Mark13

Gildo Mahones - The Great Gildo/Soulful Piano On somewhat hissy Prestige-vinyl unfortunately. I will probably never be convinced of the heavenly merits of vinyl. But this is otherwise unavailable. And it's Gildo Mahones.

They have released big format sets where original liner notes were added to a new introductory essay. I've gone through a few in my collection and the booklets in the Sam Rivers, Curtis Fuller and Don Cherry sets all have the liner notes to the original albums included in the sets. Those are pre-Mosaic Select and have only up to three CDs. But the booklet to the Larry Young has the original liner notes as well. And that is a 6-CD-set.

It arrived today. Nice to finally have this hard-to-find record in its original artwork. And the sound-quality of this remastered edition is simply amazing. One of the reissues of the year imo. Hopefully the good people at MPS will consider making 'Happy Girl' available too.

That's correct. The original release was the 'Triple Play: Pop + Swing = Jazz'-album in 1962 with the pop-orchestra and the jazzband on seperate channels. A fun experiment, but it didn't sell and it was quickly dropped. A couple of years later the music by the jazz-group was released as 'Just Jazz!'. Both albums are on an unofficial Jazz Beat-cd which has a playing-time of about 75 minutes.

Still on the fence for this one, although I probably will be picking it up once it starts running low. I bought the Mobley, Henderson and Hubbard but I start having second thoughts about these recent Blue Note collections on Mosaic - they render so many of the individual cd's that I have collected and cherished over the years 'redundant'. And once again, there's nothing here that isn't already in my collection. The guys at Mosaic know what they are doing and these releases probably make good business sense, although I expected the Henderson and Hubbard to sell out quicker at 5.000 copies, big name sets that they are.

I found a first stereo-pressing of Red Garland's 'Solar' on Jazzland in a €5-bin in a store in Amsterdam today. Not Garland's best album to be sure but I'm not complaining. The cover most definitely shows its age, but the record actually plays fine.

I've started buying lp's only last year to fill 'gaps' in my (CD-) collection and I have had no problems finding affordable copies of Les McCann on Pacific and Limelight. Early pressings (those lavish Limelight Gatefolds!) too. I was somewhat surprised by that. In my vinyl-collection of about hundred records there are seven titles by McCann. There is a market gone absolutely bonkers out there, but not (so much) for early soul-jazz: Ramsey Lewis, Ray Bryant and McCann. Classic West Coast Jazz appears to be not that collectible either: Mulligans aplenty indeed, Bud Shank and Bob Cooper too. Which suits me just fine. West Coast hardbop, now that's a whole different story. It would be nice to find affordable Pacifics by Teddy Edwards or Carmell Jones but it's not going to happen. Thus far I've managed to pick-up two: Curtis Amy 'Blues Message' and Harold Land's 'Jazz Impressions of Folk Music'. Spent a little more on those too.

Thanks Steve. Any tip that helps me avoid beginner-mistakes is much appreciated. I will be careful with Sonets. Or Crown-pressings for that matter. With regard to vinyl-checking, I don't know. I've come across pretty scratched-up records that sound surprisingly good, and some clean-looking ones that turn out to have major issues. This Jubilee reveals no serious defects, looks unplayed even, but it is just awful. There are no clicks or pops, just a loud hiss that pushes the music to the background. I was not aware that this level of deterioration with an otherwise 'clean' record was possible. That said, i was warned, so really no complaints there.

Thanks Bill, I Although there are no surface blisters I guess my copy falls in the 'shit-grade recycled vinyl' category. 😀 I have no great experience collecting jazz-vinyl and only buy titles that have never had a proper CD-release, or that have eluded me. At a couple of Euros, I 've also been tempted to buy vinyl copies of albums I already have, as was the case here. Dutch Fontana-pressings from the early 1960s (with alternative covers) especially, are easy to find over here, and most are affordable and pretty decent. This US-pressing of 'Jazzlab' is bloody awful. So if Jubilee are notorious for their shitty (styrene-) pressings, are there other independent jazzlabels/outfits that better be avoided? Or where buying European or Japanese pressings is the safer way to go?

