brownie

The sentimental in me loves 'Meet Me in St. Louis' by Vincente Minnelli. TurnerClassicsMovie here had this on for the Christmas season. Loved watching the film and hearing Judy Garland sing 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' and 'The Boy Next Door' for the umpteenth time.

Chris, thanks for your contribution. Care to tell us which Billie Holiday/Lester Young unissued alternate you unearthed and on which album it was finally released?

The Ruppli/Cuscuna BN Label discography lists 'Soul Villa' and 'You Know What To Do' among the six titles recorded at that July 19, 1966 session. All of the titles are listed as 'rejected'. Too bad

In France, Christmas presents are opened on Xmas eve and we eat a lot that night. Then the big Xmas eat continues on Xmas day. We eat too much

There was also a very interesting overview of his career at the Jazzconnection website recently http://www.jazzconnectionmag.com/Don%20Lamond%20Article.htm

Very sad news. He was a master drummer.

I've heard about her but never heard her. She sounds interesting from what I see on your post. The Tom Lord discography lists the three albums you mention plus a number of unissued sessions for MGM/Verve. Musicians like Joe Wilder, Taft Jordan, Johnny Hodges, Hank Jones are listed as taking part in some of these sessions. Consider yourself lucky to have those records!

Horace Silver was interviewed on the JazzConnection website in conjunction with the release of his new CD 'Rockin' With Rachmaninoff' http://www.jazzconnectionmag.com/Horace%20...D%20Article.htm Has anybody heard the album yet?

Disappointment of 2003? The Bad Plus 'These Are The Vistas'. Not really bad (minus ) but the album sure did not live up to its hype and marketing. There were so many more interesting releases during the year that went barely noticed.

Winter is not my season. Will be hibernating. And waiting for Spring to come up to enjoy the weather in ever sunny Andalusia!

Thank you Johnny. Glad to see you posting outside of the Political Forum. But please keep at it there. From one of your regular reader

Bought the British HMV release of this when it came out in the '50s. Was a great fan of Al Cohn. Still am. It's one of my favorite Cohn session. And you get a chance to hear that great trumpet player Nick Travis who appeared on many record dates but had too few opportunities to solo. Plus there is John Williams on piano. Williams was with the Stan Getz quintet at the time and was considered the next best piano player then, right next to Horace Silver. I love that record.

These are essential Ellingtons. I had the DETS series when it was released on LPs. Getting the Storyville double CDs now. They include some additional material. This was one of the great Ducal band and what they did offer on those broadcasts is pure joy! Just got volume 8. This will be my Christmas music. Agree with Lon, the sound is excellent!

An interesting website in german about Hans Koller: http://tools.search.yahoo.com/language/tra...y.html&lp=de_en Wait for the english translation to appear...

From AP:

The choice is really between Sonny Murray and Andrew Cyrille. Those two were perfect matches for CT. Murray, the intuitive catalyst, Cyrille, the pulsating ponctuator. I never heard Murray with CT live. Only on records which are intense get-together. But I've heard Sonny Murray live plenty of times. Love the Murray's explosions that propel the music to unexplored territories. Sonny Murray is a sadly neglected percussion giant. Cyrille and CT. They were together for more than ten years. I was privileged to hear them rehearse for hours on when the Cecil Taylor Unit - with Jimmy Lyons and Alan Silva - came to Paris in 1966. Cyrille and CT really belonged together. The musical empathy between them was amazing. They explored rhythmic variations endlessly and fed musical innovations to each other with glee. Cyrille was a permanent experience of percussion sophistication, matching any CT's inventions with instant punctuation celebrations. Sonny Murray was a perfect match for an Albert Ayler, Andrew Cyrille was really Cecil Taylor's alter ego. What I wouldn't give to attend a Cyrille/Taylor reunion! Or a Murray/Taylor reunion!

Happy Hanukkah!

Bertrand, glad youi'll be traveling to Paris. I will have a flyer for you. It's from a Wayne Shorter quartet date I attended in NYK back in 1966 B)

Hey Dan, enjoy the end of the Year. Enjoy the family and the city

I'm pretty sure my copy of 'Complete Communion' comes from the initial pressing and it does not have an ear in its dead wax Can confirm that 'Mode for Joe' - which I'm sure I have the original pressing of - has no 'ear'.

The 'Jazz Makers' date that Ronnie Ross and drummer Alan Ganley recorded for Atlantic in 1959 was a highly enjoyable session. Excellent British jazz. Will have to give this a fresh listen.

Berigan, Michael Jackson makes much more fun reading than whatever action is occuring now on the political scene nowadays But I have to admit that the Politics forums would not be the same without your contributions

No wonder this Byg label business looks complicated. BYG has been a mess from start to finish. The label was founded by three independents: Jacques Bisceglia, Jean-Luc Young, and Jean Georgakarakos whose initials made the name of the label. Georgakarakos was the money man in the operation. He had made a small fortune producting pop music. He also became notorious by being involved in a number of shady deals inside the music business. Georgakarakos also started a magazine called Actuel around 1967. The BYG label was launched shortly after. At first they reissued material from the Savoy catalogue. By 1969, BYG was producing the ACTUEL series which released some 60 records, mostly avant-garde jazz. The label went broke after the infamous 1969 Amougies Actuel festival which was supposed to have been held in Paris, then had to be moved outside of France because the post-1968 government did not want a major Woodstock-type festival to be held in Paris or its vicinity. The festival was exiled to Amougies, Belgium, a few kilometers away from the French border. And almost everything went wrong there, except that some pretty adventurous music was produced. There was a separate thread on that festival on that Board a while ago. After the festival financial disaster, the partnership was broken up. Young went on and created the Charly label, Bisceglia remained independent and Georgakarakos changed his name to Jean Karakos and launched the Celluloid label in New York among other ventures. I was present at some of those ACTUEL sessions. The Archie Shepp, Grachan Moncur, Alan Silva, Dave Burrell ones among others. The sessions I attended were held at the Studio Davout in eastern Paris. There were great and usually relaxed gathering of musicians who had come to the French capital in that glorious summer. But one of the problem I remember is that the regular engineer left (this was in August 1969) while more sessions were to be recorded. He was replaced by another (but less good) engineer. What would be interesting would be if somebody could work from the original tapes. I have not checked on the sound of reissues but am familiar with some rather negative comments on the audio quality of most of them. I have no idea who actually owns those tapes by now.

The Chu Berry sides (Mosaic - Commodore box 1) Vic Feldman - Soviet Jazz Themes (Ava LP) Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band, dics 3 and 4 (Mosaic) Red Mitchell/Joakim Milder/Roger Kellaway - The Stockholm Concert (Dragon)

Berigan, you spent too much time on the political pages to read about Jeanne Crain's death. She passed away December 14. Here is a Jeanne Crain obit: