Claude

A very happy birthday, Jazzmoose !!

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Everything before 1953 (2003 minus 50 years) is in the public domain. Definitive has already reissued some of Monk's Blue Note and Prestige sessions.

That's sad. I have just discovered Hans Koller through the recent MPS reissues. I've included below some information (previously posted on the AAJ board) on these sessions which are hardly known in the US. Since 1996 there is a Hans Koller Jazz Prize, the 2003 event took place in Vienna only two weeks ago. Hans Koller -------------------------------- The six Hans Koller titles are available as from today from Amazon Germany (10 Euro each, 5-6 days shipping time). I've translated the short descriptions from their website. Click on the cover picture for the Amazon.de link. I've heard a Hans Koller CD sampler that came out some years ago and I'm tempted to get them all. The earliest records are the best in my view. Exclusiv (1964) Hans Koller's first MPS LP is one of today's most sought after records from the label. Koller plays in a quartet and nonett with outstanding musicians such as Attila Zoller (guitar), Jimmy Pratt (drums) and Ex-Ellington-bassist Oscar Pettiford. An absolute classic in german jazz - for the first time on CD. Relax With My Horns (1966) A legendary trio recording with J.A. Rettenbacher (bass) and Rafi Luederitz (drums). Remarkably, Koller plays up to four tenor and soprano saxophone voices in overdub and so creates a "one man sax section". New York City (1968) This album was only released in 1979, but the grandiose music for orchestra and solists was recorded 11 years before. The musicians are regulars of the czech Gustav Brom Big Band and top solo artists such as trumpeter Benny Bailey, trombonist Peter Herbolzheimer, saxophonists/flutists Joki Freund and Emil Mangelsdorff, bassist Jiri Mraz and of course Koller. Phoenix (1972) In the 70's, Hans Koller played a free but not chaotic music full of tension and intensity, with pianist Albert Mair, bassist Adelhard Roidinger and drummer Alex Bally. The album title expressed the fact that Koller, who had spend some years with painting, entered the jazz scene again, like Phoenix rising from the ashes. Kunstkopfindianer (1974) Together with constituents from the New Jazz scene, Zbigniew Seifert (violin & saxophone), Janusz Stefanski (drums) and Wolfgang Dauner (keyboards), Hans Koller created a sound world of melodic sketches and rhythmic structures. Despite the greatest possible freedom, the group never gets lost in noise orgies or sound babbling (literate translation ) Zoller Koller Solal (1965) For this MPS highlight, producer Joachim-Ernst Berendt had the idea to unite a group without a rhythm section, only saxophone, guitar and piano. This timeless and tension-loaded album received a five star review in Down Beat, which is very rare for european productions. -------------------------

Mike, I asked the question above because I have the impression that there are at least two "Past Perfect" record labels. Zweitausendeins is selling 10CD boxes of vintage (public domain) classical and jazz recordings from a label with the same name. There is no trace of these boxes on the pastperfect.com website.

OK, I'll stop ranting about the sound of this set You can read it here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...opic=1626&st=15

Thanks a lot Brownie for those insights Here's a BYG discography: http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Labels/byg.htm An Archie Shepp "Live In Antibes" 2CD release from Fuel2000 is available for only $10 from deepdiscountcd.com. I don't know if it is in stock. I have the Sun Ra "Solar-Myth Approach" 2CD set from Charly records which is great musically but not technically. I have the impression that the recording itself is flawed, although this suits this music rather well Another good album is Don Cherry MU Parts 1 & 2 which I downloaded from emusic.com some time ago. The recording is not good enough to make me upgrade the MP3s to CD.

Thanks for the info, Reinier. I hope Michael C. has some influence on EMI's decision to copyprotect their releases. I've seen some new EMI Classical titles being copycontrolled too (Prokofiev violin concertos), but most of them are not. EMI should know that it is counterproductive to do that with releases that are mainly bought by collectors.

