robert h.

But doesn't this statement appear on the back of the McMaster? If this is true, wouldn't that mean that only Rudy altered the original studio mix, and not McMaster? In other words, ironically, wouldn't it mean that the McMaster more accurately presents the sound of Rudy's original recording than Rudy's own remastering? More likely the perception of Lee being more upfront on the McMaster is a result of equalization of the tape by McMaster - if you understand the statement about "direct to two track" - it means - no mixing possible (after all, how can you mix two tracks?). Therefore, the more likely scenario is that the RVG is less manipulated. Realistically, every engineer eq's a tape when remastering to some degree. There really is no such thing as "accurately reflecting the original master tape" since there is some equalization in mastering probably 95% of the time. The issue is which engineer's choices are preferred by the listener.

"You know, I guess I am sort of offended by calling it "Hoffman's publicity board." Not that Steve Hoffman needs me to defend him, but I think that's way off mark. Publicity for what?" It's a publicity board for Hoffman, to advance himself as some sort of mastering 'expert', to get attention for him so he can get work. To be blunt, Hoffma spends more time doing photo ops than actual mastering. Nothing wrong with that, if you recognize it as such and take it with a huge grain of salt. That board is VERY heavily edited and controlled to ensure the host keeps on smelling like a rose, and VERY strongly dominated by a few who are his acolytes. There's far too much following over there and, quite bluntly, not very much interesting. want to hear again about how "bad" one particular owner of a $99 JVC CD player thinks K2 Remasters are? You can find that guy's umpteenth post about it just about every day. There's a lot of agendas going on over there and most of it to advance Hoffman's career goals. A little while ago, one over the top nutster actually wrote to a Japanese remastering engineer to tell him how he should remaster and actually directing him to read the Hoffman board to learn more about how to do it! The engineer politely took the time to reply that he mastered just fine and besides, he was doing so to suit the Japanese market that employed him, not some American audiophiles, to which this guy had the arrogance to tell him was all wrong! Imagine - telling a Japanese engineer how to do his job and that he should cater to the Hoffmanites, not his actual domestic audience! When Red Trumpet folded, the courageous Hoffman, who himself was employed by and still does work for a bankrupt operation that stiffed people, allowed and participated in the vilification of red trumpet's owner for stiffing some audiophiles for unfilled orders, but when it was pointed out to him that DCC stiffed people too, took offense and claimed that no people were stiffed by DCC, only corporations - duh, dummy, ever hear of shareholders - they are people, rocket scientist! He then courageously announced that he never really knew red trumpet very well and took the link he had to them down when he heard they were bust. OK to have links and get support when they are selling your product, but the minute they are a liability, it's 'oh, I didn't really know them at all' to distance himself. I could go on and on. I really wasn't intending to start a Hoffman thing here, but that site really does damage to the music with the extremely censored and limited views directed towards one person's agenda, which imflames me as a musician and music lover, that is my only point. Take the views expressed there as such - free speech it isn't.

I've heard nothing but problems with the Dualdiscs of Talking Heads. I've ordered the ones I want from the UK where they are not dualdiscs but double CD sets with a regular CD and a DVD-A. They sound amazing, by the way. really superb remastering, notwithstanding what a few wankers on Hoffman's publicity board want to tell. That place has zero credibility.

You've got to wonder about why "Joyride" was selected - there is certainly much more worthy, even a bit of underappreciated Turrentine stuff that could easily be candidates for the RVG series way ahead of this one. The cover does have a certain attitude and maybe that's the simplest reason. Perhaps there needs to be a new "Wanted for RVG release" thread. Personally, I'm hoping for zero duplication with the now easily-available-on-ebay-for-decent-prices Japanese RVG's and looking for some stuff more out on the edges, here's a few: SAM RIVERS- A NEW CONCEPTION ANDREW HILL - COMPULSION ORNETTE COLEMAN - NEW YORK IS NOW BOBBY HUTCHERSON - TOTAL ECLIPSE ELVIN JONES - POLY-CURRENTS SAM RIVERS - EXTENSIONS & DIMENSIONS ELVIN JONES - GENESIS McCOY TYNER - EXTENSIONS BIG JOHN PATTON - THAT CERTAIN FEELING Now, before everyone jumps all over it - I know none of these will ever make it. But then again, I thought that about 'In Pursuit Of The 27th Man ' and I wet myself when it was announced....

