tatifan

As far as their big boxes go, I am sure you are correct. However I notice that the 'Blowing a Fuse' series finishes in 1955. Suspicious or what? I suspect that with this series they are just as 'guilty' as Proper, JSP etc ... Bear Family would be the LAST label I would group with Proper, JSP, Definitive! You can complain about their pricing, some of their mastering decisions, but NOT their licensing, or lack thereof! Considering their ability to issue compilations from multiple labels from actual licensed source materials I think they should be commended as a model in this regard.

Wow, not that I doubted there were lots of Mildred Bailey fans, but that IS a lot of MB fans who forked over the big bucks for the set!

Norman Lebrecht is a writer for those who are pissed off at not understanding the pinnacles of musical literature, or the great performers who bring it to life, and would like to be spoonfed some inside "dirt" written by someone else who's pissed off, but supposedly "in the know"; in this case that someone is posing as a actual "critic" writing for major publications. He pisses on great conductors (try "The Maestro Myth" if you want to learn absolutely NOTHING about what makes one conductor great and another mediocre!), and now a great composer in this rant which has nothing whatsoever to say, as usual. He is hired to write this crap because newpapers/publishers know that muckracking CRAP sells much better than thoughtful essays, which is truly a shame. What happens when Joe Blow goes to Borders, wants to learn something about conductors, and somehow ends up buying Lebrecht's piece of cow dung? If he laps up the crap, he'll spout hateful nonesense about what idiots conductors are, and how everyone knows they are all overpaid charlatans. In reality all they've learned about is big Norm himself, who can only ape himself.....the original unevolved ape-turned-music-"cirtic"!

Of course, and I don't deny that they serve a purpose, and I think every university or large public library worth it's salt should have them, but personally I'll sink my bucks into the products of Timeless, Forte/Oracle, Hep, Frog, pre-ripoff JSP, etc. I would be more interested if they boxed some of the artists collections together at say, $4 a cd, rather than have some other label rip them off piecemeal (as is suspected in some of the Membran sets). I still question their sources; can anyone confirm that they do many of their own 78 transfers?

If they do their own transfers, they sure sound like a variety of moldy dupes to ME. I had some of the nasty sounding Fletcher Henderson volumes covering the Armstrong period, and then recent found the 3 disc Forte label set (J.R.T. Davies transfers) and it's night and day sonically! One other thing, is you won't get any alternate takes on Classics. To me they are overpriced for what they are.....they are NOT complete (if there are alternates), and are NEVER the best sounding transfers when there are others of the same material, in my experience. Of course, you're mileage many vary, and they DO have plenty of items not otherwise available.

I have the same argument with the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston about dumbing down their film program to attract some kind of new audience. I see their point, but I think it's a very sad commentary on our times when the bottom line affects those institutions that SHOULD operate on a higher plane of thinking.

Having living in Ann Arbor at the time, being a classical musician myself, and seeing the many people layed off when they gutted THAT programing avenue, I have no kind words for the man who did this. If he did something positive later on that doesn't excuse the way he ignored the public of Ann Arbor and treated those people.

I JUST hooked up a 200 GB Maxtor that I picked up today at Office Depot. They have a big rebate on it ($100 after a $50 mail-in). With the USB connection it won't be the quickest, but it works for me. Good place to keep all those emusic downloads, eh?

Is there a link to a template for those Fellowes inserts? I never thought of printing something the size of those, to reach the edge, but I'd rather just try it on plain paper and fold that edge to expose the spine info. Or perhaps if I knew the exact size, I could just configure something in MS Office? Thanks!

I've tried taking wider labels, printing several labels in a small font, and then slicing the labels with a box cutter to a size that fits on them. Or tape four mini cases together and putting one label on the side. Not the most elegant, but it'll do in a pinch.

Yes, that's the one, and that's a better price than True Blue has it for, I believe. Even though I have a couple of the single domestic issues, this sounds nice, and it seems that not all of those 8 discs are available seperately at True Blue. The issues on Amazon marketplace (from Idem) are what I don't see much about.....Idem is linked up with Disconforme/Definitive, so I wonder if that makes them the usual Italian public domain rip-offs? P.S. Dave, I need to PM you........I had promised a DVDR of Sternberg's "Underworld" on Mobius a long time ago.....then my DVD burner went kaboom. I've got it transferred now, though.

