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Last night, a double feature at the Blue Note--the Bad Plus, followed by Jason Moran and Bandwagon. I had mixed feelings about the Bad Plus, some of their songs left me cold, but several were quite good, so by the end of the set I liked them pretty well. Jason Moran was a whole other story--his set as simply brilliant, confirming why he's among my favorites in jazz today. By the end of his set, the Bad Plus was virtually forgotten--it's a good thing they came on first. Damn, that was good, is all I can say.

Last night, the Mingus Big Band at the Iridium, and they sounded great--players included Craig Handy, Abraham Burton, Jaleel Shaw, Wayne Escoffrey, Earl McEntire, Frank Lacy, Alex Spiagan, Sean Jones, George Colligan, and Boris Koslow. Songs performed included--Jump Monk, Meditations, Opus Four, Portrait, Open Letter to Duke, A Song with Orange, and Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me.. However, the less than full house at the Iridium was a bit disappointing. Same as my last visit in May. I miss the overflowing, enthusiastic crowds at the Time Cafe. The new reissue of Music Written for Monterey, Not Heard, was available at the show, and I picked up a copy.

They played Lonely Woman in Austin.

Hard to go wrong for $5.99! I've been going to see Roy live since he was a teenager in Dallas and always been frustrated by his recordings, which never seemed to capture the fiery playing I witnessed. This one finally captures at least some of what I've heard. There's some pretty nice Slide Hampton on the record as well.

Yes, a very nice record, probably his best to date.

This is a recording that makes one appreciate the LP format, because the first side of the Lp is just a perfect sequence of brilliant compositions and performances--Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, Cryin' Blues, Moanin'--Booker Ervin is amazing--the Mingus solo on Cryin' Blues is one of the greatest recorded bass solos--Pepper Adams on Moanin' is fantastic.

Vinyl is also very frustrating. Like yesterday, I found an original Bethleham issue of the Mingus classic East Coasting, at a reasonable price even. There are no visible scratches on the LP. However, when I listened to it this morning (after cleaning it with a Nitty Gritty vacuum cleaner), it is marred by perhaps the loudest surface noise I've ever heard on an LP. This is very tragic, because if one can ignore all the surface noise, the sound of the record is actually very beautiful. On the British LP reissue I have from the 1980s and CD reissues, the recording quality sounds pretty mediocre. Now I know the original issue sounded great.

Last night, Stanley Jordon at the Granada Theater. It's been nine years since I saw him last--it was an amazing and beautiful solo performance--two sets, over an hour each. The first set was mostly mostly material I hadn't heard him play before, except Stolen Moments, closing with a very extended original piece I sure would like to have on record. The second set he performed the hoary rock and other chestnuts he's known for--opening with a thirty minute version of Eleanor Rigby that was quite a wonder. He's stripped down his performance style--none of the playing two guitars at once with lots of effects--basically, it was just him playing a guitar, more like the first time I saw him years ago when his first recording on Blue Note came out. He seemed to really enjoy playing at the Granada, which has very good sound. There was a decent, though not overflowing crowd. I'm really looking forward to hearing Larry Coryell, Victor Bailey and Lenny White at the Granada in a couple of weeks.

I suspect she's little known in the U.S. and her CDs are hard to find here, but Mexico's Magos Herrera is really terrific. I love her new CD, Soliluna, a collaberation with Iraida Noreiga (another very good Mexican singer), not to mention, Todo Puede Inspirar and Orquideas Susurrantes. She's making a rare U.S. appearance at Dazzles, in Denver, on September 14 and 15. I wish I could be there. http://www.magosherrera.com/

Lenox Lounge is in Harlem, as you well know. Club's client list is mostly local black people in their 50s-60s, at least that's how it was when I used to go there. It is not really dangerous; if you leave your 10-gallon hat and "Texans for Bush" t-shirt in your hotel room you should be fine. Subway stop is right near, but Lenox Avenue is famous for breakdowns... I do not own a cowboy hat or cowboy boots and I voted for Ann Richards, Al Gore, and John Kerry rather than Bush, so I should be safe.

