Pete B

Thanks for the heads up David. I jumped off the Basie fence - I can't imagine a better price.

Easter is a time of spiritual emphasis for the Moravian church. We have a book of readings, which our church begins on Palm Sunday evening. The readings are a harmonization of the events of the four gospels. They are interspersed with appropriate verses of hymns. The Palm Sunday services include a small orchestra, mostly of members. The Moravian church has a strong musical tradition and tends to attract a lot of musicians. The readings continue throughout the week. Maundy Thursday we have communion. My lovely wife performed the postlude this year, a traditional Moravian hymn, on her new alto flute - it was wonderful. Our Good Friday readings are in the afternoon, and are very solemn. They are timed so that at 3:00 pm (the traditional hour of Christ's death) we enter in silent prayer as the church bell tolls. It is very moving. Saturday afternoon is a love feast, another Moravian tradition. This year will be my first as a diener (one of the servers). The love feast involves serving of coffee and Moravian buns while the congregation sings hymns appropriate to the season. One of our ministers once explained that Saturday is a day of waiting, and when Moravians don't know what else to do, we eat! Sunday morning begins with a sunrise service. Our church, in Lititz PA, was established over 250 years ago. We meet in the Sanctuary, and after some readings we proceed to "God's Acre", the original graveyard of the church. We circle the graveyard and sing hymns. This is one of my favorite observances of the year - I cannot describe its beauty. We also have a beautiful service of celebration later in the morning, again with small orchestra. It is a busy and moving week - my favorite week in the Church year.

I know Columbia did at least one lp/cd with performances from The Sound of Jazz. Nope. Those weren't the performances from the show. They were from the rehearsal, passed off as the actual performance.

More praise for Paul - I've bought a lot of vinyl from him and everything has been consistently first-rate - condition, packaging, and service.

If you like vinyl, go to Philadelphia Record Exchange on 5th Street about a block south of South Street. I don't know any good stores for jazz cds - Tower used to be nice, but there's not much there anymore.

I've used a Maxtor 150g for over a year with no problems. I use it exclusively for backups at this point, but I did use it to store my excessive flac files from dimeadozen until I bought a second internal hard drive. The second internal hard drive gives a bit faster access to data since it doesn't go through the USB, but the external is certainly a viable alternative. More expensive per gig than the internal drive, though.

The Art Kane Harlem photograph has pride of place in my music room, next to the Lester Young pork pie hat post (thanks Tom in RI). A reproduction of the cover of "Jam Sessions at Christy's" (an album that was never released on Zim records, but the covers were printed). Photos of Oscar Pettiford, Ray Brown, and Coleman Hawkins with Miles.

When I was a boy I had a friend who sold "GRIT". My mother subscribed for a year or two. It was a nice little paper with a lot of appeal to a 10 year old in 1968. Human interest stuff, as I remember (and I am at that age where memory begins to be questionable). Hey, it's still around, and on the web

I like the Masters of Jazz series, for the fact that everything is presented in chronological order regardless of label, with nice notes in the booklets, and in good sound. Unfortunately, since they are out of print, it can take some doing to complete the 12 volumes, but it is certainly worth the effort.

I had an incident in which a shipment did not arrive from Paris Jazz Corner. The very week I traced it with them it was returned to them as undeliverable. The problem? - they had put my zip code before my city and state, and some lazy and/or incompetent postal employee marked it undeliverable and returned it to them. It took almost 3 months to make its way from Paris to our shores and back again. They reshipped it and it arrived in two weeks.

I just spent a very enjoyable hour reviewing this album to try to figure what I heard before. The adventerous harmonies in the comping on "Full Moon" and "The Sultan" sound like Dennard to me. Trouble is, I am not sufficiently familiar with Costa's work to eliminate him. I do believe that only Costa solos on the album. Does anyone have access to Ruppli's Savoy discography? I wonder what it has to say on the subject. The back of the cd shows two dates, one with Costa, Joe Wilder, and Philly Joe Jones (Sept 26), the other with Dennard, Paul Cohen, and Granville Hogan (Oct 6), but does not note which tunes were recorded on which date. Curiously, the reproduction of the album cover on the insert does not credit Dennard, Jones, or Joe Wilder.

I am almost certain that Dennard doesn't play at all in Blues Suite F No kidding! I've wondered about the discographical details, but I could swear I hear 2 different pianists. Maybe that's because I want to hear them! I think that I hear Dennard on a couple of the tracks, but my ear is far from infallible. Regardless, it's a great record, but I'd love to know for certain. Thanks for your input.

