Kevin Bresnahan

While there are other pictures of Mobley with that striped shirt, there aren't many pictures of him with glasses. Except...

Just finished spinning Tina Brooks - Minor Move (Tone Poet). Now up, Cannonball Adderley - Live At The Lighthouse (Riverside). This is a good one. I forget how much fun this record is until I spin it again. I'm hearing that the Tone Poet series might be doing some Capitol titles in the coming years. As this is one of the Riverside dates that Cannonball took to Capitol, it would be an excellent choice.

It was closed for a long time. Did they renovate the club at all? Maybe put in some comfortable seats? My first show isn't until next March 9th (Danilo Perez).

Richard "Groove" Holmes - Get Up & Get It! (Prestige). I wanted to like this date more than I did. This is my second time playing it & my opinion hasn't changed much. It has a killer band with Groove, Pat Martino, Teddy Edwards, Paul Chambers & Billy Higgins but they don't always sound like they're on the same page. There are some good things on here. The blues on side 2, Groove's Blues Groove (B2) is nice. The title track has it's moments as does Broadway, but I am really not a fan of their cover of Pennies From Heaven (B3) and from Teddy's solo effort here, it sounds like he wasn't either. It also has some weird multiplexed organ stuff during Groove's solo that sounds awful. It's like Van Gelder split the feed and delayed one channel versus the other but reduced the delay as Groove kept going. And Groove hits this sustain note during the out chorus that makes me think he's just fucking with my dog. The other tune that just didn't sound great was Teddy's original (A2) Lee-Ann. I didn't find it to be a good attempt at a bossa tune & Groove's organ effects (Van Gelder's?) really don't fit the tune. So I guess it's just 2 out of 6 tunes that I wasn't digging.

Great session. I have the vinyl as well but I find myself playing the CD a lot more frequently. It sounds wonderful on CD and the bonus tracks are fun.

I'm kinda glad I stopped following NCAA football years ago. It was stuff like this that did it for me back then. The refereeing in the NFL has me close to dropping them from my watch list these days too.

It has been reported by his daughter Mika on his Facebook profile that board member Mike Schwartz passed away November 13th. Mike was a longtime DJ on KSJS and posted his show's guest list here from time to time: He hasn't posted here since 2014 but I had continued to interact with him on Facebook.

Albert King - Live Wire/Blues Power (Stax/MFSL).

Such a fun CD. I haven't played that in a while.

Open baffle speakers wouldn't work for me. My wife would not be a fan of the open back look. She doesn't like that I have to have speakers in the room at all, so these would definitely not be allowed in my living room. Also, I hope you don't have little children. I had enough trouble keeping dust cones from being pushed in. I can't imagine what they could've done with loose wires hanging off the back.

Gonz (Jerry Bergonzi, Bruce Gertz & Bob Gullotti) - Front End (Not Fat Records). 1988 recording on Gertz's own label and seemingly only released around the Boston area. Gullotti really makes this date go and he is sorely missed around here. I have yet to see The Fringe without Gullotti in the drum chair.

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.