Kevin Bresnahan

I do like this date. Always have.

#1 - I think that's Brignola, and #2 - this hangup on "prime time" and "schooling" seems to me to be (unintentionally?) saying more about where Iverson's head is at about himself than it does anything actually happening on the records. Yeah, Holland does seem to trip over a string or two and is behind the beat for a most of the intro, but it's not as obvious as Smith turning the beat over a couple of times during his solo. Who knows, maybe it was intentional? Interesting to think that the second bari solo is Nick. I can hear it I suppose. I'm at work, do the liner notes mention the solo order for this song? Edit: The LP liner notes are shown on line and it does appear that the second soloist is in fact Brignola. Jim gets a gold star! Any way I look at it, they took this song at an insane tempo and it amazes me that they were able to pull it off at all. The first time I heard it, I laughed. It's comically fast. That poor drummer... He must've taken 5 after that take. I can't begin to imagine seeing a band try to do this live on a stage. Maybe James Carter would try it? He's a bit of showman at times.

I am actually thinking about another vinyl purge. Not as large as the one I executed in the late 80's, when I gave away my entire collection except for about 10 records, but maybe one where I cut back to a small number of titles that I play often. Vinyl is a pain in the ass. It takes up tons of space (too much for me) and you never know when that next "mint" record will start popping away in the middle of a perfect area of the record.

"It’s not fair to the box to open this review with the Salvador records, really, except that what the box does open with is even worse, a two-bari date featuring Nick Brignola and Pepper Adams. Derek Smith, Dave Holland, and Roy Haynes are the rhythm section. Jesus Christ, do they all go down with the ship on track one, “Donna Lee.” The tempo is very fast, and while Brignola at least keeps the form, Smith loses his place at least twice. Admittedly, Dave Holland and Roy Haynes are pretty ragged as well. Holland got better at this style, but in 1977 I don’t think he’d played with many musicians as authentically bebop as Roy Haynes. So it is up to Pepper Adams, who rescues us from total chaos thanks to his impeccable authority. Pepper plays a long time, perfect, almost like Coltrane or Rollins, clearly trying to teach everyone else what uptempo jazz is supposed to be. I always enjoy Adams, but his mastery is revealed as truly Olympian in this context." C'mon, Iverson - you boil down several Brignola dates to the one track where pianist Derek Smith clearly loses his shit a few times? Did he even listen to the rest of the stuff? How about Brignola's other bari date, "Burn Brigade", with Brignola, Cuber and Payne? Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water. You know, I've given burns of Brignola's "Baritone Madness" to several people over the years and told them to listen to the first track and hear these guys trying to play "Donna Lee" at the most insane tempo ever with the caveat that the pianist *fails* to do it. It's a "wart", but a wart on the most beautiful face. Why does every track have to be perfect to be enjoyed? It is times like this that I am glad that I am a listener and not a player. I am glad that I am not listening for every "mistake" on every track and giving grades for each solo. I am extremely glad that I can find incredible enjoyment where players like Iverson find disappointment.

Pepper Adams & Barry Altschul - Be-Bop? (Musica Records - France). Adams, baritone sax; Jean-Pierre Debarbat, flute, soprano,alto,tenor,baritone sax; Siegfried Kessler, piano; Jacques Vidal, bass; Altschul, drums. Danny D'Imperio asked me about this date many years ago and it intrigued me so I picked up a copy from France a few years ago. Nothing earth-shattering here but it is an exciting date. Rinky-dink piano sound though that doesn't do it any favors. The other horn player doesn't do much for me. Good but not worth the ~$35 I paid but I'm a sucker for anything with Pepper on it.

More Elusive Disc "blow out" specials... Makoto Terashita Trio - Ihatov (Tokyo Sound City Planning Company). Makoto Terashita, piano; Koji Yamashita, bass; Masahiro Tajika, drums. Normally $30, on sale for $10. Pianist & leader Terashita was a student of Barry Harris (it shows) and played in Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine in the 80s. Nice relaxed piano trio playing some straight ahead Jazz. I like their version of Monk's "Trinkle Tinkle".

Manabu Ohishi - Nebula (East Works Entertainment). Manabu Ohishi, piano; Yasushi Yoneki, bass; Dairiki Hara, drums. Elusive Disc put this audiophile LP on sale for $4.99 (regular $29.99) so I figured I'd give it a try. Nice stuff. Typical of a Japanese piano trio.

