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What I would recommend is simply to get the new two volume DVD set, American Folk Blues Festival, 1962-1966. It is great--with T Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Spann, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Earl Hooker, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf, Memphis Slim, John Lee Hooker, Lonnie Johnson, Willie Dixon, Misissippi Fred McDowell, etc--well filmed, and well recorded...

That critic is a moron. As far as I know, only Impressions, from the Jam Session, was released on Newport in New York 1972, and I've only seen it on LP. Kirk is awesome on that cut.

The Mis-Used Blues is one of the greatest blues saxophone solos I've ever heard. And I do mean BLUES!

I think my favorite Dolphy has to be his incredible playing on the Great Concert of Charles Mingus. His startling bass clarinet solo on Fables of Faubus, following one of Mingus' greatest recorded bass solos, is among my highlights in all music. As for Booker Little, I prefer his final two albums as a leader, Out Front (with Dolphy on Candid) and Victory and Sorrow (on Bethleham). These two both qualify as great.

His competition that night is a very interesting looking Charles Tolliver Big Band at Jazz Standard.

How does he sound today? He's playing at Birdland in a couple of weeks, and I expect to be in New York one night of his engagement. Should I go?

I sure enjoyed the time I saw Mal Waldron in a trio at the Village Vanguard, ten or so years ago. It was a hypnotic experience.

Here's a bonanza of McCoy Tyner on LP. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...1&category=1078

My LP copy has a letter from Mingus asking for his fans to send money.

Mingus recorded the concert for his own record label. The LP has all the annoucements accompanying the concert, but that was edited out on the Japanese CD reissue.

Dimensions (it's not on Milestone) is a wonderful McCoy Tyner recording from 1983 or 1984 featuring John Blake (and Gary Bartz). This was the first McCoy Tyner band I got to see live, on several occasions, and they were tremendous.

I have this on laserdisc, not LP or CD, but there's a Roy Eldridge Live at Montreux recording, from 1977, with Oscar Peterson, Bobby Durham and Nils Pederson, where Roy plays incredibly--one of his best recordings.

Just in case you missed it, the recently released Horace Silver live concert "Paris Blues" has some of the best Blue Mitchell (and Junior Cook) I've heard.

I like one of his late recordings, Inside Straight, a really nice live concert in a studio recording.

The Dizzy Gillespie and Machito recording is pretty close to masterpiece status, it may be Dizzy's last great recording, and he is in amazing form.

I have Commitment on Muse and Don't Look Back on Strata East, both on LP and both goods ones in my memory.

Dizzy Gillespie y Machito, Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods. That is a tremendous recording, from 1975 on Pablo.

I quite like Larry Coryell and have gotten to see him live on three occasions in different settings, all pretty memorable. Once, he played a solo concert at a small club in Arlington, Texas. A second time, I saw him at the Time Cafe, playing with a Mingus Big Band offshoot called Five Guitars Play Mingus. His solo on Better Get Hit in Your Soul was thrilling and had all the other guitarists looking on with admiration. A third time, at the Blue Note, in a double bill with Mark Whitfield. He was really fantastic this evening. If you prefer the more rock influenced side of his music, I would look for Cause and Effect, with Steve Smith and Tom Coster, from 1998, and Spaces Revisited, from 1997.

Actually, John Kennedy Toole did write another novel. It's called the Neon Bible. It's good but not a comedy." Good comic novels are rather hard to come by. In addition to A Confederacy of Dunces, probably my favorite of all, there's a novel called "Pizza Face" by Ken Siman that is hilarious. I've also enjoyed immensely recently the black humor of the Lemony Snicket series of children's books.

In addition to that great duet recording with Hampton Hawes, Soapsuds, Soapsuds, his duet with Ornette, is another highlight.

I saw one edition of Mingus Dynasty, it had Dannie Richmond, Johnny Coles, Ricky Ford, Richard Davis and Horace Parlan.

I don't have much in the way of her recordings, but I did see her a few years back on organ backing up Henry Threadgill, and she was really something.

I saw Mingus play some of the Changes music a few weeks before the recording session from the second row of the concert hall. He was certainly very large, dressed completely in black, and left most of the soloing to Adams, Pullen and Walrath, but played extremely well, with energy and intensity, played an incredible solo on For Harry Carney, spoke very lucidly and with a droll sense of humor, and did not appear to me to be "heavily medicated." His bass playing did not seem to decline until the Three or Four Shade of Blues sessions.

I disagree that Mingus sounds "muted" on Changes. Actually, he is at his peak, and For Harney Carney features one of his deepest and best solos on record. Mingus Moves isn't perfect like Changes, but it also is a rather powerful recording. Also, I don't know about this business about Roland Kirk teaching George Adams a lesson on Mingus at Carnegie Hall. Kirk is unbelievable on that recording, but Adams is rather strong also. There's another jam session, Newport in New York, where Kirk teaches Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims, James Moody, and Flip Philips a similar lesson (that is, he can overwhelm almost anyone at a jam session).

That's the greatest jazz group of the last 30 years, in my opinion.