Kevin Bresnahan

Lonnie Smith - Drives (Blue Note). I have a label variant that someone on discogs dates to 1971/72. The LP artist/title and track info is printed in black ink. It sounds fine. Still uses the Van Gelder stamper. Not my favorite Lonnie Smith date. While the playing is fine, the tunes are not that great. Sign o' the times I guess. I'd rather hear the Blood Sweat & Tears version of "Spinning Wheel". My cut corner is on the opposite corner.

Playing this one again. I forgot I had it stuffed into the rack.

Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack (Blue Note). The new LP from the Classic Vinyl Series. Stan the Man on sax makes this date for me. I really like Jimmy & Stanley. These Classic Vinyl Series LPs sound very nice. I hear that some buyers have been having more QC issues with this series (pressed at Optimal in Germany) as opposed to the Tone Poet LPs (pressed at RTI) but I've actually had more issues with the Tone Poet LPs.

Willis Jackson - Shuckin' (Prestige). Quite the band behind Mr. Jackson on this date. Kenny Burrell & Jose Paulo on guitar, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Eddie Calhoun on bass; Roy Haynes on drums and Joe Montego & Juan Amalbert on congas & timbales. With all that behind him, it still comes off as a typical Prestige blowing session.

You don't find that it's a bit sedate? It's like a cool Jazz recital. I guess I'm just not hitting it off with it just yet. ... or I'm just missing the piano comping in the background? But I think not as I dig a lot of dates without a piano.

Next up - Lee Konitz Plays With The Gerry Mulligan Quartet (World Pacific/Tone Poet). I ordered this as a filler during an order that required a certain dollar amount to get free shipping. Not my favorite Konitz of Mulligan to be honest. It's almost too polite. I should've picked another record. Jeez - is this LP short. I think it's only about 35 minutes long.

Nick Brignola - Northern Lights (Discovery). Discogs seller failed to mention the slight warp. Playable, but still. Not the best studio recording. Never heard of the "UCA Recording Studios" in Utica, NY. Brignola's bari sounds like an alto in places and the bass is recorded in that buzzy style common in the late 70s-early 80's. The picture of a young John Lockwood on the back cover is pretty fun to see. Lockwood was a regular in my area before COVID and I probably saw him 10-15 times a year in various ensembles at Jocko's Jazz Club in Methuen. He looks very different now. Don't we all? This is the John Lockwood I'm used to seeing...

I would think this kinda deserves it's own thread somewhere in these forums.

Do we have to do this again? Some of us like PC's bowed solos and some of us loathe them. It's time we all agree to disagree on it. No need to beat that dead horse.

LP only... thinking about pulling the trigger on this.

Looks like a killer band. That's a strange looking instrument on the cover. I wonder if that's some sort of valve trombone? There's a picture on the back of the CD:

From: One of the last times I saw Jackie McLean was at the Aaron Davis Hall in NYC during a "Jazz Corner Hang" on June 9, 2000. Several Jazz Corner forum members went while another group went to the Knitting Factory. The line-up was killer: Jackie with Bobby Hutcherson, Andrew Hill, Scott Colley & Billy Higgins. For some reason, I remember it as being "off". It might have been the odd "Star Spangled Banner", that I seem to remember being done as a march, or just the fact that they didn't play like a "band" but more like a collection of players.

If he's bowing, it'd probably be out of tune with my snores.

Firstly, it was Neil Gaiman, not Stephen King. Secondly, screw George R.R. Martin. He's not anyone's bitch but he is an asshole. He blew off fans of his A Song of Fire & Ice (Games of Thrones) series so he could edit a bunch of short stories and write a bunch of his Wild Card books. Because of this, it took him over 11 years to continue the storylines of many of his characters in the Game Of Thrones series. I'll never buy another book of his again. But back to Sonny Rollins...

I've seen Lew live many times and he plays his ass off. I always smile when he really digs down deep for a note and stomps his foot. It's like his exclamation point. I highly recommend "Tanuki's Night Out". Lew in trio. It looks like all of the tracks are up on YouTube and 2 of them are streaming on Amazon Prime.

That particular CD took me about 10 years to find for a decent price. It is a pretty good date.

The first thing I did when I got in my Tina Brooks set was record all of the LPs to cassette so I could play them in my car.

Yeah, those Hoffman forums can be a bit restrictive, to say the least. You have to walk on eggshells if you ever try express something negative about any recording ever made or risk the wrath of getting booted.

Lew also sticks to tenor on this Concord CD: I have several of Lew's trio dates and he sticks to tenor on many of the tracks when he plays in a trio.

I remember when the Tine Brooks box arrived... I was in heaven. An original pressing of "True Blue" was and continues to be a very hard to find & expensive record. Truth be told, even the 1981 King pressing (first stereo release) was difficult to find & also very expensive back then. The Japanese LPs of "Minor Move" (issued in 1980/81) just didn't show up anywhere in my area. This was pre-Internet so you were at the mercy of what someone traded into your local record store. I was talking to one record store owner and he said that if he ever got in a used copy of it, he'd be taking it home as he hadn't been able to find one. The other two titles hadn't been issued at all at that time. Basically, that Tina Brooks box was one of the holy grails of hardbop for this fan.

Have you tried a white noise generator? Both Android and Apple phones have free apps in their stores for this type of thing. I find this to be a big help.

"Warped but plays fine!" That's dumpster material right there, not "Hey, let's see if some dummy will buy this".

It's too bad that Brett never made his way over here from the Jazz Corner (or was it the Blue Note BB?), where he posted under the pseudonym "Hearsay". I seem to remember pre-ordering this when he told us about it.

When i was a kid, I only remember AM radios, especially in cars. I don't remember FM until I was an older kid... maybe 1973 or 74? WHYN out of Springfield was the pop/rock station that everyone in Western Massachusetts listened to. I used to record their Top 100 countdown that they had every year on New Year's Eve. I think I still have one of those cassette tapes - Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" was #1, which would have dated it to 1971. I also remember hearing radio stations from as far away as Ohio on warm summer nights in the car. I can still hear that "56 HYN" jingle in my head. This website is the modern equivalent of those hot summer nights spinning the dial to see if I could pick up some distant station. http://radio.garden/

I can't help it - This artist's name always brings back memories of some of the craziest posts I ever saw on a forum. Still blows my mind to think that the person thought that was OK.