DMP

I can't really remember, but always thought there was something a little odd about the Jim Hall "Studio Trieste" - did they take old tracks and put new solos on them, or something like that? (I think that on "Youkali" it was old solos on new tracks.) The Farmer/Hall "Big Blues" is good, but tame. (Plus it has a version of my least favorite tune - "A Child Is Born.") All the Farrell "CTI"'s are worth having - a nice blend of his post-bop style with a few concessions to what was happening in the '70's. Where's "Penny Arcade?" The Weston has some of the best Grover Washington on record, for what that may be worth to you.

I saw this group at the Village Gate, in the summer of '64. Something else!!

There was a short-lived attempt by a couple record companies to make gospel music a commercial force around 1963. Columbia Records (if I remember correctly) issued 3 albums tied around a mid-town New York night club that featured the music - think it was called "Sweet Chariot" - and I always thought the Rogers album was an attempt to cash on this craze that never happened. Always had mixed feelings about all this.... Is there a more exhilarating music? Why not try to get it a wider audience? (And Clara Ward was a regular on Ed Sullivan - sort of made the pop singers look pathetic.) But, at the same time, there was something unseemly about the whole enterprise. But it didn't matter, rock would take over the record business in a few months.

The cover art (which, I guess, isn't all that important in the big picture) IS too dark - Jack McDuff's "The Honeydripper," for example, is almost embarassing. Do I need to keep my older version just for the cover? (But, in general, I do like the new liners - Joe Goldberg's enjoyable but wacky notes for the McDuff are something - at one point he confuses the tenor sax with drums!) And the above technical discussion about the sound is interesting, although over my head. I didn't realize these engineers had fan clubs. (I'm a Ron McMaster guy myself...)

My Shorty Rogers discography says "Unknown personnel." Some discography!! But, if I remember correctly, it was a lousy record.

"Aquarius," "More Today..." - and the title track - the Beatles in disguise.

Someone posted part of an interview with Van Gelder somewhere on here recently, and he talked about an assistant he has and how she has a lot of responsibility in all this - I think that was the gist of what he said... Whatever, hearing deteriorates with age, even for us listeners, and all this debate about remastering, K2's, compression, stereo spread and that kind of stuff won't matter much when you get around the age I am - I probably won't be able to tell the difference between SACD's and "Collectables" in a couple of years.

And Duke sounds good on that last Gerald Wilson Pacific Jazz album. (And, since you bring up "Black Messiah," I have to get in my yearly plug to release it along with the left-overs that made up "Music Y'All.")

George Duke might have been the pianist on "Fried Bananas" - that's the kind of session it was.

Has this material surfaced anywhere in the CD era? It was (if I recall correctly) 2 double album sets of groups from the then-current "Columbia" roster, playing in sometimes what seemed like unlikely combinations (Woody Shaw and Maynard Ferguson, for example). Might be fun to listen to it again.

I think "Road Show" refers to those big budget prodeuctions (often with an overture and an intermission) that used to play in the 50's and '60's, like "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Ben Hur." They were big deals, not the usual features - anything to make a movie a big event and get you away from the television. Often you had to buy a reserved seat (which I remember doing as late as "Oliver" and "2001"). As for the 35mm tape business, the Brahms symphonies by the Pittsburgh Symphony (on "Command") were hard to beat.

To respond to the above... The McLean is one of the best - a grabber from note one! Up to now, you needed the Mosaic box just for this. Everyone is at the top of their respective games on this one. The Blakey is another story. Lots of drumming. I probably have a hundred Blakey albums, and this is one I rarely (if ever) put on. But for six bucks, you might want to take a chance, it will probably be out of print in a year and you'll kick yourself.

The Mosaic box is a good overview of his Pacific Jazz material - besides the "Django" Lp there's "Catch Me" (my favorite) and lots of Pass with Les McCann - very hard to find in any other CD format. And look for the Groove Holmes/Les McCann "Something Special" - more Pass in a "soul" setting, maybe the best of his early appearances in this vein. (Joe Pass and Clifford Scott!!)

Jimmy Reed's "Big Boss Man," and the one on the "Sponge Bob" soundtrack album.

I think they're the "Applause" versions. Got mine through my service's (Cingular") website, so you might want to start with whatever company you're using. Simple to do - all you really needed to know was what type phone you have and the phone number.

Downloaded one a couple weeks ago (Kenny Burrell), my first experience with all this. Pretty simple, although I had to wade through a lot of other material to find them. Who knew Diana Krall was so big in the ringtone universe?

