paul secor

Has anyone heard the Classic Records reissue of Money Jungle? I have a Japanese King reissue which is rather dull sounding. I had the first US CD reissue which had extra material and a crisper sound, but it was too bright for my ears. I'm looking for a better sounding issue. I wonder if the original tapes make this a futile search.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday! Hope you've enjoyed YOUR day to the fullest.

Air: Air Time (Nessa) Clifford Brown/Max Roach: At the Bee Hive (Columbia) Jaki Byard: The Flight of the Fly (Le Chant du Monde) Doc Cheatham: Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham (Jezebel) Paul Desmond: Quartet - Live (Horizon) Walt Dickerson: Tell Me only the Beautiful Things (Why Not) Eric Dolphy: Far Cry (Prestige/New Jazz) Booker Ervin: That's It! (Candid) Jon Faddis: Youngblood (Pablo) Bud Freeman: Buck & Bud (Flying Dutchman) Chico Freeman: Morning Prayer (Why Not) Von Freeman: Have No Fear (Nessa) Jimmy Forrest: Out of the Forrest (Prestige/OJC) Curtis Fuller: Two Bones (BN - Japan) Red Garland: Red in Bluesville (Prestige) Grant Green: Idle Moments (BN) Gigi Gryce: Nica's Tempo (Savoy) Charlie Haden - Haden/Hampton Hawes: As Long as There's Music (Artists House) Jim Hall/Red Mitchell (Artists House) Lin Halliday: Airegin (Delmark) Barry Harris: Newer Than New (Riverside) Alberta Hunter: Amtrak Blues (Columbia) Milt Jackson: Bags Meets Wes (Riverside) Illinois Jacquet: Swing's the Thing (Verve) Roland Kirk: Rip, Rig, and Panic (Limelight/Emarcy) Jimmy Knepper: In L.A. (Disco Mate) John Lindberg: A Tree Frog Tonality (Between the Lines) Warne Marsh: Jazz from the East Village (Wave) Charles Mingus: Mingus Ah Um (Columbia) MJQ: Odds Against Tomorrow (UA) Thelonious Monk: Criss Cross (Columbia) Charlie Parker: One Night in Birdland (Columbia) Dizzy Reece: Blues in Trinity (BN) Sam Rivers: Dave Holland/Sam Rivers (Improvising Artists) - the tenor/soprano/bass duets record Charlie Rouse: Takin' Care of Business (Jazzland/OJC) George Russell: Ezz-thetics (Riverside) Pee Wee Russell: Portrait of Pee Wee (Counterpoint/DCC) Woody Shaw: In My Own Sweet Way (In + Out) Zoot Sims: In Paris (UA) Art Tatum: God Is in the House (Onyx) Mashiko Togashi: Song of the Soil (Paddlewheel) Phil Woods: Rights of Swing (Candid) Good thread! Interesting to see what choices people have made - both musicians and records. Hope this continues and perhaps that those who have posted will add to the choices they've already made.

Billie Holiday, Floyd "Horsecollar" Williams, Buddy Tate, Art Tatum, Tab Smith, Jack Teagarden, Thelonious Monk, Joe Guy, Kenny Clarke: Harlem Odyssey (Xanadu)

This Hill is excellent. Thanks. I had heard it´s one of his best solo performances. My only solo Hill so far is the Montreaux Festival disc. I bought these three items via ebay. Still a few days to receive this bunch, coming from Toulouse, France. Haven't heard the Hill, but I like the Simmons/Tapscott and especially the Byard. Hope that you enjoy them when they arrive.

Guilty, as charged.

I have the French RCA 2 LP sets and they sound good to me. However, I don't have anything else to compare them to. Has anyone listened to both these and the John R.T. Davies JSP set? I should probably just be happy listening to what I have (and I am happy doing that), but I'm curious.

I'm with you. I have basically the same Japanese reissue - mine's on King - and it's my favorite Zoot also.

This afternoon: The Complete Jelly Roll Morton Volume 1/2 - 1926 - 1927 (RCA - France) Coleman Hawkins with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: Night Hawk (Analogue Productions 45 rpm) Duke Ellington: Such Sweet Thunder (CBS - France) - Probably not the best sound on this, though very listenable, and after reading about how the CD reissue was screwed up, I'm glad to have this.

Vinyl? Nope. Just the 2 CD set.

Dave Burrell: After Love Lucinda Williams: Live at the Fillmore

Last night: Beiderbecke/Trumbauer/Teagarden - disc two

Hope you have a great birthday!

The Real Bahamas in Music and Song (Nonesuch Explorer)

Thanks to Jim A. for having us back and thanks to Jim D. for putting us up in the interim.

The Total J.J. Johnson (RCA Camden - Japan)

The Poughkeepsie Journal is the local newspaper in my area. I was amazed to read the article today - very seldom that I find something worthwhile in The Journal. I plan on e-mailing Craig Wolf to thank him for writing it.

Some Billie on Verve - or perhaps Pres' solo with Billie on "I Must Have That Man" set on repeat.

Helen Humes: Songs I Like To Sing (Contemporary)

For me, listening to Helen Humes is a sometime thing. I have to be in the right mood to hear her, as I'm sometimes put off by the little girl quality of her voice. Perhaps I'm changing, because this time out I didn't really hear that sound. Her voice, especially on the ballads on this record, has a mature quality that I never caught before - and I've owned this LP for about 25 years. Nate has covered the individual tracks pretty well, so I'll just add a few thoughts: A recording like this must have been a fairly expensive proposition for a small company like Contemporary - 14 musicians on most tracks, a string quartet on 4 others, arrangements by Marty Paich. I'm sure that Lester Koenig didn't see it as a big moneymaker, so he must have had a high regard for Helen Humes. Art Pepper sounds a bit out of sorts. On this listen, he sounded best to me on "Don't Worry 'Bout Me". Listening to this solo, I was aware of his swing roots which seem as strong as his bebop background. After Helen Humes, Ben Webster is the star of this recording. His solos are short, but all worth listening to again and again. Leroy Vinnegar's playing is like a heartbeat. You're not really aware of his playing, but if he stopped you'd know it in a second. Barney Kessel shines on "Million Dollar Secret". "I Want a Roof Over My Head" sounded corny to me - pseudo country gospel. Thanks to Nate for choosing this. I enjoyed it more this time out than I ever had before.

Ellington: Piano in the Foreground (CBS - France)

There wouldn't be an emphasis on records if he hadn't continued to release them regularly over the years. It's as simple (and perhaps as complicated) as that. He's released the recordings and people are going to comment on their quality (or lack of quality). That's the nature of the game.

First - congratulations! I don't know whether this would work, given what you already have planned. When my wife and I got married, we worked out a compromise to suit her tastes and mine. Her musical tastes are more mainstream than mine (to put it nicely), so we hired a dj to play the stuff that she wanted to listen and dance to. I got a friend who's a bassist to put together a trio of good jazz musicians (him, piano, and drums) to play standards for older folks to dance to, and to play Bird, Monk, etc. for me to listen to. (The musicians still joke that I was more interested in hanging with the musicians than in cutting the wedding cake - my wife had to drag me away.) We were older when we married so there were a fair number of older people attending. Whatever you do, I hope that you both have a good time at your wedding.

Nice words, and perhaps some truth there, but the fact remains that the man hasn't put out a completely good record in thirty years. All the reports of great playing in a live context may or may not be true be true - those moments exist only in the ears and memories of the listeners who were present - but why document your playing by releasing a long series of mediocre recordings unless you're being willfully perverse and/or have disdain for your record buying audience? Release recordings of the live concerts if they're that good, or don't release any records at all.