Kevin Bresnahan

Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet - Dusk Fire (Columbia-UK/Jazzman). Last one from the box. I like this one the best. Don't know why but I definitely felt myself listening a lot harder to this one.

As I type this I'm spinning Benson's "Breezin'", which to me is straight-up smooth jazz. The guitar playing is smooth. The strings are smooth. The vocals are smooth. It sold like crazy, so George made a living playing music, unlike a lot of others. I can't blame him for making a few bucks playing his guitar, though I imagine the rest of career being reduced to playing these same tunes couldn't have been great.

I don't get why everything these days needs to good or bad. It's all I hear about on the news. What is happening to nuance? The world is not binary. I enjoy some of George Benson's vocals. I also dislike some of them. Some are pretty good and others are pretty bland. Do I prefer his guitar playing? Sure, but that doesn't mean that I don't play the vocal tracks.

If CD is OK, I've heard that the 3 "The Best Of The Songbooks" are good compilations. They are available individually or in a box. BTW - that Amazon link shows several used copies of this 3 CD set for under $10 if Mrs. Big Al is OK with getting used CDs.

Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet - Phase III (Columbia-EMI UK/Jazzman).

Reissued on CD in 1990 on Capitol & in 1995 on Razor & Tie with this cover: The Razor & Tie CD was mastered by Steve Hoffman if that matters to you.

Just finished - Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet - Live (Columbia UK/Jazzman). I assume they told the live audience that this was being recorded and to hold your (polite) applause until the end of the tune or else this live audience doesn't sound very into the music. Now playing Kenny Dorham - Kenny Dorham Memorial Album (Xanadu).

My comment was in response to the post about recent Tone Poet reissues sticking to titles you hold in "high regard", which I took to mean "favorites". I have a lot of favorite Blue Note CDs, but even I would not consider the entire Blue Note catalog as a favorite. I also have to say, that a lot of my favorite Blue Notes were released in the Music Matters Jazz 33 rpm series, which I'm glad I got.

Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet - Shades of Blue (Columbia/Jazzman Records). From the LP box set of a few years back. I think it's funny that whoever reproduced the cover art actually made it a shade of green. Jazzman: Original:

Chico Freeman - Tales Of Ellington (Blackhawk). With: Baritone Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Clarinet – John Purcell Bass – Cecil McBee, Herbie Lewis Drums – Eddie Moore, Elvin Jones Piano – George Cables, Mark Thompson Tenor Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Alto Clarinet – Chico Freeman

Lyn must've blown the budget on making an "audiophile recording", because she certainly didn't spend much for the video marketing.

Listening to this now on YouTube. Nice. I've never seen this LP "in the wild" and it's only been on CD on the bootleg Lonehill label, who I don't support, so I guess if I want to play it at home, I'll need to pick up an original LP. Do you know the story on it taking 10 years to see release?

I've seen The Cookers more times than I can remember at this point & I never left feeling like I didn't see a great performance by such a killer band. You really got me to laugh here... I've never seen/heard Billy perform where he needed microphones!

I have a mid-70's RVG pressing of "Cornbread" so when I heard the warbling on the Tone Poet, I gave it away. But that warble was not from cutting too hot. No one seems to know what happened there. There were about 4 or 5 Tone Poet releases in a row that had some warble. Seems to have gone away though. The hot cuts that I know about were Andrew Hill's "Passing Ships", Art Pepper/Chet Baker's "Picture of Heath" & Lou Donaldson's "Blues Walk" (Classic LP - not Tone Poet). There were a couple of others but I can't confirm them because I didn't buy them. It's too bad for BN too as I'm sorta their target market.

Billy Hart often plays very loud. He's the loudest drummer I've seen in recent years and not just with The Cookers. I think it's his style.

I have them all on CD as well... sometimes on multiple versions on CD... but I've been having fun playing records again and this series started out with some great-sounding LPs. I still think that "Introducing Kenny Burrell" is one of the best sounding LPs in my racks. But then there were several that would not play cleanly on my 2 turntables because they were cut too hot for them. For a while I waited to hear if new releases had problems before buying them. One thing led to another and I just sorta stopped buying them altogether.

At this point, I don't think it's simply records held in high regard by Joe because the Tone Poet series specifically excludes titles that Music Matters Jazz already reissued ("Blue Train" being an exception). If that rule wasn't at play, I might believe that these are Joe's favorites but I'm sure this rule is forcing Joe to skip some records that he normally wouldn't.

I'm glad I stopped buying these due to the numerous problems with hot cuts. There have been several cut too hot in the previous releases but at this point, I could care less. I've saved a lot of money.

I thought for sure that when I opened this, the first post was going to be, "Ha - made you look!"

I'm pretty sure that most jazz recordings with an acoustic bass that were recorded in the late 70s-mid 80's used pickup with a direct patch to the soundboard instead of a microphone. This gives the bass a twangy sound that just doesn't sound right.

Doug Watkins - Watkins At Large (Transition/King). Nice Japanese pressing of this bluesy date. Phil T McNasty's Blues is one of my favorite jazzy blues tunes.

Kirsten Edkins - Shapes & Sound (Cohearent). I picked this up mainly after listening to a few sound samples. It's OK but I'm not sure about all the hype it got just because it was Kevin Gray's new label. I still scratch my head on that title & cover.

I like Outback better than Penny Arcade, but I think Moon Germs gets played more often on my turntable. Most of Farrell's CTI LPs are so short in playing time. Most of them run ~34 minutes total. I wonder if there is any unreleased stuff from these sessions?

Joe Farrell - Penny Arcade (CTI). This sounds like 1974 with the required whacka-whacka guitar/drums. Not my favorite style of jazz for sure, but after Herbie struck gold with "Head Hunters", it was inevitable that others would try to copy that success.

Stan Getz - Voyage (Blackhawk). I have enjoyed nearly every Blackhawk LP/CD I've heard. Too bad Herb Wong couldn't keep this label or his Palo Alto label going very long. I guess the 80's were just a shitty time to be making jazz records... well, an even shittier time than other decades.