Kevin Bresnahan

I have a large Can-Am unit and I love it. I used to have a very nice wall unit and while it made it easier to read the titles and pick out stuff to spin, there was some fading on the spines. A lot of my CBS/Columbia CDs with red print faded pretty bad. I also had a lot of dust along the top. Well, there was also no way to store my odd-shaped sets... hmm, more drawbacks than I remember. Needless to say, the Can-Ams have been a help. My wife still hates them though. Later, Kevin

I have had great luck going with recommendations from Jim Sangrey. That Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis set on Jasmine that he recommended was absolutely wild. Based on what I'm reading here, I've got to get myself a copy of this CD. Allen, I sent an E-mail. Let me know how you want the money. Later, Kevin

Michael told me that this new label that may start up is a good place for these PJ titles. I imagine that many of them aren't big sellers. You know how EMI is about those titles... sucky policy but hey, I'm not "in the business". Myself, I want Pepper Adams' "Critics Choice". Later, Kevin

I haven't found any reason to replace any of my early-90's TOCJ CDs with domestic reissues unless there were extras or unless someone said the domestic was much better. I think there were only a couple... Freddie Redd's "Shades of Redd" and Tina Brooks' "Minor Move" maybe? BTW, I have the JRVG of "Along Came John". It sounds like I should try to find a domestic copy. Later, Kevin

Damn, I voted 11-24 and I just re-counted and got 26! I guess I got more Jimmy than I thought. I can't get enough of "Cool Blues". Jimmy Smith and Tina Brooks... can't get much better than that. Well, especially when you add Blakey! Later, Kevin

Yeah, but by 1967 they were in a very large minority when it came to sales. I remember finding a mono LP in a bin when I used to shop for records and passing it over because stereo was considered "better". They even used to discount the mono versions to move them out. Many stores stopped buying them. This is why companies like Blue Note "electronically re-channeled" most of their mono back catalog... just so they could put the word "stereo" on the cover. It was the only way some stores would order it and some people would buy it. Later, Kevin

Yes, at 1,500 Yen too. What a great date. Nice and mellow but still gets your foot tappin'. I picked up a recent Japanese remaster of this date and the improvement over the old Portrait/Epic CD from the early 80's was very noticeable. Later, Kevin

This is a crazy thread... I keep writing a post to respond but every time I go to hit "Add Reply", I look at it and figure, "Why bother"? There is nothing wrong with someone buying Mosaics for any reason! In my opinion, it's much better when Mosaic sells out a set than it is for them to "wait around" until every single buyer who may ever want this set orders one from them and keeps it forever. This is simple economics at work here... that and people crying over spilt milk. Later, Kevin PS. PLEASE, PLEASE go speculate on Mosaic's The Complete CBS Recordings of Eddie Condon (#152) on LP! Please! They will never sell out of that set if someone doesn't do it.

Another Francis Wolff photo of Jimmy at work... actually the cover shot from the Mosaic set.

Bye Jimmy. You created a style that's been imitated but never duplicated. Kevin

Supposedly, GoDaddy.com paid to have their commercial run twice but the NFL saw it the first time and prevented Fox from running it the second time. Here's a sport who's goal is to have huge men maim each other and they're concerned about a woman with nice cleavage and a failing spaghetti strap on her shirt... hmmm.... I've read that steroids cause erectile disfunction... that's it... the NFL is full of a bunch of guys who can't get it up for sexy commercials. Kevin

Wow, I never would have thought Ossie was that old! He was great as the chauffeur in one of my favorite movies, "Joe Versus The Volcano". RIP Ossie. Kevin

I believe Green's "Sunday Morning" has a clearly audible sound of a beer bottle being knocked over on one of the tunes. I foget which tune but it's one of the ballads. I think it was Cuscuna who told me it was a beer bottle. Of course, it could be my failing memory... but I'm positive it was a Grant Green date and almost positive it was "Sunday Morning". Later, Kevin

I wonder if the RVG will make that beer bottle falling over louder or softer on his remater of this date. Later, Kevin

You be correct. I think (hope) KB added 1 and 2 to come up with 3. Nice double. I cut & pasted those titles straight from Michael's E-mail. I thought it was weird myself but I just guessed it was some special extra from Japan. Michael did say these "were all done for Japan" so was there a Vol. 3 put out in the JRVG series? I'll try to give Michael a call tomorrow to verify. Later, Kevin

