Don Brown

The thing to remember with Russian names is that the emphasis is always on the penultimate syllable.

Late, from Eugene, Oregon, was wondering what he should be drinking while auditioning the forthcoming Hawkins set. Well, Late, Hawk always drank the most expensive cognacs which, according to his friend and admirer Ben Webster, he never ever shared. Ben told an interviewer about a visit he paid Hawk once in a hotel room (in Copenhagen, if I remember correctly) late at night, after all the bars had closed. Hawk apparently happily sipped his cognac but never once offered his obviously very thirsty friend so much as a drop.

As bad as a lot of American pressings were, in the 1950s many Canadian pressings were even worse. A company called Sparton had the license to press ABC Paramount product in this country and what a disaster! They'd import the jackets from the States, emboss them with the Sparton logo, then press the discs from American masters. The results were generally pretty bad and once stereo was introduced forget it. We'd have to buy ABC Paramount and Impulse albums in mono since the stereo pressings were simply unplayable. Then there was London Records of Canada which pressed Atlantics: same problem. The major labels were generally pretty good. There were seldom problems with the Canadian editions of Columbia, RCA Victor or Capitol albums. But Decca pressings were just as bad here as they were in the U.S. I smiled at Chris Albertson's comment above where he mentions how Decca LPs turned grey after a couple of plays. Canadian Deccas did the same thing. I guess it was a company policy to use the cheapest vinyl. Funny thing though, I remember one odd case with a Columbia issue. When the Thelonious Monk Big Band at Philharmonic Hall was first released I happened to get my hand on an American pressing. Everything was great until the end of Side One. The side closed with Monk's touching solo rendition of Darkness on the Delta. The music was gorgeous but the distortion made it unplayable. I then tried a Canadian pressing and it was perfect, so the flaw was obviously not in the master.

I agree with both jazzbo and John Tapscott. Worlds is a great source of fine music. Mind you, their shipping has really slowed down over the past couple of years, but I believe the culprit is the USPS not Worlds. Anything a person in Canada orders from an American source now takes much longer to arrive than it once did. I get parcels from the UK, France, Italy, and Germany much quicker than I do from the States, even from upstate New York which borders on Ontario. It's not just Worlds shipments that now take longer to get here. I have the same problem now with Cadence which is just across the border.

Well, Steve, you're correct, not all the early Verves had David Stone Martin artwork, but many of the non-DSM covers used Herman Leonard's photographs of the artists.

The typical Verve album cover for me is one that has David Stone Martin artwork. But, like brownie says a couple of posts back, that was when Verve was still in the hands of its founder, Norman Granz. Perhaps brownie and I are a little older. I know for me those later Verve covers could not compare with the ones from the 1950s.

Ellington, Monk, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Mingus, Wardell Gray, Oscar Pettiford, Ornette, Louis, Basie, Tadd Dameron.

On Fresh Sound CD FSRCD 214 titled Soft Touch.

Yes, Chewy, but there's Harold Land, and Teddy Edwards, and Sonny Rollins.

I met a chap at record shows where I once sold LPs whose name was Cecil Payne. He was very aware of the American saxophonist but, as he explained to me, he was from Barbados where his first name was pronounced in the English manner as Sess-il.

Gonad?

It's a fine book, nicely packaged, much like an old 78 RPM disc.

I can't imagine playing bass with a handful of ball bearings.

Happy birthday, Peter.

God, it must be at least 25 years since Johnny O'Neal played a two-week solo piano engagement at the Cafe des Copains here in Toronto. Still remember photographer Paul Hoeffler and I taking Johnny to a late night Chinese restaurant for dinner after after the gig one night. A nice guy.

Carla Bley

A very happy birthday to you, John. Haven't seen you for a while. Next time you're in town on a Friday you know where to find all the guys. Just drop in at the pub around noon. Cheers.

Big. He was quite a small man with BIG eyes and he was a wonderful drummer. I saw him with Muddy Waters, James Cotton and Otis Spann in '63 or '64 here in Toronto.

Charlie Smith

Most of the music on this set was previously available on London CDs. I would expect that the Andorrans copied those CDs for this release. The only Felsted material not previously on CD include some of the Cozy Cole titles as well as everything from Dickie Wells' second album for the label.

Ellington.

Great news, Allen, and happy to see you back. Organissimo has been boring recently without your wry postings.

Two of my favourite Cadence interviews were the ones with Jimmy Cleveland and Mel Lewis. Talk about two guys who didn't pull punches. Wow. The Pepper Adams interview was a classic as well, especially his stories about Stan Kenton. Adams described Kenton as "The nicest fascist I ever met".

I learned yesterday that Tad Hershorn's long-awaited biography of Norman Granz will finally see the light of day on October 1st. The book's original title was to be Norman Granz: The Conscience of Jazz but it is now being called Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz For Justice. The new publisher is The University of California Press. The book was originally to be published by HarperCollins. I'd love to know the backstory explaining the delay and change in publishers but the important thing is we'll finally have a chance to read Tad Hershorn's book. It's already up on Amazon.

The first jazz orchestra I heard live was Lionel Hampton's 1950 organization. It was at Toronto's Uptown Theatre which at the time was toying with stage presentations in addition to showing movies. Gil Bernal was heavily featured as were Milt Buckner and Curly Hamner.