GA Russell

Happy Birthday!

I picture the Church of John Coltrane to be a bunch of guys sitting around smoking dope and listening to records and calling it a worship service with the attendant tax breaks. Any here ever been to one of their services?

Happy Birthday Aggie!

Footprints has arrived in the mail, and I can tell you that after a couple of listens I like it a lot. It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it may end up in my Top Ten for the year. The strongest aspect of it is not the performances but the song selection. Good songs, almost all jazz standards. My favorite is the title track. Nancy King is a singer from Portland. The pictures indicate that she is getting up there in years, but she has not lost her voice. She sings harmony on I think five of the thirteen songs. Jon Hendricks also makes an appearance, and unfortunately his age is beginning to show. He is still more youthful than a lot of singers, but his best days are behind him. His performance is not an embarassment, but if he doesn't stop now he will one day embarass himself. Lyricist Chris Caswell is a pianist and the former musical director for Melissa Manchester, Hal David (when did he ever perform?), Alan Bergman (ditto) and Jimmy Webb. Oscar Brown, Jr., was going to be on the album, but died before the session was made. They used two of his songs. I note that Dan quotes AMG listing "Gillespie" as the composer of Footprints, but of course it was Wayne Shorter. Allyson shares the spotlight a great deal with King and Hendricks. I think I would have preferred it if she had not shared it so much. If you like vocalese, I can recommend this.

Thanks CJ. I'll give it a closer listen.

Jim, I haven't heard enough of Blake to be sure.

Tranemonk, that CD is misidentified. Concord/Fantasy will release in late June a box (I think 2 CDs) of The Complete Riverside Recordings of Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane. With your name, that ought to interest you, unless you already have everything!

Happy Birthday!

Soul Stream, I was referring to Alexander's post about it being the best new album of the year so far. I don't see anywhere in the liner notes that says who is playing on what cuts. How do you know that Coleman is only on two? Is it just from listening? I'm enjoying it more with each listen. I don't think I like the way they ordered the songs though. About half the songs are modern like I expected, and half are more traditional. The traditional ones remind me of the Jimmy Smith Houseparty album I mentioned above. The copy I have of that is the reconfigured CD version I bought in 1989, with all of the songs recorded at the August 25, 1957, date. I think I will burn a copy for the car with all of the modern tracks first, and then follow up with the ones that remind me of Jimmy Smith. By the way, at the end of I Thought About You, somebody (I presume Hutcherson) says, "If you don't like that you don't like (something), haha! Can anybody understand what the word I'm missing is?

Well, whoever it was who said a year ago that Django was one of their best albums, I'm grateful. As stated above, I got the new RVG of Django. I don't have any previous release to compare it to, but it sounds great to me on my inexpensive system, except for a brief passage where Percy Heath's bass is overmodulating (I suspect that was a problem from the original recording). The group's sound is not as lush as the later recordings I have heard. Perhaps that is a reflection of how Milt Jackson had his vibes set up, or perhaps John Lewis changed his desires over the years. I expect that I'll be playing this one a lot on Sunday afternoons. By the way, Percy Heath's bass is quite loud, reminding me of Scott LaFaro's equal footing with Bill Evans on the Village Vanguard, 1961 box. I wonder if that is something Van Gelder did in the remastering, or whether it was always as loud and up front as this.

I hope that everyone has enjoyed a happy Easter today! ...and remembered the reason for the season!

I'm enjoying Organic Vibes, but it's going to take me a little longer to appreciate it fully. I realize now that it is as advertised - a Joey DeFrancesco album with Bobby Hutcherson. I had unconsciously anticipated a Bobby Hutcherson album with Joey DeFrancesco. This is more mainstream than that. I still hear plenty of Jimmy Smith, notwithstanding the liner notes to the contrary. I don't get too many newly recorded albums, so I can't say whether I agree if this is the best of the year so far or not. The last great "new" album I got was Sonny Rollins' Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert). This might be the best newly recorded album I've listened to since then - I'll need more time to make up my mind.

As promised, I waited until today to open up the box. I'm on my second listen of disc 1, and I'm enjoying it. I've seen comments that disc 1 is the worst, and I'm looking forward to hearing the others in the future. However, IMO the bass is too loud.