Yesterday I bought this album in a store in Amsterdam. it set me back only a couple of Euros but it was also labelled as being in a poor condition. The seller honestly warned me, claiming it was a styrene pressing. I have given it a spin and its 'problem' is consistent with worn-out polystyrene. The record plays with a loud hiss throughout. But as I understand it, almost all styrene-records are 45s, and this is a late fifties-lp. And on the independent Jubilee-label as well. I have checked the Discogs-site, and my copy is a 1959 'Superlaphonic' repressing. I have tried several of the styrene-indication tips found on YouTube and elsewhere and find the results inconclusive. The label doesn't look glued on, and tapping produces the same dull thudding sound as a vinyl-record. For this record, it's of no importance whether it's vinyl or styrene - sonically it is what it is. But the whole thing has me wonder about styrene-pressings and how common they were back in the day. I believe DECCA released some styrene jazz-lps in the second half of the 1950s, but did the process extent to smaller independent (jazz)labels as well? To be honest, as a collector of (mainly) 50's and 60's hardbop, I never expected to see one.

The Complete Billy Mitchell and Al Grey Smash/Argo Sessions.

I'm not much into vinyl, but there is are so many classic records that still await a proper CD-release that I've been tempted to go through record bins here and there. This one I found in a record store in Amsterdam yesterday. What a nice find. Hypnotic, open-ended stuff, with great playing by all. Comparisons to Blakey's percussion-albums are obvious but this presents a more integrated vision. Spontaneous as it is, it has the feel of a genuine suite (orgy - not so much). A criminally neglected record. But then, so is the leader. After giving it its first spin I went on a brief internet-search and came up with almost nothing. There is no mention of his passing (if he's still among us, he celebrated his 100th birthday last year), and no mention of any artistic activity after 1964. What happened?

Initially, this seemed a definite pass. I felt there is/was more than enough 80s Miles in my collection. But then I came across a shiny copy with a gleaming hype-sticker in my local record-store and gave in to the temptation, telling myself (all the way to the counter) that I needed this anyway. This has happened before, and more often than not I have regretted purchases of this nature, but this is not so awful (actually). If 'Star People', 'Decoy' and 'You're Under Arrest' are not your cup of tea, you can safely avoid this on basis of the studio-material, but it's not that these outtakes are inferior to what's on those albums. @jlhoots has already mentioned the J.J. Johnson-Miles-duet as an unexpected impressionistic surprise, but the 'new' lengthy 'Santana' holds up pretty well too, as do the reworkings of 'Hopscotch', a track that had been performed live for some time. Also I prefer the full-versions of 'Time After Time' and 'Katia' presented here to the ones on 'You're Under Arrest'. I was not too sure about the live set since I have the fairly extensive Complete Miles Davis at Montreux, but the earliest 80s-material on that set is from the summer of 1984 and this features the group in a different (and slightly less keyboard-heavy) incarnation. It's an energetic performance anyway.

My set was delivered yesterday. I've been giving cds 1 to 4 their first spin and although I'm familiar with the music, in this presentation with its gorgeous audio it's almost like a new experience.

I have a slightly older Japanese edtion of this (MVCR-20043) and it's solid.

You mention Metheny''s experience as a player in organ trios and that info was new to me as well when I heard him elaborate on it in some fairly recent interview (with Rick Beato maybe?). Wasn't Charles Kynard the name he mentioned? Anyways, great review. I saw them in Utrecht last May and they blew me away too.. Metheny provokes controversy in all he does and I often wonder why that is. Certainly, his chops as a player are beyond dispute. The guy can play ANYTHING. But maybe that's part of the problem. You can reach a point where effortlessness becomes suspect. Also I, think his eclecticism doesn't help.Or hasn't over the past forty-or-so years. To me, he is a fascinating musician.

One of the first 'serious' jazzbands I got into was the John Abercrombie Trio with Marc Johnson and Peter Erskince. 'Current Events', 'Getting There' and the 'Abercrombie/Johnson/Erskine' live-album on ECM were some of my favorite records way back in the early nineties. Those are well-known albums. 'Hymn', which Bob Mintzer recorded with this trio for Owl Records in 1991 is somewhat more obscure (it's been long out of print), but may be worth checking out. I've always had a slight preference for this record over the Hudson-Project-album.