I guess we can't look forward to any more threads demanding that the Gigolo be reissued. Forgive me for asking, but it's been out on Japanese RVG for over 3 years in fantastic sound, why on earth would anyone moan for 3 years just to avoid paying a few bucks more for the import, especially such a great record? I've been digging this RVG for years now. It sure has been worth the paltry few bucks more for those years of enjoying it!

I've received the newly remasered Slug's double set and I can confirm that it sounds quite clean - great job. I hope Bernard keeps 'em coming. I picked up the Marion Brown recently and it blew my mind!

Yeah, well, like, duhhhhhh, like when you're like in your seventies man, like, if you need to keep working to make some uh, money man, like, you're really dumb, you know, like, you really have like made lots of money in your career already man, like uh, cool you know, if you don't get it... ...then don't talk to me like I'm some idiot, JSngry, if you don't understand what I wrote, it's polite to ask a question. Skip the sarcasm and the condescending tone next time. Makes you look...small. By the way, a line like"if you make some new money, you make some new money" makes no sense. What do YOU mean - make some new money to make some new money? Huh? No wonder you have a tough time with simple concepts.

At his age, he's long made what money he's going to make. The only possible reason he doesn't retire is that he loves it.

Depends on the living room. RVG had one hell of a living room.

The RVG BN's are fabulous, but I have found it is very much a 'system' thing, hot tweeters and weak bass combined with hard sounding digital sources will give very poor results with RVG's. The earlier TOCJ's and McMasters are softer and more diffuse, without the crisp dynamics of the RVG's, so some systems will prefer that. The problem with the Prestige stuff getting RVG'd is, as others have said, that the warhorses in this catalog have been the single most massively over-reissued catalog ever. It seems that just about anybody can license this stuff and there are several reissued versions annually. With that kind of over-exploitation, it's hard to get interested in yet another kick at the can. I wish for RVG to do lots more of the Impulse catalog. His work on Coltrane, Ballads and ALS was superb.

"I also understand that Rudy's master tapes often to not have the tones at the beginning from which one can set levels, making it difficult for anyone but himself to do the remaster." "If so I consider this egocentric and unprofessional! Does he think he will live forever?" This is silly. Any half way competent engineer knows very well how to check levels without 'test tones', which always seemed to me to be something primarily left for the lazy. If indeed Rudy does not leave 'test tones', perhaps it is to force subsequent engineers to actually LISTEN TO THE TAPE - believe me, an all-too novel concept for many today who aren't even competent to clean Rudy's boots. If that is indeed the case - much more likely than the obviously impossible notion to force remastering to come to him, he is actually doing a great service to music reproduction. Any engineer who can't master without test tones is simply incompetent.

The ECM's mentioned above are long overdue, so is the Land/Hutcherson Savoy stuff. To me, my dream above all else is the reissue of the Max Roach and Billy Harper material done on the Baystate and Denon labels, the Roach stuff being the quartet fronted by Billy Harper (The Loadstar, Live In Tokyo, In Amsterdam) and the Billy Harper material being among his most essential material such as Love On The Sudan, The Believer, Knowledge of Self, and even the long missing MPS title Trying To Make Heaven My Home. Second priority is the Ornette Impulse titles At 12 and Crisis, and I would even like to see some of John Klemmer's Impulse titles reissued - most are really excellent before he became a ridiculous middle aged Kenny G wannabe.

"Bear in mind that these releases are aimed at the Japanese market only and that they are all limited editions. The Japanese companies surely wouldn't reissue the same recordings over and over again if they wouldn't sell." This isn't exactly the reason. The Japanese market works completely differently from any other market. When a CD is released in Japan, it is manufactured to fill orders obtained from the initial solicitation (the announcement of the release) with a bit more for expected reorders. When that manufacturing run is sold out - usually within months of release - the title is deleted. When the record company feels demand is sufficient to repress the title, or if it's a staple of the catalog, they resolicit the title and do another manufacturing run. But in almost every case, this is done with a new catalog number being assigned to the title - whether it has been remastered or not. So the resolicitation with a new catalog number may mean simply a repressing of whatever master is current, or might be a new remaster. But whatever - the announcement of a release in Japan does not necessarily mean anything new, in many cases, it is just a repressing. That is partly the reason why we see so many announcements like this for the same groups of titles - they aren't new releases at all, it's just the way that market works.

