Big Wheel

or Moxie and the nearest crapper.

Only two of the sessions are currently in print: Central Park North and Consummation. However, I would guess that another title is due to be released this year, as Blue Note has been putting out about one each year for the last couple of years. If you have a turntable, it may be easier to fill out the rest on LP.

Man, that brings back some memories. My grandma used to stock Faygo Red Pop in her pantry. (The bottle looked very different from that one, though.) I think she got it at Winn-Dixie. Do they still make the stuff?

A tie between bagels/lox and pastrami/mustard. (Assuming the mustard is Gulden's or another brown deli mustard.) I think I'm going to go with the pastrami on a technicality--I prefer straight-up smoked salmon to lox on a bagel. Lox is a bit too salty and slimy. The pastrami sandwich at Katz's Deli in NYC is a cliche--but it lives up to the hype. Possibly the most expensive sandwich I've ever had, but also possibly the very best.

The other thing I would recommend, if you haven't already done so: stop using credit cards entirely...cut them up if you have to. This will keep your debts from accumulating further. Use a debit card only--this means that you will never be buying stuff that your bank account cannot cover. You don't need credit card debt and 18% interest payments on top of your current headaches. If your bank doesn't offer ATM cards that can be used as credit cards, find one that does.

Is it too late/unfeasible to fight your ticket in court? Many officers never show up to these proceedings to contest your claim, or so I have heard. That could save you a quick $140 if you can afford to take time off work. If there's only a short gap between your rent being due and next payday, can you talk to the landlord/management company to see if you can wait a week or so? If you are a good tenant maybe they will be OK about it.

Dave, I don't think it usually has to do with ego. This is simply how many, many pianists go about improvising. Bud Powell did it too, as did others who are less audible about it. The idea is sort of that by forcing yourself to focus on the singing, you take the emphasis off of what your hands are doing, or what looks theoretically good on the keyboard but may not make an attractive melody. You're letting your ear take over instead of your eyes and logical brain.

Yeah, if I had $1000 right now to spend, at a time when the Fantasy catalog appears in limbo, I'd probably pick up: Jimmy Woods--Conflict Jaki Byard--Experience, Hi-Fly, Here's Jaki, Freedom Together Hal Singer--Blue Stompin Roy Haynes--We Three Harold Land--The Fox Walt Dickerson--To My Queen At least one of the Randy Weston Prestige records Sonny Criss--Sonny'd Dream At least one Curtis Counce Contemporary record At least one Booker Ervin record with Jaki Byard Bobby Timmons--Trio in Person At least one Shelly Manne Blackhawk record Tommy Flanagan--Overseas One of the early Cal Tjader records Gigi Gryce--Rat Race Blues Kenny Drew Trio Machito--Mucho Macho One of the Memphis Slim albums Two Elmo Hope albums Roland Kirk--Kirk's Work At least one Phineas Newborn record Frank Rosolino--Free For All Rene Thomas--Guitar Groove After all that I'd probably have about $600 left. Much of it would go toward much more recent stuff.

Aha--thanks for the tip, I knew I had seen that somewhere. Is the quality hurt any by not specially configuring mono encoding, or am I just wasting space?

Yes, this is disc 4, for which Mosaic used the mono masters. (Should I be using a different setting to encode mono? I remember seeing a discussion of mono encoding somewhere.)

Here's a silly question: I'm ripping the Tristano/Konitz/Marsh Mosaic right now, on alt-preset-standard. The LAME window that pops up when encoding to mp3 starts shows a number of asterisks that change as encoding proceeds. These are labelled 128, 160, 192, and so forth, which I take to mean that they represent the proportion of the file that is being ripped at 128, 160, and 192 Kbps. Now, with most CDs, when LAME is set to encode at alt-preset-standard, the encoding is roughly centered around 192 Kbps--a small percentage will be at 128, a somewhat larger percentage at 160, the highest percentage at 192, a somewhat smaller percentage at 224, and even smaller percentages at 256 and 320. With this CD, however, almost everything is encoding at 128 Kbps, with very very small percentages at 160 and 192. Is this normal, and why does it happen?

I thought that too myself, before I heard it. He is actually a fairly progressive organist...maybe in the Larry Goldings vein? I'm not sure what his full last name is.

