Kevin Bresnahan

Seeing some local Jazz tonight at Arthur's House of Jazz in Methuen. Nick Goumas (ts) is playing with Ken Cervenka (t), Steve Hunt (p), Bruce Gertz (b) & James Lattini (d).

I guess I have to hand in my Jazz card then because I have always liked the Eagles music. I think Henley's an insufferable prick, but I still listen to his solo stuff.

Enlightenment is selling several box sets with material recorded after 1962. Check their discography. No need to try to "defend" them. They clearly don't feel restricted from issuing anything they think they can get away with. What's weird is when they release Blue Note material without consequence. I would think that a large company like Blue Note would take them to court. For instance:

Not in this case. Euro-PD ends at 1962 - gotta protect those Beatles recordings! This is technically just another bootleg.

I didn't know that Oliver Lake retired. That's a bit of a bummer... but then again, he should be able to retire like anyone else. I'm just glad I got to see him perform several times. Trio 3 was blast to see/hear up on a stage.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I'm having some trouble getting the middle CDs off the hub. I was really worried that I was going to break CD 2 in half trying to get it free from that darn hub. After I got it off, I took an Exacto knife and shaved down the teeth that hold the CD in a death grip.

Herwig's latinized treatment of these great players have all been very well done. For some reason, he chose to do this with Coltrane twice. I actually prefer the first one over this one:

RE: Tone Poet LPs... With more & more listening, I've switched my opinion on that.... I used to think that these Tone Poets were giving us this great music in the best sound ever. But then I got a few "duds" and realized that those old CDs sound pretty damn good. In fact, I bet if you EQ'ed the CD version and boosted the bass, you'd probably find yourself wondering if that's all they did with these LPs.

Michael Weiss played a great set on a frigid evening in Boston. I really liked his take on "Skylark" and the band had fun with Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz" but my favorite of the night was Weiss' tune "Power Station". I was able to pick up a CD of his latest, "Persistence" and I had him sign my ancient LP of "Presenting Michael Weiss".

This has become a problem with vinyl these days. Some people have theorized that because most of these pressing plants are operating at full capacity, they might not be waiting for the vinyl to cool down sufficiently before sliding them into sleeves. I've received a couple of slightly warped Blue Note LPs from their Classic Vinyl series, pressed at Optimal in Germany, as well as several Blue Note Tone Poets pressed at RTI with some underfill and nasty edges. I have pretty much given up on modern audiophile vinyl reissues due to problems like this.

Michael Weiss is bringing his trio to Scullers in Boston tonight. I decided to make it a "date night", so me & the wife are stopping in Medford at Nappi's, a nice BYOB Italian restaurant, for an early dinner and I got a room at the hotel that Scullers is in.

But Krupa was at this concert and Krupa was kinda their "solo drum guy" wasn't he? His trio with Benny Carter and Oscar Peterson performs a set at the same show (listed as (M)) and both Heard & Krupa play on "Flying Home" (listed as (N)).

Disc 4, track 1, "The Drum Solo", listed as (J), is not listed in the discographical info in the booklet or CD artwork. I guess we're supposed to assume that it's JC Heard on drums? Or is it Krupa?

Do you have the LP or the CD? I bought the LP but I think I should have gone with the CD. I can't listen to it as often in LP form. I'm looking forward to seeing them again at Scullers Jazz Club on March 11th.

I'm finally getting some time to listen to this box set. As I listen to Coleman Hawkins kicking off "Hawk's Tune" from disc 1, I'm hearing people yell "Body & Soul" and all I can think of is all the times we stupidly yelled "Free Bird" at every rock band we saw live throughout the 80s & 90s.

Just be aware that plastic sleeves like this can scuff up your CDs. You should reconsider using those Tyvek sleeves with the window. While not the prettiest sleeves, at least they shouldn't scuff/scratch any discs.

It looks like Bob was friends with others I have interacted with on-line over the years. There's this picture in his obit: and credited in it is Larry Israel, Bob VanLangen, Peter Friedman, James Harrod, Ken Koenig, and George Ziskind. I know I've interacted with several of them on-line. Peter posts here and I think George Ziskind was a regular back on the old Jazz Corner forum.

I know that cover! Many years ago, I befriended a contributor to the rec.music.bluenote newsgroup (remember those?). He had a bunch of these JATP LPs that he wanted on CD. I agreed to needle drop some for him. He sent me the LPs and I created CDs for him. I wish I had kept copies of all that stuff but back then, I was probably over-sensitive about making copies of stuff that I didn't own and, well, being honest, I was so heavily into hard bop back then, this stuff wasn't on my radar. Oh, how times have changed. Bob VanLangen was his name. I found some artwork files that I created for his CDrs and I called it the "Bob VanLangen Collection". It looks like Bob left us in 2018: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/heraldtribune/name/robert-vanlangen-obituary?id=10105011 I just realized that I thought he was a lot older than he actually was. I figured he was in his 70s or 80s back then. Now, I find out that he was the same age that I am now!

I never understood that cover. Trout do not have "whiskers" like that. I guess Catfish Mask Replica didn't have the right zing to it?

I seem to have traded in or sold all of my Harper Brothers CDs so I cannot listen to this one anymore. I did like their music and I seem to remember seeing them live back around the time of "Artistry" (1992). It's weird that I don't have any of their music in my music library as I'm almost positive that I had all 4 of their CDs - "The Harper Brothers", "Remembrance - Live at the Village Vanguard", "Artistry" & "You Can Hide Inside The Music". All I can think is that this must have been back at a time when I was deleting mp3 music files from my PC if I sold the original CD. I did that for while back then.

Try to contact Swainson on-line and ask him to bring you a copy for you to buy at the show. I just did that with Michael Weiss, asking him if he could bring some copies of his latest Cellar Door CD with him Saturday. He replied that he'd have some there.

In preparation for seeing Michael this Saturday in Boston: Michael Weiss - Power Station (DIW) It's supposed to a cold one in Boston Saturday. They may set a new record low... and this is happening less than a week after the temps were near 50.

I just wish that Rudy had left this recording a bit drier than he did. He seems to have added a lot of reverb on the horns and it gives it a cavernous sound. I'd rather hear the band in the studio rather than the warehouse.

I bought this LP about a year ago and I'm glad I did. My turntable plays it fine without having to adjust all my settings.

I got mine yesterday but have yet to spin any of it. Maybe today...