I'm seeing some of the Jazz Casual programs not issued domestically as official issues on DVD in a couple places, and I'm wondering which I should get (quality-wise). Amazon Marketplace has a number of sellers with the Idem DVDs that have 2 episodes per disc, and then True Blue has some that have 3 eps per disc (PAL one side, NTSC on the other). Any opinions on which is the better choice?

Any word on whether these will be sold through retail outlets......perhaps later like the Selects? Of course ordering from Mosaic is preferable, and adding one on to an order of a set is fine, but for postage I guess you'd want to order 3 or so to lower the per/cd shipping costs.

Does Tower add sales tax for shipment to every state in which they have a store? The free shipping and various discounts have to compete against TX sales tax for me, and being in Houston, I don't even have the benefit of having one of those stores anywhere near me. It's pretty sad when one has to turn to Borders as the cd emporium of choice in one of the larger cities in the country!

Houston's Half Price Books seems to have a few of these cds. Picked up the Dolo Coker "California Hard". Nice album...perhaps more for Pepper and Mitchell than Coker, with the caveat of the really LONG aimless Frank Butler drum solo in Roots 4fb!! The sound is only ok on the cd, and the placement of the (out of tune) piano in the left channel seems to unbalance things a bit. The Jimmy Raney/Sonny Clark is a nice pickup too.....very effortless but imaginative work from those two. The tapes are gone, OR they were really lazy with the cd transfer....it's obviously from an LP copy in parts, and has some nasty out of phase problems on a couple of tracks....the actual original sound quality is not bad. Anyone have a yea or nay on the Red Garland "Keystones" album??

Just watched Art Pepper: Notes From A Jazz Survivor, and he's got a Steelers tshirt on, and even talks about how much he loves them.......so they MUST be destined to win, eh?

Luckily, THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER was just issued on DVD in a nice transfer (Universal/Focus).

Why would a P-Panther box include "The Party"?? Maybe not so much for Sellers, but the '55 version of "The Ladykillers" is subtle insanity of the highest level!

maybe they just have to put an adjusted page up, now that Mulligan & Bechet are out.

Hey, it even happened in real life.....a buddy of mine taught a music appreciation course at Oklahoma State....a question about various musical genres elicited the answer....you guessed it......OPRAH!!

I finally tracked down that Retrieval cd of the '23 solos (only to find it's now available for half of what I paid at World Records!), and I must say I don't think the finished product is what I would have expected from Davies. I find it overfiltered on the top end......and it ends up about as muffled as the Milestone cd I set out to replace! I think Retrieval subjected a number of his master tapes to excessive filtering, including the "King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band" set. They are still worth picking up, certainly, but the sound is quite different from Davies acoustic material heard on other labels (Timeless, Forte/Oracle), and ends up being a bit lifeless in comparison. Anyone interested in the fabulous sounding (Davies engineered) Forte 3cd set of the Armstrong/Fletcher Henderson should run to the Roots and Rhythm web site. Even though it's OOP, they have a few copies (I just got mine!).

It's not so much the noise reduction, as the phony stereo and distortion added by doing this stereo spread. Still, it's an essential disc. I should make a seperate thread, but I was thrilled to find Roots and Rhythm still had a few copies of the fantastic FORTE label 3 cd set of the Armstrong/ Henderson material, remastered (superbly) by J. R. T. Davies in the early 90s. This has been OOP for a while, so head to their web site! It's listed in newsletter #134.

Just got an email that the Bechet Select is shipping within the next 24 hours!

What an odd choice of representative artists! Guess we'll have to use our imagination to find something to salivate over..... Early 50's Deutsche Gramophon Lps...now we're talking!

I've been the first to complain about Proper's sound, ethics, etc., but I must admit to picking up several recent sets, the Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan and Dave Brubeck ones. I guess the Rogers is the only one to include much not currently available, but they cram 4 cds of various albums together in a convenient way, especially now with the slimmer boxes w/ cardboard sleeves. Yeah, I know......should you shoot me now or later? (to paraphrase Daffy Duck)