Bluesnik

i remember reading somewhere he intended to study with him shortly before his death.

my favourite Dave Pell is I had the craziest dream on Capitol. if you can still find it, this one is really worth getting. and there's another one of his RCAs I like a lot, i think it is A Pell of a Time. and i agree Campus Hop is disappointing. i have it but have only listened to it a couple of times. but of course you need to like West Coast to enjoy this. i certainly do.

i stopped hearing about new jazz reissues from Water some time ago, but they reissued some nice Brazilian stuff about a year or two ago.

from what i have seen, that box, to be released on 04/12/07, only includes the 55-56 Barclay sessions already reissued in different forms. so how come it takes up 8 full CDs? easy, one CD per session with some only featuring 3 or 4 tracks and uncountable alt takes on others. now that's a brilliant marketing concept! i'm only missing vol. 3 ('56 sessions), which i have as a copy and would like to have as a regular release. vol. 4 i'm not interested in. i had been waiting for many years for the full barclay sessions to be reissued to make up for that gap ... but not in this way. it will cost over 100 € . sure, nice booklet and pics but loads of duplication. and the story of those Paris days has been told lots of times. i doubt there's much (if any) new info in there. and it seems not even the duos with Caterina Valente are on the box, though I don't know for whom they were recorded (not Barclay for sure, but probably some label now under the Universal umbrella). i think i'll stick to my CDR.

i discovered her more than a year ago, before Back to black was released and i must say i love that album. for me one of the best albums of 2006 (not 2007, although it's not been released in the US until this year). Frank is not as good. but now her public persona and all the media attention she gets because of her oh so scandalous lifestyle (i like that lifestyle and its fairly common and it's much less than its made out to be by the media. there are many, many people leading similar lifestyles) have put her music into the background. people and the tabloid readers aren't interested in her as an artist anymore but only as a source for their daily dose of delicious scandal. and it's all exaggerated and blown out of proportions to satisfy that demand. forget about the hype and listen to her music. she is talented, coming from the same background as Jamie Woon and all that South London soul scene. she's got soul and is real and can make songs really come alive. the fact that she's become a celeb doesn't take anything away from that. though i doubt she'll record another Back to Black. or maybe she tops it. and don't fear, she's not self destructing. oh, and about the bonus tracks, i've got a demo version of Rehab which i don't like very much and a beatiful, beautiful stripped down accoustic version of Love is a losing game which is an absolute jewel.

the second volume of the jazzanova compiled Forum West (More Forum West) might be a bit slanted towards Eastern Europe (i dont' have it), as was said here before, but the first one is definitley West German (nothing DDR/GDR, though). i have it and it opened my appettite for German jazz of the sixties and it's very good. it's got Fritz Pauer, Hans Koller, Wolfgang Dauner and also the Kühns. and i think it's not even compiled by jazzanova, they just lent their name and label to the Hans Wewerka initiated project. the main compiler is that guy who does all the Universal Germany and Motor comps in Hamburg, and whose name i can't remember now.

i have a soft spot for Hampton Hawes Trio on Contemporary, which i have as a VICJ i think (it's also out as an OJC). i mean the one with hte green background where Hawes is tip-toeing over some japanese calligraphy. i don't know if it also was his fist date. i'd have to check.

speaking of Spanish pianists, Freshsound put out a compilation some months ago of the two or three records (10" and 12", i think) Tete Montoliu released on Catalan label Concentric in the mid 60s. It's an excellent record and one of the piano trio albums i have enjoyed most in the last months. for me it was a revelation about Tete Montoliu, who i never had cared much about. really, really good and very 60ish open playing. he plays with an American drummer and a Scandinavian bassist, if i remember well, who spent some time in Barcelona playing the Jamboree club. and since we're in the reccomendations thread i can only do that: reccomended, very reccomended!! tip!

