Bluesnik

after Verve and some other case i saw the other day but which i can’t remember now, Concord is going the easy manufatureless route and offering a bunch of digital only reissues for download. admittedly, there’s nothing too exciting there but there are some nice bits in between. there’s one Prestige among them i've been eyeing and on the verge of getting from Japan for a long time now: the Jon Eardley Seven. I’m surprised to see it pop up here. and there’s a Coleman Hawkins, an Elvin Jones, an Osie Johnson, Dexter Gordon’s complete Prestiges and Herbie Harper - Jazz In Hollywood, of which I’m unsure if it is a Nocturne. I seem to recall there was some Nocturne material released under OJC. overall it's an odd mix of recent releases and historic reissues though, some of which are still available (Tania Maria/Viva Brasil, Barclay) and it’s far from the collector’s wet dream it could have turned out to be. plus I’m not so keen on the digital format. at least not for jazz. maybe for some more contemporary consumer music, like my dubstep, clubjazz or broken beat. but for jazz and for anything I won’t discard after a year (Brazil and soul too!!) I prefer to have the covers, liner notes and graphic material, to have a feel of the original release, a sense of product. I’m a bit old fashioned here. so I might end up getting the Jon Eardley as a Japanese pressing after all. the (first?) titles in this new download series are: Ahmed Abdul Malik - Jazz Sahara Al Cohn - Broadway (Reissue) Avishai Cohen - Adama Avishai Cohen - Colors Avishai Cohen, The International Vamp Band - Unity Barbara Lea - Barbara Lea (Reissue) Bill Evans - Blue In Green (Reissue) Bob Berg - Another Standard Charlie Byrd - The Charlie Byrd Christmas Album Charlie Byrd - The Washington Guitar Quintet Charlie Byrd, Laurindo Almeida - Brazilian Soul Charlie Mariano - Boston All-Stars Charlie Rouse Quintet - Takin' Care Of Business (Reissue) Chris Potter - Unspoken Chris Potter Quartet - Vertigo Claire Austin - Claire Austin Sings "When Your Lover Has Gone" (Reissue) Coleman Hawkins - Bean And The Boys (Reissue) Count Basie - Live In Japan '78 Dexter Gordon - The Complete Prestige Recordings Doris Day - The Love Album Elvin Jones - Elvin! (Reissue) Ernestine Anderson - Never Make Your Move Too Soon Ernestine Anderson - When The Sun Goes Down Gary Burton - Astor Piazzolla Reunion: A Tango Excursion Gary Burton - Libertango Gary Burton & Friends - Departure George Shearing - Duets George Shearing - Grand Piano George Shearing - Piano George Shearing, Mel Tormé - An Evening With George Shearing and Mel Tormé George Shearing, Mel Tormé - An Elegant Evening Herbie Harper - Jazz In Hollywood (Reissue) Honi Gordon - Honi Gordon Sings (Reissue) John Coltrane - Blue Trane: John Coltrane Plays The Blues (Reissue) Jon Eardley - The Jon Eardley Seven (Reissue) Kenny Burrell - Lotus Blossom Kenny Burrell - Lucky So and So Marian McPartland - From This Moment On Marian McPartland - Live At Maybeck Recital Hall (Vol. 9) Marian McPartland - Plays The Benny Carter Songbook Marian McPartland - Silent Pool Marian McPartland Trio - Live At Yoshi's Nitespot Matthew Gee - All-Stars Jazz By Gee! (Reissue) Mel Tormé - A&E Presents An Evening With Mel Tormé - Live From The Disney Institute Mel Tormé - My Night To Dream Mel Tormé, Cleo Laine - Nothing Without You (Live At The Loa) Monica Mancini - The Dreams Of Johnny Mercer Nnenna Freelon - Maiden Voyage Oscar Peterson - Oscar Peterson Live! Osie Johnson - Osie's Oasis (Reissue) Poncho Sanchez - Out Of Sight! Ray Brown - Trio Summer Wind (Live At The Loa) Ray Brown Trio, Ralph Moore - Moore Makes 4 (Live At The Loa) Scott Hamilton, Harry Allen - Heavy Juice Sonny Rollins - Silver City (A Celebration Of 25 Years Of Milestone) (Reissue) Tania Maria - Viva Brazil Tania Maria, Viva Brazil Quartet - Live At The Blue Note Ted Curson - Plays Fire Down Below The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Concord On A Summer Night (Remastered) The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Paper Moon The Ray Brown All Stars - Don't Forget The Blues The Ultimate Mancini Orchestra - Ultimate Mancini Tito Puente - Master Timbalero Tito Puente & His Latin Ensemble - Mambo Diablo Tito Puente, Maynard Ferguson - Special Delivery Tito Puente, Phil Woods - Salsa Meets Jazz oh and by the way, is the Mariano from his Boston days or something from his later years? it sounds like the former, but…

this is a beatiful bossaesque Shorter composition that Baker played a lot around 1978 in his late years. I have Broken Wing and it's one of my standout moments from that album. it's actually called Beautiful black eyes on Broken Wing and also appears on a very good Baker live date from that time, Live at Nick's, though that's hardly surprising since that one was recorded only weeks before Broken Wing, and also in Paris and with nearly the same band. on that album it's simply credited as Black Eyes (or maybe it was the other way round, i can't remember and can't check the discs right now). what i don't know is if Shorter ever recorded that composition himself. i suspect it must have been written sometime in the late Seventies in the time he did those brazilian albums and his collaboration with Milton Nascimiento. but that's just a guess. i have only heard the Baker versions, and believe me, it is a very beautiful, laidback tune with great Phil Markowitz piano solos on both mentioned versions.

Jutta Hipp is not (so) obvious but this was a Conn not too long ago. i have it. they could have gone for her 5000 series session or for any of her Hickory House trio dates (which i also have ).

there is a French 24-bit CD reissue of the Fontana LP that was released some years ago. it's in the same Uni France Heritage series where Art Blakey's Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Chet Baker Quartet with Dick Twardzik on Barclay came out. they were all digipacks and i imagine they must be available in the States. after that i saw another Universal reissue of Ascenseur in a jewel case, though that might also be a Euro only affair. though you might already know about all that.

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.