hopkins

Here are the tracks in a text file (separators are tabs). It can be useful to copy/paste the data in your tags if you rip the CD. And I added a release on Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/release/29130643-Don-Byas-Classic-Don-Byas-Sessions-1944-1946 Tracks.txt

Received my set today: Beautiful artwork, extensive liner notes by L.Schoenberg. Can't wait to listen. First I have to rip the CDs - very unfortunate that the CD information is not available in online databases like AccurateRip. Someone should ask Mosaic to populate these databases so that the track titles can be obtained automatically when ripping the CDs. They could also create a release on Discogs, as most ripping software can get the information from there as well. If I decide to create a release on Discogs myself, I will reference it here in this thread. The session info is available here: https://www.mosaicrecords.com/product/classic-don-byas-sessions/

I have two sets of speakers: - open baffle - they remain tucked in corners of the room when not in use - the smaller "bookshelf" speakers (vintage Altec speakers) which is that last video I posted My children are adults now, but I do have two cats - they are well behaved. My girlfriend takes all this with some humor and some resignation.

Possibly. I just wanted to focus on the piano.

Nothing is wasted, nothing is predictable, everything is surprising yet logical and obvious, and everything is profound. I can't get over it

Some of you may appreciate this (the music, the sound): I got a pair of 1950s Altec 755C speakers. They don't make them like this anymore... Great clarity and "presence". They are very pleasant.

I have always found the drumming distracting on this great solo by Ellington ("In a Sentimental Mood" - Ellington & Coltrane). There is a mono and a stereo version. I feel like the piano is also drowned out in the mono version. So I took the left channel of the stereo version and made it into a mono track. I guess I had time to waste - but it is a good opportunity to listen and enjoy the music!

I saw Ron Carter perform in college in a small auditorium. It must have been in 1984. He made some condescending comments, explaining that attending a jazz concert was not like attending a baseball game (everyone was being quiet, so I don't know what prompted that). Perhaps it was a bad day for him, but it annoyed me and I left!

Le Duke Orchestra, performing this evening at the Bal Blomet, in Paris: Will certainly bring back fond memories for those who attended the last Duke Ellington conference here in Paris.

I've had this LP since I was 18 and still enjoy it: https://www.discogs.com/master/1180031-Fḛlá-Anikulapo-Kuti-Sorrow-Tears-Blood The title track is my favorite of his and is available in the compilation mentioned above. https://youtu.be/tj1wpNuQRaM?si=BZKoyFt8RIJPUbcX The second track "Colonial Mentality" is excellent as well.

I should have listened to it before going because this is not the type of jazz I enjoy. I just don't get it...

Billy Childs quartet at the Smoke Jazz Club tonight.

Off topic, but on the topic of my week long trip to NY, I was also sorry to find out that Bill Charlap is playing at the Village Vanguard, but tickets are sold out. Next trip will be better planned, and I will make sure to call the Jazz Museum to check if the recordings are available again!

Absolutely. It was quite a disappointment. I would be curious to find out why they were not available. I did manage to see the Mingus Big Band: And Savion Glover (fabulous show):

I'm in NY for the week, and went to the museum. Unfortunately I was told the recordings are "in storage" and not available. Bummer...

This version of What's Going On performed by Chaka Khan has good rhythm and phrasing... she even scats. Is it Jazz, or just Jazzy ?

All the Ellington albums recorded there (last one I played was "Midnight in Paris") have superb sound. That one was recorded in 1962, and I did not notice excessive reverb on the vocal track ("Autumn Leaves"). I am not a great fan of added reverb. Some producers add it to increase the feeling of a concert hall recording, but concert halls with good acoustics don't have reverb...

I wrote to Mosaic Records to ask them if they could somehow populate the AccurateRip database prior to releasing a box set. I don't know what the process is to do so, but it would be nice for those of us who rip their CDs.