have you heard about Herbie Hancock's Hear O Israel 1969 sabbath album? it's being reissued in a short run in the UK. don't know if that's cause for rejoice or just a pain in the ass. of course that nutter Johnny Trunk's behind it and that should be enough guarantee, but ... and it seems to be already causing waves among collectors. i haven't heard it and doubt i will. but for Hancock completists it could be a find. the lineup's also not bad. Hear o Israel and while you're there you can also find out about a lost Michael Garrick LP. that one might be more interesting, i reckon. at least the story is interesting. Michael Garrick

FWIW, the Japanese have curious release plans for this: first they'll release an import version (or have released, since it was scheduled for late June) and one month later they'll release their domestic Toshiba version. i don't get the logic in this!

haven't heard that one, so i can't speak. have heard the Chet Köln concert though. i'm spooked with the new version of the board. my previous post suddenly disappeared. then when i was rewriting it i saw jazzbo's post and it was there again. i'm also alternatingly logged in and not logged in. and yesterday i couldn't log out. maybe that means my ghost has to stay resident here like the phantom of the opera.

the CD isn't on Lonehill but on one of their associated labels, the one they use for live tapes. they're both releases of collector live tapes, not label owned material. if they have been released before it will have been in the same manner as now. and i think i heard the Köln concert was unreleased before. i think there's also an unissued Dutch concert (Den Haag?) from that tour. or wasn't that also recently released by the same label? i think so. i'm normally not very interested in this kind of live tapes, since they tend to be of very very low sonic quality. they're normally fan recordings made on some home taperecorder.

this is one i'm definitely getting. almost did just when it came out.

a couple of weeks ago i had a strange sighting... i found a Jazz in Paris in a jewel case!! first time i've seen that. it was Sarah Vaughan and Strings and i couldn't read the samll print very well in the dark store. i just saw 2007 as the production date and i thought it could be a new addition to the series, not being aware of that title. it was dirt cheap and i got it. only when i was back at my office did i discover it was #83, so nothing new but that means some of the titles are being reissued in jewel cases in a second edition now. hardly surprising after 5 years and considering many are OOP. i guess they'll put out the bigger names (O. Peterson, Chet Baker, Django...) and skip the obscurer titles and let them slowly fade out. or that's the feeling i have. that's done with some reissue programs some years after the first run, for instance with the Brazilian Odeon remasters. so it's not a bad moment to pick up some of those favourites i have been meaning to get for some time, like some Elek Bacsik, the second René Thomas (not The real cat), the Jazz sous l'occupation (which i can't find now ... and i'd held it in my hands so many times before ), Bobby Jaspar - Jeux de Cartes a.o. i think i'm going out right NOW

i've been asking myself the same question for some weeks now. is this licensed or isn't it? and if so why isn't this done more frequently? i mean why aren't more small labels doing that? but it's great to have a new source for reissues. haven't heard the Ashby CD but i have a vinyl rip and quite like it. it's a bit on the eastern/easy side but nothing wrong with me about that. i know the German Jazzanova guys love it. there's also a beautiful Gilberto Gil reissue on Water i've been tempted by in the last weeks. but it's a bit pricey (here in Europe, not on DG) and it's from his London days. i always prefer the brazilian material. and i always prefer the shops over the websites.

yes, i was also surprised when they announced these some time ago. frankly i see this as somehow degrading the Mosaic brand. and those covers! but it's up to them. they should know what they're doing ... i will continue reaching for their top tier product. and i understand they need to secure new sources of revenue. the question is if there IS an interest in those releases beyond the people who already got them in the seventies ... unless they want them to buy them again! because i don't see any revival potential in those titles. but stranger things have happened. not my cuppa. not even the cti business.

ufff, that was long. i think you can guess that i like him. and many typos too, but i don't like editing closed posts. one thing: to really enjoy Gainsbourg one has to understand his lyrics, or at least partially. they're very humoresque and ironic. how could such an ugly man be so sucessful with women? must have been his charme, sure. and something else: there's a Gainsbourg soundtrack on Jazz et cinema vol.3, Jazz in Paris. it shows more his jazz leanings, a side of him i'd be willing to deeper explore. maybe with Brownie's tips.

