My ipod projects

[bertrand]

I've been having a ball playing with my ipod that my wife got me for our anniversary. What a cool toy!

I've been progressively loading it up (I have about 3 of 40 gigs full), and I've come up with some ideas for ipod projects, including the complete Jackie McLean (except Monuments), the complete Larry Young (except the Fuel stuff), and the complete Tina Brooks (I'm only missing a couple of Sonny Thompson tracks).

I'm also trying to load at least one version of each of Cal Massey's known compositions, just because I think he's such a great composer, and I can't seem to get anyone interested in putting together an all-Massey concert here in D.C. I'm using my CDs, of course, plus a couple of things I bought from itunes (like 'Trinidad', from a Herbie Mann record I otherwise have no interest in).

I'm trying to get a complete list of recordings of Massey tunes. As a starting point, I am using the list our friend Vincent compiled (haven't heard from him in a while - hope he's OK):

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/hardbop/Massey/Massey.html

Here are some others I know of:

Charlie Parker: Fiesta (from South Of The Border)

Archie Shepp: Pitchin' Can (from Black Gipsy)

My Little Suede Shoes, if Lou Donaldson is to be believed

Anyone have any other interpretations of Cal Massey tunes to suggest?

Thanks,

Bertrand.

Edited December 7, 2004 by bertrand

[clandy44]

Bertrand-Can you translate the 10,000 songs thing into minutes or some other more meaningful measure? In other words, how many of my Mosaics or other albums can I figure will fit in 20mb, etc?

[Daniel Andresen]

40 giga can hold something like 800 cd's.

[bertrand]

That's close to my estimate.

I currently have about 90 CDs in there, and 3 gigs used up. That's 1/12th of the ipod (it seems you can't actually fill the entire 40 gigs). Multiplying 90 by twelve gives 1,080, but adjusting for CDs of various lengths (so far I mostly have 40-50 minute CDs in there), I hope to squeeze in around 900. I gotta leave some room for the stuff I wll buy on itunes!

Bertrand.

[bertrand]

In minutes, the box says 10,000 songs at 4/minutes/song. That's 40,000 minutes, so 800-1,000 CDs. It's also 28 days, i.e. almost a month of non-stop listening!

Bertrand.

[bertrand]

P.S.

My first post dangled a carrot - no questions yet?

Bertrand.

[pryan]

Sorry, I'm of not help with regard to your initial request, but I am interested in your experience with your iPod thus far. As mentioned in another thread, I recently purchased an iBook and have been most satisfied with it. I am looking to get an iPod also, probably sometime in the new year. Are they quite easy to use? Do you have one of those cables that connects into your stereo? Have you had any problems with it?

[John L]

40 GB is the limit on the iPod itself, but not the limit on iTunes. So you can keep a lot more music and add and subtract things from the iPod regularly.

I am living most of the time away from home now. So I bought a 120 GB external hard drive loaded up about 100 GBs in iTunes.

It sure beats lugging around 2500 discs all over the place!

[kh1958]

I have really enjoyed my ipod so far. Unfortunately, I have filled up the 20 gig model and am coveting a 60 gig ipod. My advice is to get the biggest one you can afford.

I do have Calvin Massy's Father and Son on there now.

[clandy44]

Thanks for all the replies to my question. Sounds like 40 is the way to go. Now, for my next question...and the reason I have hesitated to get an ipod...how long does it take to load 1 60 min cd into this baby? After that, I can do the 90 times thing....

[John L]

It takes me about 6 minutes a full disc. Actually, a lot less. I pay my kids to do it for me.

Edited December 8, 2004 by John L

[bertrand]

It's fast. I do 3-4 a night. This baby will be full before I know it!

Bertrand.

[ornette]

AMG (http://www.allmusic.com/) allows composer search - have you tried that?

[bertrand]

Ornette,

Thanks for reminding me. I totally forgot about this feature. Of course, the AMG is not a super-reliable source, but I take it for what it's worth. Most of what I found on there I knew about, except for this very intriguing claim:

No less than four tracks on Sonny Stitt's Kaleidoscope are allegedly by Massey: 'Blue Mambo', 'Cool Mambo', 'Sonny Sounds' and 'Stitt's It'.

Can anyone confirm this claim? If so, this would make this the recording featuring more Massey originals than any others, except for his own album.

Bertrand.

[bertrand]

A search of the Fantasy catalog shows that Bill Massey (Cal's brother) is on this record, so I suspect another AMG screw-up. Can anyone confirm this?

How is this record? Looks intriguing.

Thanks,

Bertrand.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

BMI website shows Bill Massey as co-composer of all those tunes.

Now that the dreaded allmusic site has it wrong, what are the chances it will ever be fixed?

Mike

[bertrand]

Forgot to check BMI. Thanks for looking.

Another source for making a quick inventory of Massey compositions would be discographies, if putting composer credits were a standard procedure, which of course it is not. Thanks to your efforts, we are getting much closer.

The most complete inventory that I know is still Vincent's. I'm pretty sure the downbeat obituary listed some other titles I was not familiar with. It also listed some Blue Note sessions which were unissued at the time, which I found very curious. The author must have had access to some discography, or even talked to someone at Blue Note.

What else do we know about Bill Massey? I suspect he's even less recorded than Cal.

Thanks,

Bertrand.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Bill Massey made twice as many dates as Cal (16 vs. 8), according to the Lord 5.0. All between 1949 and 1952. In addition to the Stitt, a few Bill Massey compositions appear on sessions by Gene Ammons and Matthew Gee, but the majority of his titles do not seem to be found in Lord - no idea whether they were non-jazz, or unrecorded, or what.

Next "related" question: Is trombonist Eph Greenlea, whose sole recorded appearance seems to be with Bill Massey on a Gene Ammons date for Prestige in 1950 the same person as trombonist Charlie Greenlee (aka Hanifan Mageed, aka Hernitan Maseed, Majeed, etc.)?

Or - could this be the same person as trombonist Bennie Green, who recorded with Ammons for Prestige the next month with an almost identical personnel???? Any chance Bennie's real name was Ephraim?

Mike

[Vincent, Paris]

What else do we know about Bill Massey? I suspect he's even less recorded than Cal.

Bill Massey was not Cal's brother but his cousin. According to an interview that Cal had with French journalist François Postif, Bill lived in Philadelphia for a while (end of the '40s/beginning of the 50s) where he worked both as a trumpeter and an arranger. Cal says that Bill worked with Gene Ammons and then Sonny Stitt (and alos that when he moved to Philly, Bill introduced him to Jimmy Heath).

[bertrand]

Vincent,

Good to hear from you - it's been a long time.

When did Bill Massey die?

Bertrand.

[bertrand]

JohnL,

How do you go about selecting only a subset of your itunes library to import into the ipod? Currently, the entire library is being imported by default, which is not a problem right now since I have only four gigs full, but will be a problem down the road. Do you creat a playlist and just import the playlist? This could take a while.

Also, is there a limit to how may songs you can put on a playlist? I plan to make a playlist of just Jackie McLean performances, and, when the mood strikes, import only this playlist and shuffle the Jackie Mac discography around. But we're talking 600-700 songs. Can this fit on the playlist?

Thanks,

Bertrand.

Edited December 15, 2004 by bertrand