Stompin at the Savoy

Yeah, I agree with that. It's meant to be a blues album, even though the band is a Basie alumni gathering.

I'm fond of Jimmy Rushing but have to admit being underwhelmed by the first of the Rushing albums on this set - Going to Chicago. The band, while all fine players, seems unfocused and unrehearsed. They are playing mainly 12 bar blues and Walter Page often plays one note ostinato, four to the bar, for each chord. I find this boring and surprising because Page played way better than this with Basie. Jo Jones also seems to be having a bad day and plays in an old fashioned way, with bass drum on the beat like Krupa. Rushing brings back some of his hits from his time with Basie, but performs them less well than on Basie records. I can't figure out what happened here but this album is unlikely to get a lot of play. I'm about to listen to the rest of the Rushing material on here but not optimistic. Nevertheless I really do like the rest of the set and am happy to have it.

I was trying to get a copy of the Mosaic Select just now but somebody outbid me. An elusive set!

The arrangements are mostly Bill Holman and Marty Paich. I listened to the entire album on youtube and ordered the cd. Some wonderfully in the pocket stuff in there. Mel Lewis!

Ted Gioia has a nice article on Terry and the Dream Band: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/terry-gibbs-celebrates-his-100th

That live Basie Roulette set is one of my favs. I have listened to it a lot. You might also like the Live at the Crescendo set, same time period, also great.

I never owned any of their records but PP&M were a sort of backdrop in the early sixties. You heard them on radio and TV. Folk was a big thing and everybody was learning to play guitar. As these guys die off it invokes a sort of nostalgia for me and a sort of slightly horrified cognitive dissonance because in my mind's eye I still hold the vision of them as the young folk musicians I saw on TV.

I always liked her early work a lot. Her later stuff has a sameness to it and her guitar playing, so inventive early on, came to often utilize the exact same chords over and over on an electric guitar. My worst mistake was watching a youtube interview of her several years back. She was putting down the boomers and I remember her sneering at the 'free love' of the sixties, which struck me as awfully hypocritical, considering who she was back then. I discovered in that interview that I did not like her much as a person and since then I seldom listen to her.

This arrived today. I'm enjoying it. The box, CD sleeves and the book are cheap, underwhelming, and printed in tiny type but whatever, the music is great.

It's tough to lose an animal where there is a real connection and intimacy. I lost a couple elderly dogs I had in 2023 and it took a long time to get over the shock and finality of it all. Luckily a stray cat showed up and moved in with me. I still miss those dogs.

The set arrived this morning and I am listening to the first disk. Great sound quality and relentlessly swinging stuff!

Miles In France 1963 & 1964 - Miles Davis Quintet: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 is now $63.50 at (US) Amazon. Very tempted. I still remember how ecstatic I was upon getting the 2nd Quintet studio albums box set.

There appears to be some question over whether he has actually died or is just in the hospital in bad shape.

Oops, wrong thread.

Well have you listened to it on one of the streaming services like youtube or Spotify ? That would be a great way to know if you're going to like it

Yeah I think I remember something like that. There was a limited time reduction. But this is very rare indeed. I think their profit margins are pretty tight on these things.

8 hours! And you do this in atonement for what transgression?

I think I may be one of the faithful but I have recently become more choosy about buying recordings that, if I'm honest with myself, I will probably only listen to once, especially considering all the recordings I have by these players that don't suffer from sound quality issues. Obviously I'm in the minority on this one.

I found a copy of the Duke Ellington Centennial Edition for $147 on Discogs and it arrived just now. I liked the Ellington in Order series that Sony launched last year and bought what they put out, except for one volume which was entirely duplicating material in the Mosaic small group and orchestra sets. But they seem to have lost interest in the series. I was also unhappy about the lack of any documentation, even just pages on a website, from the company. Recently I've grown pessimistic about the continuation of Ellington in Order. I came across this nice copy very cheap on Discogs. It was a bit of a surprise getting it because I've never seen the set up close and some of the pics lead me to believe that it was a thick, cd-sized bundle. It turned out to be a Mosaic-like box with a gigantic bound paperback book!

Absolutely agree. Some may find this perfectly acceptable. Still I would suggest listening on YouTube or Spotify before buying.