I've been a couple of times. There is a very cool Deco bar when you walk in and a pair of doors in the back which lead to the room where they have the live music. The soul food is pretty good--by bar standards any way. It's a very small room and there's no stage--the musicians just set up in the corner of the room. If you're taking a cap uptown remember that when you get out of the club at 1 AM or whenever there will be NO cabs on the street in Harlem at that time of night-you'll have to hail a gypsy cab and pay $20 to get back to midtown. 125th and Lenox is a MAJOR intersection and it's totally "safe" by any resonable person's standards. Thanks for the information.

I'm expecting to be in New York most of next week and have noted that Bill Lee is appearing at the Lenox Lounge next Friday and Saturday. I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) that this is Bill Lee the bassist and composer that I saw leading a quintet at the Caravan of Dreams in the early 1990s. He was most impressive and I would be excited to see him again. Does anyone know anything about this engagement? In addition, how is the Lenox Lounge? I've never been there. It's further uptown than I've ever been on my late-night jazz travels in Manhattan. Is the neighborhood safe? Is it easy to catch a cab late at night? Thanks.

Marchel Ivery's three CDs on Leaning House are all worthwhile. http://www.amazon.com/Marchel-Ivery/artist...6554364-5032618

I've enjoyed that series also.

Vinyl and digital.

It looks like a trio, not a duo. What about the kitten in the middle?

If you get the last Hank you lack, what then? I cannot in good conscience sell you my copy.

