Kevin Bresnahan

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.

Red Garland - Strike Up The Band (Galaxy). Red with a pretty good band: George Coleman, Julian Priester, Ron Carter & Ben Riley. If you find this in a cheapie bin, give it a try. About the only negative is the lousy bass recording quality, which you'll get with most recordings from 1979.

Bill Cunliffe - The Blues And The Abstract Truth - Take 2

The band was great but what a sad evening of live jazz. I think there were only 12 paying customers in the place. I don't know how this club is going to stay open with that kind of attendance.

Maria Schneider Orchestra - Allégresse (Enja). This is my favorite record from this band. I really enjoy the opening track, "Hang Gliding", especially for the feeling I get from listening to it... like I'm hang gliding.

The internet has put everything at our fingertips. Before the internet, if you wanted to read the liner notes to any LP, you would have to get that item in your hands. Having everything digitized and plunked onto a website has dulled our sense of the work that went into these things and pretty much reduced their value to the point where many people think it's pretty normal to post copyrighted material any time they feel like it. I get that there is fair use at play here i.e. LP covers and possibly LP liner notes. But right now we're talking about the liner notes to a Mosaic box, which is more like a long essay or a short book. This is not a simple "liner note" being posted. I doubt that musicbrainz could claim fair use here. Let me ask you this, if Mosaic decided to publish a book of all of the liner notes from their big boxes, would you consider buying it? I would definitely buy a copy for myself. But would I do that if every one of them was posted in full on-line for free? Maybe not.

But it's up to Bob himself if he wants to monetize his writings for Mosaic. Maybe he's writing a book with all of his liner notes? No matter - it's not musicbrainz's right to steal his writing to enhance their webpages without his consent. A friend of mine is a really good photographer. He takes some incredible shots at the shows we go to. He's not dumb so he'd never go professional. No one wants to pay for photography these days... almost no one. To prove this point, he once got asked to take some candid shots at a concert that a musician was recording for release. He did. The artist released the CD with his photos and the artist not only didn't pay him, he didn't even give him credit in the liners.

But this really isn't about Mosaic per se. Yes, Mosaic's images are being used without them getting paid but it's even worse for Bob Blumenthal. Mosaic paid Blumenthal for those liner notes for the Lou Donaldson box. Mosaic got what they paid for and they honored their side of the deal. They limited the publication of those notes to the booklet. Mosaic hasn't published these notes on-line. It's Bob who is getting ripped off by having his work put on-line for free. He isn't getting paid by musicbrainz and that's the problem. So unless you think every single written word should be on-line at your disposal for free, you shouldn't be OK with this any more than I am. While I am not in the business of writing liner notes, I can empathize with someone doing their job and expecting to get paid but end up getting nothing.

There seems to a kind of blindness to copyrights by many posters here on these forums.

They actually don't have anyone "working there" anymore, since the company went fully remote a couple of years back. They farmed out the warehousing & shipping of their boxes years before that. I don't think Scott would have much access to stock these days, especially if the company they use for their warehouse is not local to Stamford.

Going to see baritone saxophonist Danny Harrington at Arthur's House of Jazz in Methuen. I'm maybe more interested to see/hear Rusty Scott on the piano again. I think it's been close to 30 years since I saw Rusty live. I used to try to catch all of his shows with his regular band back then - Tim Meyer on tenor & Keala Kaumeheiwa on bass. They were a fun band to see back then.

I have read & enjoyed nearly all of Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles books so the synopsis of her new one, "The Spy Coast" caught me off guard. A spy novel? About a group of retired spies? Sounds a bit like the movie "Red" right? But it's not. "Red" got me to laugh. This story was not funny at all. Action & intrigue reign here. There's some romance but it's mostly of the flashback variety. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I bought it Monday and finished it late last night. I just couldn't put it down. Highly recommended if you like these types of books.

Coleman Hawkins - The Genius Of Coleman Hawkins (Verve).

Just finished - William Parker - Petite Oiseau (Shortwave/Aum Fidelity) Now spinning - Joe Henderson - In 'N Out (Blue Note 'Classic Vinyl' reissue)

The artwork I posted is from the German MPS CD from 1986. Unfortunately, the only copy on discogs looks to be from a seller who doesn't ship internationally. There's a few for sale on ebay.com.