BFrank

You were THERE, brownie? VERY cool. I have the Affinity LP, which is a monster.

Saw him sit in with the Charles Tolliver Big Band on Thursday night. Very cool, since he wasn't scheduled to play with them.

I wondered about that, too. I seem to recall seeing some sort of collection of this stuff released in the last few years, though. (I could be wrong).

I saw the preview of this. It was great to see the stuff and I picked up the catalog, too. There were actually THREE Coltrane horns. A tenor, alto (?), and soprano. As for the Bird alto, regardless of how long he owned it, it had his name engraved on the bell and an engraved plate on the case. Pretyy impressive. At least 2-3 Elvin Jones drum kits were on display, too - including one that was never used. Those were interesting to see. Here's more info on the auction: NY Times February 21, 2005 Jazz Enthusiasts Pick Up a Few Lingering Echoes By BEN RATLIFF The serious bidding got under way quickly at the big jazz auction yesterday afternoon, at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. The auction was front-loaded with Louis Armstrong items, and the first lot contained a four-page handwritten letter from Louis Armstrong to his booking agent Joe Glaser, asking about the possibility of a gig in a Broadway theater: $3,500. An Armstrong telegram to Mr. Glaser about dental problems and a lack of cash: $1,600. The awesome lot No. 10, a bawdy 32-page handwritten letter to Armstrong's manager, Oscar Cohen: $25,000. Guernsey's, the auction house that held the event, hatched the idea 10 years ago; in the meantime they have had auctions centering on Elvis Presley and the history of rock. But over the past year Guernsey's has made a concerted effort to contact the families of a select list of great jazz performers, living and dead, for the biggest auction yet exclusively dedicated to jazz artifacts. The auction was originally scheduled for the 500-seat Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which is in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. But once word spread widely in mid-January, the interest grew high enough to move it to the 1,200-seat Rose Theater. The orchestra seats were full of bidders, and many bids came in over the telephone or the Internet, which made bidder No. 944 a mysterious minicelebrity. He or she bought the long Armstrong letter, and paid $23,000 for Thelonious Monk sheet music titled "Can't Call It That." The jazz great's son, T. S. Monk, who was at the auction, explained that "Can't Call It That," which dates to the 1940's, was really the famous Monk tune "Straight, No Chaser." His father, he said, retitled the song so it could sit on the piano at Monk's home, where Thelonious Monk's mother wouldn't be offended by the real title's reference to alcohol. Bidder No. 944 also bought one of Monk's high school notebooks, in which the 15-year-old Stuyvesant High School student wrote in a fabulously rococo hand about why "Everyone Should Read Good Newspapers," as well as a book report on "A Tale of Two Cities." Bids started at $3,500 and finally stopped, 110 head-spinning seconds later, at $60,000. A representative from Guernsey's explained that the bidder wished to remain anonymous, and provided only the statement, "I am a Monk fan who went to Stuyvesant." That ruled out three famous and wealthy jazz lovers, Clint Eastwood, Bill Cosby and Wynton Marsalis. Among other things, the auction was a gauge of cultural capital, and Armstrong, Monk, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker seemed to rate highest. The highest price paid was for a King alto saxophone owned by Parker. Known to be Parker's primary instrument in the 1950's, it sold for $225,000, to another unidentified phone bidder. A few items came with minimum-bidding levels and did not sell; among them was one of Wes Montgomery's guitars, offered at $300,000. Before the auction, jazz scholars expressed concern that many items had not been given directly to the Smithsonian or a comparable institution by the musicians' families. Scholars worried that the items would be taken out of the United States or otherwise never be made available again. (One piece, Coltrane's original arrangement for his most famous composition, "A Love Supreme," is an example. It has detailed notes in Coltrane's hand indicating that he planned five other percussionists for the piece besides his core quartet.) The Smithsonian's American Music Collections depend almost entirely on donations. To that end, Guernsey's arranged for a letter to be sent to the winning bidders, suggesting that they consider donating the items to the Smithsonian when they no longer want them. But Juanita Moore, the executive director of the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Mo., might beg to differ. She bought John Coltrane's dog tags from the United States Navy, for $9,000, among other items, but for her own museum. Lewis Porter, a Coltrane scholar and music professor at Rutgers, who attended the auction, was not alarmed by the fact that so much memorabilia was going to private collectors. "I got e-mails from people all over the country saying, 'It's terrible, they're spreading this stuff to the four winds,' " he said. "But I say, what was your plan for unearthing these things? All we know is that the families have something in the attic. Now we know what they have, we can look at it, we can study it." For some buyers, the auction was the end of a long quest. Norman Saks, a Charlie Parker collector from San Diego, bought several items, including two unreleased Parker tapes, one of them a first-generation live recording from the Symphony Ballroom in Boston, circa 1951. "I've been chasing them since the late 1970's," he explained. In 1994 the writer Stanley Crouch called to tell him the tapes would be auctioned at Christie's in London. Mr. Saks happened to be in London at the time and bid on them unsuccessfully. Nine months ago, again by chance, he bought a plane ticket to New York, as luck would have it, in time for the auction. He bid on the tapes and bought them for $3,500. How did he feel? "Incredible," he said. "It's kind of like a sense of calm. The chase is about three-quarters of it." A few notable musicians were in the house. Dave Liebman, the saxophonist, who has studied Coltrane as rigorously as anyone, sat on his hands during the offering of the Coltrane sheet music. "Yeah, right," he laughed, when asked if he bid. "If there was something in the $500 range, I would have loved a piece of music."