Is it this "Past Perfect" label? http://www.pastperfect.com/pages/about.html

Thanks for the link, Weizen. I did not know there were so many JRVGs. So EMI Japan let old Rudy remaster hundreds of sessions only to let the CDs go out of print a few years later. It's no surprise RVG messed up a lot of those remasters, because he must not have had much time for every session or he wasn't very motivated.

The sound of the Mosaic is not very good. I found the Connoisseur releases of "Destination out" and "Some other stuff" to be superior.

Usually the method is called "electronically rechannelled to simulate stereo", as nothing is re-recorded.The signal is processed in order to create a fake stereo effect. As the original recordings are mono, this is completely artificial and has nothing to do with high fidelity. What they did: The mono signal was sent to the right and left channels of the mixing console - one channel is slightly delayed (out of phase). This creates a vague spatial effect. Try the extreme version: put on a mono recording and invert the +/- cables of one of the loudspeaker. - bass is boosted on one channel and treble on the other. This is supposed to give the impression that the bass player is one channel and the cymbals on the other. However instruments which cover the whole frequency spectrum will move from one channel to the other depending on the notes they play. But with these methods it is of course impossible to seperate instruments effectively. True stereo means that individual instruments can be located between the speakers, while "rechannelled mono" only makes both channels sound different. Today it is hard to understand why somebody would do this. You can't recreate stereo from mono recordings. But Sony did a similar thing with some multichannel SACDs made from 3-channel tapes (Kind of Blue, Time out): The three channels are sent to to the front left, right and center speakers, while the rear speakers get an artificial reverb created from the front channels. Maybe this added ambience effect sounds fine, but it has nothing to do with fidelity. Here at least the listener can choose not to use the rear signal, but with "rechanneled stereo" using the mono switch on the amp will not get the original mono signal back.

It is one of my favourite Donald Byrd sessions, also because of the presence of Jackie McLean. The title track is amazing. I have the US release from the late 80's and the sound is not very good but ok.

The thread is still there, you probably did not go back in time far enough with your search, as the default is only 30 days. Andrew Hill - Passing Ships, initial impressions

I would rather have seen him a member of a weird sect. Something like the "Immortal Peter Pans"

$132 - a record for the Woody Shaw 3CD Mosaic set, which usually goes for $50-80.

With the more recent sets such as the Byrd/Pepper, Mosaic started to rearrange sessions in the set so to have two complete sessions on one CD, instead of going strictly chronological and having sessions spread amongst 2 CDs. That wa a good choice in my view. I don't know what they were trying to do with the Mulligan set.

Woman's arrest brings Texas obscenity law into question (Houston Chronicle, December 15)

I find that recorders which can save films onto (re)writable DVD only are not very useful, as most of the time one only needs temporary storage, to record a movie and watch it later. Therefore harddisk video recorders are preferable because: - no need to have an empty recordable DVD ready - much bigger storage space (you can program it for a 2 week holiday and record many hours in DVD quality, whereas DVD-Rs can record a maximum of 8 hours in low (VHS) quality) - no DVD burning problems (anyone burning CDs or DVDs knows that this can be tricky) However one also needs the possibility to save movies onto DVDs for long time storage, or to play them on another system. So a perfect recorder has both a DVD-R burner and a large hard drive. Currently the $500 recorders are DVD-only, recorders with a hard drive still cost more than $1000. I will only get such a machine when they are below $500, which should not be too difficult given the standard components that are in these machines.

Yes please, some info on the sound of those CDs. I also picked up an "audiophile 180g pressing" of New Africa and the sound is rather poor. The LPs have been discussed here

How wide can "obscenity" be defined? Is the Californian porn business in danger?

Mike, maybe you've seen on german TV the ad campaign for AOL high speed internet access: "I'm still young, I can wait"

Alan Parsons Tales of Mystery and Imagination For the CD reissue, Alan Parsons - always the perfectionist - has not only remastered the tapes but also re-recorded some parts (drums, guitar solos) and added some new (digital) sound effect. I never liked this hybrid production and I'm happy I have the old LP, which also has a nice 8 page booklet.

Thanks! Great performance and recording. Sounds just like Mr.T on tenor and RVG on the console