Stompin at the Savoy

I'm supposed to get a copy on tuesday but I listened to the album on Spotify today and liked it a lot. Sound leaves something to be desired but really not that bad. Hey, how'd you like to go to a club tonight and hear Coltrane and Dolphy? The music is rather similar to the Vanguard dates made soon after but this has the feeling and enthusiasm of the artists doing their first take in this configuration, or so it seems to me. Less polished perhaps than the Vanguard recordings but very spirited.

I'm looking forward to getting the set. (My order still on hold, which I think means they haven't got to it yet). I've been meaning to revisit my Sonny Clarke albums so it will be nice to do that with the remasters. Meanwhile I will have a little Sonny Clark festival here and listen to some Clark records not included on the set such as the Grant Green stuff and all those sideman Blue Note albums such as Minor Move with Tina Brooks. Hey, got an email just now saying they are processing the order. Yay!

Oh, we wicked mortals! Getting excited about tracking numbers, paroxysms of joy as we discover that big square box at the front door, eagerly cutting the packing tape and pulling out the box, admiring the box, getting the cellophane off a jewel case, putting on a cd, cranking up the volume, settling into a comfortable chair, possibly pouring a bourbon and water, toking up a bit, and listening while checking out the deluxe, large booklet full of photographs... We're just bad.

This arrived today finally from the UK. The production is nice, with facsimile album covers. The text of the original album notes on the back covers of the albums is absurdly small, esp for an oldster like me but the printing and paper are very good quality and photos I took of the covers are legible and clear. The little booklet offers new liner notes by Andrew Homzy. The print is not as tiny as the covers but as usual I photographed the booklet so I can read it without strain. The sound is remarkably good. Going to be a 70's Mingus weekend.

About 50 years ago I was pretty serious about guitar and had this teacher named Rick Schiller. Eventually I ended up doing other things and always wondered if I made a mistake not sticking with it. About 10 years ago I happened to run into Rick again and discovered that Rick, who really had talent and whom I judged 50 years ago to be better than I would ever be, Rick eventually gave up performing and became a photographer because being a jazz musician could be brutal and was difficult to make a living at! After wondering so many years about 'selling out', to find out that even Rick couldn't make a go of it! Somehow that made me feel better. Anyway back in the early 70's Rick imparted this piece of wisdom to me: Often you will meet guitar players who are really great but turn out to be arrogant jerks and talk down to you. Never mind the attitude and see if you can cop some licks from them.

I like the blues feel, the mainstream black music phrasing and feel, and I also tend to prefer some swing in the music. Some years back I got infected with the Basie bug and have never quite gotten over it. I get bored when a tune is not rhythmically compelling and though my jazz journey started out with bop and post bop, I find myself listening to a lot of swing now.

When they digitize music from tape and other sources nowadays they apparently come away with a very hi res and very large file digital master. This gets processed down to cd quality files. Apparently even a lot of vinyl releases are actually coming from those same digital conversion files. Vinyl is having a comeback now but it's really a dead medium, in my opinion. Scraping a diamond needle over a plastic groove just like Edison invented over a century ago! I think both vinyl and cd are out of date.

Hey, whaddya know, I have those with all five bonus tracks! This is a little bit like the Tina Brooks album, Street Singer, issued in Japan, all of which ended up on Jackie's Bag.

+1. As you get older the range of frequencies you can hear diminishes. For me a lot of the high end is getting lost. I use equalizers to boost the higher end a bit. Sometimes I try boosting mids, too.

I suppose Mosaic is only licensing these recordings for distribution via CD but wouldn't it be great if they issued high res versions as downloads! It's kind of a shame that everything has to get filtered through the limitations of the CD format when better exists and it wouldn't be all that difficult for Mosaic to produce a hi-res version, would it?

Times change, musical styles go in and out of fashion. This is to be expected. Is it going to be interesting now to repeat the explorations that seemed so vital and new around 1959? Probably not. That said, I think Ornette Coleman is a genius and I still love listening to his music.

Interesting article about Clark. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/01/13/sonny-clark/

I think I have all but the one album issued in Japan only but will order too. The improved sound, the book...

Thanks, I wasn't aware of the downloads! Discography is here: http://web.archive.org/web/20160825154520/http://www.mosaicrecords.com/discography.asp?number=262-MD-CD&price=%24102.00&copies=6 CDs Gee, now that you mention it I see that another one I've been looking for, the Earl Hines set, is similarly available on Qobuz and the book is here: https://musicbrainz.org/release/5cd94980-bd83-4638-a194-f4b44eaa5eb9/cover-art

Been trying to find a reasonably priced copy for a while. Listening to a few vols of the Chronological Classics I have in the meantime. Kind of a shame this is limited edition - deserves to be better known with the best mastering available.

One time I ordered the Four Freshmen set from a 3rd party seller on Amazon for a pretty good price. What arrived was vol IV thru VI. I explained that they advertised the set but sent a fragment. They investigated and apologised, refunded the money and told me to keep the fragment. I've been on the lookout for other pieces of that box but no dice so far.

$15 per disk is fine if you get all the disks in the set. But almost all these are orphaned pieces of sets, vol III thru V type of thing, one multi-disk jewel case out of several. In that case I guess if I really wanted whatever music was on those volumes, possibly $15 per disk is ok. But generally I steer away from those fragments. Better to plunge a bit and get the full set with booklet and box.

Mostly what he has are fragments of sets. And yeah too expensive for incomplete sets.

You can get it very inexpensively on https://www.abebooks.com/

I started out with about 10 Mingus disks. I just ordered another 13. The message I am getting from this thread is I need another 50 or so, otherwise I'll never 'really' understand Mingus. 😄 I had an discussion/argument with a relative recently about Taylor Swift. I listened to the tracks you mentioned, I said, and it all seems like formula Hollywood pop rock, bubblegum stuff. No solos worth listening to, yatta yatta. You have to listen to several albums before you can appreciate her, I was told. Harrumphf, I thought. Not bloody likely.

I've heard most of this but don't have most of the albums and it has been on my wish list for many years. When you pointed out that it is quite inexpensive nowadays I took a look and bought one on discogs for 37 bux. Might as well get the big, broad outlook since I just went for the 70's box.

I found a lovely copy of this for around the original price and it arrived today. I'm a big fan of Benny Golson but somehow I don't have many albums under his name. Same with Farmer. I checked this out on Spotify and here we are... Great music!