Firsr saw Maynard in the early '60's, and caught him off and on for the next 45 years - not sure I can say that about too many other musicians. (Maybe Clark Terry and Sonny Rollins.) I remember a review years ago calling one of his Roulette albums "high, loud and ridiculous" - never quite got the negative reaction to those bands, I always thought they were pretty good. Ferguson usually included one or two of his big numbers ("Frame For The Blues," "Ole," "Motherless Child," and, later, "Maria") in his shows, but there was always plenty of less familiar material, too, and the bands were packed with first-rate soloists. A couple of years ago, the night before an annual concert we put on here in Pittsburgh, we took a couple of the musicians down to hear Maynard at a local club - Joe Lovano and Mark Whitfield - and they both had a great time; Whitfield was still shaking his head the next day.

I don't know, there seems to be a fair amount of PJ material on CD - From the later period, Curtis Amy, Carmell Jones, Gerald Wilson, Jazz Crusaders, Groove Holmes, Joe Pass - I think almost their entire catalogs are available. (The earlier stuff is a little more sketchy, but there's plenty of Chet Baker, Mulligan, Chico Hamilton, Gil Evans, and some Bud Shank, Wes, Art Pepper, Les McCann, the "Mosaic Select" of the piano trios...) (And don't forget the Mariachi Brass.) So it's not completely barren, although we could use "Les McCann Plays the Shampoo at the Village Gate"...

I always thought the original CD issues of this material showed what this new format was all about - a chance to get material out in a logical way and make use of the time available - the Smiths and the Mobleys showed someone was thinking! The RVG's are an improvement in terms of sound, but why not? They came out much later, after engineers and technicians had a better handle on the medium. Glad I hung on to the originals. (And I owned all the LP's - the reorganization never bothered me in the least - it was an improvement.)

John Wright, "Mr. Soul." And, after putting it off it for 40 years, the JFK Quintet.

Still waiting for that "OTB" ringtone...

Jimmy Smith is in one of those Sam Katzman-style '60's rock & roll/ski party type movies (along with the Animals and Stan Getz) - that's the one to find. ("Get Yourself a College Girl," or one of those.)

I've always thought "Bridge'" was sort of a classic of it's type: "commercial" music of the highest order. Sebesky created some wonderful (and varied) settings for Desmond. (I think it got 5 stars in "Downbeat" on its release, for what that's worth.) All of his 3 orchestrated "A&M" albums are worthwhile, with "Summertime" having the most traditional "jazz" content, and I think they hold up well, more-so than (say) the Wes Montgomery albums which mined a similar vein. (And they're a nice change of pace for Desmond, who almost exclusively was heard in a small group setting.) "Afro-Classic" is also worthwhile, and, like the poster above, it got a lot of play on our stereo in its day.

Unfortunately I'm not going to be too helpful or informative here - it must have been late '67 or early '68 when I saw Green and Patton, and this was a period when you could routinely see musicians of that calibre in what was pretty much a neighborhood setting. (It was no big deal to catch Lou Donaldson or Freddie Hubbard on a Tuesday night.) (Or buy Horace Silver a beer between sets.) It never occured to me to take a camera - these events were really nothing special at the time. Hard to believe, I know. So, unfortunately, a lot of the music I heard then sort-of runs together. Anyway, what I do remember is that is was a week night, the place was half empty (or half full), it was a trio (can't remember the drummer, but don't think it was someone I was familiar with) and they were short on theatrics - just played the music straight on. And I can't rememeber what they played except for "The Yodel," which couldn't have been funkier - at that tempo it was a completely transformed tune. (I had the Patton album, so was familiar with the recorded version.) What they did play wasn't as self-consciously "soulful" as Green's later work, just naturally "bluesy." Don't think I talked to either of them. My only other strong memory of that night is that Wes Montgomery's "A Day In The Life" (which was current) was playing on the jukebox during a break, and when Green and Patton went up to the stand before the set they tried to work out a version, just noodling around. When Green re-emerged in the early '70's he made more frequent appearances here, always in a quartet with Claude Bartee, and I caught him may times in that period, and my memory is a little better. I've always thought the "Lighthouse" LP's were the best recorded representation of that group, despite the added personnel, and this new release hasn't changed my opinion.

MBL brings up "The Yodel" (from Patton's "Got A Good Thing Goin'") as an example of superior "funk," and I agree. In person, Green and Patton played it at about half the speed of the recording and the vamp (before the solos) - whew!