BillF

Nice one! I must give up bungee jumping forthwith!

I'm reading a volume of three Ripley novels at the moment, so am looking forward to seeing the film for the first time.

Gerry Mulligan Quartet, What Is There To Say? (Philips) With Art Famer, Bill Crow and Dave Bailey in 1959.

They were there earlier. Now they've been replaced by these stern messages! Sinister censorship? Wrong image of Britain, perhaps?

Jazz in the Afternoon from KCSM. Now playing: several Lem Winchester tracks.

"Get your foot the hell off my stage!" (Buddy Rich to member of audience at Ronnie Scott's Club.)

I'm not the only one to like Philly's vampire act. Lenny Bruce is said to have based his own vampire sketch on it!

Do you mean Hertfordshire or Herefordshire?

Yes, I noticed his absence, but it's the holiday season in the U.K. and many people go away this week. Even Bev has announced he doesn't have to go to work this week!

The Genius of Bud Powell (Verve twofer) Classic trio and solo sides from 1949-51.

The Best of Jazz online from BBC Radio 2. Humphrey Lyttelton presents his last show. Now playing: Count Basie, "Corner Pocket" with solos by Harry Edison and Lockjaw Davis.

Presenting the Gerry Mulligan Sextet (EmArcy) With Zoot Sims, Jon Eardley, Bob Brookmeyer, Peck Morrison and Dave Bailey in 1955.

... or over here!

Listening to one of my favorites, Bebop Spoken Here with Bernie Goldberg from KBCS Bellvue Seattle. Now playing: Bags Meets Wes.

Sad indeed--I'm pretty sure the HALF NOTE cd is now oop as well. Not sure that any of Konitz's Verve catalogue is domestically available...some of it as downloads, perhaps. (Single disc of MOTION still in print? That Verve Elite edition is a killer!) I got the TRANQUILITY and VERY COOL cds through Mr. Tanno; the Giuffre and Half Note purchases date back to my record-store clerk days in the 1990s. I recently bought Very Cool + Tranquility on a Gambit Records CD. There seem to be lots of copies of Motion about. But, you did say "domestically" available, so I don't know about that!

Shorty Rogers and His Giants, Vol 1 (RCA) A 1953 nonet with Milt Bernhart, John Graas, Gene Englund, Art Pepper, Jimmy Giuffre, Hampton Hawes, joe Mondragon and Shelly Manne and a 1954 quintet with Jimmy Giuffre, Pete Jolly, Curtis Counce and Shelly Manne.

As Bird said: "When I first heard Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, in the language of the streets I flipped."

Weird! I could take about two minutes of that! On the theme of doorknobs, etc., I remember reading that in the 1950s Lionel Hampton installed at his home at great expense a doorbell that played the first eight bars of "Flying Home"!

I remember when that one was Jazz Journal record of the year and (apparently) the best selling jazz album in the UK. Beating Spiro Gyra etc ! Yes, there was something of a Shorty Rogers revival in the U.K. in the early eighties. I bought this album in 1983 and I remember that Rogers' Blues Express was the best-selling jazz album in Britain round about that time. By public demand Shorty was brought out of retirement, got his chops back on form and headed the National Youth Jazz Orchestra for a British tour. I saw them at the Davenport Theater in the Greater Manchester/Stockport suburb of the same name. The kids played Shorty's charts in a masterly way that belied their age and he interacted perfectly with them on stage. He presented a superb new composition which he named "Davenport" (Stockport and Bix Beiderbecke came together in that one). To my knowledge, it's never been recorded, though someone may be able to contradict me on that!

Shorty Rogers and His Giants, Clickin' With Clax (Atlantic) Shorty in 1956 with a saxophone section of Herb Geller, Bud Shank, Bill Holman and Jimmy Giuffre and rhythm section of Lou Levy, Ralph Pena and Shelly Manne. Title track dedicated to photographer William Claxton.

Shorty Rogers and His Giants, Vol 2: The Rarest (RCA) Includes soundtrack recordings for The Wild One. (Incidentally, ghost of miles did a very good Night Lights show on the Wild One music, which is archived on WFIU.)

I love those first two Shorty Rogers' 10 inch LPs on RCA. Some of the tracks you list were on them. These were my early introduction to west coast jazz. Really interesting and intense stuff, nothing like the popular stereotype of west coast jazz. Yes, truly great stuff! Up among my favorite records ever!

Of course, he was resident in Europe for a long time. I saw him at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester in about 1966 with Roland Kirk and Philly Joe Jones.

Jazz Record Requests online from BBC Radio 3. The curiosity in this bunch of records for me was Horace Silver's "Sister Sadie" from Gil Evans' Out of the Cool. It's certainly not there on my Impulse vinyl version of Out of the Cool!

I have the same record! Bought it used in Dobell's, IIRC. It's a treasured possession, along with two other Jones/Lewis LPs from the seventies, New Life and Suite For Pops, both on Horizon. And I saw this band, too (hope this isn't getting boring!). They appeared at the Free Trade Hall in November 1977 as part of a package with Freddie Hubbard and Richard "Groove" Holmes. Fog at Manchester Airport had resulted in the band being separated from their uniforms and, more importantly, their charts. After a very long delay they came on and jammed together for what was left of the evening. I was disappointed, as I'd wanted to hear those wonderful Thad Jones scores! We were spoilt in those days! But I did get to hear some of those charts when the orch under the direction of Mel appeared at the Wigan Jazz Festival in 1989.