ah, ms. gainsbourg. finally a thread about one of my cult heroes. well, maybe hero's a bit exaggerated, but i like the guy a lot. and wholesale, his whole career and evolution. i like him at the begginning and i like him as an old man. musically it's got to be his first years and up to the mid seventies. after that he went a bit stale, but his magic and charme remained untouched for the rest of his days. like Sacha Distel he started as a jazz musician playing all the seedy Parisian clubs but soon was revamped into a nascent pop career under the direction of Alain Goraguer. so it's fifties pop with jazz orchestral arrangements and later in the 60s real pop and later on rock. but it's not so much the music per se what counts as the character and personality he gave to everything he touched. like with so many of his peers, it's more the man than his music. see Sinatra, for instance. i have Nº2, Nº4, The Ballad of Melody Nelson and my absolute favourite of his albums: Percussions, a mid fifties session with creole, african and antillean percussion and chanting, where he sings over hypnotic percussion lines and with a backing group of girls doing the choruses. it's basically percussion, guitar and the chorus, plus a clarinet or wind instrument here and there. and it's magic. i couldn't live without this album. it has an absolutely infectious joie de vivre, it always gets me in a high mood and puts a big smile on my face. this is where the classic Coleur café comes from and it also features what for me has got to be the sexiest song ever, Pauvre Lola. give it a listen! the whole album has a tropical undertone that perfectly fits his libertine lyrics. and its mood always reminds of that tropical scene on Night of the Iguana where Ava Gardner voluptuously dances on the beach, maracas in hand and flirting with two Mexican boys under the onlook of a bunch of stoic iguanas. maybe it can also remind a bit of Robert Mitchum's calypso album, though that's more British Caribbean. Nº2 is more jazz pop with great songs and a very French mood and Nº4 more early sixties pop, the onset of what's called yehyeh in France. a bit like Francoise Hardy. it's very very 60s. but early 60s, innocent 60s. Ballad of Melody Nelson, despite its cult status i don't find so great. there's one song in it (sung with la Birkin, or BB? now i don't remember) i would take to a desert island (it's like the template for some of the French noveau chanson of the 2000s), but the rest is a rumbly barrage of fuzzy guitars, overvolumed bass and a bit of directionless noodling. i guess it's more about the lolitaesque lyrics. but ask any pop musician around 30 and they absolutely love it. some Gainsbourg albums were briefly reissued by Uni in France around '99, but they can't be found anymore. maybe online. then there are the Japanese versions, which are more or less always in print. at the moment there's a big batch available, although more from the 70s/80s. and with SG one has to be careful, there are so many compilations it's easy to mistake one for a careeer album. for instance, there's one reissued at mid price in Britain now called Initiales SG, which at first sight looks like a 60s album (and i think it is), but which could as well easily be a comp. you always have to check. I jnow the man’s not precisely popular in prude America, but i urge you to explore him. he's no different from the average American male. and his provocation and axcentricity were just the way he was. not the calculated rebeliousness and hellraising of today's prefabricated teen idols, who run off crying to mami at the first turn of events.

and that would be, Surf Ride plus what else? the jazz composers workshop material? or do you mean that Complete Surf Ride? because that covers the same tracks as my single disc Columbia edition, if i'm not mistaken. i'm curious.

well, i meant a mess in terms of program design and of material inclusion and duplication/omission, not so much presentation. they seem to have worked in different successive waves, without a unifiying concept. for instance they have a Timeless Art Pepper, which includes Surf Ride and another session, and which i suspect (never checked) gathers all of Peppers SAvoy output and which could have been packaged like the Completes. same goes for the Donald Byrd or the COltrane. unless of course i'm mistaken about their completeness. but then they could just have made them complete! maybe htey didn't want to release single disc completes, as something of a "contradiction in terms". and to add to that they have some album reissues... it's like a mix of different temporary formulas. remastering standards are consistently high though, with that Paul Reid III sitting on his throne and wielding his scepter at his engineer-drones . i checked at home and don't have anything to add to this list. i assume it's complete. i also have (and have seen) some other of the "black boxes" not mentioned here. but they were breakdowns of the Bird Complete Savoy and Dial (the first SAvoy box i got, long before that bin find, and one of my all time jazz faves), like one called Chasin the Bird (1CD) i once bought very cheap as a potential present for someone. and i think there are one or two more.

