mjzee

They announced they still have some CD boxes; ship date's been pushed to mid-October.

Review in the Wall St Journal.

Wow, I'm behind. Don't know why I didn't see these responses in my "New Content" feed. Ah well. So some of these may no longer be surprises. I'll put down my thoughts and then go back and read others' responses. 1) Cuban music meets "I don't need no wa-wa." Perez Prado? I see that was correct. 2) John Coates, Jr. school. Early Keith Jarrett? "The Summer Knows" - a very cheery rendition of the song. 3) Dominican version of Prince Buster backed by Art Pepper & Pepper Adams? I used to hear this stuff blasting from the cars on Broadway in Washington Heights. 4) Latin music played by some unholy cross of Cecil Taylor and Oscar Peterson? 5) More latin music, with English lyrics. Didn't make much of an impression on me. 6) More cowbell! Good tenor sax & organ against a latin beat. Houston Person or King Curtis? 7) Night In Tunisia. Tenor (alto?) backed by guitar and el-p. Nice, but nothing special. 8) Thrushes. Nice delivery & arrangement. No idea who. 9) Caravan. Violin & organ?!? Nice congas. Finally some grease! Ray Nance & Milt Buckner? A little too restrained for Buckner. 10) Something from the early days of Blue Note? But then sounds like Stuff Smith & Tiny Grimes. 11) Flying Home. Eddie Jefferson? Nice sax. 12) Alto has a nice, feathery tone reminiscent of Art Pepper. But the organ & bottom heavy reed section? Weird. 13) Boogie-woogie! Nice subdued trumpet & then livelier sax and trombone. The pianist doesn't turn out to be the star of the show - didn't predict that. 14) Things Ain't What They Used To Be. I'm guessing Wild Bill Davis. 15) Strong left hand. Boring, though - a little too cautious. 16) Guitar sound like Lonnie Johnson. Sax livens things up! Ray Bryant on piano? 17) Coleman Hawkins or Don Byas. A former co-worker would call this stripper music. 18) Mickey Baker? King Curtis? 19) A weird thought: Chuck Berry on guitar? Is this the Chess crowd? 20) Whoever this is, I hope she finds the man she's looking for. 21) By recording quality, sounds to be of more recent vintage. #20's daughter, perhaps? 22) The greater length allows for a more relaxed vibe. I'm picturing a South African version of Perry Como...who then takes a cellphone call while onstage and starts talking. Thanks, TMG.

Go to Google, type what you're searching for, and follow it with site:organissimo.org That works well.

I never saw that Flanagan album before.

I'm now on disc 3. I love it. Moreover, I think the presentation (complete sets, stretching out at length) really help the music, gives it context. I heard Our Man In Jazz as almost a psychodrama, with Cherry trying to pull Sonny to the Ornette side, and Sonny alternately finding it seductive and fighting against it. Listening to this, it's just 4 guys jamming and improvising like crazy. Cherry's a good foil to Sonny, and really plays far more "inside" than is evident (at least to me) on Our Man In Jazz. I'm enthusiastically looking forward to listening to the rest of the box. P.S. Yes, two big thumbs up to Cranshaw and Higgins. Of course!

