Bluesnik

Yes!

Some of early Pepper's finest, I think.

Yeah, me too. That's why I got the Complete Monk Prestiges boxset. And because it is a K2.

That one is a very, very nice set.

Got the Lionel Hampton, of which I wasn't aware of. Good thing.

Yes, I have this though I still haven't read it. It's probably OOP, since it was on a kind of blowout sale I bought it at the beginning of the 2000s. I was really surprised hearing here about it, because I thought "that's familiar to me".

Same here for many, many years. But in the meantime, and after spending a lot of time without paying attention, I find they have switched from more jugdemental reviews to ones that merely describe whats on the release, without judging. So they don't get involved. But whats very valuable and wasn't there before is the release info that even includes Japanese releases.

And I don't use any social media, so I guess it all makes sense. Same here. But remember social media come from forums and similar.

I would recommend Joao Donato. Specially his trio albums as pianist (he also played a bit of accordion in his beginnings) Muito a vontade and A bossa muito moderna. I rediscovered him the other day. And by the way another personal favorite here, though you will also know him, is Jorge Ben. Specially Sacundin ben samba, Samba esquema novo and his seventies masterwork Africa Brasil.

That has a really beatiful sound, in my opinion. They're K2 after all.

Completely agree with you here. That's one BN period I've always been very interested in. I have a number of Japanese TOCJ albums with Art Hodes, Port of Harlem Jazzmen, Sidney Bechet, early Ike Quebec, a.o. And the domestically released BN Swingtets. I'd also like to see early bop material.

Same here. By the way when I saw Mike's post I also wondered about Peckin Time, specially since the box is called Hank Mobley's BN fifties sessions, but the box was too far away to check. But now I know better.

Yes, that's the one I would recommend too. And, yes, it's with Billy Brooks and Eric Peter.

A possible alternative could be Donaldson's A man with a horn with Jack McDuff or Big John Patton and Grant Green, released as a Conn in 1999. It's in the same vein as those two Argo albums.

Yes, very nice. Especially since Lou Donaldson is paired a.o. with Big John Patton. And about its legality and the origin of the tapes I think it might be Europe only and no tapes as it's on one of those "Andorran" labels.

I have it and suspect only the second to be true. About the tape provenance I'm not sure. I would say it's a needle drop. The label is Fresh Sound-related, so... And IIRC the tile of the second album is Possum Head.

I really like this set. With Norvo alongside Tal Farlow and Mingus. And a sextet session from 1945 with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, Teddy Wilson a.o., where you can hear Norvo's early modernist leanings.

Disc 2

I got the Basie Deccas and the Ellington Brunswicks and Vocalions and they have full booklets. They're not new, though, they reprint the 92 version.

Wasn't this RVGd eventually?

The LPR series initially came out over here, in Europe, as Mini-LPs (with their own kind-of-OBIs), but after Universal's accountants found out how costly they were to make (they sold for around 12 € and were not as wildly priced as in Japan), the company switched to Digipaks. So later LPRs are Digipaks. LPR, which AFAIK stands for LP Reproduction. The Digipaks are nice still. They capture the cover very well. I have examples of both.

Curiously I just bought Lars Gullin's album the other day (Quartet, Quintet, Sextet, Octet and Big Band, IIRC). No, no. Now I see its Lars Gullin Swings. The rest is a kind of undertitle.

Curiously I just bought Lars Gullin's album the other day (Quartet, Quintet, Sextet, Octet and Big Band, IIRC) from a heap of Japanese Atlantic 1000 yen reissues, but I was told, strangely enough, (and it's clearly stated on the package) they're manufactured in the EU.

Yeah, that one is great. It was reissued, at least in Europe, as a Mini-LP in the LPR series. It belongs, like Sharpshooters, to his early Emarcys. But my favorite, I think, is Quintet in Chicago with the Miles Davis band (himself included), sans Miles. And maybe also Somethin Else.