I only have the Jabbo Smith so far--nice sound and great trumpet playing

Press Release for New CDs! Sun, Aug. 20 2006 Charles Mingus: Music Written for Monterey 1965 Not Heard ... Played Live in Its Entirety at UCLA (SSC 3041) Mingus Big Band: Live in Tokyo at the Blue Note, 2005 (SSC 3042) Release Date: 9/26/06 For media information contact Brad Riesau at DL Media ph: 909-744-0704 or email: braddlmedia@covad.net Charles Mingus lives! Although the late composer and bassist passed in 1979, as we approach his 85th birthday year, the complex, passionate, and supremely personal compositional work lives on through the frequent performances and recordings of the bands his widow Sue Mingus has assembled - the Mingus Dynasty, the Mingus Big Band, the Mingus Orchestra, and the Epitaph Orchestra - and through upcoming releases of landmark Charles Mingus performances, available for the first time on CD. Two live recordings, Music Written for Monterey, 1965 Not Heard...Played Live in Its Entirety at UCLA and Live in Tokyo at the Blue Note, 2005 will be released simultaneously Sept. 26 on Sue Mingus Music, distributed by Sunnyside. One documents the jazz giant in 1965; the other documents the big band that bears his name, forty years later. But more than mere historical documents, both provide a rare glimpse into the creative process of the maestro and composer, and the musicians that live and breathe new life into his music today. Music Written for Monterey, 1965 Not Heard...Played Live in Its Entirety at UCLA captures Mingus leading an octet performing at the University of California, Los Angeles. To expand the story of the title: Mingus had triumphantly performed at Monterey Jazz Festival in 1964, and returned the following year with a collection of difficult new material that he intended to debut there. However, Mingus' set was truncated to a half an hour, and most of the set list was scrapped. A week later he premiered and recorded the material at UCLA, which demonstrates in raw, you-are-there detail why Mingus liked to refer to his live shows as workshops, where he could continue to rehearse new material (not written down for the other musicians) until he was satisfied with the spirit and sound. That this "workshop" concert was also recorded opens a window on Mingus' creative process, and the listener is privy to the inner workings of the composer, his outward shouts and reprimands. It is an unvarnished behind-the-scenes look at the struggle Charles Mingus sometimes faced in his efforts to get his demanding compositions performed. It includes musical confrontations on stage, the difficulties band members experienced with brand new music, his own furies and, ultimately, his refusal to edit out the warts, to tell it like it was. This fearless exposure of the creative process in all its contradictions had led earlier to his concept of the jazz workshops- performances on stage in which the trials and errors of creating music were presented to viewers, unedited. He also understood the fascination with "process" for an intelligent audience. "All these years I’ve been trying to promote Mingus the composer, and downplaying Charles the larger-than-life character," Sue laughs. "By putting this CD out, here I am playing right into that image of Charles. But what eventually transpires after the musical fist fights, extraordinary solos, hirings and firings and a feast of new composition - is musicians achieving incredible musical heights as they resolve their conflicts in the fire of the music." Released by Mingus' own label forty years ago, Mingus pressed only 200 copies before he ran out of money, and then the masters were destroyed in 1971 when Capitol cleaned out its vaults. This two-disc CD was re-mastered from the original vinyl. (Sue Mingus and Fred Cohen also issued a limited edition version of the LP in 1984.) In the liner notes to At UCLA Sue writes, "It should be obvious that no established record company at that time – or any other – would have released a recording with so much dissension and so many irregularities. Mingus opted for the truth of the performance, and we witness not only the flaws and failures but the sheer joy as he shrieks his approval, encourages his drummer, exhorts his trumpet player and jumps from the piano chair to the bass and back in order to conduct his compositions." Mingus's band included trumpeters Hobart Dotson, Lonnie Hillyer and Jimmy Owens; alto saxophonist Charles McPherson; French horn player Julius Watkins, tuba player Howard Johnson; drummer Dannie Richmond; and Mingus on bass. Tunes included "Meditation on Inner Peace," "Don't Be Afraid, the Clown's Afraid, Too," and "Once Upon a Time There Was a Holding Corporation Called Old America" (a later version was titled "The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive-ass Slippers"), and a rare opportunity to hear Mingus perform on otherwise unavailable compositions "They Trespass the Land of the Sacred Sioux," "Don't Let It Happen Here," and "The Arts of Tatum and Freddy Webster," and arrangements of "Muscrat Ramble" and a be-bop medley, "Ode to Bird and Dizzy." Jon Pareles in the New York Times wrote about the "irrepressible" UCLA concert, and how Mingus, through his workshop format, was "eager to remind his audiences that jazz is simultaneously a body of tradition and an art of the moment." Four decades later, this recording still sounds as modern as the Mingus Big Band Live at Tokyo, which spans generations of Mingus compositions and still manages to combine the unique personalities of the performers and art of the moment with the timelessness of these compositions. Live in Tokyo at the Blue Note, 2005 showcases the exhilarating Mingus Big Band launching into newly arranged compositions from the Mingus songbook at a New Year's Eve concert at the Blue Note. Continuing the Mingus tradition of great difficulty yielding great rewards, the last-minute replacement of new father and bassist Boris Koslov (who was to debut two new arrangements) with Kenny Davis (who had never played with the band, and who stepped in seamlessly), is testament not only to the musicians' talents, but to the strength of the music itself. The 14-piece big band - comprising trumpeters Eddie Henderson, Jack Walrath and Alex Sipiagin; saxophonists Abraham Burton, Craig Handy, Wayne Escoffery, Seamus Blake, and Ronnie Cuber; trombonists Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Conrad Herwig and Earl McIntyre; pianist Dave Kikoski; bassist Kenny Davis; and drummer Johnathan Blake - buoyantly give new voice to such Mingus classics as "Meditations" and "Ecclusiastics," from the '60s, "Opus 4" and "Free Cell Block 8" from the early '70s, and such early '50s-era tunes as "Celia," "Bird Calls" and "Wham Bam," which opens the CD with characteristic Mingus Big Band explosive energy. When talking about the legacy band’s weekly New York club dates, Sue commented that her husband would have "given his eye teeth to compose for musicians of this caliber week after week, though he rarely had the opportunity to work with such a large group." But through the posthumous Epitaph concerts (in the 80s and coming again in 2007), and through Mingus's enormous compositional legacy, today's musicians have the opportunity to continue his creative process and, through these recordings, listeners have a privileged entry to the dialogue. Mingus may not be shouting from the bandstand or dismissing them for "mental tardiness" but his music continues to inspire musicians to heights of individual artistry through the power and longevity of his compositions and the lively creative conversation evidenced in these two most recent releases.

Herbie Mann--Mann in the Morning (Prestige deep groove)

He's playing at the Blue Note the week this is released, in a double bill with the Bad Plus.

A really dumb criminal, I assume? http://cgi.ebay.com/Duke-Ellington-Collect...1QQcmdZViewItem

I have a different version--a Japanese CD reissue from the mid-1980s. It sounds perfectly fine to me.

Thanks.

I like the later recordings (on a good day) the best myself. His fragmentary (and short) memoir, As Though I had Wings, is an interesting read.