Stompin at the Savoy

Yeah, they are kinda pricey though. I have a Japanese issue of The Procrastinator, which includes the later sessions on some releases of Sonic Boom, so I only need the first session with David Newman and Harold Mabern, around 37 minutes. I am thinking of getting a download. Presto has cd quality for $8.50. I'm retired and have somewhat limited resources, necessitating that I be a bit of a cheapass now... The session with Newman is quite nice and there are a couple spots where Morgan's trumpet work is really marvelous.

Thanks for the correction!

For some reason I never heard this before. It's somewhat hard to obtain on cd.

Volume 5 is on spotify now. As far as I can tell scanning the titles quickly it looks like this volume includes all of disks 3 and 4 of the Mosaic Ellington orchestra set plus 4 tunes with one alternate each from Victor sessions in Sept and Dec of 1933. I was planning on getting the download of this but after listening to the 8 Victor session tunes not on the Mosaic (last 8 tracks) I am re-thinking that. Probably not worth it.

Volume 4 includes all of disks one and two of the Ellington Orchestra Mosaic set. Plus it has a small number of RCA sessions.

Volume 4 includes pretty much everything (as far as I can tell) on the first two disks of the Mosaic Ellington orchestra set, plus a few RCA recordings. I haven't really compared them closely but it seems possible that the mastering is the same or derived from the Mosaic masters.

Wes made a lot of jazzified popular music which I am mostly indifferent toward. He became a musical celebrity and they were trying to make some money out of it, which I get. But when he plays real jazz he is truly great, IMO. His single note soloing is harmonically more advanced than most guitar players IMO. I need to fill in my Wes M collection some more.

The rest of the album doesn't do that much for me but this piece is beautiful.

I don't really see any trend at all. Just depends on who wrote the notes.

I loved those Hubbard CTI albums back in the early 70s. I managed to see him play at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach around 71 and he performed lots of tunes from those albums. I had a copy of Jackson's Sunflower LP too.

The youtube clips I checked out aren't quite my cup of tea but they are impressive. She knows something about music and has a fine voice! (Unlike TS). She likes jazz! She's 24 and very talented and probably will eventually come up with some music I would like to listen to.

Sonny Stitt on Verve. Wouldn't that be nice to get the Mosaic treatment? Possibly carve into two or three sets. The three lps with Mel Lewis in 1959 would make a nice Select. Dream on... I did notice that Verve has issued some of their Sonny Stitt holdings as hi res downloads. Possibly that's why no Mosaic.

They roomed together in 1958 or 59. The stint with Monk was around 61, I think. Russell wrote up the theoretical basis for some modal playing, which of course was a focus in the late 50's for Miles, Evans, Coltrane, etc. Evans had worked with Russell and I believe these people were all floating around in the same circles. Edit: oops I guess the Monk period is 57.

Bill Evans, whom Coltrane roomed with for a while. Also George Russell. Coltrane reportedly took some lessons from Ornette Coleman and sent him a check for it.

👍

Right. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat Cole were actually excellent singers and musicians. There are contemporary examples but I have to say that contemporary culture has in some ways hit a nadir. We live in the age of short-lived viral sensations which have a lot to do with superficial style, hair-dos, glittery costumes and a cult of personality. Thus you have Justin Bieber. I suppose if I make some attempt to generalize what is happening, it would be that popular artists are nowadays often popular for non-musical reasons. I suppose there have always been novelty acts but I think Taylor Swift is a new phenomenon which grew out of Sinatra, Beatles, etc sort of superstardom. There is a bigger package here, of which the music is only a part and sometimes even a pretty small part. The artist has graduated from singer to comprehensive, multi-media show. Jimmy Buffett, the Grateful Dead, etc are a lifestyle, an industry, not a musician or musical group.

I guess your assumption is popular music = lowest common denominator crap. That hasn't always been true. Fats Waller was once a very popular artist. There are plenty of examples. Listen to the audiences at Jazz at the Philharmonic and tell me pop music is crap by definition. And why is the comparison of Buffett and Swift ludicrous? Both parlayed a minor talent and personal cult into billions.

He made pleasant enough music and some of the songs were actually pretty good. Nevertheless it kind of makes you wonder that this guy with his mostly bland, formulaic, 4 chord strummed ditties ended up with half a billion dollars while a lot of worthy players and composers don't get much appreciation or recognition. Popular tastes are strange. People go ape-shit over the Jimmy Buffetts and Taylor Swifts of this world.

I picked up a second hand copy of the Waller after reading this. Great sound on this, better than the JSP sets. I wish they would remaster the entire Waller catalog but I guess that won't happen any time soon.

Yeah I hear you. People keep recommending things and I find myself buying them. Whee! The beauty of Kindle is you can read your books on several devices, for me a PC, ipad and iphone. In a pinch when I have to wait somewhere I can pull out my iphone and continue reading from the point I left off on the PC. I have to use cheaters to read the iphone but it's something to do while you are waiting at the dentist.