Kevin Bresnahan

Jim, if my memory serves me still, you are a bit more forgiving than I when it comes down to the sound quality on some dates, so this might not matter much... I bought this Mosaic box even though I had most (all?) of the LPs because I wasn't that happy with the sound on these LPs. I think Malcolm Addey did a great job with the master tapes here. Mosaic even mentioned his work on their sales pages: _____________________________________________________ SOUND QUALITY For this project, we flew to Chicago to uncover all of the original analog tapes for these albums as well as session reels that yielded a number of alternate takes of interest. The tapes were shipped back to Malcom Addey’s studio in New York where he transferred them at 24 bit into the digital domain. Addey’s mastering seamlessly wove Bee Hive’s 16 albums, recorded in various studios in New York and Chicago over eight years, into a coherent audio tapestry. ______________________________________________________ As an added bonus, I now can play this music anywhere I have a disc player, which is important since my turntables are still packed up from my move - last November! On top of that, I finally have "Starfingers" without a huge pop in the first track.

Louis Hayes comes back to Boston after a long absence Friday night at Sculler's. I hope he's bringing the band that recorded his recent Horace Silver tribute CD for Blue Note, "Serenade For Horace", as it's a fine CD. In particular, I hope he's able to bring Abraham Burton, who I haven't seen in a while. Burton was on the bandstand for one of my more memorable shows - Arthur Taylor's Wailers at the Regattabar. Of course, the band playing with Hayes isn't listed. I don't understand why most Jazz clubs do this. They should know that there are certain players that will draw their fans. I hate when I find out after a show that a certain player was in the band that night - a player I would have made sure to see. It's not like us Jazz fans don't care who's playing. We just want to know who's going to be doing the majority of the soloing that night.

Like Dan, I've cut up my calendar and had several of the pictures framed. I was lucky enough to get a few signed. I was able to get Stanley Turrentine, Bobby Hutcherson, Curtis Fuller, Elvin Jones & Horace Silver to sign them. I meant to get Joe Henderson's picture signed when he played in a trio at the Regattabar but I forgot it that night. I still regret that. For some reason, I don't recall Tony Williams being in this calendar.

BTW, in my line of work, we often use outside services for our test equipment. The cost of the service contract hinged on how long we would allow that company to fix the test equipment. 24 hour turn time was one price. 48 hour turn time was less. 72 hour turn time was a lot less. Something like this might be at work here.

Many of us here will give Mosaic way more leeway with regards to some of the stuff that has some people so upset. That's human nature. Most of us have had many excellent exchanges with them so we are willing to give them some slack. That should be easy to understand. I love their products and I have had many great buying experiences with them. I'm not going to bail on them because of a few shipping snafus. I do agree that their business decision to outsource their shipping service to an outside company has had a negative impact on their service but I am willing to accept that... let me re-state that - I have to accept that. I am not going to stop doing business with them and that's the only other option. I also agree that it appears it could turn off some of their customers and hasten their demise. That sucks. But here's the thing. We don't know why they outsourced shipping. We don't know who they outsourced their shipping to. We don't know if they have a contract with that shipping company. We don't know if that shipping company gave them a discount if they were able to take their time fulfilling orders. We don't know anything other than the fact that orders are taking longer to ship and they seem to screw up a lot more. Here's the thing that we really don't know: Is Mosaic trying to do something about this? We don't know! Can they do anything about this is even another matter. What if they signed a 5 year contract? One shouldn't jump to conclusions without the facts. So I am going to keep giving them my business, crappy shipping service and all. My money, my decision. Your money, your decision. I just hope I have the ability to use my money at this company in the future.

I just got a shipping notice on my Clifford Jordan set!

It's too bad that the reissue wasn't able to add the extra tracks that were mentioned above. I wonder who has the master tapes now that he's passed?

If you feel up to showing him your appreciation personally, John Abercrombie is currently in the hospital. He could use a few "Get Well" cards to lift his spirits. The mailing address is: John Abercrombie Room PCU 2027 Intensive Care Unit C/O Hudson Valley Hospital 1980 Crompound Road Cortland, New York 10567 From http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/announcements-suggestions-forum-help/60775-john-abercrombie-hospitalized-sick-please-send-healing-thoughts-hopes.html

Wait until they get a record with an old label embedded in the vinyl and the store refuses to accept any vinyl returns because the labels won't give the store credit for open LPs. Ahhh... those were the days. I wonder if any of these new LPs listeners ever had to tape a quarter or two to the top of their stylus to get certain records to play without skipping? Ha ha ha.

I was somewhat surprised at how much better the audio is on Kelly's 1967 Left Bank 2 CD set than it is on the 1968 2 CD set. The '67 material with Mobley sounds like a professional recording... at least it would if Hank would've stayed on mic. The '68 recording with Coleman sounds like a bootleg.

E-mail Michael Cuscuna at Mosaic Records. He'll likely help you get in touch with the right people at Blue Note.

