Kevin Bresnahan

The Joe Farrell date, "Skate Board Park" is a good one that could use another CD release - I was never able to pick it up on any medium other than a beat up LP. All Xanadu LPs seem to play like they were beat up, even if they show up sealed. The two Billy Mitchell dates, "The Colossus Of Detroit" and "De Lawd's Blues" are well worth hearing as well, with only "De Lawd's Blues" ever making it to CD (that I know of) and that was only via an expensive limited edition from Japan.

Yeah, instead of that they could possibly issue the complete catalogs of Hancock, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Bobby Hutcherson, Jimmy Smith, Hank, on a disc or 2....... It would expose new fans to a lot of great music and the classic BN catalog, with just a bit more with the standard catalog. How about reissuing the Washington, sure, or some of the gems from the 80's and 90's catalog too. Don Was did say the entire catalog will be available in some form. Why waste space on physical product for most of the UA era stuff, downloads would be ok, so that people who love that period (my friend LOVES that period b/c he loves disco and jazz funk) can get it. Is that really true? I was under the impression that BluRay audio was a high resolution format that required rather large files. It's not like mp3 files. Does anyone know how large the files are on one of these BluRay Audio discs?

If anyone on Facebook is friends with Tom Evered (tomatbluenote on the old Blue Note bulletin board), he has been posting some funny reminisces about Bruce called Tale Of Topsy. They paint the picture of a man who loved life and made it better for those around him. I wish I had known him.

I checked the Tizo Acryl website and they now carry an acrylic platter for the Debut. They have a clear one and a black one. I much prefer the look of the black one. The price is 91.50 Euros, but you have to subtract the 19% VAT to get the price for a US customer. At the current exchange rate, that makes it ~$75. Back in 2011, shipping was 28 Euros ($30.84 today). BTW, I just compared the specs and it appears that the Tizo Acryl platter is actually lighter than the Pro-Ject Acryl-It. Tizo's platter is 1070 grams and the Pro-Ject platter is 1300 grams. So the Tizo platter will not be a problem for the Debut's motor.

Many years ago, Bob & I had an E-mail conversation about the direction of music distribution. He sent me a link to some cool things he was working on. He said that he always had 3 or 4 things going on at once. He was getting into surround sound and was looking at different ways to use the web to get it out there. A few of the things he sent are at his youtube page, but I don't think they are in surround. His surround mix on the "Black Dahlia" SACD is incredible and shows what can be done with 5.1 and music. Such a nice guy. I'm now wondering why I didn't keep the conversations going. I would've loved to hear his stories from his recent trip to Iran. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/world/rebirth-of-the-cool-american-music-makes-a-return-to-iran.html. Loved this: “Next stop: North Vietnam,” Mr. Belden joked. No wonder I liked the guy.

Several close friends of Bob are posting on Facebook that he has died. RIP to a masterful arranger and overall nice guy.

Thanks for the insight and the update Aaron. This might turn out to be one of my favorite Mosaic boxes. Some great stuff in there.

Michael Cuscuna actually said, "I don't believe he did" (use the Aphex Aural Exciter), which is far from clinching it. We can agree to disagree that every RVG CD is somehow messed up. I like some and dislike others. Back to SHM-CD discussion...

Tom Evered is reporting on Facebook that Bruce Lundvall passed away at 3:00 PM today. He was a great friend to the Jazz community and will be missed. A sad day for Jazz. His Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lundvall

I brought a bunch of CDs into work to rip them for my daughter. I find myself playing the music quite often. The artist? Katy Perry. Sorry to those who hate the stuff but I like it. It might help that she's a hottie...

This is horrible news! Bob is such a great guy. I've had several long E-mail communications with him and he shared some of his space project surround music pieces with me. 58 is way too young. Bruce has been having trouble for quite a while and I was expecting news like this some day. But Bob... just wow.

I picked up the SHM CD and compared it to my RVG. The RVG CD was squashed like a pancake from compression and the stereo image is narrowed and quickly generates listener fatigue. Additionally, Aphex Aural Exciter artifacts suggest that Rudy used the device to manipulate and goose up the sonics and results in an artificial splashing of the cymbal across the stereo image in a bizarre phasing effect. The RVG of Morgan's The Gigolo is truly one of Rudy's most awful remasters. In contrast, the SHM CD has a wider sound stage, greater dynamic freedom and more natural cymbal presentation. It would be interesting to know if RVG did use the Aphex Aural Exciter on these CDs as it might explain some of the squirrely phasing on some of them. Michael Cuscuna doesn't believe that RVG used it on the Blue Note reissues though. Michael says that RVG typically uses it for recordings that "need more pop".

Has there been any more on these box sets? I am looking forward to them.