yes, they are distributed and i don't know if also manufactured by Universal. they carry their logo. just repressings of the old late 80s/early 90s OJCs though. but it looks like the full catalog has been repressed. to be honest i was quite surprised when i first saw them pop up. but isn't there another thread about that? and about hoarding: i've been on some mad shopping sprees myself chasing down what i saw as old, soon to be or already OOP titles in the past. but i've had nasty suprises, like seeing them pop up some time later or while still shrink wrapped in my back log. i'm much more careful now. and what's been recommended here is well worth having. no doubt.

yes that was it, i don't have the double set because i have all the material (except for alt takes) on Toshibas. and it was a 60th b-day special. that's why i'm patiently awaiting 2009 (it's getting closer) to see if they get it together and present us with something special. i also count "The Fabulous Sidney Bechet" as part of that batch, even if it isn't, and also have the First day Ammons/Lux Lewis, but this one sounds very poor. ifyou like Jonah Jones there's a CApitol album (Jumpin with Jonah Jones), but it's from the 50s. having said that, and returning to the general thread mode, i wouldn't start hoarding EMI CDs now just because of the unclear company future. these titles will be on the market for years to come. i still remember all the talk here at the time of the Fantasy sale (grab em before they disappear!!), and they are all back on the market, including (many, many) titles i'd never seen before as OJCs and others that were always a bit elusive. and cheaper than ever. though that's a different thread actually.

oh, i got many of these. found them very cheap in sale bins some years back. at the time i thought they had been deleted. some were cut out. i'll have to check at home if i have anything that's missing here. most of the ones i've seen here i have. i particularly love the Red Norvo sessions with Tal Farlow and also the Lester Young. togehter with those i also got a series of 24 bit reissues with full albums from MIles Davis, Curtis Fuller, the Bird Roost live dates and others. I guess these were the newest of them all. from 2003 i think. this whole reissue program (completes, albums and comps) ranging from around 1999 to i think 2003 is a bit of a mess. but the completes are great: well packaged, documented and remastered. i wish i could lay my hands on some of the older ones, particularly the Black Californias (or better see them reissued), though there's also a good comp under the same title on French Universal label Saga. i love Savoy as a label and would like to see it get a better reissue treatment. like on the Coltrane/Harden i have as mini LP or Art Pepper's Surf Ride or the Navarro Memorial i have on Columbia, i think.

i'm wearing the Best from the West T at this very moment. i got it last year, true as always to my love for west coast jazz AND because i liked the design. some of those Ts are a bit underdesigned though, just a minimal motif and that's it. iconic but a bit poor. actually i only liked the indestructible, the true blue and ... mine on top of all others. no wait, there was also a nice dixieland one. a bit expensive though, i must say. how's this site called again were you can submit your own designs and have them printed on a T if they are voted/selected by the users? they have really nice and original ones. and they go for about 10-15 US. ah, yes threadless.com. not all designs are good, of course but some are very good. or at least they were last time i looked, last summer. the stock keeps changing all the time...

nothing to do with this, but i had a friend who played in my band and had a parallel band in the late eighties called like that, Machine Gun, and their tagline was live acid house! it was a wild combination of proto sequenced music (the first digital drum machines, some synths and the TB303) with Hendrix-type guitar lines, all played live. one of their signature tunes was a delirious version of Purple Haze. very, very wild stuff. i even had a t-shirt from them. this British guy is now in the backing band of avant theatre group Fura dels Baus, who also use strong apocalyptic electronic soundscapes in their action shows. i know, i know, no relation (except maybe for the energy level), but the name brought forth very good memories of past wild days, precisely at a moment when acid house is high in vogue again. sorry for temporarily hijacking this thread