Bill Nelson

It's the 'Ne Plus Ultra' * of East Coast Cool! * the Supreme Shit

Thanks, CA, for straightening my wild hares. Speaking of Riverside Oddball Projects, how about that series of at least a dozen auto racing LPs. (During a blindfold test, how can you tell them apart?) Also: jazz LPs that played from the INSIDE OUT-- and in colored vinyl.

If I've got this brain nugget right, in '63 Bill Grauer was left holding the bag trying to collect from all his independent distributors. Riverside was reeling into bankruptcy, even with 'hit' albums by Adderley, Evans, and Montgomery. Grauer checked-out for good in December, taking a leap from a tall building. ** For small labels, having major 'hits' can be a curse -- right away you've got cashflow problems. ** was told to me 20 years ago by a Riverside collector, who had most of their LPs recorded at 16 rpm.

In high school, the next day after each Flip Wilson Show, we'd be re-playing our fave Flip bits. Among us public school blacks and whites, Flip really brought us together. (I really dug the Reverend Lee-roy of The Church of What's Happenin' Now.) Flip did one heluva balancing act -- and on prime time TV. The pressure must've been incredible cause nobody, especially Bill Cosby, had pushed it further to the edge like this. IMO, Cosby was not nearly as bold, imaginative, or funny.

Gratification in action -- #529 is in the house and in heavy rotation. Expectations definately fulfilled.

I've got several CDs and LPs of Frank Rosolino which will always stay in rotation. Fortunately, I ONLY know him for his music. What he did in the last 10 minutes of his life doesn't affect my enjoyment of the swinging sides he made for Capitol, Reprise, and Concord.

And so, this Larry Young Mosaic box 'sighting' was nothing more than a lovely sunset. We can only dream of many more.

Last Wednesday I jumped -- even with the 3 CDs (2 Jap, 1 Verve Elite) I've already got. When it arrives tomorrow* (it should be well past #500) it'll be the total, comprehensive package of all Verve recordings with superb mastering by Malcolm Addey. *Delayed Gratification is my middle name

The first bassoon-led jazz LP has to be Stuart McKay's 1955 RCA release, 'Reap the Wild Winds'. It's one of those very early RCA gatefold jazz albums with a nice laminated slick on the front (LJM-1021) and recorded in New York's Nola studios. The four woodwinds are joined by a French horn, piano, guitar, bass, drums and occasional voice(s). The entire music program is beyond classification. Recorded July 22, 23 and August 3, 1954, it preceeds Gunther Schuller's 'Third Stream' theory and most other 'chamber jazz' efforts. RCA launched its 'Jazz Workshop' series two years later in '56, featuring McKusick, Byers, Carisi, Russell, etc. Think of four NYC classical longhairs getting loose on their reeds during a break from their orchestra gigs. This was a one-shot that shouldn't exist. And the way the band sings 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' in constantly shifting meters is the very essence of 'oddball'.

Let me retract the above riposte and be the one to "get over it". You're either in the minority who appreciates Jackie Paris or you're not. The inference that some of us are deliberately creating his 'legend' is not accurate. I think most of the positive comments herein have been stated with care. Nobody's gone overboard in gushing about a 'legend'.

Now that he's dead and 6 ft. under, you have nothing to worry about. So get over it.

I'm keeping my 'Caramba' and 'Charisma' -- and letting 'Tom Cat' slide. Alfred was right -- it's not particularly strong or inspired, just average. Which, I know, is fine for Lee Morgan heads...

Thanks for writing, guys. Jackie Paris wasn't over-the-top as a vocalist, and wouldn't resort to the knock-em-dead shticks of 50's borstch-belters and crooners. He always set high standards for the standards he sang. For the last 50 years, he knew he was living the life of a tragic, unappreciated artist. And still, he lived it.