When I use up my monthly "40", I sometimes spend the rest of the month re-downloading stuff from the pre-VBR days. I still have a ways to go. Remember, you don't have to hit 40 on the nose every month. You can always download the first "X" number of tracks from the next album on your list, and then finish up when the next month rolls around.

Saw that same show, but missed seeing Brecker and Blanchard. I like the show a lot, too. Just watching him lead the band was entertaining. I wished I had known that it was Hicks at the piano from the beginning. I didn't realize that was him until he was introduced. As for Ralph Peterson, I thought he was a overwhelming actually. I would rather have seen a more subtle drummer with this group (I understand Victor Lewis played with them last time). But he had a lot of energy, that's for sure. I hope a lot of people got to see this. I was sorry to see the crowd a little "light" for that show.

I anyone meeting tomorrow? (Wed)

Anyone else get a defective version of this? Mine has a weird buzzing on the last 2 tracks of disk #2. BMG is sending me another copy, though.

Right. Mosaic only has the rights to the vinyl releases.

Is Mike's American Bar & Grill (in Hell's Kitchen) still around? If so, is it still any good? I used to go there pretty often in the late 80's.

Why did Morley Safer insist on calling them "the Christos"? Christo is his first name.

Thanks for the heads up on the "60 Minutes" spot. It's on right now, and I don't think they got to that segment yet. FWIW, we're arriving on Wed morning. If anyone's meeting for anything during the day, let me know maybe I can meet somewhere. I'm not sure what our plans are that day (other than heading to the park ...)

"Permit Me to Introduce You to Yourself" "Total Response" "How Much Does it Really Matter" "From the Heart Through the Mind"

After I get back from NYC next week, I'll try to post some pix.....assuming everyone isn't sick to death of it by then.

Whatever it is, it sounds good. B-)

Relax, mailman! It's only up for 2 weeks. B-) Not like it's a permanent thing.......and very few would be using the park this time of year, anyway.

I'm guessing from your photos that you're on CPW in the 90's. Am I close?

That's a GREAT collection. It's been out of print for years, too. Interesting that BN would offer it on a download site.

Who do you think you are......Francis Wolff? B-)

Chris - More pix, please! B-)

Nice shots!

Thursday, 9:30 show for me. I'll ask 'em, if I get close enough ...

I think there's another thread around here somewhere for this label. But anyway.......my favorite would be Tolliver's "Live at Slugs" albums - easily!

Up. One week and counting ...

Yet, it would be a totally different album without the undercurrent of Larry Young's atmospherics all the way through.