Kevin Bresnahan

To my ears, the Tone Poet of "Mr. Shing A Ling" is surprisingly good. I could feel the bass on this LP. It's a really nice cut. I don't have the Liberty to compare but I can't imagine this could be beat. Not so sure I would go for "Black Fire" though, as the piano warble is much more noticeable on the Tone Poet cut than on my old Liberty Van Gelder pressing.

People seem to be missing how much of a pain in the ass it is to pack up and ship 100's of CDs. Gotta have all those shipping envelopes/mailers - they ain't free. Getting them all addressed - I've accidentally shipped people the wrong CD (more than once). Fight with the PO/UPS when a package fails to arrive. Crazy long shipping times. People that insist on First Class when only paying for Media Mail. Then there's grading... I grade visually. I have had a few people find faint scratches that I missed. I've actually had to refund a few people for this. Honestly, shipping large quantities of CDs is really a pain in the ass and is one of the main reasons I'm hesitant to do this.

BTW - I think what has finally pushed over the line is that when I got in a bunch of Black Saint/Soul Note boxes and I added them to the "to listen to pile", I realized that I not only had well over a hundred CDs in it, I had been building that pile for almost 3 years. Nothing has come off that pile in 3 years!

I've felt that my hearing was going for some time now. I'm certainly not going deaf but I am having a lot more trouble hearing the nuances I used to hear when comparing audio. I have had tinnitus for years and that doesn't help. I am at the point now where I don't like to engage in the many listening tests that happen here and (more often) over at the Hoffman forums. I'm just not confident that I can hear what others are hearing. Glaring differences - I can hear those fine. But subtle changes are beyond my ability these days. I hear you on that! My wife won't even let me set up a turntable in our new living room. I even looked into one of those Pro-Ject wall mounted ones. Nope.

I don't think I'll regret it since there's nothing to regret - I just don't listen to them. I seem to only spin LPs at home these days and even that's becoming more & more of a rarity. I find that I have a lot more to do than listening to music - gasp! Also, a lot of my listening is done on my back porch in the summer and that's almost exclusively XM radio or mp3s via BluTooth. Even worse is that I'm convinced that my hearing is failing and that my days as an audiophile are behind me. Weird time for sure. Oh, and what are you still doing here? Get off my lawn.

I am considering a rather large purge of my CD collection as I just don't have the room in my small house, I mainly listen to LPs at home and since my two cars don't have CD players, I rarely find time to listen to them much these days. I'm looking at all of them, thousands really, and the sales process for such a large number of discs is daunting. Typing up all the info. Grading them. Deciding on prices. Listing them. Updating the list. Packing them up. Trips to the PO. Shipping snafus. Dealing with PayPal. On & on. All for a couple of bucks per disc. Maybe I should just pack them up and bring them to Stereo Jack's and take the hit? Or just suck it up and keep them? Just venting really. Oh yeah, and get off my lawn.

I have these SACDs and I think they sound great. I have no need to re-buy this material for some alternates.

Billy West does an incredible Larry Fine. He also did several voices on Futurama and several of the voices for the Ren & Stimpy cartoons.

Don't eat the brown acid!!

I still haven't bought the deluxe White Album, even though I am a fan. I got a bit burned by the deluxe John Lennon "Imagine" box set, which wasn't as good as I expected. I was also a little miffed at the exorbitant price of that White Album box. I hope that this Abbey Road box isn't up that high.

He was only pretty good on that Nick Brignola date. He's pretty awesome most other times.

I'm going to have to get the Super Deluxe box. This is one of my favorite records and I will want to hear it all.

My friend Bob put up a few photos from this years festival on his website: https://bobfesta.com/copy-of-newport-jazz-festival-2017 (yes, he has a typo on the date). Some nice ones. Candace Springs: Christian McBride: Herbie:

Aren't those Trip LPs just needle drops? That's about what they sounded like to me. Needle drops can sound OK, but not if they're poorly done.

I've never had any luck buying Trip records. They have almost all sounded terrible to the point where I stopped buying them.

If this limited edition goes off like the Rendell-Carr vinyl box, get your order in early as it will likely sell out quickly - unless they learned from that Rendell-Carr box.

My favorite big Zin these days is the last "real" Seghesio, San Lorenzo. It's the only estate that's still owned & run by a Seghesio (Peter). The family sold the label back 2011 but Peter kept the family's original site. The 2014 was phenomenal. The 2015 was a step down but still good. My favorite wine store is telling me that he may be able to get some of Carlisle's Zins. I have been wanting to try their wines for years, as they always seem to garner high scores. My only concern now is that high-scoring Zins have lately been on the drier & lighter side. The days of a 95 point jammy fruit bomb seem to have retired with Robert Parker. I love Zins that are jammy fruit bombs. Ridge used to fit the bill but since Paul Draper retired, their wines have been dried out and I won't buy them any more.

What is it going for these days? I used to get this from the winery for $30/bottle but the shipping got up to almost $9/bottle, so I dropped off their list years ago. In recent years, I've been able to get it for $39/bottle and I've grabbed several but... I just don't think it's worth it. There are great Zins out there for a lot less money and great high-end Zins for not much more. I still prefer the Juvenile to their other "cheaper Zin", the Old Vine Zin, but again, with what I paid, I expected more. BTW - this wine is the only wine that gives my wife a red face. Weirdest thing. We drink plenty of reds, including many Zins, and this one wine gives her hot flashes and a red face. She won't drink it any more. How was this? I've found these Selects to be good "bang for the buck" wines.

There are quite a few posters over on the Hoffman forums all atwitter about Side 2 of Andrew Hill's "Black Fire", which many are claiming has wow and flutter audible in Hill's piano. The reissue producer, Joe Harley, has already stated that Hill's piano was a bit out of tune and that he plays some rather dissonant chords that may sound like warble, but many of them aren't listening to him. I have this LP but I haven't gotten a chance to spin it. I got one dud pressing so far. Lee Morgan's "Cornbread arrived with a wavy Side 2 label (another label underneath is probably the problem) and it's oversized so I can't put it into an MFSL sleeve. Luckily, it's flat and centered.

I can't believe how cheap that Columbia CD is going for on discogs: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/1505081?ev=rb That disc used to sell for well over $50 for years. It is somewhat rare. I have been told that it was actually recalled because someone found that Columbia's contract was invalid. It was only put out because Mike Berniker was running the Legacy reissue program at the time and he was session's original producer. He felt the need to get this material out there. I'm glad he did.

My buddy Bob will be there as usual. He has quite the camera and takes some incredible pictures. He has a few on his website: www.bobfesta.com Although I'm not a huge Jamie Cullum fan, I think this is one of his best from Newport (2016):

I wonder if they'll also find all of his interview tapes? He always said that he had boxes of them. He talked about writing them all up and publishing them but he only as far as posting a few of them on his website for streaming.

Horace played tenor throughout high school. Didn't he play it on his first professional gig? I seem to remember that's what he said in his autobiography.

I think I have all of the ones from this set that I wanted. I have "Return Visit!" as "Tubby's Back in Town" on a gold-plated Smash CD, which appears to have gone up in value these days.

Hasn't most of this material, with the exception of "Grits, Beans & Greens", been out on Jasmine CDs in the past? And why is the NY 1961 session in mono when the session was recorded in stereo? Also, which version of "Tubbs In N.Y." will they release - the original 6 track or the later 8 track version? Plus, the Columbia CD has all 4 unissued tracks from this session. Will all 4 of those tracks be on the CD version but not the LP version?