LAL

Grachan Moncur III - disc 1 then 2

Quite a number of these seem to be OOP. Have been searching for all the Cecil Taylor discs (only 1 or 2 currently available) plus the Benny Bailey - but no luck. Add Jaki Byard's solo album "Blues for Smoke" and Phil Woods "Rights of Swing" to the list of good ones. More thumbs up for "Freedom Now Suite", "Out Front" and "Color Changes".

Thanks for the info Brownie. Gonna place an order for it at CDZone UK, about the only online store that offers to procure it. Will probably be backordered for ages, but no harm trying. Yikes! Just found my Lunceford vol.8 hiding under a stack of other long untouched discs. Time to rein in the unbridled buying. Gotta cancel that order too.

Thanks for the info. Time to get a second job to fund all these sets.

Hawk definitely should get a Mosaic set. Perhaps a re-reissue of the Keynotes? How about the Mercury live sessions by Quincy Jones' big band of the late 50s/early 60s? There seems to be enough material to do a Select. I may be wrong, but so far, the music seems to have been released only in piecemeal fashion. AMG has quite good reviews of the band, which had a quite a few 'star' names in its lineup, the arrangements and the music.

Masters of Jazz published a volume 8 in their Lunceford series. It brought the Lunceford sides complete up to April 1941. Mastering on that one was done by John R.T. Davies. Thanks for the info Brownie. Gonna place an order for it at CDZone UK, about the only online store that offers to procure it. Will probably be backordered for ages, but no harm trying.

You definitely won't regret getting those 2 sets. In fact, you'll rejoice when you hear the music. Just go slow(er) on the Teddy Wilson set.

Some recommended 50s live material (CD releases): - Complete Legendary Rockland Palace Concert (Jazz Classics) - The Washington Concerts (Blue Note) - Bird at the High Hat (Blue Note) - C.P At Storyville (Blue Note) I haven't any of them (not going to start), but there must be loads more good live recordings on the multi-dozen Bird's Eyes series by Philology.

Buying $1 less a day of 'junk' food or 'junk' anything for the next 3 months should help pay for the Teddy Wilson. Add another 2 months at $1 or $.70 for the 3 months if you want the Kenton set too. Easy no? Wild guesses at next to be on Running Low list: Hodges, Kenton Presents, Mobley and Capitol. But, always best to check direct from the horse's mouth.

As good as the music on this set is, there's plenty more similar recordings available on other labels particularly, Fantasy's Good Time Jazz and GHB Jazz Foundation's American Music or GHB Records. GHB Jazz especially has got me hooked. There're at least 50-60 excellent albums by artists such as George Lewis, Kid Thomas, Bunk Johnson, Billie & De De Pierce playing their best and recorded in good to excellent sound too.

Elvin Jones, disc 8

The Mildred Bailey set I recently received is numbered 2112! That's even higher than the last of the recently OOP Vee Jays. I got quite a shock when I saw that, given there appears to be little interest in this set (pre bop) and there are a hefty 10 discs worth of music. If the box number is any indication of sales, this should be a decent seller for them but probably not among the fastest. B)

June Christy/Peggy Lee - discs 1 & 2 (June Christy sessions, mainly)

I believe DHL bought Airborne for at least $1 bn last year. DHL are the guys who deliver my Mosaic orders nowadays. Service ain't too bad.

I'd leave word for whomever to play "Take the A Train" at FULL volume. Maybe a blast of this exquisite song would jolt me back to life, even if for a few more minutes.

Oh yes, there is love for it! That band just plain rocked! Someone else from the same era that is taken for granted IMO is Benny Carter! How about a set of his late 20's thru Europe in the 30's??? Lets face it a fair number here don't dig into the early days of jazz, unless it is a mosaic.... The lamented Masters of Jazz label from France had both Benny Carter and Jimmie Lunceford series in their releases. The Lunceford series went to volume 7 at least and reached the year 1940 to include all the pre-1940 Decca sides. The Carters series reached vol. 9 up to 1939. And their CDs were complete and pretty well remastered. The Lunceford Masters of Jazz series did indeed end with volume 7. The Lunceford big band seems to be highly underappreciated these days. IMO, they were (ok, almost) as swinging as the Basie or Ellington bands, although not having as many great musicians. One main grouse is they featured far too many trite Dan Grissom vocals. And yeh, I'll buy the Mosaic if only for the booklet and box. B)

Discs 1 to 3 of Anita O'Day set. Anita's singing has a unique style and she improvises a lot. There is never a dull moment when she's in the spotlight. IMO, she even outshines herself compared to the Krupa days. Some of the best vocal jazz I've ever heard - LOVE IT.

followed by...

Perhaps, The Count's centennial is not as forgotten as perceived - we just need to look in the right places. For instance, the Count Basie Orchestra, currently led by Bill Hughes (a trombonist!) has been and will be actively touring the world in conjunction with The Count's 100th anniversary. The band is currently doing a fairly extensive tour of Asia (Hong Kong in April; Singapore, Malaysia and Korea this month). The fact they're touring shows at least some interest in the music and possibly an equal awareness of the centennial. Guess what? I'm going to my first ever jazz concert next week - and surprise surprise the artists are the Count Basie Orchestra! Booked my tickets one year in advance and I'm sure looking forward to this one. B) From what I read and hear, the current band matches the power and excitement of its predecessors. Will post some impressions later.

I absolutely refuse to listen to jazz (muzak is fine) in the office or while travelling to and from work, both of which take up at least half a day. Another 8-10 hours are spent sleeping and eating, which leaves just 1-2 hours max of listening time daily. This restriction during weekdays definitely helps ensure I don't OD on the music. Weekends are the exception of course. So far, it's worked, no dry spells for me these past 5-6 years of 'serious' jazz listening.

Although not complete, the Definitive live set collects a lot of the live recordings in one package. A good choice at a decent price. Unless of course you're adverse to buying stuff from the label. If you want even more Charlie Christian, do check out a Blue Note disc, "Profoundly Blue" which contains various sessions led by clarinetist Edmond Hall. Charlie plays only accoustic guitar on these sessions (I can't recall if he is on all the songs). A review of the disc can be found here. One of my favourite Blue Notes. B)

I was speaking to a friend, who is an opera buff, a week ago and one of the things we discussed was CD longevity. One point brought up that I hadn't heard before concerned his opera box sets bought in the 80s and whose CDs were housed in sponge/foam material. After a long while of not playing the discs, he thought he'd dig them up again to spin. To his horror, the material holding the CDs had gotten stuck to or eaten into the lacquer layer of the CDs rendering them unusable. Packaging of this type is rare today but a fairly recent one that comes to mind is the Charlie Christian 4 disc Columbia box set (a part of the discs are slotted into a sponge holder). So, if you have the set and haven't transferred them discs to proper jewel casing...

A re-reissue of Hawk's Keynotes would be a decent Hawk centennial celebration. But that's just wishful thinking.

All the above. Definitely prime Pres of any period, IMO. Get all five volumes!

My local Tower store is having a big moving out sale this month. They're going to slash 50-70% off items that have been sitting in the store for ages. There's a Mingus Debut box in the store that qualifies - hope that goes in the discount bin. There's also that Yerba Buena box set. A list of some favourites: John Coltrane - Soul Trane Tadd Dameron - The Magic Touch Booker Ervin - Space Book & Freedom Book Bill Evans - Sunday at Village Vanguard & Explorations Coleman Hawkins - Hawk Flies High Lennie Niehaus (All five volumes - Quintet, Octet, Quartet etc) Clark Terry - In Orbit Box sets: Sonny Rollins (Riverside & Prestige), Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy and Thelonious Monk.