Here's a pretty comprehensive telling of the story, courtesy of http://fivecentsplease.org/tv/peanuts-tv.html#HISTORY How Did The Specials Get Started?In 1963, Lee Mendelson, an independent television producer, contacted Charles Schulz with the idea of producing a documentary about Schulz and Peanuts. While Schulz had received several offers from Hollywood for a feature film or TV series, none of the offers had appealed to him. But he'd seen and enjoyed Mendelson's 1963 documentary on Willie Mays, so he agreed to meet with Mendelson. They decided to include some short trial animations in the documentary (titled "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," a title that was later reused for the 1969 theatrical movie). These sequences were created by Bill Melendez, a friend of Schulz's who had done the animation for some Ford commercials starring the Peanuts gang. Unfortunately, Mendelson and Schulz were unable to convince any network or sponsor to buy the documentary when they were done. But in May 1965, Coca-Cola, remembering the animated sequences from the documentary when it had been shopped to them, expressed an interest in sponsoring an animated Peanuts Christmas special. In the next six months, Schulz, Mendelson, and Melendez worked hard to create the special which became "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Several important choices were made during the first show's development that have influenced all shows to come. Schulz, Melendez, and Mendelson decided to have real children perform the voices of the show's characters, instead of the customary practice of adults pretending to be children. They also decided, with the exception of Charlie Brown and Linus, to use amateurs with no previous experience. (Charlie Brown was voiced by Peter Robbins, and Linus by Christopher Shea, who were both established child actors, although arguably they are now both best known for their voices on the first five Peanuts specials.) Since the children's voices change as they grow, every few years a new set of voices needs to be found. Melendez tries to match the original voices as closely as possible. New voices have been siblings of the previous actors, children of the production staff, and children chosen from auditions held at schools near the production offices in Northern California. Snoopy presented something of a problem. Originally the animators considered showing thought bubbles with words, as in the strip, but they realized young children would be unable to read these. They considered using a "funny voice" to verbalize the thoughts, but it didn't seem right either. In the end, they decided to play Snoopy in pantomime, "emulating the great Harpo Marx." When Snoopy does make a noise -- a bark, a howl, a grunt -- he is performed by Bill Melendez in all shows so far. (Melendez also performs Woodstock's "voice.") Schulz, Melendez and Mendelson also decided to hire jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi to write the music for the show, and this was so successful that he wrote and performed the music for the first 14 specials (until his death), and his music has greatly influenced the music for shows after that. Once "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was complete, CBS previewed it, and expressed apprehension. The show's slow pace (compared with other cartoons), the religious message, and the amateur voices didn't sit well with them. But when "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was aired, it was an immediate critical and popular success - it received a 45 share (meaning almost half the televisions on that night tuned in to it)! Four months later the show received the Peabody Award for "outstanding children's and youth's program," and another month after that, an Emmy award. Thus a whole series of specials was launched, each written by Charles Schulz, produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, and animated by Melendez's studio. The original documentary ("A Boy Named Charlie Brown") was updated and broadcast in 1969. For a more detailed history, see the book "A Charlie Brown Christmas - The Making of a Tradition", by Lee Mendelson, HarperCollins, 2000. [Most of this section was adapted from the book "Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz," by Lee Mendelson, published by The World Publishing Company in 1970.]

Here, judge for yourself (the ones on the far left are still to do):

No, no problems, though I'm now in a "putting away" mode, rather than in a "trying to find something" mode. Besides, I basically know where everything is. If I need to find a Blakey disc, it's easy to just leaf through all of them if necessary. Also, some titles are in digipaks, so those need to be filed as is; they serve as good visual markers.

Re predictability: It's been said that that's why Art Taylor was on so many sessions. He showed up! Re OP and singers: One big exception is the Verve Fred Astaire album. True beauty.

Wanted to give a progress report. I'm half-way through the "B"s (just finishing Blakey now), and am very impressed by the amount of space it's saving. What was 2 shelves of CDs are now in 1 1/2 boxes. And because I'm putting the boxes on the same shelves as before, but with the short end facing out (and hanging a little off the shelf), the 2 boxes take up less than half a shelf. It's a lot of work, and creating a lot of garbage (old CD cases), but I'm so far pleased with the results.

But those were all Norman Granz-produced dates, no? Not sure how much say Getz, Carter, etc., had in picking the sidemen on those recording dates. I remember reading the notes to a Verve Billie Holiday twofer (Strange Fruit) that she truly disliked a session led by Tony Scott; the implication being she had no say in the backup.

Hey, I occasionally mention that I don't like Ornette's music. If I do mention it, I mention it once in a thread, and then I move on. I don't try to kill the thread. On the other hand, there was an OP thread that had to be closed because of the bad feelings engendered there (see here), and another that got so hostile that you quit as moderator here (see here). You know what you're doing. Please don't do it again here.

Y'know, at a certain point (and we're now past that point), this abusive tone is a disrespect to the original poster and to the other board members who've posted here. We have every right to be here, to discuss what we'd like to, and to expect a friendly atmosphere. Many of us also consistently support the board through our contributions to the fund drives. We don't deserve to be treated this way. Jim, you've made your point. Please refrain from posting further in this thread.