I almost hate to mention this but... he did say the Gigolo was going to be RVG'd. I sold my copy and have been getting by with a CDR ever since! Where's my GIGOLO? Oh no, I ain't taking the blame for that! It was Tom Evered at the Blue Note and believe me, I gave him a ration of shit for that statement with no follow up. Since then, I rarely, if ever talk to Tom but still, with every new list of RVGs, I ask Michael why they don't get to "The Gigolo" since Tom said it was on the list. Michael swears that Tom never mentioned it. Blame Tom. Later, Kevin

I just got off the horn with Michael Cuscuna to ask about this. These titles will all use the exact same mastering as they did for their Japanese counterpart. Michael said they've worked out the financials with Rudy to stop him from having to remaster every session twice. These should sound as good as their Japanese counterpart. IMHO, I think these will make excellent "test vehicles" for us to see if the Japanese really make their CDs better than the US plants. A/B a couple and let's see if there's a difference. Privately, I'm hoping there is. Later, Kevin

... do you mean to Water? That would be great. Thanks for being our liaison Kevin. Nope, not Water. The label is not yet official... maybe it's one of us guys? Is Chuck starting up a new label? Truth be told, I didn't recognize the name of the person who's trying to start up a label but if it happens, I'll certainly be buying some of their reissues if they can get these PJ sessions. Pepper Adams' "Critics Choice" is a good one. Later, Kevin

I was given the go-ahead to list what Blue Note is planning to release in the summer batch of RVGs. I don't see a lot "wow" titles but I can see where a lot of people looking for "Symphony For Improvisers" could be very happy. The list: 07243 563802 2 6 Donald Byrd – Fuego 07243 563823 2 9 Don Cherry – Symphony For Improvisers 07243 563833 2 6 Bobby Hutcherson – Oblique 07243 563836 2 3 Freddie Redd – Music From The Connection 07243 563800 2 8 Art Blakey - The Big Beat 07243 563815 2 0 Grant Green - Sunday Morning 07243 563798 2 4 Herbie Hancock - Inventions And Dimensions 07243 563839 2 0 McCoy Tyner – Time For Tyner 07243 563813 2 2 Blue Mitchell – Boss Horn 07243 563841 2 5 Andrew Hill – Judgment 07243 563843 2 3 Lonnie Smith – Think! 07243 563811 2 4 Jimmy Smith At The Organ – Volume 3 So what's the consensus? My first reaction was "Think!"?????? Later, Kevin

I put in our requests. We'll see what happens. Some notes: The Kenny Cox material wouldn't fit onto one CD without dropping one tune. He might do that but then he figures the complaints would start rolling in for that one tune. He doesn't think Cox justifies a double because doubles carry a higher list price that many people won't spend. Frank Foster's "Manhattan Fever" isn't his favorite... nor mine, truth be told. It's pretty far down the list. Andrew Hill's fans seem to really want "Andrew!!!". That one might make the list. He was intrigued by a two-fer of Quebec's 45 sessions. Once again, two-fers typically don't sell well. He will look into doing Tyrone Washington's "Natural Essence" with any extra material from the "trainwreck" session. I told him he had to call it "The Trainwreck Session" in his notes or no one would know what session he was talking about. Booker Ervin's unissued session in on the short list as is Cherry's "Where Is Brooklyn". Young's "Contrasts" seems to be a possibility too. If I hear back with anything, I'll let you know. Oh yeah, one more thing... there's a chance they might license out a couple of PJ titles like the Pepper Adams and Ellis sessions. This same (un-named) label is also trying to license some of Bobby Watson's later material. Later, Kevin

