Stompin at the Savoy

I guess there isn't much market for Basie in the US? It seems a shame because, you know, Basie.

Oh well you know I own several of those euro collections. Hey sometimes that's all that's available without hocking your guitar... But I do try to hold out when I can for releases that had access to some type of original masters. And indeed often those produced by some of the big labels or Mosaic do sound a lot better. In this case Columbia has let us all down and probably will never issue this holy stuff, so ....

With a decent set of headphones the walkman is actually a pretty good system, maybe even equal to some expensive setups. You can certainly exploit whatever is on a cd - having ripped it to a lossless format - and detect differences of sound quality. That sounded suspiciously like a disdainful looking down the nose at my equipment or listening environment. You wouldn't do that, would you? My question was what do you know about these releases. As far as equipment since 1970 - I've led a wandering life, in school on both coasts of the US and living abroad many years. I did not collect much stuff. I listened to a lot of music on radio - VOA and US forces radio (Willis Conover!). For a long time I had a cassette walkman and kept some cassettes. Wore out some Charlie Parker Savoy cassettes. Eventually I think I became the last person in the country to get a cd player and since then it has been cd's and digital files of one sort or another.

I don't have any vinyl. What I had disappeared in 1970 when I went off to college. So I don't have a turntable. I'm probably not going to get one either. I still have the cd disks but I basically listen to music in digital environments: pc, recent walkman, iphone, ipad, etc.

Anyone know anything about Cutting Butter: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1939-1942? It's on a label called Sugabeat. Never heard of it. Another one is Complete 1941-1951 Columbia Recordings on Definitive. Is that any good? It's a little frustrating that with all these Mosaic sets and whatnot there are still parts of the Basie canon on Columbia that I don't have and in some cases haven't heard. I was listening to The Count Basie Story today and heard the tune Red Bank Boogie, which the booklet mentioned was a remake of a tune Basie recorded on Dec 6, 1944. But then when I looked for that first Red Bank Boogie in my collection, I discovered I didn't have it. Harrumph!

-This query brings up postings with most of Duke Ellington on Chronological Classics: https://archive.org/search.php?query=chronological duke ellington&sin= which you can stream or can be downloaded as flac files (some only mp3). As far as I know, Chronological Classics are/were a reprint series on material which is considered public domain in France. In other words Chronological Classics never owned any rights to this material.

I go through phases like that. For the past several years I've been listening to a lot of Count Basie. Bought tons of cds, read his autobiography, looking for the t-shirt... Don't you just love his version of In a Mellow Tone?

This just arrived today. I ordered it directly from the Village Vanguard website. I like this band and have the Mosaic set and a few of their other early recordings. The book is huge and has a surprising amount of content. Wow! Some shots of it here.

https://www.npr.org/2013/06/05/187385391/kenny-barron-quintet-live-at-the-village-vanguard

The other day I snagged surprisingly inexpensive (and in beautiful shape) copies of this and the Herman Capitol box. Swinging. And wacky! Some throwaway songs but some great arrangements and soloing.

Ends up being a pretty big waste of fuel and unnecessary carbon footprint. Grumble grumble...

You're probably right about sorting near the origin. Still this is a hell of a way to run the post office, sending a package to the other side of the country and then back...

I recently ordered a dvd box set (the complete Powerpuff Girls series) from ebay. it was submitted to USPS by the seller in a town near Los Angeles. It then traveled to Memphis, Tennessee and onward to Birmingham, Alabama, before turning around and coming to southern Oregon! Wtf.

I got this and the Blue Note Clifford Brown box a while back and keep returning to them. I've been looking around for copy of Sonny Rollins Plus 4. Which mastering should I get?

https://musicbrainz.org/release/830a4142-10b4-4db0-9f81-ecde6e1224f2/cover-art

I guess I'm weird but for me Oscar Peterson is a plus. He can overdo it sometimes or even seem bombastic but every once in a while he'll play something and I'm left thinking holy crow that changes everything...