mjzee

It's also on this Rhino compilation: Jazz Hit Singles

Was a video of this concert made by CBS/Sony? I ask because all the photos on the album jacket are stills from video.

In the day, I had an English two-fer of The Move and Shazam. Loved Shazam. Cherry Blossom Clinic...yeah! What a great, thick sound they had. Great cover, too. Always wanted to own Looking On and Message From The Country (didn't they duplicate some tracks?), but Capitol's distribution was spotty in those days, and I never managed to acquire them. I do think Roy Wood is a true talent, tho I don't quite understand why a true talent doesn't work regularly. The "reclusive genius" thing kinda creeps me out.

I have to put in my 2 cents on this topic. Why do we buy so much? Because when we listen to a lot of it, we feel wonderful. The great thing about jazz is it's also enriching - it's the kind of topic where the more you know and experience, the more you'll get out of the music. It's as much about deepening your knowledge as anything else. One HUGE difference between an addiction like alcoholism and buying music (which I maintain is not an addiction) is that you drink a bottle once, and it's gone. Listen to an album, and it's still there fully intact, waiting to be heard again. If you were to listen to each album only once, it wouldn't take you that long to go through all of jazz history. So the question is, as porcy62 mentioned, the amount of time we have to listen to the music to the extent we want to. An additional consideration with jazz is how often we buy titles because we may never see them again. This strains our budget, but we see it as an unpleasant choice we must make. Look at the recent Mosaic thread about The Jazz Piano - if it weren't being discontinued, we wouldn't have expressed such agita. Obviously, an alcoholic faces no such challenge: liquor will always be made, and if he can't get Chivas he'll settle for Thunderbird. So I see our unease about jazz collecting as a result of two unalterable facts: The amount of great music that's out there (and that will give us pleasure), and how much money we can devote to collecting. If one doesn't have a lot of money to devote, it doesn't change the fact that the music's great. And if we buy to listen to it (even if at a later date), then we're enriching ourselves. I've "solved" the challenge of listening to my collection by listening to virtually everything through the "Party Shuffle" feature of iTunes. Whatever it plays (right now it's Blue 7 by Sonny Rollins from Saxophone Colossus) is pretty wonderful, and I just don't think about all the music I have but am not listening to. I'll probably hear another wonderful track within 5 minutes.

I wonder how Gambit can use the same cover art for Matador/Inta Somethin' that BN used. I saw all the new Gambit additions (4 pages worth). For some, I was wondering where the material originally came from. Maybe we should start a Gambit thread with translation tables (this release = these original releases). Some are from other labels, some are from private tapes (the Warne Marsh?). Also, for all the talk about the Andorrans being crooks (which I'll sidestep), I think they should get some credit for being jazz fans. Even with their not paying royalties for the masters, I can't believe they'll make much money from a 4-CD boxed set of the Elmo Hope Trio (Elmo). There can't be that many jazz fans out there. It's also interesting that eMusic doesn't yet have the Fantasy Monterey releases. They're already on iTunes. But they do list the Joni Mitchell as a future release.

Basically, these are just normal files. Assuming you use iTunes to rip the music from your CD's (or download tracks from Apple), locate the folder to where iTunes copies the files. Then, using Windows Explorer (assuming you use Windows), navigate to that folder, and just copy and paste it to your new EHD. You don't need to install iTunes on the EHD. Make sure that iTunes doesn't "find" those backup files, because then two of everything will show in iTunes. If the EHD came with backup software, you can then instruct it to automatically backup your new iTunes tracks as you add them.

eMusic: Louis Armstrong in Scandinavia, Vol. 1 That's the only volume I could find there.