To tell the real story - I'm not too crazy about the set, I have the JRVG of "Puttin It Together" and "Live At The Lighthouse", and I find those are by far the best (although Ultimate Elvin Jones is great too). I also have a continual space struggle with those large Mosaic boxes, we are moving soon, and I'm cutting down on as much of the stuff causing space issues as possible. I haven't even unwrapped the last discs in the box. Just doesn't do it for me. I* guess it's also a case of - I have over a hundred RVG Blue Notes, and only so much time left in life - so some stuff I consider not top flight just gets culled from time to time.

Selling my Mosaic Elvin Jones Blue Note box, 8 CD set, asking $70 plus shipping (retail is $128). Paypal accepted or the usual methods. Shipping in North America should be about $10. Thanks!

Well Bill, the thread's gotten boring now, and you can cry "censorship" and mock me all you want. If you're read through even a brief sampling of my posts you would be embarrased at how stupid accusing me of wanting to censor the org is. That would be a valid example of vivid imagination. If you want to shoot down Dexter and Brookmeyer reissues from Columbia and all fall into line like lovely lemmings praising the 36th remastering of Kind Of Blue, then you'll keep on getting more remasterings of the warhorses and stuff like the Brookmeyer will get cancelled. I guess that's what some people here would like. Hey, let's face it - it's pretty risk-free to get another remaster of Kind of Blue. Anyways, thread's gone too downhill for me anymore, fire away!

"Brookmeyer himself, apparently (see the opening note...)." Yeah, but he's a jerk, so who cares what he thinks anyways? Bring it on !!!

Nothing wrong with having feelings, guys. Let's just not let the personal get in the way of convincing record company tightass kids to reissue great titles. No use adding fuel to a fire or to react to a wrong with another wrong. If Brookmeyer went overboard, it's best to let him stand on his own, the negative reaction makes him look like a victim instead. Lots of jerks and worse in music - John Lennon was an utter prick, Geldof has a crusade to hitch his failed career to but is an appaling arrogant dork, Macca is a power hungry manipulator, the list goes on. It's tough to keep track of 'em all and sort them out from the good guys. Too much negative energy to do it anyways. I just focus on the music. Remembering the outstanding Brookmeyer/Getz 1961 collaboration, the new reissue is really one to look forward to - Getz and Brookmeyer in front of Elvin Jones and Ron Carter.....!!!! And Gary Burton playing with Elvin and Carter for the one and only time?! Who could possibly complain?

Kevin, I know perfectly well what I am talking about. Perhaps you think too highly of yourself. There are lots of jerks in music - and worse. Miles Davis is example number one. Blakey was an abuser. Ben Webster was far from a sweetheart. Getz was far more of a jerk than Brookmeyer. Lee Morgan wasn't exactly a model citizen. Woody Shaw was a complete asshole, lost his family and career because of his attitude brought on by chemical imbalance as much as chemical abuse. Are you knocking Woody or refusing to buy the new Sony reissue? Do you refuse to buy Miles records? Don't think so, you continue to pour money into the estate of a man who beat women, held loaded guns to people, threatened people he didn't like, pimped, was a major cokehead, and hardly lifted a finger to raise or support his own children. Brookmeyer is Mother Theresa in the jazz world, comparatively. You buy Miles - but because Brookmeyer didn't give you the depth of respect you feel you are entitled to, you come on a board and dismiss him as a "jerk". Obviously, it has nothing to do with any high moral ground, if it were, you would not be buying Getz - Miles - Blakey - cripes, you woouldn't buy half the stuff you do. It's about YOU - and perceived slight of you by Brookmeyer. My point is very simple. Comments like yours DON'T HELP THE MUSIC, man. They HURT it. They make record company doorknobs shy away from reissuing artists other than those in the narrow band of current conservative old-guy orthodoxy. Stand back, take Kevin's ego out of the equation, and focus on things that HELP. Positive reinforcement of record company decisions to put out stuff that most of us don't have, and doesn't stick to the safe old oft-recycled stuff. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT of decisions to reissue stuff like this, Kev - but comments like yours are shooting in one's own foot and just lead to record companies not reissuing less-known stuff, even by artists the divine one has not adjudged to be 'jerks'. Please make comments that help, and take a pass on the other stuff that does nobody any good.