The Bobby Jaspar Quartet - At Ronnie Scotts - 1962 (Mole Jazz). Jaspar, tenor sax & flute; Rene Thomas, guitar; Benoit Quersin, bass; Daniel Humair, drums. Recorded in 1962 but not released until 1986. Dusty live sound but acceptable... better than many bootlegs. I bought this even though I'm not usually a fan of dusty-sounding live dates but I just like Jaspar's sound. He does not disappoint. Can someone tell me why this CD version adds 3 tracks from the session but drops the LP track "It Could Happen To You"? Love this one too. It gets played often.

Don Patterson - Mellow Soul (Prestige). Green label Van Gelder pressing. Patterson, organ; David 'Fathead' Newman, tenor sax & flute; Billy James, drums. Not the best sounding RVG recording I've heard. For some reason, the reverb is off the charts, making the band sound like they're playing in a airplane hanger. It's worse on side 1. I do like Newman's "Head". Overall, this one won't get on the turntable too often.

Nice one. I was there, my first jazz concert. The Couriers were supporting Dave Brubeck. damn - that's pretty incredible. A great concert and sure a wonderful way to familiarise yourself with jazz! I gave it another spin tonight, my 50+ years old copy has a beautiful sound! A new audiophile pressing is currently being cleared out at Elusive Disc for $10.00.

The fact that they have decided to blackball Jethro Tull, one of rock's classic bands, just makes them look like idiots. I guess they just don't like flute.

Yeah, you're right. But I do remember seeing him back before he was on oxygen and he was definitely a heavy smoker. Anyway, enough about that... Thank you Phil, for the great shows you put on for me and for the awesome music you left behind.

I see that cover photo of "Greek Cooking" with Phil smoking a cigarette and think about the Emphysema it likely caused and I'm glad that cigarette smoking is no longer a "requirement" to be an adult like it was 50 or 60 years ago.

Great news! I looked around and couldn't find any listings for upcoming shows so I was wondering if he was retired.

I have been lucky in that I have been able to catch Sonny Fortune the last few times he came through Boston. He was still at the top of his game. It's been quite a while since I've seen his name listed anywhere and his booking agency doesn't have any dates listed for him since Nov. 2014. Has Sonny retired or have I just been looking for him in the wrong places?

I believe that they are implying that Junior may be able to do another live recording but he will not be going into the studio again. Given that the last update from Gloria is a picture of her with Junior in what looks like a hospital room or a room in a nursing home, it would seem that he isn't going to be making too many more recordings of any kind. He is going to be 87 in two weeks.

How the hell can something written in 1893 be under copyright anyway? 122 years? Really?

They are still almost $2,000 short of their goal and there's only 6 days left so if you want to help get this project off the ground, you need to act soon.

For starters, there's the forthcoming live album recorded with Greg Abate at Woonsocket, RI. The announcement of its launch on October 3rd on Greg Abate's website hasn't yet been amended: http://www.gregabate.com/tour-dates/ ... and it's still there on Phil's website: http://www.philwoods.com/component/option,com_gigcal/Itemid,126/ Greg says that Phil has backed out from performing at that October 3rd date.

Junior's Kickstarter is not doing too well. It only has a few more weeks and he's only raised $2,735, less than half of the needed $6,000. If anyone is thinking about joining this project, go check it out and get on board.

I've been spinning this and I have to say, Addey did a fantastic job with the "bumblebee bass" on the stuff I've played so far. This is a phenomenal set. I can't wait to spin the rest of it. My only complaint so far, and it's minor, is that the discs seem thinner than normal and that this is troublesome when trying to pry the second disc out of the 3 disc case. The hub for disc 2 really, and I mean REALLY grabs the CD. I watched in horror as this thin disc flexed like an LP record before the hub finally let go. Scary. I am going to swap all of the 3 disc cases for ones I have laying around that have normal hub for disc 2.

I assume your playback is from the 24/88 or 24/96 source. If you dither and play these same files back at 16/44.1, do you still hear a significant difference?

I had a 6 eye mono & a 6 eye stereo. I preferred the stereo by a lot. Then I picked up the Legacy 50th Anniversary Edition and I liked that even more. Lastly, I picked up the Newbury Comics limited edition blue pressing and that one has become my "go to" pressing. The funny thing is, the mono that is getting the big bucks these days is by far the worst-sounding LP version of this that I heard.

I was wondering the same thing. I've seen Abate and Phil several times in the past few years and i was thinking about making the trek down to Woonsocket just because I was figuring Phil wasn't going to be doing this much longer.

I got my shipping notice too. I was figuring this must be shipping soon since I saw so many Bee Hive LPs in Stereo Jack's bins yesterday.