The tracks in the Tapers Section used to be available in .mp3 format. They've changed that this week to an all-streaming format. The site states: "I undertook the Taper's Section last November with a pretty simple vision: to have fun providing folks a regular opportunity to hear vault material that kept their interest in Grateful Dead music fresh. "Recently, I and others that work on dead.net became aware that certain fans had been regularly downloading the tracks offered in the Taper Section. From the very beginning, this program has always been intended to be a "for streaming only" service. Downloading was never announced, described or promoted in any manner. The situation that developed over the past months is very different than my original plan. "Where we’re at today requires us to step back, gather some information, do some thinking and get back to you. In the meantime, we ask that you all realize that dead.net's and GDP's commitment to the Dead Head community is unchanged. We’re very excited to be hard at work with Rhino on a number of very cool releases and programs that you’ll be hearing about soon. Please bear with us until then."

Is anyone following the controversy on the Dead.Net taper section? They're no longer providing downloadable MP3's.

This title could use the domestic RVG treatment.

Hmmm, what's the general consensus - record company shill?

I own the download version from eMusic. The sound quality seems clear, at least on the car stereos/computer speakers/mini systems I've listened to it on. And the music is startling. Manhattan Studio

I'm thinking of replacing my car stereo and speakers. What are your thoughts about good head unit/speaker combos for jazz? I'd also like an iPod direct connection.

This month's downloads: Anthony Braxton - Six Compositions (GTM) 2001 Phineas Newborn, Jr. - A World of Piano Clifford Brown / Max Roach Quintet - More Live at the Bee Hive Kenny Burrell - 'Round Midnight Joe Pass Quartet - Live At Yoshi's Thelonious Monk - Thelonious In Action Bud Powell - Blue Note Cafe, Paris, 1961 Art Tatum - Group Masterpieces, Vol. 4 Lester Young in Washington, D.C. 1956, Vol. 2 Baby Dodds - Talking and Drum Solos Curtis Fuller and Hampton Hawes with French Horns

eMusic has started carrying the Vanguard label. While their initial offerings are all folk, let's hope they start carrying their jazz titles too. Also, interestingly enough, they're carrying the two Greyfolded disks: Greyfolded - Mirror Ashes, Greyfolded - Transitive Axis

