Indestructible!

Hi Conn, Damn, that's some good shit right there! I wish I could've heard that music live back in the day! Never heard of "Sir George Munn", though... BTW, some of the names I posted are still going strong (e.g., Toots, Skatalites), while others have either passed on or dropped out of the music scene altogether. Obviously, in present day America, this music is about as popular with the populace as jazz from the 60's is! If anything, the average American will know who Bob Marley is, but that's about it. It's a shame really... Please post any more invites you find in your collection!!! Cheers, Shane P.S. -- The "wash wash" was basically just a modified version of the jerk/the skank/etc.... mostly coming out of the US soul dances of the 50's, early 60's. Ah hell man, why I am telling you this... you were there, you saw it, you lived it!!! I am green with envy, man!

Hi All, Hey, great topic Brandon! I am a HUGE fan of all that is 1960's Jamaican music, especially ska and rocksteady. I've got TONS of this stuff! When I lived in New York, I used to have a radio show devoted to this era of music... the show was called "The Six and Seven Books of Ska". The title was obviously "borrowed" from my man Toots Hibbert, and he laughed his ass off when he found out about it! He gave me his blessing to use it, though, so I was eternally grateful! LAL, my advice for an introduction to the SKA is to get anything by the Skatalites (and other related titles by members of the Skatalites, including Roland Alphonso, Tommy McCook, Don Drummond, Jackie Mittoo, Lester Sterling, Lloyd Brevitt, Baba Brooks). Also, most everything by the following acts is typically good: the Maytals (often issued as Toots & the Maytals), Prince Buster, Laurel Aitken, Lord Tanamo, Jackie Opel, Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Desmond Dekker, Justin Hinds & the Dominos, and many more. Those Trojan box sets are a hell of a deal and a good introduction to the music..... but if you are a completist (as I am, unfortunately), they will just lead you down the path of financial ruin! Other labels to check out with confidence... Studio One, Treasure Isle, Blood and Fire, and also check out an 8-CD series of reissues of Top Deck material (Justin Yap's original label... his recording of the Skatalites "Ska-Bo-Da-Ba" session is an absolute classic!). Oh yeah, one other label to check out with absolute confidence is Heartbeat Records... their reissuing of 60's ska/rocksteady/reggae is unmatched! Since I don't have my radio show anymore, I miss all those promos they used to send me! What a great label... Cheers, Shane P.S. -- If there's any consolation to moving out here to Los Angeles, I have to admit that there is a damn good ska scene in this city! Plus, it's home to THE best American ska/rocksteady group... the newly reformed HEPCAT!!! (with much apologies to my friends in the SLACKERS, who come in a very close second!)

Hi Allan, I'm glad you're enjoying the McGhee/Farlow trade... glad I could send it your way! I personally love all six of the 10" series CD's. Some of them are more favored than others (the McGhee's are at the top of the list for me, followed by the Foster date), but I'm glad as hell that Blue Note put these out. Now, if there's anyway we could convince them to put out more of the 5000 series dates, I'd be a happy man... especially the two "West Coast" volumes! I'm also with Brownie on wanting to see the Urbie Green reissued someday! Cheers, Shane

First Concert? The Dead Kennedys in 1984, at the McEwan Hall Ballroom in Calgary. DAMN GOOD show! The largest and scariest pit I think I still have ever seen in the past 20 years!!! Cheers, Shane

Hi SS1, Well, actually..... I have. See, Ron is my neighbor. I am NOT kidding about this! He lives in the same building I do here in Los Angeles. Funny story about the first time I met him... I had just moved into my place, and was just relaxing in the (huge) hot tub this place has when Ron and his girlfriend dropped by for a soak. Imagine my surprise when I look up and see "the Hedgehog" climbing into the hot tub! I was half expecting the porn music to start up in the background somewhere (a-chick-a-wa-wa)! He's actually a decent guy, and there's no wild-n-crazy porn going on 24 hours a day in the building like most people think there would be....... though I keep waiting for it! Cheers, Shane

Hi Gents, Yep, was a HUGE Husker Du fan back in the day.... "Land Speed Record"!!!!!! Man, did I also love most of the cats on the SST record label! Cheers, Shane

How do you know? Do you just call up Mosaic and ask them? Hi All, A quick update... just ordered a set at Mosaic, and the numbers remaining for the following sets (as of Friday the 19th, 3:30 pm Eastern) are: 120 - Tristano/Konitz/Marsh 118 - Atlantic New Orleans My advice would be to hurry up on the T/K/M set... I doubt it will last much beyond next week! I hope this helps... don't make Soulstation post that picture of "The Procrastinator" in reference to you! Cheers, Shane

Hi All, As someone who volunteers from time to time at KKJZ, I can't tell you how saddened I am to have heard about Chuck's passing. He was a great guy, and all my interactions with him were enlightening and positive. Thanks for all the wonderful memories, Chuck! You will be greatly missed! Shane

Hi Jim, Hey, I've got this one... picked it up for about $10 on the "Clearance" shelf at a Virgin Records store here in LA (I know, I know... clearance and virgins... it's too easy)! It's suprisingly...... OK at best. Some decent tracks, but most of the rapping over top of the beats is pretty poor. And the mixes themselves aren't worth a whole lot. An interesting take on "Poor Butterfly", though. My advice... don't spend more than about $7-8 on it. Cheers, Shane

Hi Peter, I'd like 'em both if they are still available! Sending you a PM right now! Cheers, Shane

Hi Johnny E, Damn, thanks for posting that! That last photo by Arbus was made into an album cover by the Canadian punk band S.N.F.U. (from Edmonton). The name of the album was "And No One Else Wanted To Play..." I had no idea it came from a "real" photo! The album was released back in my young punk years (1984/5?), and I haven't thought about it for many, many years. Thanks for letting me reminisce a little bit! It was a great album, by the way!!! Cheers, Shane