I forwarded Claude's initial post in this thread to Michael Cuscuna to see if he could ask Ron McMaster about this. Obviously, Claude is not the first to note a preference for the TOCJ CDs to the Mosaic Select and I thought it merited sending off. To preface Ron's response, this is what I said in my E-mail: "I know that one of the remastering stations out in LA has a NoNoise plug-in. It's listed on many remastered CDs of older material. Does Ron use it on his station? I ask because of a thread that someone started on the www.organissimo.org board." Following this, I inserted Claude's original post. After adding Claude's original post, I said: "So what do you think of his analysis? I tend to doubt Ron used NoNoise but maybe it was turned on by accident? Does Ron list what mastering station he uses on his masters? I see on their website that Ron usually uses Mastering Suite 2 (as shown on their website at: http://www.capitolstudios.com/capitolmastering/ms2.html). Maybe for the Moncur set he used Mastering Suite 1 ( http://www.capitolstudios.com/capitolmastering/ms1.html ), which is where Bob Norberg usually works. BTW, others have commented on the Grachan Select sound and the general consensus has been that people should keep their TOCJ copies if they have them. I imagine that's why Claude went out of his way to get one. I never thought it sounded that bad but I will admit that I never did an A/B comparison." So, that's what I sent. Ron McMaster replied back: "Claude compared the Mosaic Select release of Grachan Moncur III's "Evolution" to the Japanese TOCJ release of the same track. He states that there is tape hiss on the TOCJ version while my version is "dead quiet", therefore confirming his suspicions that I use NoNoise filtering on my remastering. This is completely untrue. The version that you hear on the Mosaic Select is from the original RVG master tapes. The track (as well as all the others on this release) are just ever so slightly eq'd so as to sound as they did when they were originally recorded. They contain no NoNoise processing of any kind. This is the closest to the original as you can get. I'm sorry that Claude does not like my mastering job on this release as he feels that the "treble on the Select seems capped", however this is the original RVG sound as it was intended. As you know it was intended to be heard on vinyl, not digital but that is another sonic argument in it's own right. However, when I hear people say that "the Mosaic Select sounds like it was made from a multi-generation tape copy" I must set the record straight. I keep notes on every project I do and I can tell you that all of my sources on this Mosaic Select were original analog masters from our vault. Now if the Japanese license the music and decide to put their eq'd version of it out, then that's up to them. I always discuss with the producer what they want and how they want to approach the project. We don't just master songs and put them out without getting final approval from the producer of the record. We have a few simple rules that we go by when we remaster any original tracks. We always try to stay as close to the original sound as we possibly can and we never use any NoNoise processing unless I have the consent of the producer. I hope I have helped clear up the "Mosaic Select vs TOCJ" questions for now." BTW, Michael Cuscuna also E-mailed me. He said, "Tell the guy it's a known fact that the Japanese overdub tape hiss to trick audiophiles". Although I have to say, I read this as a joke. Maybe Chuck Nessa could tell us if this was a joke or not? Later, Kevin

Reinier, I don't understand... Ron McMaster's bench is also 24 bit, 44.1 kHz. I believe one of the differences is that his station has SBM. SBM may be the root of this. I've read where a lot of people don't like the sound they hear with SBM. Remember those CBS gold CDs? They were touted as superior because of SBM. Most people today consider them inferior because of SBM. Only a couple, like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and Roger Waters' "Amused to Death" get written up as "best available". A good question would be, "Can SBM be turned off on a Sonic Solutions remastering statyion"? Later, Kevin

Does anyone know what Rudy Van Gelder uses as his digital remastering station? He may use a Sonic Solutions station himself. I'll try to ask Cuscuna what RVG uses. Now that'd be interesting.... The only other thing I can add about RVG CDs is that I have had a couple that I tried inverting the polarity and I thought they sounded much better. Maybe a placebo, but no matter, I thought Shorter's "The All Seeing Eye" improved dramatically when I inverted the polarity. Too bad it's such a pain in the ass to do. Impossible in a car. BTW, I think Andrew Hill's "Dance With Death" Connoisseur CD is one of Ron McMaster's best remasters. Later, Kevin

Jack Woker told me that these Scorpio LPs are supposed to sound OK. I was pretty interested in Mobley's "Dippin'", cause it's one of my favorites. But I still haven't tried it yet. I'm still debating whether to start buying stuff on vinyl that I already have on CD. Right now, I'm not but I may just to experiment. This weekend, I once again had a flashback as to why I hated vinyl. I was spinning one of my latest Euclid purchases, "Xanadu at Montreux, Volume Two" when right in the middle of a nice Barry Harris trio track, pop... pop... pop... for about 2 minutes! Arrrgggh. Ruined the whole track for me. I put it onto CD-R and I'm trying to cleam it up but it's a pain in the ass. Later, Kevin

I've been told that these Blue Notes are being made by Scorpio Records out of Philadelphia. Supposedly, this is the group that ran Evidence Records which is now defunct. Later, Kevin