brownie

The Mosaic box is an obvious choice but the two JSP boxes are great values with excellent mastering and nearly all of the classic Quintette du Hot Club de France tracks. I have the Reinhardt material on vinyl but bought the JSP boxes and enjoy these. If you want to travel the completist road, suggest you check the Fremeaux reissues. Have not heard any of them but Fremeaux is very serious about remastering. And they're reissuing all of the Reinhardt material.

The New York Times carried this obituary today:

Happy birthday. Since you're enjoying the Mulligan Mosaic, guess the mood of the day is 'Sweet and Slow'! Unless it's 'Out of This World'!

To hear more Richard Williams, also check Oliver Nelson's 'Screamin' the Blues' (it's available on OJC). Williams is in the line-up with Eric Dolphy and Roy Haynes!

Yes, the Miles Davis Blackhawk is one of those 'musthave' albums. And there is no waste in the unissued tracks in that box.

Gary Giddins reviews the Mulligan Concert Jazz Band Mosaic box in this week's Village Voice.

'Ascenseur Pour l'Echafaud' has been reissued a number of times (in the original configuration or with the added alternates) over here. This is still one of the most constantly selling jazz album and it is maintained in the catalogues. One of the most recent reissue was as volume 3 of the 'Jazz in Paris' series. This had the tracks from the original 10-inch LP Fontana release. The original 10-incher was reissued in its original format last year. I have not yet seen or heard the latest Universal reincarnation but doubt that it adds anything soundwise to the previous releases.

Same here, xcept it's afternoon this side of the water.

It's always being GO! from the first notes of the opening track ('Soft Winds') of The Jazz Messengers at Cafe Bohemia albums. One of the swingingest and creative evening in jazz history!

Mosaic has a 'Gallery of fine jazz photography' on its site now. The work of seven photographers (Herman Leonard, William Gottlieb, Francis Wolff, Jimmy Katz, Paul Hoeffler, Julio Mitchell and Ted Williams) are displayed. The photos are visible here The prints are shipped to the USA only!

More on Charles Lewis who has an interesting story. According to Alain Tercinet in the liner notes to the 'Jazz in Paris ' CD Harlem Piano in Montmartre', Lewis was a friend of George Gershwin who arrived in Paris in 1928 to join a band Noble Sissle was assembling. The job did not materialize but Lewis chose to stay in Paris where he played in various clubs. During the German occupation, he metamorphosed into a French colony citizen under the alias 'Charles Louis'. After the war he wrote a thesis on 'Marcel Proust and his music' for the University of Vermont in 1970! By the way, the April 1941 date in the liner notes to the CD is wrong. The Tom Lord discography has this recorded in April 1945 (after the August 1944 liberation of Paris) which must be right since 'April in Paris' and the other three tunes were recorded for the Eddie and Nicole Barclay's Blue Star label that was launched in 1945. For another great 'April in Paris' stride version check 'The Great Mingus Concert' reissue from Universal France which opens with a hitherto unissued 'ATFW' piano solo where Jacki Byard plays stride variations around several tunes including 'April in Paris'.

Just what my table top needed

Andre Malraux tried to steal the temple's bas-reliefs for himself. This is now public knowledge in France. His then wife Clara Malraux gave details about the theft in various books she wrote later. Andre Malraux's idea was to steal several statues in Cambodia to sell them in the United States. The theft turned into a disaster after one of the khmer guide who had gone along with them denounced Malraux. Malraux was sentenced to a three-year prison term that had him put into jail. Clara Malraux - who had been acquitted on the ground that 'a wife is bound to follow her husband wherever he goes' - returned to France to alert the Paris intelligentsia. She managed to gather signatures from prestigious writers. A second trial then handed Malraux a suspended sentence. If I remember well, Malraux who was a prolific writer and talker never elaborated much on this Cambodia episode. He wrote 'La Voie Royale' shortly after his return to France. The book is set in Cambodia but it ignores the theft episode.

Don't forget AL GREEN!