Jackie Paris: Jazz Vocal Enigma Will Friedwald's 'Jazz Singing' book was my calling card to the vocal stylings of Jackie Paris. I've spent the last couple years trying to figure him out. Paris is of the cool school of Mark Murphy, Joe Mooney, and Bob Dorough. From here, I'll let Friedwald tell it: "Paris has one of the most appealing sounds in jazz, his raspy baritone carrying the same kind of catch as Crosby. Just as his voice has far less range than Torme's...he has no hang-ups about vibrato, and lets his hang like a tongue. Paris has so much charm you don't mind when his voice shakes or breaks -- these weaknesses provide a substantial part of his attraction. "Paris has spent his career in a fruitless search for an audience, though his failure to find one reflects more on the music industry than his own talent. But efforts to reach the mass audience somehow resulted only in his going deeper into the jazz underground; he toured with the Charlie Parker Quintet in 1949 (the only vocalist to do that)...Still not even the jazz public came out to support him in sufficient numbers, and though Mercury/Emarcy, Coral, Brunswick, Atlantic, Time, and Impulse each gave him a shot at an album (Capitol auditioned him on the insistence of booster Peggy Lee but didn't bite), none ever came back for a second. At the time of the Impulse album in 1962, Paris said to Bill Coss, "I've worked twenty weeks out of the last five years." In 1985, he told Will Friedwald,"I've got about seven or eight albums and they're ALL collector's items. What the hell good does it do me?" Jackie Paris remained obscure, known to only the most discerning of jazz vocal cognoscenti. Don't let me mislead you, he's no vocal gymnast. Paris' style and approach are straightahead and FAR IN, not out. Oh yeah, he also played guitar and tap danced, too.

The cases look cheap and feel cheap like an LP on Pickwick. You wouldn't pay no more than $8.98 for whatever music is inside. I'm reminded of when school lunchboxes went to a mold-injected plastic with glued-on paper insignia of your action heroes on the side panels. It just wasn't the same as the durable metal ones which you could smack upside some bully's head. Soft plastic was for pussys. No wonder Label M and 32 Groove CDs quickly go OOP -- nobody takes 'em seriously. If you want, you (or your dog) can chew the soft black plastic and that awful left front grill. The ONLY advantage is the hinges are unlikely to snap off when dropped -- so you can fling 'em around all you want.

Do both drummers duke it out together or trade solos? Is this slab an example of East vs. West -- hard bop vs. cool? And lastly, should I buy it?

ANKA: "Okay, guys. It''s either 'My Way' or 'The Highway'. BAND LEADER: "I dunno, boss. We don't have charts for 'The Highway'." ANKA: "Hey, wiseguy. I'll give you the key to the friggin' 'Highway' right now."

Ray Charles with musical guest Diana Krall? A case of the blind leading the blonde. (Sorry, but I just could't resist.)

tI found the Beacon sides to be tame and not terribly well recorded (2 LPs, U.S. reissues from the 80's). It's Hope's Contemporary and Riverside albums that sparkle. The Beacons are for serious completists only.

That might well be one of the very last. Has anyone got a Morgan/Shorter that broke 1900?

What kills me is how someone from Corporate, which acquired the rights to VeeJay, reneges on a pre-existing deal with Rhino and Mosaic -- at a point where about 1,500 sets each had already been sold. C'mon, you greedy MFs, we're not talking about profitable, runaway bestsellers! The original deal was for a total limit of 5,000 each. In April, we started hearing about both sets ceasing at the end of 2004. Then, on May 31, exactly 6 months into 2004 -- the plug gets pulled. No more will be sold, period. What a cut-throat business! My thanks to Michael, Malcolm, et al, for creating admirable 'ne plus ultra' sets on Kelly/Chambers and Morgan/Shorter. They will NEVER be surpassed in quality by whomever gets the rights to the VeeJay masters.

17. The thrill of dialing that 1-800 number and getting a warm, understanding, female voice at Mosaic. Without fail, I CAVE every time she slowly asks, "Will that be ALL?" (Sure beats the 1-900 'boiler rooms' I used to call.)

I'm sure you'll be standing on your chair and screaming in UPPER-CASE.

Richard Cook's slight effort in writing about Blue Note makes it all-the-more LIKELY for a BETTER, more inclusive and personal book to be written. Yes, if Michael Cuscuna could take a one-year sabbatical, he might very well write the authoritative, 'inside' book of Blue Note that we are clamoring for.

S'Allreet. Given the paucity of acoustic solo Herbie for the late-70's, seeing this single copy at the Atlanta Tower was like finding The Golden Fleece. Well, at $24.99 it turned out to be more of the latter. Herbie just ain't happening on 'The Piano', whether you got it intensely in the foreground or atmosphering the background. Maybe the 'expanded' version will have some cool new tracks. All these years, I've been taken with Herbie's 'Evening With' Chick Corea, recorded in '78, as your can feel their brains really stretching into new jazz theory. That's the solo acoustic shit, and Chick rises to the occasion, too.