Well, the real problem is the increasingly conservative tastes of jazz buyers who prefer to pay Sony for endless 'upgrades' of Kind Of Blue instead of venturing into less over-exposed catalog territory. Seems that jazz has become primarily a white, male, middle to upper class, middle to old age demographic, and that group is happiest buying reissues of comfortable warhorses, mostly 1950's and early 60's. Another remaster of Miles Ahead will outsell the ENTIRE forthcoming reissue batch - if you were a lazy thirty-something numbnuts kid at Sony who knows nothing outside of Mariah carey and 50 Cents, what would you do? You got it - play it safe, get the year end bonus, reissue Porgy & Bess with some thrilling new bonus tracks dreck. Those kids look at boards like this - and note the almost reverential discussion of the umpteenth reissue of Round About Midnight, and how many of us drool over thirty very average minutes of a mid-50's concert - and note the negative comments on Brookmeyer (hey guys, Brookmeyer is a saint compared to Miles, who was a flat out abusive pig) - the Dexter reissue - etc - and conclude - it ain't worth it to venture beyond a narrow range of constantly recycled titles. Can't say I blame 'em. Here's how it will work. If we all STOP buying reissues of warhorses - I'm as guilty as the next guy - and demand titles like the Brookmeyer, Dexter, Woody Shaw...and vote with the wallet, it's gonna change. If we STOP shooting ourselves in the foot by stupid comments like "Brookmeyer is a jerk" and complaining about reissue selections that aren't the tired and true - we'll get a more diverse range to play with, and maybe we'll even force the record companies to actually do some promotion of them too.

I have the DSD Japanese mini=lp version (before that I had both the Japanese Mastersound 20bit SBM and the Miles/Coltrane box - of which the 20bit SBM bettered the box, and the DSD bettered them both) - the new one is clearly a new remaster and is very good, even better than the DSD.

I bought it a few weeks ago - curiosity got the better of me, and/or I'm a sucker with too much money to waste! Really, the primary reason to get this one must be the very much improved sound on the original record. It is really a very good remastering job, exceptional really, and it really puts you back into that era with the feeling and vibe of the day. The disc 1 bonus track from the same sessions are worthwhile but not really adding anything new, the booklet is very well done. Disc 2 - the rendition of the title track, which I recognize to be of great historical value, is out of place with the rest of the package - tone, sonics, personnel, vibe. The live set is for the most part very good, but again nothing revelatory, and far too brief to make it worth reacquiring this title for on it's own. All in all, if an exceptional remaster of the original is what people are looking for this one is the one to get and the additions make it even more attractive, but acquiring the set just for the second disc isn't going to give great value.

For sale - mint copies of the Elvin Jones Complete Blue Note Mosaic 8 CD box set and the Stanley Turrentine Quintet/Sextet Mosaic 5 CD box set. The Jones is $75 plus shipping, the Turrentine is $40 plus shipping. Contact me if interested!!

Like I said earlier in the thread, I DO have the CD, have listened to it several times, I am a big Shorter follower - and while I don't hate the record, it's just simply not as good as Footprints Live. Too much noodling. That means - too many self-conciously cute lines that weave, bob, float and ultimtely end up nowhere. and not enough that forms a cogent statement. Diffuse. A bit aimless in parts. Danilo Perez is more often than not annoying in his effort to be dazzlingly virtuostic. Not the greatest thing Wayne has done.

The bonus track is "Zero Gravity" clocking in at 6:24, it's actually not a bad tune, better than much of the rest. Verve have a shitty track record with this sort of thing, when Alice Coltrane's record came out lasy year, the bonus track was so amazing it made it a whole new record in feel and stature. So it seems a regular pattern with Verve.