BFrank

Here come the "dates": Rock - Jimi Hendrix Experience - 1968 at UC Santa Barbara's Robertson Gymnasium. Jazz - Freddie Hubbard (w/Junior Cook) & Charles Lloyd - 1971 at UCSB's Campbell Hall.

Anyone notice the extra track on disk #1 of Byrd's "Half Note" set? The liner show 7 tracks (including the intro), but there are 8 on the CD. Later ... I just realized that it's a different version of "Pure D. Funk" - track #6 on disk 1.

Oh........Bacar. Yeah, it's still there. I think it's on Brannan. It's a restaurant, really. I ate there a couple of weeks ago. Really expensive.

Bruno's is still going. Haven't heard about that place on 4th Street.

I think I heard once that the Andrew Hill was not a bit seller. I thought the same for Larry Young, too. While both of these are big favorites here (and on ebay!), they don't make many ripples with the general public.

Whoa! That Fuller set sold for $200!!! Now THAT'S nuts! Also, Thad Jones went for $150! When someone recently mentioned that they grabbed one for around $75, I thought that was a little high at the time. Some serious inflation on those sets lately.

Well, he seems to be doing OK. "Jack's health continues to improve after his successful liver transplant surgery. To receive so many kind wishes has helped Jack greatly with his recovery." Today I picked up an album called "The Jack Bruce Band Live '75". This is from a version of his group that apparently only lasted a few months and up until recently there were no known recordings of them. Fortunately, this concert showed up and it's really very good. They mostly play tunes from "Out of the Storm" and "Harmony Row", which is fairly unusual. The band is Bruce, Mick Taylor, Carla Bley, Ronny Leahy (kbds) and Bruce Gary. Too bad they didn't last longer. This is a surprisingly strong set. Here's AMG's take: Live '75

Haven't been there, but it's a branch of the place on Divisadero & California. FWIW, that Divis/Calif location was the "original" Old Waldorf in the 70's, which then moved downtown to a location in an office complex. I saw some great punk/new wave shows there in the late 70's. First tours by U2, REM, Joe Jackson, etc ...

Just went to the Haight store today. What they did was flip-flop the DVD and jazz/classical sections. They also have soundtrack CDs in the DVD room. It might be my imagination, but it almost seems that they have more used jazz CDs out than they had before. There used to be a lot of "under-stock" in the old area that I never bothered to look through. The only drawback now is that it's noisier because it's out on the main floor. The DVDs are certainly better organized now.

Scored BIG TIME at Amoeba today. In the new releases section, I found a copy of "Free Form" and "Live at the Half Note". Both with the seal still on top and both for $7.99! BTW, they basically just switched the DVD and jazz/classical sections in the SF store. If anything, they may have a larger selection of jazz. It's just that it's noisier because it's now on the main floor instead of it's own room.

Here's a review from "The Guardian" of their show at Ronnie Scott's: +++ Mingus Big Band Ronnie Scott's, London John Fordham Saturday March 13, 2004 The Guardian This playful legacy band, reluctant to play the same rehearsed handful of Charles Mingus classics every night of its stint at Ronnie Scott's, has elected to get through as much of the departed master composer and bassist's work as it can squeeze into six nights - without repetition. They had the audience pick a set's worth of tune titles from a hat at the start, and from then on they flew by the seats of their pants. What is sacrificed is tautness and accuracy on pieces the band might not have performed for months. What is gained is the urgency of spontaneous discovery - and there was plenty of that. The opener, Mingus Fingers, was a feature for the man who stands in Mingus's shoes and plays his old bass: Boris Kozlov. Kozlov's hard-struck notes and thumping rhythmic power held together the blurts, wriggles, raw brass calls and chattering cross-lines of the ensemble parts, and the piece settled into a swinging groove for an indignant trombone solo from Frank Lacy and an imaginative muted trumpet break from Eddie Henderson. No 29 - a similarly searching, slithery follow-up - was also dramatically focused by the improvising, particularly the inimitable Mingus veteran John Stubblefield's rootsy, raw-boned tenor-sax break, ending in an ecstatic circular-breathing finale. The ballad Self Portrait in Three Colours brought a contrastingly warm and smoky tenor-sax meditation from Wayne Escoffery and a resourceful solo of crisply ascending patterns, choppy chords and even some early-swing romanticism from the excellent pianist Kenny Drew Jr. Trumpeter Kenny Rampton's bebop break on Wednesday Night Prayer meeting, however, was the improvisation of the set - precise, beautifully constructed, rhythmically unerring and full of fresh phrasing. A bold working approach for this consistently classy outfit, but one that is right in Mingus's own ballpark.

I'll be in NYC at the end of April. I will probably try to catch them at the Fez. There's not much else interesting that weekend, unfortunately.

Yep, that's it - "Jazz A Confronto". In this case it's "25". I suppose they all have different numbers. I don't think I will be picking up the Select, unless there is substantial unreleased stuff here. While I certainly like the BN albums, I really think that they did stronger work on Timeless and Soul Note.

Speaking of the SF Jazz Festival ... Anyone going to the Sam Rivers/Reggie Workman/Jason Moran show? Should be great!

I wonder if Tony Williams' BNs are in the picture?

Some of those late 70's albums aluded to are really strong. The group had the front line of Bobby Watson, David Schnitter and Valeri Ponomarev. Very tight and very under-rated. - "Gypsy Folk Tales" (Roulette) - "In My Prime, Vol. 1" (Timeless) + Curtis Fuller, too! - "In This Korner" (Concord)

Well, that's good AND bad news. - Good, because it makes available some of the long OOP, music from this great group of musicians. - Bad, because I already own those disks so there's nothing really to look forward to on this release. (but maybe that's good because I will save $39 B) )

It's also a great place to meet people. Unless you are a party of 4, you will probably have to share a table or booth with someone else. You always end up talking.

Besides that "Impulse!!!" album, there are the Riverside disks - "Ugetsu", "Kyoto" and "Caravan" that are must-haves.

Barry and the Remains are great. Seek out a good comp. They're out there and they're great! I'll do that!

I much prefer the Memphis sound over Motown. So I'm behind this all the way.... "Hang 'em High", BABY! B)

I only know the couple of Remains tunes from the "Nuggets" box, but those certainly are GREAT!

"Breakthrough" and "Song Everlasting" are the 2 Don Pullen/George Adams Quartet BN dates. There are a number of "solo" Adams and Pullen albums on BN, but I would suspect that the Select box would only be the Quartet. This group seemed to go under the name George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet on the other labels. Same combo no matter what - Cameron Brown and Dannie Richmond round it out. Which reminds me, I have an album on HORO under Richmond's name with Pullen, Adams, Jack Walrath, David Friesen, Irio de Paula and Afonso Vieira. Could they ben including that, too? Should be interesting.

You can turn OFF the laugh track? I wonder how many other sit-com DVDs let you do that? What a great idea!

Hey 7/4, how IS that, anyway. Brakhage is the Cecil Taylor of filmmaking. Haven't seen anything of his since college film class, but was always impressed.