Here is a short video of my app illustrating the content I put in each album, and how I can search and play them. Works well for me, and I am very happy with the results, but I spend quite a lot of time over the past 5 years to enter the content (and develop the app). Adding a new ablum involves the following steps: - rip the CD - hopefully the song titles are automatically added, but sometimes I have to enter them (in my "tagging" program, you can also enter a Discogs release ID if the data is there). I always clean up the tags a little, but I do not really use them - In the folder which contains my files, I put the nicest album cover I can find, and I add one text file (always named "album.md") which is used to simply identify the fact that this folder (and its sub-folders) correspond to an album... - I then run a program that scans my folders and updates my database with basic information read from the tracks (title, duration) and assigns a unique identifier for the album, which is also kept in a file in the folder. If I delete albums, those are removed from my database, and if I move folders around as well. The scan take about 20 seconds. I have something like 50.000 tracks on my computer. - then I refresh the web page of my app, and the album is displayed. I then edit it (text editor in the web page, or I can also do this editing the "album.md" file in the album's folder directly, with any text editor. - when I edit the album for the first time, the page just contains the list of tracks. I then add recording dates and credits for each session, reorganizing the tracks if needed. I then optionally add some comments and links, and save. A couple weeks ago I received the last Mosaic Box set - Complete Sonny Clark Blue Note Sessions It took a while to rip the CDs, but you can multitask. The CDs were not referenced in any online database (ex: AccurateRip) and I had to add the titles, but did that automatically in MP3Tag (the music tagger I use). Here is the Discogs page (thanks to the Discogs contributors): https://www.discogs.com/release/27675135-Sonny-Clark-The-Complete-Sonny-Clark-Blue-Note-Sessions It took me about an hour to enter the session dates and credits, and add a few comments from Jan Evensmo on Hank Mobley (I like his short comments...). Here are the results: https://paulstephane.github.io/album#1690019046449 I can link a booklet if I have a PDF, but I actually like to scan the booklets, apply OCR, and copy the text under each session. This can take time, but when I go back and listen to the music I like to have the comments there. So I'll see if I scan them, or find a scan available online. The site MusicBrainz references albums and they sometimes add scans. You can also find a lot of booklets on the InternetArchive. I won't deny that I am proud of what I did. I learned programming (Javascript) just to be able to accomplish this. It is not perfect, but because I am just an amateur, I kept things as simple as I could, and chose to only put information that I find essential, for me. I was inspired by the work of Baoshan Sheng, who has developped a brilliant app (commercial): https://ton.al/. His interest is primarily classical music. The interesting feature is that editing is collaborative. I wish there were a better quality online database to be able to simply browse through the content of an album (or boxset), and use the data to search through your collection. It is not rocket science...and it only takes a handful of committed contributors to reach a sizeable database. But this may be for future generations, if they still listen to jazz! I got one of my three kids to be interested in jazz, which is good, but that ratio won't guarantee the survival of our species

How do you plan on using the Discogs data ?

Not just Ellington's catalog unfortunately.

Yes, also on Spotify (minus some credits) https://open.spotify.com/album/4ornuDeqxrpKPMnh5zKxNN?si=zDdZcksuSK-JpZOnlaDwyA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4ornuDeqxrpKPMnh5zKxNN Steven Lasker is credited as the reissue producer. Perhaps someone can reach out to him for more specifics.

I could not find more information. I find it's a nice idea, as it is convenient to have these early dates with different labels in one compilation. I just wish they had the dates in the track titles. The credits on Qobuz give the musicians per track, but not the dates. I quickly compared the sound quality on a few tracks, and it sounds identical to the Centennial box set.

Yes, Ellington even played "Carolina Shout" for Johnson. His "Portrait of the Lion" is testimony of his admiration for Smith. Dance also quotes Ellington as having said of Bechet's 1921 recording of "I'm Coming, Virginia" as "the greatest thing I ever heard in my life...it knocked me out".

Vis a vis Monk, I forget where I recently read this... one of his musicians (Nance?) was playing Monk in his train compartment on his portable record player, Duke walked and asked who is playing, and commented: "he sounds like me"... Found it: https://www.quora.com/What-did-Duke-Ellington-think-of-Thelonious-Monk