With the addition of, "Please allow them their privacy at this sensitive time", I was thinking the same thing as you. I hope we're wrong with our interpretations and she pulls through. I've seen Geri more times than I can remember and she was always wonderful at the keys. She is scheduled to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival August 5th in a trio with Terri Lynne Carrington & Esperanza Spalding.

Drummer Ralph Peterson just posted on Facebook that pianist Geri Allen is "gravely ill". For those of you with Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ralph.j.peterson?pnref=story For those of you without Facebook this is Ralph's post: Our thoughts hearts and prayers go out to my friend and Master pianist/composer/educator Geri Allen.....?????? Dear Friends, We are very sad to announce that one of our most beloved and respected artists, Geri Allen, is gravely ill. Her family and her long-time manager Ora Harris have asked us to post this message and request that you please hold all communications with Ora and the family members until further notice. Please allow them their privacy at this sensitive time. Our thoughts and prayers are with Geri and her family at this difficult time. Motema Music Edit: Sadly, Geri has died from cancer.

They are selling out of almost every set and don't seem to be re-stocking too many others. If they don't announce any new sets soon, this sounds a lot like a "Going out of business" sale.

I remember this topic came up when Blue Note decided to release a bunch of unissued sessions in the Connoisseur Series in the late 90's. I asked Michael Cuscuna and Tom Evered how they were able to release these unissued sessions but couldn't release others, like Horace Silver's "Live at Pep's" or Wayne Shorter's 1970 session. The explanation I got was that they could if they really wanted to, but in these cases, the artists asked them not to. In fact, Michael told me that he gave the master tapes for the "Live at Pep's" sessions to Horace so that he could destroy them himself, which seemed very weird to me at the time. Afterward, I figured that Michael wanted to prevent someone in the future from issuing a session that the artist himself clearly did not want issued because as they said, the label could issue it if they wanted to. I wonder if he did the same with Wayne's 1970 session tape?

I understand the "get paid" part, but is permission really required or is it just a matter of courtesy? I've had many conversations with insiders at Blue Note and the impression I got was that they could legally release pretty much anything in their vault but they always get permission if the artist is still alive. Does the union contract specify that the label needs to get permission first?

We have some music insiders here like Chuck so maybe they can clarify how it works with unissued material. I was under the impression from several conversations I've had over the years regarding the Blue Note vaults that since they paid for the music in their tape vault, they can issue it if they want to. I've often wondered if this is true.

Time is just flying by these days... another birthday gone. I don't feel 55 but the calendar doesn't lie. Wow.

So you're still working too? Man, I hope I don't find myself having to punch a clock at 76. I would like to be able to retire and do what I want, not get up at the crack of dawn, jump in a car and head off to the plant for another day of meetings, spreadsheets and lab excursions. I sometimes wonder if I'll even be alive at 76. My dad died at 70 and I've already inherited one of his health problems.

Even if Roscoe's 401K got wiped out in '08, he's still 76 and eligible for his full Social Security benefits, right? He should be able to retire if he wants to. These days, it seems like so many people get stuck working until the day they die. It doesn't seem right.

I got my copy in from an English Amazon seller named OxfordshireEngland for about $16 delivered. It arrived in about a week.

I still have 2 old Plextor (the real Plextor) external drive cases.

One of my weirdest interactions with an artist at a gig was when I saw Harold Mabern and he had his latest Venus CD, "Don't Know Why" for sale. I wanted him to sign it and I kinda looked at him and my face clearly said, "Do you really want to sign this?" We both laughed. I asked him what the hell was up with the cover and he said something like, "Not my choice, man, that's the way the label does it". But I do now have Harold's signature scrawled across a boudoir photo. BTW, it's a very good CD and I'm glad I bought it regardless of the weird cover. I still haven't ever asked Eric Alexander to sign any of his "Gentle Ballads" CDs.

How do you get "young" from that photo of her bare behind? I guess I'm no expert on guessing age from shots of bare buttocks. And for what it's worth, Jan Saudek has some pretty disturbing and yes, pornographic photos among his "artwork", including some of very young nudes, that I would not like to have grace a new Venus CD cover. Quite honestly, I think that they'd get Venus in a bit of trouble if they tried using one of them, no matter how "artsy" it might be. The McPherson photo is by another art photographer, Irina Ionesco, who is even more controversial than Saudek because she used her young daughter for many of her nude shots, though the shot on the cover of the McPherson disc is not one of them. Weird cover for sure but I don't get creepy from it. Now, if she doing something other than playing that saxophone... Please don't get me wrong... I think these covers are very odd and don't belong on a music CD, but I also see why Tetsuo Hara is doing them this way. As I said, many of these photos hang on the walls of art galleries all over the world. Whether or not we see the "art" in them doesn't matter, the rest of the world seems to. He sees his covers as some sort of work of art when he puts these images on them. I'd prefer Monets myself.

It may not be art to you or me, but the cover art for David Hazeltine's "Cleopatra's Dream" and "Alice In Wonderland" are photographs by Jan Saudek. His works hang in many art galleries around the world.