LAL

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.

June Christy/Peggy Lee, disc 3

And if they do get it done, expect some fancy smancy packaging. Hope they don't catch on the idea of the glass jar PD mentioned at AAJ.

Blazing hot outside at 35C but freezing in the office.

DON'T encourage me to go there, man. (Will NOT get second copy just for backup... Will...NOT...get...second...copy...for...back-up... WILL.......NOT.....) ...then again, you should be able to sell it at a markup on your original cost after it goes OOP.

I'd go for the sets in the following order: Hodges (You never know when Verve sets could go OOP due to some legal wrangle. Ok, so that's based on the Stuff Smith case, but why take the risk? The music on this set is absolutely 'beautiful' and not to be missed for even one more day! I'm thinking of getting a second copy just for backup) J.J Johnson (While the music on this set is great, it may actually stick around longer than the Hodges set. Mosaic has said this will last well into 2005. Still, it's best to double check with them) Stitt (Just received this one, it's numbered in the low 2000s) But, if you're gonna get all these in the next few months, then it probably doesn't matter in which order you buy them. B)

Over the weekend: June Christy/Peggy Lee - discs 4 & 5 (Peggy Lee sessions) Elvin Jones - disc 7

..... oh so true ..... now I have to admit: of this I never heard... are you sure? Think I just proved that to myself.

After laying off buying any CDs for the past 7 weeks, I finally caved in... . Blame it on the reduced shipping.

Thanks for the info. Brownie. Duke with Ivie Anderson

A truly great musician. RIP Ray Charles.

Thanks P.D. for the insights and recommendation. I'm now wary of Proper's sets -their reputation for lifting others work and all. Think I have the JATP performance somewhere - gotta dig it out again. I probably should just start with a 'best of' to see if the music is to my liking.

Duke, Benny Goodman and Richard Rodgers watching Ella sing. A couple of pics of Duke and Ella at the airport here and Duke and Norman Grantz here. Wonder if these are from the Cote d'Azur concerts.

I've never heard any of the music of this legendary guitarist. Any album to start with? I've seen the following (Complete Decca Trios Plus '36-'47) in stores but have held back. Thanks in advance for any feedback.