ghost of miles

The 2-CD highlights version of Through the Open Window and a review by a critic friend persuaded me to opt for the full-blown deluxe set: Just as Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles bio Tune In lit a deeper interest in their formative years for me, last year’s A Complete Unknown film stoked my interest in Dylan’s earliest years, so I’m really going to enjoy the deep dive that this set offers. I thought the 2-CD version would suffice, but it only whetted my appetite to hear and read even more. This is only the third deluxe bootleg box I’ve purchased, preceded by The Complete Basement Tapes and the Rolling Thunder Revue set. I’ll probably eventually pick up the expanded Cutting Edge collection as well. On the fence about the full-blown 1966 Live leviathan.

Knockout version of “Begin the Beguine” by Boyd Raeburn’s band near the end of disc 3 (arrangement by Johnny Richards). Also recently encountered big-band singer Dorothy Claire on a new CD of Glenn Miller’s Chesterfield broadcasts and was pleasantly surprised to hear her again on the V-disc set with Raeburn’s orchestra. She did a stint with Bob Crosby in 1939 but doesn’t appear on the Crosby Mosaic, which omits most of that band’s vocal sides (but does include a couple of vocals from Teddy Grace, another lesser-known fave of mine among swing-era singers).

I was going to mention Off The Record, but then realized that it is (or was) an imprint of Archeophone. Apologies if the initial post was a bit vague. Certainly labels such as Mosaic, Nessa, and Hep fit the definition, in terms of being small operations devoted to specialized jazz reissues and releases--it's just that their longevity and extensive catalogues almost make them "too big to be boutique" at this point. This is my anecdotal sense as well. There will be exceptions, of course (a few years ago it seemed a # of musicians in the improvisatory/avant-garde community were exploring a renewed interest in hot jazz of the 1920s), and young dancers often seek out music from the swing era. But once the living generations of artists and their fanbases are gone, the interest in the music seems to decline even more.

Discussion of an upcoming Julius Hemphill reissue put me in mind of International Phonograph Inc, which then put me in mind of Mighty Quinn, both of which put out some beautifully-done, labor-of-love releases. What are some of your favorite boutique labels and reissues?

I just realized that the International Phonograph reissue of this came out *15* years ago. Damn, time doesn't fly, it's more like now you see it, now you don't.

Hear, hear! Five days till pitchers and catchers report.

My guess is that they've distilled Tiberi's original 86-CD-R transfer stash to something in the neighborhood of 4-8 CDs for general release? And I'd also imagine that modern audio clean-up technology has made whatever they're going to put out more listenable, as opposed to what was available in 2000 when the transfers were originally made. This is a really big deal--the Tiberi tapes have been akin to Dean Benedetti's Charlie Parker recordings for Coltrane fans.

Scene from "The Pine Barrens," now with laugh track:

The V-eagle has landed! Love hearing a disc's worth of Woody right out of the gate. If Mosaic goofed on disc 5, I assume they'll send out replacement copies, as they have in the past when similar mistakes or omissions were made.

I have a copy of the massive History of European Jazz book on the way and am eager to look for further discussion of the artists featured on SJ 18 (which has superb annotations in and of itself). Thinking about brewing up a Night Lights episode devoted to this release. Current listening--this early-1960s end-of-a-love-affair concept album, the last of Nat King Cole's four collaborations with arranger Gordon Jenkins:

So glad that set made it into existence. Right now—such a great entry in a great series:

Free admission this Saturday! NYC mayor kicks off Black History Month at Armstrong house and museum

From Ben Ratliff's Coltrane: the Story of a Sound. Many of the recordings were made at Philadelphia's Showboat in the early 1960s. It's all live performances of the classic quartet, although I think some have Roy Haynes on drums instead of Elvin (presumably from the stretch of 1963 when Elvin was out of commission). I have a couple of CD-Rs that someone sent me many years ago that includes Coltrane playing "After The Rain" on piano iirc. Guessing that audio technology 25 years on is more capable of improving the sound quality than it was when digital transfers were made in 2000. Tiberi noticed a big difference in Coltrane in 1960… Not wanting to let this pass undocumented, Tiberi started bringing a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder into clubs to tape Coltrane’s sets… His tapes are important evidence of what Coltrane was up to at the beginning of his bandleading… When Verve records made a digital transfer of Tiberi’s tapes, in 2000, they amounted to eighty-six CDs. The sound quality, however, was deemed (by Tiberi as well as Verve) not to be good enough for release. And so an important part of Coltrane’s story remains locked up, for now. - Ben Ratliff, Coltrane: the Story of a Sound

Surprise live performance from Springsteen last night at First Avenue in Minneapolis (the club where many of the performances in Prince's Purple Rain were performed):

Free the Tiberi tapes!!! I know much of that music has circulated over the years, but I would love to have most or all of it pulled together, cleaned up, annotated, and put out in box-set form. That's my Coltrane holy grail. I'd also be happily on board for any expanded release of the Half Note recordings. Hear hear! Seconded! Etc!