I just checked the large format Francis Wolf book and there's no photograph of Washington there, nor is there one in the Blue Note Album Cover Art book.
There's a few recordings I'd like to have on cd that were originally released on Mainstream. Who owns the rights and have they released anything recently?
The liner notes to the first Lp on which he appeared (a Cohn-Sims record) doesn't even mention that he sings. Just discusses him as a new find on piano. I've seen him several times over the decades (including once when he opened for Van Morrison) and quite enjoyed him but I do think The Back Country Suite period is his best as a composer. (I'm as tired of hearing "Your Mind is on Vacation " on the radio as I am of hearing Krall sing "Peel Me a Grape". )
I have my sound issues with that box. Jack the Bear is unlistenable. The first few discs in the box have a whistling sound near the end of each number-- apparently caused by noise-reduction. I'm sort of reluctant to mention this latter problem because I didn't notice it until someone on line pointed it out. Now of course it jumps out at me. Hope I'm not doing it to you. ( I didn't need anyone to bring the Jack the Bear sound issues to my attention.)
I just asked about this on on the Duke-lym list serve. It's very possible of course that the theater was just playing the Lp over their wound system while they sold popcorn during the intermission. And the theater may be have created the intermission themselves. I don't think the film was released with one.
I purchased this cd from Amazon but it has no information on it except the names of some participants without saying what numbers they play on. I found out a fair amount by Googling but none that gave a session by session breakdown. BTW I got this because of a mention in the booklet from the new Mosaic Armstrong. It referred to "Yes Suh" with Pee Wee Russell and Red Allen. They do play on most of the cuts though Pee Wee is on tenor for many of them.
From my Google search I see that there was once a cd from Collectors' Classics under Billy Banks's name that contained most of this material but I presume it's oop.
This set grew on me disc by disc. (Wasn't that nuts about disc 1 the first time through.) A question: Some sessions have multiple alternate takes but many have none. Am I correct in presuming that a couple of takes was normal for each number but that the alternates for some session just aren't extant?
Just how devastating the Universal fire was can been heard in the crackle's and pops on the numbers from the last 3 sessions where the original sources were apparently destroyed. But there's no mention of lost source material for the June 14 '38 session and that seems to me to have the worst sound. Any thoughts on why?
IIRC there was a two disc Lp Wilson set released in Canada in the late '60s or early '70s with a few of the Billie sides but most of the cuts instrumentals.