Shrdlu

Hi! I'm getting into Andrew Hill. Does anyone have any of his recordings for sale? I hear that "Point of Departure" is good, but some people think Hill is wierd.

Some more bass flute! After someone reported that there's a new Japanese CD of "The Individualism of Gil Evans", I played my (U.S.) copy again, and "The Barbara Song" has some bass flute. The total personnel is listed (although there is some uncertainty about who was on those Gil sessions) but it does not say who is on flute. Those studio woodwind guys that Gil used to use in the 50s and 60s could all play about 10 instruments!

If you use the Gemm website to look for LPs, you will bump into this company sooner or later. They give fine service, as have all of the retailers with whom I have dealt after seeing them on Gemm. (The site is www.gemm.com, by the way.)

Yet another Verve Minnie LP! I love those covers, and they all seem to have great sound. Surprising that Jo Jones was used on this session, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Bruce, it's a bit late to say so, I guess, but I would recommend "Charisma". The lineup and performances are precious - that era, and those people, are irreplaceable. Plus, the album is great to hear. No, it's not the best-ever album in anyone's collection, but it sure is enjoyable. (There is even a TOCJ of this.)

Sorry that you didn't like "Soft Samba", Vibes. It's quite haunting, for me. I did pick up the "Oktober Suite" recently, after scanning the Verve mini LP list again, and bearing in mind that there is a time limit on these. Here's the link, by the way http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/series.aspx?sid=7 The earliest of these go off in May 2005, but they only made one production run according to Ken Druker at Verve, so they may disappear before then; it's happened before. I haven't come across any with poor sound, and I have by now fallen in love with mini LPs. This album is very different, and it will take me awhile to get next to it. My first impressions are that it's very good, and I think I'm going to like it quite a lot. They did a fine job of replicating the Impulse gatefold cover. Ideally, all my Impulse CDs would be in this format, but who's that rich?

Nice one, Lon! There are days when a bulletin board is a pain, rather than recreational, and you wonder why you are on it. That post neatly encapsulates this.

I am a present-day missionary, and I thought I had problems!

If and when you can, just get the first five or so BN albums. They are all excellent, and all exist in TOCJ form, as well as most being on the new 3 CD set. (I haven't heard the sound on that set, as I already have all the Patton BNs as TOCJs.)

HK, why not find someone who has Musicmatch on their computer? With this, you can feed any analog sound through the sound card onto the hard-drive, where it is then digital. I use this to transfer LPs to CDr, for convenience and to save wear and tear on the vinyl. I cannot tell the difference between the final CDr and the original sound source. All you would need is a CD player that will play that CD once. So far, I have not even laid eyes on a controlled CD, and I don't think I would buy one. That's sad, as zweitausendeins.de has good prices on RVGs.

This is not very specific, but Hank Mancini was partial to the flute, and I seem to remember the bass being used in some of his scores. I do know that Joe Farrell played it on the Jobim album "Tide", as it was overdubbed on the track "Takatanga", and this overdub was left out when Universal recently reissued the album as a 24 bit CD (they must have used a pre-overdub tape). This fault carried over to the Japanese mini-LP version, which was sonically the same as the domestic CD. To hear this elusive performance, you would need either the LP (used LPs are not rare - see gemm.com) or the earlier Japanese CD, a copy of which I got from Tower about 18 months ago. I hope that this is not frustrating for you.

I'm sorry to hear that you don't like this one, CS. It has given me a great deal of listening pleasure. Wait awhile, and perhaps give it another shot later. It is more than just a blowing date, and, also, Jackie and Tina worked so well together. Redd isn't all that spectacular as a soloist; it's his compositions and arrangements that are the thing. I guess you could say he plays "bandleader's piano", or "composer's piano", or whatever the phrase is.

Now that's tempting. If ever there were an album that was worth having with the best possible sound ...

Great ideas, Simon and Mike, and, of course, your discographies have been very helpful for several years now, Mike. The AMG guide has been very useful for me, though, and you can usually spot the errors. I have referred to it so many times that I have lost count. When you consider that it's all been free until now, I think it would be unfair not to be grateful for its help. A lot of the info there is quite accurate, too. Its main value to me has been just the lists of all the albums by the various musicians. I have also liked the inclusion, in most cases, of the cover art from the LPs and CDs. By the way, this is an ex research pure mathematician speaking, one who is very much accustomed to detailed research.

Blasphemy! The Lord says there was an unissued 'Organic Greenery' recorded at the June 13, 1960 session. So does the Ruppli-Cuscuna BN Label discography which lists the tune as rejected. The tune was redone at the Smith-Green-Bailey trio January 1963 session. I assume that you are joking, but, does it really matter about "Organic Greenery"? I don't give a hoot, to be honest. I was just trying to help. The title sure suggests that it is from a Green session with organ. Why would they record a track with that name on a date without Grant Green? I suggest that the discography made a boo boo.

The "Baby Grand" albums are only on Japanese CDs, to the best of my knowledge. "Organic Greenery" is on the "I'm Movin' On" CD, which I have. It is not from the Turrentine sessions. It is from that 1963 session with Grant Green. It should be pointed out that the "Special Guests" LP was a compilation.