When Blue Note announced that "Sweet Honey Bee" was coming out in the RVG series, I called him to tell him that people were saying that the Japanese TOCJ CD issue of this title sounded like it was not taken from a needle drop like the US CD. Cuscuna said that he directed Rudy to pull the Japanese master tape for his master, which he did. Michael said it is just a cleaned up dub of the master tape in the US vault. As for the "dub of a dub of a dub of a vinyl record" comment, I think you have one extra dub in there. Michael said that he had Rudy use the Japanese tape for his master.

again, so bad need upgrade. i mean they can redo all the 50s stuff but the audiophile reissues of 60s bns is definetly lacking by comparison, a lot of my favorite bns of the 60s have never been redone After hearing the CD release of this date, I have a feeling that the best audiophile LP pressing ever wouldn't improve the audio. It's probably just a bad recording.

Roy Eldridge - Richie Kamuca Quintet - Comin' Home Baby (Pumpkin Productions) - Recorded live at the Half Note August 22, 1965 & March 25, 1966 but remained unissued until 1978. Eldridge - trumpet Kamuca - tenor Dick Katz - piano Tommy Potter - bass* Eddie Locke - drums * Potter replaced by Don Moore on the 2 tracks recorded on March 25, 1966. This is an interesting date that I bought much more Kamuca's presence than Eldridge. It almost seems like they alternate songs for who's featured. The pianist-turned-producer plays a decent piano, if a little out of tune in places. The earlier stuff is in better sound. I wonder if there is more somewhere? I'd really like to hear it. What I have here is very good. BTW, I've been looking for this for some time....

Cuscuna has verified that the Japanese master tape of "Sweet Honey Bee" is a dub of the US master tape, which is a needle drop. He even went so far as to get a copy of their tape for RVG to use on his US RVG CD. After extensive searching a couple of times in the past decades, it doesn't appear that there is a copy of this master tape that is not from the needle-dropped master. According to Cuscuna, the Japanese remove all evidence of the needle drop during the mastering, hence the assumption that it must be from a different master tape. It's not.

The only Record Store Day release I bought was Curtis Fuller's "Bluesette". I haven't spun it yet.

I'm with you on this. Like you, I buy upgraded cables and speaker wires. I am sure a lot of us here on organissimo do. However, for these cables and wires, I lean very heavily on the "reliable" aspect of this purchase. I want a well-made cable/wire that will do what I need it to do without fail for a long time. That's my only real qualification for wires. If they look good while doing it... bonus! BTW, I am not a big advocate of "Home Depot lamp cord" speaker wire because I've done that and found green wires 10 years later. To me, that's not doing what I want it to do for a long time. FWIW, I also have a very old pair of Monster Cable speaker wires that have a greenish tint to them, so it's not all about money either.

I'm sure he did. Hate to break the news to everyone, but "hospital grade" power outlets won't change the sound or performance of your system one iota. Hospital grade outlets are simply designed to be more durable and create a tighter and more secure connection so that a potentially life saving device doesn't come unplugged due to a loose connection. It's a building code spec. It does not change the power supply at all. It does not improve the power at all. Nor does it have any bearing on the performance of anything plugged into it. So, unless you have old or cracked outlets, or loose connections where your device plug either arcs, or falls out of the socket by itself, you are spending $20+ on outlets that are going to do nothing more for you than $2 outlets from your local hardware will. I'm going to surprise you, Scott. This is the one bit of snake oil that I buy into. A $20 Hubbell sounds a LOT better than a $2 hardware outlet. I've heard the difference in my own home. The reason may simply be better parts construction -- the Hubbell is heavier than the construction grade outlet, and has the same screw connections for the wires to ensure tightness. The Hubbell apparently is used by other companies who cryo treat it and sell it for $60 - $100+. The difference is a stronger soundstage -- not wider. That's it. I'm going to look into the Tripp Lite Isobar, and see how their warranty works. I have a Tripp Lite Isobar that I'm not using. Maybe I can give you a good deal on it?

My audio memory is short - maybe 30 seconds or so. According to many studies, everyone else's audio memory is just as short. What these studies show is that not many people can differentiate slight changes in audio if it takes longer than 30 seconds to compare the two. My audio memory is great for swapping CDs and comparing. It's not great for swapping power cords or speaker wires or interconnects or AC outlets and comparing sounds heard minutes or hours apart unless those differences are huge. Now, I'll grant that some people's audio memory may be exceptional. But for the audio experiment ware are talking about here (swapping your electrical outlet), I would think that the differences in audio would be very slight and I have a lot of trouble believing that anyone can hear such minute differences in the time it takes to make the swap.

In DVD/HDTV, the word you're looking for is upscaling, not upsampling. A good explanation of this can be found here: http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheatervideobasics/qt/dvdvidupscale.htm

Ted Brown - In Good Company (Criss Cross)

Played last night but couldn't post: Junior Cook - Somethin's Cookin' (Muse). What a nice date. I really like this one for some reason. I have had it on CD for many years and it doesn't get in the player often enough, especially since I started spinning vinyl again, so it's good to have this on record and get back to enjoying it.

I just played this same record yesterday! Now playing: Bunky Green - The Places We've Never Been (Vanguard). Apparently, this was issued on CD but I've never seen it on a shelf, new or used. It's one drawback is the twangy bass sound of the late 70s/early 80s that just drives me nuts. Twang, twung, twang, twung... ugh.