jazzbo

I am sure you'll dig it. Portrait of a Silken Thread, the first one, always floors me. The third one has a lot of sung tunes on it, they're all a little different and all great.

I have this set, bought it as soon as it was released (had the first volume separately). . . and I love it. Excellent stuff if you are a Strayhorn fan. Lots of previously unrecorded arrangements, even a few compositions not heard before. Wonderful! Great sound and execution to. The Orchestra has its own identity which seems faithful to the Strayhorn composition and feel without sounding like the Ellington Orchestra. As far as I know there is no connection at all between this and the Metropole Orchestra. . . if I am remembering information from the liner notes correctly. Certainly this does not have the strings and other instruments that the Metropole does; this has classic big band (and small group) jazz instrumentation.

One of my favorite quotes is Milt Jackson on Round Midnight playing "Louise" . . . love it.

Yes Jim, I was referring to your Smooth query. . . . I just don't "feel" it as smooth in the phrasing. I feel it more as the sort of beautiful sound that Coltrane got on much of Crescent. Or the smoothness of the sound that Getz and others have polished from Pres. . . . And the phrasing, if indeed Smooth related (an if to me, but then I haven't heard a lot of Smooth, I make shure not to!) would I think be precursor. . . .

I have actually improved my backlog situation, have about twenty right now I haven't gotten to yet because I feel they demand "my full attention" and there is a lot to compete with that. I've been finding it harder to justify further expenditures with a backlog in front of me. . . . So I just get all "imperial capitalist" with myself and just conquer and spend anyway! One way I get around this is preordering. . . I mean there IS a chance (a slight chance, admittedly) I'll be caught up when the preordered item is actually released!

I have picked up the "Unity" (non XRCD) cd and I really am enjoying it. I can hear the "smooth" thing but must say it's more a beautiful tone with Ernie to me than really "smoothening out" the jazz. . . .

Yes, and that pesky electronic sensor strip was in there too!

Definitely! And this new version has extra material and improved sound. . . win win! I LOVE this tour!

It is a very good set, the packaging is possibly the best of the bunch.

I agree, I think the Jazz Views are vinyl dubbed. The Water sounds really better, from the source tapes I imagine.

I was confused about the Lonehill contents, sorry about that. The sound on Water is better than the Jazzview. . . considerably!

It's a mono recording, for sure.

I don't know about the Lonehill cd, I've read suspicions that it is missing a track. If you can find "Albert Smiles with Sunny" THAT is the one to get. But it's hard to find! The two ESP single discs are pretty good overall. I can highly recommend the Water release of the Fondation Maeght material. EXCELLENT! And "Music is the Healing Force of the Universe". . . I like. Your mileage may vary. It's sort of a mixed bag, with moments both ways, but the great moments are wonderful!

Well all I can say is that in the period of time that I was associated with the University they didn't seem to know how to motivate undergraduates, and their programs needed a lot of attention that they didn't receive because the glory was in the graduate programs. I have a lot of respect for various aspects of the place. And I did meet my wife there (though we were just friends, and became romantic about 17 years later!) and some good friends. BUT all those I was close to there either failed to be inspired to continue there, or completed their education there and were pretty soured by the process. Too bad!

I agree Eric, I think that when another tune is alluded to it is more effective. To me this seems to have been a humorous game or test of skill and knowledge to the early beboppers (though Pops was quoting Gershwin before them, it was going on before that and I'm sure the inventor of the game is long gone) and I really like the way Bird and Bags did it for example.

Have you tried ordering from Fresh Sounds? http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/search.ph...&artist_id=1399

This is a Fresh Sounds/Pujol cd. Looks to me as if www.amazon.fr has nine copies. . . .

Many more happy returns and no saudade ever again! :rsmile:

You'll dig the Bopland set! Many more happy ones Brad!

John A. Wilson, "The Culture of Ancient Egypt" (also published as "The Burden of Egypt.") Quite a good read. This is the sort of material from the University of Chicago that made me choose that school to go to. . . . I made a big mistake. I should have gone there for GRADUATE work in archaeology. Undergraduate programs at U of C BITE. Or bit. . . back in the first half of the seventies I should say.