Dennard is also included on A.K. Salim's "Blues Suite" on Savoy - a terrific record that was reissued on cd, although it is not in print at present. He and Eddie Costa are both credited, and I have never found a breakdown as to which pianist performed on which tunes, although I don't think there can be much doubt since both were singular stylists. Dennard's contributions to the Hampton material on Jazztone are very attractive. I think he had a unique and very interesting voice on the keys. Those Jazztone sessions would make a nice double-cd set. I have that material from cassette recordings, but would love to track down the originals. The Jazztones are quite hard to come by and those I have come across have been priced beyond my means. I have heard the material on the Audio Fidelity label Hampton recording credited to Dennard, it is not worthwhile - Dennard is scarcely audible. There are a couple of more Hamp recordings on which Dennard is credited, which I have not bothered to run down given my disappointment with the Audiophile label record. I also have heard a tape of 2 titles that were said to have been recorded in 1953 at Quincy Jones' apartment in NYC - "Invitation" and "Tenderly". The notes on the cassette were for 5 titles, but only 2 were contained on the cassette. I do not know if any more of the session exists or if it was a mistake in the notes for the cassettes. The recording quality is not especially good, but the music is of great interest, especially given the scarcity of any recordings with Dennard on them. I am very fond of the "Legendary" cd. Sulieman and Nasser make substantial contributions and there is a nice vibe to the session. Dennard is excellent. I felt very fortunate to find a copy of that cd (thank you Mr Tanno!).

I have no idea on the number of CDs released in the series. Have none of them. From what I understand, only a few of them have been made available on special orders. None of them is included in the Philology label page: http://www.philologyjazz.it/. Got several of Clifford Brown's unissued items mentioned in the Philology article from other sources. I believe if you email Mr. PIANGIARELLI he will sell cdrs of whatever volumes you want.

The Warne Marsh Berlin was issued a few years ago on a Japanese label (I'm at work, don't remember the label). It originated as a radio broadcast. The Sax of a Kind was issued on cd by Hot Club, it is no longer in print and commands high prices on Ebay when it makes a rare appearance. It is the same issue as the vinyl, no additional tracks.

There have been a number of tapes of this band at the Half Note circulating for years. Sound quality is not always great, but of course the music is always worthwhile. There is some great material with Roy Eldridge and Richie Kamuca as well. Some of that ended up on a Pumpkin lp. I assume there were remote broadcasts made from the Half Note, I seem to remember that some of the material I've heard was announced. It must have been a great scene in its day.

A friend gave made me the load of a cassette of Phineas Newborn on Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz" which he recorded from the local public radio station. He doesn't remember when (he has thousands of tapes he has made over the years, so understandably he doesn't recall the details). I've been unable to find any information using Google searches. Given the small number of recordings made late in Mr Newborn's life, I think the date could be significant. Can anyone point me to a source of information as to when this might have been recorded? Newborn's playing is great on this, but he is a tough interview. McPartland seems a bit stressed trying to draw much out of him, and trying to duet with him. Thanks Pete

From my kids, the Paul Chambers Select. From my wife, a set of Jim Stinnet's PC transcriptions. Looks like I'll be spending a bit more time in my practice studio this year I was also richly blessed to be priviledged to work at our church's traditional Moravian Christmas vigils this year. These are a special worship service with a small orchestra and our full church choir, combined with the serving of a traditional lovefeast (coffee and a bun), ending with the passing out of candles for the final hymn. For me, this is when Christmas arrives.

Vol 9 has a rare Lennie Tristano cut "Blues".

According to Astrup's discography, that is the only tune known to have been recorded from that date. The guitarist is Eddie Duran. There is a private recording from a 1966 radio broadcast in which he plays "Donna Lee", at a nice quick bebop tempo. He proceeds to effortlessly modulate through all 12 keys. Wonderful! I sure would like to hear the unissued album on Atlantic with Tony Fruscella......

Interesting. This is not mentioned in Jack Chambers' Twardzik discography . These sorts of things turn up sometimes among traders. It's amazing, the unreleased stuff that makes the rounds.

Jazz Record Center offers them on their website for $29.95

I understand that it roughly parallels the Classics series. I think it was the fairly complete master takes throught the 30s into the mid-40s at which point it gets kind of random. I found the sound to be rather compressed and I believe noise reduction was applied - they seemed kind of dead to me. I ended up liking the music so much that I bought the Masters of Jazz cds instead (superior sound and all the alternates) and then bought the French vinyls to cover the later dates. It was an effective intro to early Ellington, which I quickly learned to love. I think it is an excellent value, especially if you have access to the discographical information from other sources.

Up once - no love for the Duke?

I don't dispute Jonah's talent, but I think my answer applies to the topic. I couldn't think of a better example, Peterson already having been taken. I like the Kenny G pick - it works better than mine - except I have trouble accepting him as a jazzman!