I was also intrigued by Larry Young's early death, this is what I found recently at the www.doodlinlounge.com site:

Oui, oui, Eddy Louiss! Check what he does with Stan Getz on the 'Dynasty' album on Verve and with his Eddy Louiss trio (Rene Thomas on guitar and Kenny Clarke on drums) on a Dreyfus CD.

Ben Webster 'Blow Ben Blow' (Catfish LP) Lucky Thompson 'I Offer You' (Solid State LP) Joe Newman 'At Count Basie's (Mercury Japan LP reissue) Jimmy Lyons Ayler box (discs 4 and 5) Sonny Murray 'Sonny's Time Now' (DIW) John Lewis 'Evolution 1' (Atlantic)

Charlie Lewis was an American jazz pianist who played in France in the late '30s. He stayed in France after the German nazi troops invaded the country in May-June 1940. The four sides (including 'April in Paris') he recorded in Paris in April 1941 are included in volume 99 (Harlem Piano in Montmartre) of the 'Jazz in Paris' series. Seems that his name was changed to a more French-sounding Charles Louis at the time. He made appearances with Django Reinhardt and trumpet player Philippe Brun during the German occupation. He also appears - with the Andre Ekyan Ensemble - on two sides of volume 100 Jazz sous l'occupation) of the Jazz in Paris series. I'm pretty sure he is mentioned in the Mike Zwerin book on Swing and the Nazis but I don't have the book with me right now.

Today's 'New York Times' looks at the music-pricing problems situation:

The Dizzy Gillespie 'The Great Blue Star Sessions 1952-1953' is a 2CD that has exactly the same 37 tracks that were in the 'Jazz in Paris' volumes 52 (Cognac Blues) and 84 (Dizzy Gillespie and his Operatic Strings Orchestra) except the sides are in chronological order and the packaging is different. Mastering comes from the same people who worked on the Jazz in Paris CDs. The Mingus 2CD (The Great Concert) has all the tracks available from the April 19, 1964 Mingus concert at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris. The earlier issues (from the original America 3LP edition onward) had a 'So Long Eric' version from the April 17 concert at Salle Wagram (that's the concert where Jonny Coles collapsed on stage). As Chuck Nessa already stated, the 2CD reissue adds the 'A.T.F.W.' piano feature for Jacki Byard and the 'So Long Eric' 21'47'' version from the Theatre des Champs-Elysees concert. These two tunes started the concert. They could not be included in the America issue because the tapes suffered from technical problems that have been resolved for this reissue. The April 17 Salle Wagram concert was issued on two Esoldun CDs ('Charles Mingus Live in Paris' and 'Meditations') that were published with the help of the governmental archival organization INA (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel) and later withdrawn after Esoldun was hit by a fatal lawsuit regarding copyrights ownerships.

Henry Mancini's music for Orson Welles 'Touch of Evil'. It's noir. It's cool. It's Mancini's best film score.

It is the New Year's Eve show. Got it, listened to the audio CD. Your description is up to the point, as usual. Will have to have a look at the video CD. A friend of mine who is a Miles fanatic (and completist) is already making unreasonable offers for this item.

Last Spring, I started receiving dozens of those scam e-mails. They were all different and looking like they were coming from various countries, all in Africa. One I saved read: One of my secret wish is to lay hands on only one percent of Mobutu's fortune. Anyway, thought the first of these e-mails I received were fun reading and showed quite a lot of imagination. Then I grew tired of them. There was a deluge of them. And it stopped. I have not received any new one in the past weeks. The people sending these seem to be on a perpetual search for scam victims.

Blasphemy! The Lord says there was an unissued 'Organic Greenery' recorded at the June 13, 1960 session. So does the Ruppli-Cuscuna BN Label discography which lists the tune as rejected. The tune was redone at the Smith-Green-Bailey trio January 1963 session.

Nice and lengthy Don Lanphere's obit in today's The Seattle Times: Like to presume that the reference to Max Roach as a 'trumpet legend' is an editor's typo!