I predict this thread will be closed within two days. It's too bad we can't have a civil conversation about OP.

All good points.

A (sometimes) frustration I have with this board is that listeners are often not critical enough. A collector might want all of Thelonious Monk's recordings, but are they all really equally good? Critical listening can establish "this recording date is better than that recording date, and here's why." And it's interesting to read why, because only in that way can I get a sense of what someone else hears (as well as helping me to better articulate what I hear). It would be useful to establish a guidepost, as in "The 5 Best Thelonious Monk Recording Dates," to truly force a critical evaluation of why and how one date is better than another. I think this would enable us all to be better listeners, or at least to better understand how different people hear differently. To bring the discussion full circle back to OP, a great example of this sort of exercise was Ethan Iverson's dissection of an OP performance. While I could hear OP playing in a facile and routine way, Iverson helped me pinpoint the moments in the performance that are facile and routine, and what makes them so. You can read his piece here: Do The Math. Some examples: This helped me understand what Peterson played, i.e., how we can identify OP when hearing a recording: Peterson's language was perhaps not truly innovative, but it certainly is distinctive. Major elements of his style include a precisely calibrated piano touch that executed both swing and bebop phraseology with crystalline clarity, a rigorous insistence on the blues, a left hand that could play nearly as fast as his right, exceptionally large voicings (his hands were enormous) and complicated small ensemble arrangements. His phrasing when improvising is breathless, with very little space. Or this, about a major deficiency in OP's approach; even if one can hear this and react negatively to it, it helps me to read an explication of what's being played: Peterson’s piano solos aren’t the problem, but Peterson participating in a rhythm section is: behind the horn solos, the piano comping (short for "accompaniment") is incessant. It begins to feel quite nervous and jittery after a while. A good example is the Peterson trio backing Lester Young with little-known but totally solid J.C. Heard on drums. Peterson cannot stop playing the piano for even a second. ("He leaves no holes for the rhythm section.") Although I do wish Iverson addressed what I hear, which is that OP could sound oppressive even when playing solo, with his carpet-like playing determined to avoid a real emotional connection to his vision of the tune. Anyway, I guess I'm just pointing out some things that I like. People don't sign up to this board to be given more work to do; they're just enthusiasts for the music, and more power to them. I do like the posts that are well written.

Larry, I loved these sentences, and it reminded me again why I love to read good criticism (and, perhaps, why I can't write it): it verbalizes thoughts about music that I have but cannot articulate beyond "good," "not good," "boring," etc. Please keep posting! As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, solo Pass can be snoozy, but if he has a band kicking his butt, the results could be very listenable. I recommend Live At Donte's (Pablo, never reissued on CD) and the two Live At Yoshi's volumes. Also interesting is "Whitestone," his attempt at GRP-type jazz. Not as bad as you might imagine.

I think it's a great value, and there are things on there I had never heard before.

I'm not sure Pass wrote much of anything other than standard blues. Solo Pass can be trite or sleepy, but with a band he could really burn with substance. Check out Live at Donte's. As for the "too enamored of the past" -- I'd blame Norman Granz, who pushed most of his artists in that direction. Sweet Georgia Brown, anyone?

The CD box is now sold out; they still have the USB box.

For those contemplating the 30 Trips box, rumor is there are just a few left (5 or so).

I find it fascinating to read people articulating what they hear in OP's playing - the analysis of the sequence of notes and what they mean. There is an area of listening where we're truly solitary; I'll never really know what other people hear, how it affects them, what they make of it. It's especially useful (for me, anyway) when the discussion is about a flawed musician such as OP. Why do some people enjoy his playing and others react so angrily to it? What makes one performance more musically valid to another? I find the explication by posters special, and look forward to this discussion continuing. BTW, I had a similar reaction this week to listening for the first time to an album by Monty Alexander, "Montreux Alexander." I truly disliked it; I thought he was playing nothing. Yet other people really like him. It's so interesting.

Bob Johnston passed away on August 14. He was 83. Obituary - Rolling Stone Obituary - NPR Obituary - LA Times Obituary - NY Times Interview

I note that Amazon has the Haydn Complete Symphonies box back in stock at a nice price ($47.80 for 37 CDs). I really enjoyed listening to this box.