Now on eMusic: Don't Misunderstand

K.C.'s Pendergast and Parker By WILLIAM H. SMITH I was among the now-dwindling group of jazz buffs on the scene in the fall of 1938 when Charlie Parker (1920-55) started on his oft-bumpy road to jazz immortality. The venue: Martin's-on-the-Plaza, a posh Kansas City, Mo., club on the famed Country Club Plaza, where legendary jazz pianist, blues singer and band leader Jay McShann gave the alto saxophonist his first steady gig. Little did I realize back then that this was to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as the 17-year-old Parker went on to be known as arguably the greatest sax player of all time. To understand how Kansas City, this Missouri cow town, became a magnet for jazz musicians, one must learn about Boss Tom Pendergast, who fell heir to the business interests and political machine established by his big brother, Jim. The baseball legend Buck O'Neil, who gained fame with the Kansas City Monarchs, described the Pendergast era in one sentence: "The sky was the limit; anything you were big enough to do and could afford, you did it." Others observed that policemen gambled alongside civilians in the many establishments dispensing booze. The vice and corruption afforded a fertile ground for jazz to flourish. During the 1930s, musicians from all over the country started Goin' to Kansas City. There was Lester "Pres" Young, who had come from Minneapolis, and drummer Jesse Price, who had arrived from Memphis, Tenn. On a stopover en route to Omaha, Neb., McShann had gotten off the bus and walked several blocks to the Reno Club, where Count Basie held court, and been persuaded by a bassist friend to stay. Charlie Parker -- who was born in Kansas City, Kan. -- had only needed to take a nickel bus ride across the Kaw River to Missouri, where he found a place to live near Vine Street. Charlie never returned home, except to visit his mother, Adele. As related in "Kansas City Jazz From Ragtime to Bebop," by Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix (Oxford University Press, 2005), McShann recalled that the clubs along Vine Street didn't close: "About 7:00 in the morning the cleanup man would come and all the guys at the bar would move out of the way . . . the bartender would serve them at a table while the place got cleaned up . . . the clubs went 24 hours a day." It was at Bar Lu Duc that McShann found the young man playing alto sax whom he had been looking for and wanted for his Martin's Plaza gig. Recovering from a 1936 car accident, Parker became addicted to heroin. As a result, his unreliability was notorious -- many times he'd show up for a gig sans saxophone and unable to perform. McShann told me that when he employed Parker, he was contacted by Earl "Fatha" Hines, who warned that he wanted the saxophonist -- and swore that "I've got the money and I'm taking him." And so he did. He kept him for about six months -- until Hines called McShann. "Hootie, come get this guy," Hines begged. "I can't handle him." Jay took Charlie back -- but paid a sideman a stipend to keep an eye on him. Parker's other well-known addiction -- fried chicken, or "yardbird" to Charlie -- accounts for Parker becoming universally recognized simply as "Bird." When Missouri Gov. Lloyd Stark was elected in 1936 and turned against Pendergast, it became clear that an end to the corruption and vice in Kansas City was in the cards. In 1938, Westbrook Pegler called the nation's attention to the Pendergast machine in his syndicated columns. In 1939, Tom Pendergast was imprisoned in Leavenworth for income-tax evasion; by the time of his death in 1945, the golden age of Kansas City jazz was over. With the curtailment of nightlife, musicians and bands looked for greener pastures in New York. Parker was among them. After Parker set the world of jazz afire with his blazing, revolutionary improvisations, his tragic life ended, March 12, 1955, at the Fifth Avenue residence of his friend, and benefactor of jazz, the Baroness de Koenigswarter. When he became deathly ill, Charlie was watching the Dorsey Brothers' TV program, "Stage Show." Parker liked the sound of Jimmy Dorsey's alto sax. Although the coroner estimated his age as between 55 and 60, Parker was only 34. Parker's birthday was Aug. 29. A few days early, The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, sponsored by the New York City Parks Foundation, celebrates the occasion on Aug. 25 at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and on Aug. 26 at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Both events are from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Charlie Parker is buried at Lincoln Cemetery, on the outskirts of Kansas City, Mo. -- where the Charlie Parker story began. According to Dean Hampton, a K.C. jazz impresario, the 2007 Celebrating Bird events will begin at the grave site on Aug. 26 at 1 p.m., with a sax salute, a New Orleans style marching band, and many other Kansas City-based jazz musicians. The celebrations will continue through Parker's birthday at the famed Mutual Musician's Foundation, which during Parker's day was the home of local 627, the largest black local union in the country. Here there will be a jam session, as well as displays of Charlie's memorabilia. Further details and directions are provided at webjazz.net. Bird Lives!

I have two EHDs, one for the backup. I see no reason to burn onto CDRs; I did that for awhile, then realized having a backup EHD saves a lot of time.

Looking at the Mosaic site now, don't see anything about an August sale. Where did you see it?

I also have the Chambers TOCJ and agreed that the sound is terrific on that one, so I probably will not upgrade it. If anyone missed out on the early conn's and cc's though, there are a lot of those in this and the upcoming batch. I'm planning on grabbing the Davis since I passed on this one when it was reissued 12 years ago. Has it really been 12 years since Davis Cup came out as a Connoisseur? Jeez...

I personally don't believe the two sessions were recorded on the same day. It doesn't make sense: not just two entirely different set lists, but two different bands. Most probably one of the dates is wrong. Just my personal opinion.

The Quebec is a great session. I love Kenny Burrell's playing on that. I'll probably get the Duke Jordan. I've always been intrigued by the cover - Reid Miles almost never used serif type - the cover almost looks like a Riverside rather than a BN. I have the others - the Morgans on the Mosaic box. I don't particularly care for the Chambers - too much solo bass; it's just not that interesting a lead instrument.

New Wine in Old Bottles is great. Jackie was on that day.

Just the 30-second samples available on eMusic. Sounds like a cassette recording. Spirited performance. "Spitballs" is just soprano sax and drums (Artie Tripp/Ed Marimba). It was a great version of the band.

New on eMusic: Captain Beefheart Live at Bickershaw 1972