Here's a piece o'greaze that I don't think has been mentioned much around here: link

I agree with you, Tom. That was a mismatch of sorts. One thing I've been thinking of, which may without any significance, but I though I'd mention anyway: When Ike Quebec died in 1963 Pearson took over his A&R at Blue Note. From that point, these are the Blue Note sessions where he played piano during the following two years: Johnny Coles 'Little Johnny C' (July 18, August 9, 1963) Grant Green 'Idle Moments' (November 4 & 15, 1963) Bobby Hutcherson 'The Kicker' (December 29, 1963) Rejected Grant Green session (February 12, 1964) Grant Green 'Solid' (June 12, 1964) Duke Pearson 'Wahoo' (November 24, 1964) Several of the non-Pearson led dates have been described by posters here as "in reality a Pearson date", or in similar words to the effect that Pearson seemed to have a lot of influence on the date as a whole. Perhaps he just took his A&R role seriously. But anyway, that makes me think that Person might have had something to say when the group was chosen for this particular rejected session as well. Therefore, it seems all the more odd that Gilmore would be picked for the sax part. Is it possible that he stepped in for someone else? Interesting, too, that Henderson played tenor on ALL the aforementioned dates except this one.

Another thought...perhaps Alfred was going for a remake of the tenor-vibes-guitar front line that worked so well on "Idle Moments," and either rejected the session as not matching up to the earlier effort or tossed it because he wanted to present Green in a more varied context than just copycatting the earlier lineup?

My guess is that the execution of these tunes was not as tight as Alfred would have liked. Ezz-thetic is NOT easy to play, and I bet they may have needed more rehearsal time. Un Poco Loco is not particularly easy either, and is infrequently played. Alfred must have thought the concept was basically a good one, though, hence the redo at the "Solid" sessions a few months later. (Although Solid wasn't issued at the time either, I think most of us can agree the reason wasn't poor playing on the part of the participants...there was just too much Grant Green on the market at that point.)

Jim Sangrey, in a thread from a while ago, termed Shuggie "the missing link between Sly Stone and Brian Wilson." Listening to this one, I can kind of see it...raw funk/blues guitar meets laid-back California songwriting...or something like that. (I'm not qualified to talk at length about either Stone or Wilson, really.) Anyway, the first couple of listens through the CD version had me liking the bonus tracks--recorded a couple of years before-- a LOT more than the original album. The original tracks were just a bit too sugary, I think. On a third listen, they have started to grow on me. He was a hell of a guitar player for being barely a 20 year old (and very versatile, you can hear him playing octaves a la Wes or Benson on one or two of the tunes). A shame that he just faded away into obscurity.

No Beantown? People here are much more pleasant after the events of last October... Plus, if you're willing to brave the Providence winter, might as well head 45 minutes north to a halfway real city.

Cuscuna's general policy seems to be: if it was merely "unissued" he'll consider it. If it was "rejected" by Alfred Lion, he won't. I wouldn't hold out too much hope for this one. Edit: Were this to be reissued, the best shot we might have would be getting it added onto the end of a reissue of "Solid." Three of the tunes appear on Solid, making me wonder if this was sort of a first attempt at those sessions that didn't work out.

Never heard of the guy, but the label is an interesting one. I like the Joe Beck record.

Summers evidently has a tendency to be a spicy radio guest.

Well I'll be goldurned--there's a live tape of Herbie from 1973 on easytree right now. Ask, and ye shall...

I'm fond of one of those Galper records, either GUERILLA BAND or WILDBIRD (can never remember which). Damned funky stuff.

I wish we could see how Head Hunters was made. Listening to the way everything is layered, it's SO hard for me to imagine that most of that stuff (especially Chameleon and Sly) was laid down together with the whole band in a relatively low number of takes. Does anyone know how it was done?

This is what's come to frustrate me about seeing him live, I think. He does the same 7 or 8 tunes every time, it seems, and so much time passes between shows that I can never tell how each arrangement is different. Cammack and Muhammad have been with him so long that they probably can handle any curveballs thrown their way, but to one who doesn't have too many records of his, it just looks like they've rehearsed the shit out of it and are just executing arrangements that have already been well-scripted.