I received word today that Little Johnny C by Johnny Coles is no longer available and has been removed from my queue. No warning.

Happy Belated Birthday, BM!

I'm not Jim, so it's not official, but there you go http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?...=lk_organissimo Thanks Claude!

Ray Anthony had a TV show about 1957 on which The Four Freshmen were regulars. I have a VHS tape, of which an audio CD is also available, of just their performances on the show, called Easy Street.

Thanks for the link, md. I see that Amazon's price is $59.98, the list price. CD Universe says that Their Price will be $48.29, and their Pre-Order Price is $41.99. I note that the press release says 24 bit. Does that mean K2? Truth be told, I've been wanting this ever since it was first announced last fall. I'm more excited about this than I was for The Cellar Door Sessions. Jim, we need an official Organissimo link to CDU here!

I received this email press release from Concord/Fantasy yesterday when the board was down: In 1955, after his triumphant appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Miles Davis formed his seminal 1950s quintet with youthful up-and-comers John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Over the course of three studio dates, the quintet changed history, recording five albums for Prestige Records that are still, a half-century later, heralded as masterworks. Next month (5/23), these bebop, hard-bop, and balladic recordings, largely from five albums--The New Miles Davis Quintet, Cookin', Workin', Relaxin', and Steamin'--will be released together by the Concord Music Group as the Prestige boxed set The Miles Davis Quintet: The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions. The music, all of which was taped by Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ, has been remastered in 24-bit from the original analog masters and presented in the sequence recorded. The box contains 32 selections, including such compositions as "Four," "Trane's Blues," "My Funny Valentine," "Tune Up," and "When Lights Are Low" that are to this day essential tunes of the standard repertoire. A bonus CD features eight previously unissued radio and television audio performances, including two tunes from The Tonight Show with Steve Allen: a fiery, hard-swinging romp through Oscar Pettiford's "Max Is Making Wax" and a lyrical rendition of Rodgers and Hart's ballad "It Never Entered My Mind," both introduced by the television talk show host. The set is packaged in an attractive box that features cover art by Davis (the painting "New York by Night"); five complete musical transcriptions of Miles's solos (suitable for framing); and a 40-page illustrated booklet with insightful annotations by Bob Blumenthal. Blumenthal points out in the liners that 1955 was a tipping-point year for the trumpeter/bandleader: "[T]he Miles Davis Quintet heard here was Davis's means of seizing the moment when his physical health and his musical concepts were on an upswing, and when the public and the music industry had finally begun to pay attention." Blumenthal adds: "This is the band Davis organized when he wanted his recordings to stand for more than snapshots of his momentary interests." The Miles Davis Quintet: The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions celebrates not only the 80th-anniversary year of Davis's birth but also the 50th anniversary of the bulk of these recording sessions.

Since we now have a link to Amazon, I thought I would see if this would link to it. So I found the album using the link at the top of the page, and now here is what I got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EF5ND...5Fencoding=UTF8 Hope that works! Jim, if it doesn't, feel free to correct it. I see that Amazon has it for $12.97.

My pick this month is Gabor Szabo's The Sorcerer. When I was in high school in the 60s, most record stores had only a token jazz section, with less than fifty albums. Of these, many were current Impulse! and Verve releases. As a result, I remember that Szabo's Impulse albums were always there, although I have no idea if there was a market for them. This will be my first Szabo album, although I have a Skye compilation with a couple of his sides on it. I see that it got a good review in the AMG quote at the Your Music site, so I thought I would give this one a chance.

Happy Birthday Alison! (Today is my sister's birthday too! Also, James Garner, Trapper John from the TV Mash, and Tony Dorsett!)

I don't believe that that is correct. I read in The Wanderer last year that pieces of two documents, one of which was St. Matthew's Gospel, have been found which suggested that they were written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

What about Matthew? He was an apostle. Wasn't he a witness to what is included in his gospel? Mark was Peter's secretary. I think it's fair to consider Mark's gospel to be Peter's eyewitness account.

I don't have a problem with people who think that the Bible is baloney and that Christianity is bunk. But I have no time for people (including theologians) who say that the authors of the Bible were sincere but didn't really mean what they said, and that the things they were reporting actually happened in a slightly different manner than what they said.