Seven CDs! I had initially heard that it would probably be five... Sounds like a treasure trove for First Herd lovers. Hi GoM, Damn! Thanks for the good news! I'll be grabbing this one the day it comes out... Cheers, Shane

UP

Hi Brandon, Please check your PM's. Normally I wouldn't post this to the whole Board, but I've got no other way of contacting you! Cheers, Shane

Hi All, Well, I can't really remember who my first was... it was either Wynton Marsalis (I just know Chris is laughing at me right now!) or Ahmad Jamal. Both would've been in 1988/89, somwhere around there. The Marsalis quartet was OK, and he played to a huge crowd (a couple thousand, I would imagine) in one of Calgary's finer concert venues. He played a significant number of Monk tunes that night, I think, so that made the set pretty entertaining. Since then, I've never really dug his stuff all that much... I do remember that I was sitting BEHIND the stage for some reason, and was literally right on top of 'Tain as he bashed the hell out of the skins. It was an interesting perspective! The Jamal was infinitely better! I saw him play solo at the Banff Center for the Fine Arts in the summer, when they have their annual jazz workshops (some GREAT players have rolled through those workshops over the years!). It was just me and maybe 10 other people in the "crowd" (all students in the workshop, I think)... but Jamal played his ass off!!! He played for over an hour, and by the end I was just completely stunned by what I'd heard... and have been a live jazz fan ever since! Now that I'm in LA, I usually see live jazz at least a couple of times a month (or more, when I can afford it)... but that Jamal set still ranks up there as one of the greatest things I've ever seen! Cheers, Shane

Hi BruceH, Nope, it was a part of the Collector's Choice series, released on August 15, 1995. It is DAMN good album, though!!! Cheers, Shane

Hi All, Was just surfing AAJ, and noticed this thread: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread....=&threadid=2947 It appears as though Horace Silver's United States of Mind Trilogy Set (3 albums) That Healin' Feelin', Total Response & All will be reissued by Blue Note later this year in their Connoisseur's Series (as a 2CD set). I have the latter two albums on vinyl, and look forward to this release on CD. Some of it is pretty tough listening, but there's enough good stuff here to make me happy. Great song titles too........ Any thoughts? Cheers, Shane

Hi All, If memory serves, I think Tom Evered at Blue Note mentioned that a sales figure of 500 units per year needs to be met in order for a CD to be kept in print. I don't know if that's currently the case (or if it indeed ever was actually the case), but either way that number seems depressingly low to me. However, there's always the odd chance things will be reissued (often more than once). For example, Lee Morgan's - The Sixth Sense went OOP very quickly upon its initial release... but I notice it is included in the list of upcoming RVG's this year. But still.... some titles don't even make that "500 units a year" target! Assuming that target applies only to the US market (and I'm not sure that it does), this means that a little less than 1.5 CD's of a title (e.g., Sonny Clark's - Standards) needs to be sold per day in the entire US to keep it in print! And that's not happening??? Damn! No wonder Jim can't afford a razor for that beard! Cheers, Shane

Hell Yeah!

Wow! See, that's what I love about the holidays.... rampant greed! And, I'm sure somebody will bid on this, which will reinforce the other thing I love about the holidays... rampant stupidity! Cheers, Shane

OK, Following the rules, my porn name is Sheba Larch. But if I had to choose it for myself, well... that's easy! "Hugh Jorgan"!!! Cheers, Shane

I'll fess up... The Notre Dame Fight Song. I don't know why, but I've been humming that tune for the past week or so, everywhere I go! Sometimes I even sing it out loud! You know... "Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame..." It's strange, really, because I'm a die-hard Gator alum! That, and Notre Dame's football team has really been crap this year! I need professional help! Cheers, Shane

Now that would have been interesting. Never heard that before. Anyone else have any information about this? Think it was in some "History of Jazz" book I checked out of the library a couple of years ago. Can't, for the life of me, remember the author. Hi Matthew & Morganized, I've heard that same story as well. I'm pretty sure Ruth Lion was the one who mentioned it when she was interviewed for that Blue Note Documentary released on VHS a few years ago. She also went on to lament how it was one of Alfred's (and Blue Note's) darkest times when "another, bigger record company came along and snatched Jimmy up" in the 60's. I have to say I agree with her on that one! Cheers, Shane

Hi All, I'll totally agree with Jim and Brad on this one! I remember watching this film when it first came out (1986/1987?) at a particularly tough time in my life, and thought it to be absolutely brilliant. Like Jim, I also shed a tear or two during the movie (and Dexter is definitley not acting, as Jim mentions... if you want to see Dexter "act", check out the movie "Awakenings"). Then several years ago I read Francis Paudras' book, and the movie 'Round Midnight became much more easy to understand. In fact, I can easily understand how someone might be "lost" when watching the film if they first hadn't read the book (lots of references to things that happened in both Bud Powell's and Lester Young's lives that the casual viewer/non jazz fan would totally miss). My take? 'Round Midnight is a brilliant film!! And, if you haven't already seen it, read Paudras' Dance of the Infidels first. It makes the movie that much better. And damn... Dex was even nominated for an Academy Award for his role! Cheers, Shane

I think this would have been the case (probably) for Moncur at least. Hi Rooster, Actually, Grachan Moncur did play the Mt. Fuji Blue Note Festival in 1986, so I don't think him not wanting to be identified with the "Blue Note" sound was an issue. I sure would love to get my hands on the VHS of that Japanese fest. If I recall, one of the lineups included a front line of Moncur, Jackie McLean, and Woody Shaw! That HAD to have been great! Cheers, Shane