Re the Monk Black Lion/Vogue Mosaic, I take it that youse guys know that a 3 CD set of the Black Lion recordings, with more tracks and better sound, is available for about $10 from the likes of Zweitausendeins.de. I have that set, and handsome it is. I'm not too sure about the availability of the Vogue sides - all I have is a burn from a friend, as it was then OOP. As I have $500 that I don't need, maybe I'll "buy it now".

I love "The Rajah", JS. I even got a TOCJ of it. That opening track, "A Pilgrim's Funny Farm" (or some name like that) is long and haunting - Cedar Walton's sound adds a lot to its overall quality. It is also one of Paul Chambers' last sessions, if memory serves. The (main) "Procrastinator" session is awesome. What a lineup. The "Sonic Boom" session never really got to me. I was always disgusted to see the panic prices on eBay for it. (A kind of latter-day "Straight No Filter" - remember those days?) The appearance of the new CD will have put an end to that.

There's too much above for me to sift through, so, at the risk of duplicating what someone else has said, and with apologies in advance: "Special Guests" had "S'Wonderful" and "Blue Room" from the 8/25/57 jam session "Smith Walk" and "Lonesome Road" from 6/13/60, with Stanley Turrentine, Quentin Warren, Sam Jones and Dave Bailey (all on the "Prayer Meetin'" CD, but not on the LP) "Day In, Day Out" from 1/31/63, the "I'm Movin' On" session with Grant Green, and this track is on the CD reissue. The two 8/25/57 items were on the old CD of "House Party" but were pig-headedly left off when the RVGs of that and "The Sermon" were made, so they are now hard to find. So, in a sense, the "Special Guests" album is redundant. This question, and the question about "Lonesome Road" come up repeatedly because things are confusing when it comes to Smith sessions. (How about three different versions of "Cherokee", from different sessions!)

I think the answer is: Alfred Lion. This is often the case. Plus, that first BN session has Elvin, unlike the Prestiges. On that session, Elvin is at his swingin'-est. When I play "Looney Tune", I find myself bouncing with the beat. Elvin has been my favorite for many years, and you can't go wrong when he's behind you. I even got to play with a drummer who could get that feel! There are no horns to clutter things up on "Talkin' About", and so Larry can really get going. Plus, there's Grant Green at his best, and who would not be inspired by him. Someone once said that BN always had the best rhythm sections, and it's true.

This first appeared as a single LP. Then, in the early 70s, a second LP came out, with the name "Previously Unissued Recordings". In the U.K., a two-fer was put out, which was my first exposure to this outstanding music; it consisted of the two U.S. LPs, but with extra liner notes. The CD in question contains nearly all of the tracks from the two LPs, but longer, complete versions of some tracks were found on the original tapes. It is one of the best CDs ever. If it is OOP, I hope that they put out an upgrade. When Michael Cuscuna was preparing the CD, Gil was still alive and he requested the omission of two quartet "sketch" tracks, which had Gil on piano, with bass, drums and a trombone. I love those tracks, and I don't think they tarnish Gil's reputation at all. To get those, you'll need an LP. The notes to the CD tantalizingly mention lost recordings of a few more pieces, sadly. By the way, it isn't Paul Chambers on "Spoonful". The signature sustained sound of Ron Carter can be heard there.

It seems errors like this always abound in sports commentaries. A classic that used to tick one of my friends off was "not sufficiently good enough", not to mention "this is déjà vu all over again". Here's a great one from a pompous radio broadcaster: "A spokesman said that the matter was being gone into until a solution was found." An Indian soldier had trouble with this British Army regulation: "Beds will be made up as laid down in standing orders." There is a well-known French dish called Bifteck au Jus, beefsteak (served) in juice. In a U.S. restaurant I read "steak with au jus". Yechh!! (And it tasted as bad as you would expect in the circumstances.)

Here's where Shrdlu comes from http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_262a.html I first came across it in an old Australian comic strip called "Colonel Pewter", which used to appear in the Melbourne "Age". When we were grad students, my buddies and I used to say "cwmf!" when annoyed.

That's pretty much my feeling, Bruce. The RVG series has pretty much lost its original aim/style/purpose/whatever, and the exciting days of the early Conns (with terrifying eBay prices) are long gone now. If anyone is paying more than about $7.50 for the RVGs, they are paying too much. There are so many sales that there is no need to pay the official $12.98. Someone from Manitoba posted that a store there sells them for about $7.50 (U.S.), then there's Zweitausendeins.de, then the U.K. HMV site (www.hmv.co.uk) for the Poms.

I grew up on Fats Waller 78s, and I've always loved stride. It was a delight to be able to get virtually ALL of Fats's RCA Victor recordings on CD a few years back. I've always liked it when Monk kicked into stride. He wasn't a bop pianist at all; he was a sort of modern stride player. A huge chunk of his work on his last recording session (the so-called London session) is stride. The recently re-reissued Bud Powell album ("The Scene Changes") has a bit of stride, too! Who can forget Jaki Byard striding, as well. And, in the Bill Evans Verve box set, there's a spoof version of "Dark Eyes" on which Bill strides and Elvin does a Gene Krupa.