Nothing wrong with the music obviously, but I'm not sure about this release either... A year or so ago I ordered Pete LaRoca's 'Turkish Women at the Bath' from CDJapan. The fact it was listed as a Japanese release, with a unique catalogue number (YZMS-1055), and that 'Tokuma Japan Communications' was referred to as 'label/distributor' had me assume that this was a brand new official release of this ultra-rare title. When it reached my doorstep it turned out it was the Fresh Sound (FSR-1631) of which I had been aware, albeit it with an OBI-strip for pseudo-exclusive effect. Needless to say, I was not too happy with that purchase.

There was some discussion on this when Solid in Japan released a batch of titles from the Charlie Parker Records-catalogue in 2019. The common view in that brief thread was that there was not much to gain from any fancy remastering since the quality of the original recording was so poor to start with. However, @jazzbo posted that he knew better sounding versions of this than were included on the individual disks of the Membran-set, so maybe he can be of help. Since I don't have the set and was only interested in a few titles anyway, I picked up the Solid-edition (CDSOL-46516). To my ears it's pretty decent in this 'latest remastering' (according to the productinfo provided by CDJapan), but unfortunately I have nothing to compare it with. Maybe you missed this release? It's not listed on Discogs, but stll available. CDJapan has it on backorder.

'Sea to shining sea...' Now, that's A LOT. All of which I have managed to avoid so far. Beginners-luck I guess. But if it takes navigating these seas to go deep (enough) with Bird, count me out. My interest is not academic, nor am I in it for the satisfaction of collector's ego. Which is known to exist. And prevail over the interests of artists. Be that as it may, I've listened to it once again and I just wished that I could enjoy this a little more.

It became available here in The Netherlands a couple of weeks ago and I have already given it a few spins. Audio is not spectacular but decent enough. The programme - as one might expect - is somewhat more conservative than on American gigs, where Shorter's tunes were entering sets. I just checked my booklet, but no binding-errors here.

Glad to have been able to pick this up (what's with the availability of the CD-version of this?), but I don't think will give this too many spins anywhere soon. I know I should not, but I find the audio really problematic. And I'm by no means an audiophile. I realize my issues with archival releases like these are just that (MY issues), but I cannot help wondering how the artists would feel if they were around. Are we doing their artistic legacies any justice? To be sure, Bird's playing here is strong throughout, but still...

Difficult to choose between those live dates imo. Jazz Crusaders were always a group that excelled in consistency, both in the studio and onstage. When I ordered the Mosaic I was only familiar with 'Freedom Sound' and maybe expected a few dreary spots here and there. To my surprise, there were none. But with regard to the 'sameness' of the material, I can relate to that. I never understood why the Jazz Crusaders+ albums ('Chile Con Soul' and 'Jazz Waltz') were not included. Nothing shockingly off the charts there, but still, they present a different angle. Rather than adding an extra live-album, I would go for one of these.

Picked this up from the recent batch of Japanese Universal reissues - and what a nice record it is. With Roy Haynes leading the proceedings this was likely to turn out a bit more adventurous and 'in-your-face' than most regular Pacific-dates of the day, but I'm somewhat surprised by Strozier who plays with a toughness and biting edge that I did not know was there.

Not tonight but last Sunday I saw Bill Frisell play Vredenburg/Tivoli in Utrecht. That was somewhat of a coincidence. That morning I went through a stack of 2nd hand cd's that I had recently bought and decided to give his 'Disfarmer' its second spin. Listening to the music, still enjoying my morning coffee, I got curious what Bill was up to and when I checked online I found out he was scheduled to play in nearby Utrecht to end a brief European tour that evening. As there were still a few tickets available I jumped at the opportunity. I've been to several of his concerts over the past 30 years or so and my tastes have drifted in a slightly different direction but it took him and his band exactly 2 seconds to spellbind me. The interplay, dynamics, the seamless way in which one tune morphed into the next, it was absolutely breathtaking.