, Hank squeaks a LOT on the "At Pee-Wee's Place" date, though I really like the playing. When I hear it, I wish I were there, as I would have gone up to Hank and said "Hey, man, get a new reed!" (Or, "Hank Mobley! You skveeked!, for owners of the Mosaic set.)

That is a fine lineup! You don't hear much about Eddie Harris anymore, but he was fabulous. (Dig his "Tale of Two Cities" album, which I would never have known about if Chuck Niles had not featured it on KLON in L.A.) And Thad, too. I have loved Horace for years, and it is sad to hear that he is in a bad way. A few years ago, they showed a TV broadcast of him with Diz - I think 3Sat was the channel. Cliff Jordan was on tenor. They did a fine, long version of "Round Midnight" in which the piano solo was absolutely riveting. They had an upright with the covers removed, and Diz was leaning over the bass end, seemingly hypnotized. Quite a moment. Horace has an especially good solo on "Trees" on Kirk's "I Talk With The Spirits" album. Check that one out if you're a Parlan fan.

Well said, Jim (in your initial post, whether it was to the point or not). Jimmy rules! I well remember my first hearing. I was in a second-hand LP store, and I came across that very album. The cover looked like someone had spilled a whole pot of coffee over it - or maybe they had used it under a washer to level it - but the vinyl was 100%. $3.00 it was. I got it partly because I had already heard Stanley on the Duke Jordan date. Well, as soon as track one started up, that was it! It's a masterpiece, and I still like it more than any of Jimmy's other albums. It just clicked that day in the studio. Those that don't have it need an RVG real soon (I have the JRVG, hee, hee). Engineering too polished? What does he mean?? It sounds perfect. I wouldn't change a thing.

Jim, did you know that they give you free upgrades (if you need one)? I think the way it works is that once you have your foot in the door, you get the free upgrades. In our case, we had an early version that worked with 98 but not XP. We got a free upgrade that did work with XP. Go here, if interested.

Yeah! This is the only one with the great trio with Paul and Art that isn't on CD. But they do an LP of it, at least in theory. It was "available soon" for a long time.

How sweeet it is! P.S. Some of us saved guys were burned at the stake in jolly Olde England.

[For Jim et. al, Simpsons fans all] Canyonero!

I just regard these as Prestige albums. In this collection, "Bluesy Burrell" is superb. It is one of three Prestige albums that Kenny did with the Hawk (the other two were under Hawk's name) and kicks off with a wonderful version of "Tres Palabres" (Spanish for "The Three Stooges" ). Dig that opening part with Tommy Flanagan.

I have been re-collecting a few Dave Brubeck Columbia LPs of late, mainly ones that I used to have when I was a teenage fan of his in the early 60s. Unlike the BN deep groove LPs, these are easy to obtain from eBay and Gemm, for between $10.00 and $20.00 for a disk in VG+ to NM condition. I'm talking original six-eye deep groove albums. After many years of the heat being on to grab soon-to-be-OOP Blue Note CDs etc., it has made a nice change to get back to these. As most of you know, nearly all were recorded at the 30th Street Studio. The engineering is first-class, and, I think, superior to Rudy's (which I like, though), especially the piano, which sounds much more natural. [i am used to Rudy's piano sound (it's part of jazz history, after all) and I like it, but it really is kinda boxed in sounding.] Anyway, "The Riddle" just arrived, and it was a very pleasant shock to hear once again how wonderful the album is. It isn't as well-known as a lot of other Brubeck albums, and has not re-surfaced on CD, but it does not deserve to be neglected. It was a ball to play it again! It was recorded in 1959, between some of the "Time Out" sessions. The Quartet was in its prime at the time, and recorded four superb albums that year. This album has Bill Smith on clarinet, instead of Paul Desmond, mainly because the music is all his. Bill has a wonderful sound on the instrument, and plays with a combination of excellent technique and a lot of heart. All the compositions are variations on the English folk song "Hey Ho, Anybody at Home?". There is, however, considerable variety, both in mood and tempo, and even some blues. As the notes point out, Dave and Bill had worked together many years earlier, in Dave's experimental Octet. Even though, by 1959, they had not worked together in years, a great rapport still existed, and you can really hear it throughout. Without that, the somewhat complex compositions would not have had such fine solos. There are also some delightful clarinet-piano dialogues reminiscent of the well-known ones between Dave and Paul Desmond; in fact, Bill's licks are a bit like Paul's at times. If you want to know what the regular Quartet would have sounded like if Paul had doubled on the clarinet, this is it, probably. Gene Wright and Joe Morello are enjoying things and in sparkling form. On one track, Gene plays a meatier solo than usual on a Brubeck album, one that would have been applauded if played at a gig. Joe has a few masterly solo spells, and greatly varies his sound throughout the whole album. (It is easy to get hooked on his brushwork!) I hope you will get a chance to hear this sometime. If I had a radio show, a track from this would be on tonight!

All joking aside, I was lent a '78 Mercury Marquis 460 sedan in 1990-91, and drove it for about 150000 miles. Apart from a few routine parts replacements (the odd muffler, brake pads etc.), it went fine. I could not understand why it had high compression and needed super (91) gas. With an engine of that size, who needs to worry about not having enough power if the compression ratio is 8:1, rather than the 10:1 which I think it was. Going up the Grapevine in California, I did not need to worry about turning off the air to avoid boilover!