Kevin Bresnahan

I got a shipping notice too.

I'm thinking about grabbing a few of Dale Fielder's CDs that he has up on the bandcamp website. They're a PIA to find though. You can't just find one and click on Fielder's name. You have to search on his name and go through all of the search results to find them.

The color indicates the type of dye used. One type of dye is better than the other. It's been too long since I've studied this, but I am pretty sure that the clear-looking dye was used in "archival" CD-R's, which means that it has the longest shelf life.

Cheaper on eBay but still the most I've paid for CD in a long time.

I tried ordering one from an Amazon UK seller. I'll see if it arrives.

Lloyd toured in support of this CD release but I don't seem to remember Abercrombie being in the touring band, It was a great show either way.

I have had a couple of commercial CDs fail. One was a UK CD from the early days of CD manufacturing and it "bronzed" to the point where it stopped playing. The other was also from the early days of the CD and it played the first several tracks but then stopped. The aluminum near the edge of the CD looked like something started taking bites out of it. I read that it was a bad coating used in the label side. I have had quite a few commercially sold CD-R titles stop playing so I always back up any that I get these days. The last one I got was from the VSOP label. $16.99 for a CD-R and flimsy artwork. Ouch.

I saw her play in late October of 2017 at Scullers in Boston and she was still playing great. She was a late sub for George Cables in Javon Jackson's band. Eddie Gomez and Jimmy Cobb rounded out the rhythm section. As you can imagine, it was a great show.

I used to listen to the radio exclusively for many years. WROR 105.7 - Loren & Wally. News, traffic, some fun & a tune or two stuck in there. Then, about 4 or 5 years ago, they fired their top comedy writer and cut way back on the talk/music, going with more & more ads. The funnier DJ retired. Then they fired the traffic guy. About 3 years ago, I decided to figure out what I was listening to so I decided to time stuff. I put on the radio and for 10 straight minutes, there was nothing but ads. They came back with some small talk, a couple of 5 minute tunes and then another 8 minutes of ads. I drive an hour each way to work and I would guess that I was listening to ads about 40% of my drive. I tried Sirius/XM and never looked back.

I would hate to be ordering LPs in this heat. Don't you have to worry about warped records?

What is your budget? There are a lot of options out there, even in the receiver realm. And to your benefit, these days, most receiver tuners include HD radio, which may or may not be an improvement for you. As for "comparable quality"... well, that is a personal thing when it comes to audio. I was not a fan of Pioneer back then so "comparable" to me doesn't mean that much. Ha ha. I know that there will be people who disagree with me on this, but I find that speakers matter way more to what you hear than your amplification as long as the amp has enough clean power to drive them.

Unless you're really in love with this old Pioneer SX-650 (sold new in 1976), I would just give it away and buy a new integrated amp. You only need a new receiver if you still listen to FM radio. Google "Pioneer SX-650 restoration" - there is a cottage industry out there restoring these receivers so it's pretty likely that your amp is starting to fail. I read some forum posts of people restoring them and it seems pretty difficult, especially given that Pioneer changed the schematic during the production run. A full rebuild would be the way to go if you just have to keep it, but be aware that a full restoration is not cheap. I think it would be money better spent on a new one.

I got your answer Dan - the label appears to have the Contemporary label printed up beforehand, but the inner album info appears to be a hand stamp. So someone forgot to stamp yours. But I have to add that you getting me to look at this has me noticing that the Side 1 info is very faint. It's look like whoever was stamping these labels was a bit of a slacker.

Is that for the LP version or both the LP & CD? If it's the LP version, I wonder if this is being affected by the the fire that destroyed the Apollo Masters factory? The Apollo Masters factory was the largest supplier of blank lacquer discs in the world. They were one of only two worldwide LP lacquer plants, the other being MDC, a smaller-scale factory in Japan that has always been booked solid. There is no way they could handle the overflow from that Apollo plant. Now, the LP industry has to wait until someone steps up a fills that void, wait for an opening at MDC or switch over to DMM LP masters, which does not seem to be the preferred way to produce LPs.

Aren't these just gatefold LPs? I never thought of these as any sort cost cutting effort. If anything, these should cost more than a standard tip in jacket. In fact, when Impulse! started up, they advertised their LPs as being housed in "deluxe gatefold" sleeves. When ABC took over, they changed over to regular sleeves as a cost-cutting measure.

Sometimes you can talk to the artist, sometimes you can't. I seem to remember a line of people waiting to shake his hand, get an autograph, etc. I was just glad I actually had this LP for him to sign.

Yeah, but that advice wasn't worth much ~1993. Just a "heads up" - the fact that the 1990 CD was off pitch was not well known. In fact, the Penguin Guide of the day rated "Cool Blues" as one of Jimmy's top-rated CDs at the time. It turns out that this pitch problem was why that CD was deleted in the first place.

I got Billy to sign my copy. I'll have to check to see what label variant I have.

Ford's "Songs For My Mother" has some great playing on it, including another live version of "Pie Crust". It is intense, particularly the title track:

This was recorded in 1999, only a few years after Ford's mother died in the TWA Flight 800 plane crash that also claimed Wayne Shorter's wife, Jon Lucien's daughter and 227 others. She was flying to Paris to visit him. His playing may unintentionally reflect this.

That jives with what I thought. The person who had this Blakey date, played it for me well before he had all of these other unissued Blue Note tapes and that Blakey cassette tape looked very old. It was probably a year later that he called me and told me he finally got a source for the unissued Wayne Shorter date, so it makes sense that he got the Blakey tape from a different source than Belden. I often suspected the he somehow copied the Blakey session himself. BTW - I never did hear the unissued Shorter date, nor the Tyrone Washington "trainwreck" and I really don't need to. Yeah, me too. It'll be nice to hear this material in an official release. Oh hey, I just remembered... It's funny that they chose "Just Coolin'" for the LP title because Cuscuna's discography had that track erroneously listed as "Just Foolin'".

I was lucky to see this band live several times. I probably should pick this up.

By the username of the person who posted those master tape recordings on YouTube a few years ago (now all gone??), I am almost positive it's the person who I got my copies from. He moved away years ago and I lost contact with him so I wouldn't be able to contact him today. I just found that all of those YouTube videos from the Blue Note vaults have all been pulled and the poster's account has been closed due to copyright violation: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJcWXaSyAKQKT5k9IoB_nhQ/search?query=grant+green

That's a seriously weird LP title and cover. It amazes me that someone went through so much trouble to draw that.

Bob Belden was not the source for the Ike Quebec date. I don't want to get anyone in trouble as I know the person who got that cassette copy of the best takes from that date, but it definitely was not Bob. The guy I got the copies of the "Gooden's Corner" & "Matador" session reels from did not imply a connection to Belden on those. He did mention Belden for the Tyrone Washington "trainwreck" (which I never got) as well as the unissued Wayne Shorter date. Belden was definitely his source for nearly all of his Miles session tape copies. He had session tapes for several of Miles' Columbia recording sessions. BTW - I no longer even have those Grant Green session tapes. I found them incredibly boring. I guess if I were a musician, particularly a guitarist, like the guy I got these tapes from, I would have appreciated them more. But hearing 6 or 8 takes of "My Favorite Things" really doesn't interest me.