homer9600

Homer, I don't have the Waller set but it looks as if it is exactly the same track listing as the recent three cd set "If You Got to Ask You Ain't Got it" which was also produced by Orrin Keepnews, and is in excellent excellent sound. My guess is they lifted the transfers from this set. . . .(Excellent booklet too, which you're not going to get with the budget set). Jazzbo: I do believe you are correct and I am wrong - I completely forgot about the 3-disc Keepnews set from a couple of years back. Well, looks like the original masters edition is going to go live in the office at work. Not the first time I ended up with the same CD twice. I'm still curious where they culled the Ellington and Holiday transfers from?

I can't speak for the origin of the transfers used for the Holiday and Ellington sets, however, the Fats Waller set is culled from the Orin Keepnews complete Waller RCA sets from the early 90's - note Keepews name as producer on the new Waller set. They also just released 3-disc set titled "The Best of Glenn Miller," which is the same material used on the 3-disc set "Glenn Miller The Popular Recordings 1939-1942," which are 1989 transfers. The producer and remastering credits are the same on the 89 and 08 sets as are the transfers with almost no noise reduction and lots of crackle and pop. Seems like SONY is releasing older transfers (at least on the two I've noted) for the European market, perhaps to compete with the Propers and JSPs boots. Not bad - the Miller material sounds better without the heavy noise reduction - but not new transfers.

So does this mean you can't get the theremin AM tuning effect anymore? I haven't heard the theremin affect on AM in a long time. Not with a radio that uses digital tuning. You also tend to get "digital hash" noise that sounds like TV snow on weaker stations or if you downtune one or more mhz. The great grey old lady of radio stations WOR in NYC recently went to IBOC HD digital. On my car radio it sounds like Real Player on a 56.6 connection - everything sounds gravely like the announcers need to clear their throats. It probably sounds great with an HD receiver. Tube receivers could sound great but I remember there always was a lot of signal drift afterawhile - meaning you had to re-tune the station occasionally. I had an tube Fisher AM/FM receiver from the early sixties once. With a good antenna and grounding AM sounded spectacular (within its limited frequency range). I believe older radio station transmitters drifted as well, but someone can correct me if that is wrong. The best portable I evere owned was a Zenith Transoceanic H-600 portable tube receiver with AM and shortwave. Worked perfectly thirty years from when it was manufactured and the sound on AM and even on shortwave. Outstanding sound even on powerful clear channel/high powered AM's from distant states. Sorry to go on too much but this subject hasn't come-up in quite a while. I turned on my transister Transoceanic Royal 1000 for the first time in months. Sounds pretty darn good.

A few things have happened with AM. This is a non-technical explanation from a non-technical person so if I am a bit off in the explanation please be kind. Most AM receivers no longer are analog, they use "Phase Lock Loop" tuning which is why the old-style tuning knob dissappeared from car and portable radios. You can only tune a station dead-on or some have the ability to tune in 1mhz or 5 mhz intervals. The analog AM signal in-effect is digitally processed and can sound a bit compressed. If you have a GE Superadio (the last analog radio made) or an old radio (I have a couple of Zenith Transoceanics) the stations still using analog transmitters sound pretty good. Some network programming and local station links to their transmitters is delivered on T1 or broadband lines in packets like web streaming (it's cheaper than phone lines) and you can hear the comprssions problems - I believe the same thing can happen when program is delivered digitally by Satellite. Some porgrams/stations sound like Real-Audio streams. And the swith to IBOC - digital HD AM - it seems to degrade the quality of the signal when you listen on regular radio. It's a digital world now. My cable company just switched over completely to digital boxes meaning everything is coverted so I can see it on my analog TV. All the stations now have digital artifacts like on You Tube or Real-Video - it would be crystal clear if I had a digital TV and that is what will happen in 2009 when analog TV goes away and those of us who don't have HD TV's will be watching using converters. Please correct if any of this is in error.

Not even to call in at Mosaic Records? Well, if they had a retail store...... if effect they do. i've purchased several sets from them in stamford while on my way to nyc. Road Trip!

Not even to call in at Mosaic Records? Well, if they had a retail store......

I had to drive to Westchester to visit my mom and I decided to cross the Tappen Zee to Nanuet. I drove past Tower and sure enough there were signs in the window stating "This store is closing," and "Everything on sale." I couldn't bring myself to go in. I know you can buy music cheaper online than at Tower - and I do but for me there was an entire ritual surrounding a trip to Tower. I shopped at five Towers: Paramus, Nanuet, Yonkers (which closed in 2004) and Stamford (and occasionally Broadway and 4th during my now rare teips into the city). They all had a slightly diffrent mix in their jazz and vocal sections. They were always special trips for me. As much as I like the ease of shopping online, I just love going in an actual store and discovering things. That happened a lot for me at at Tower especially before I discovered groups like this and got the heads up on what's coming out. I'm aware that Tower is not what it was ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, but when I started getting back into Jazz it was always there for me and it was miles ahead of any other record store at least in my neck of the woods which is populated by mini FYE's Sam Goody's, Strawberries and other chains. The ritual was I would get in my car and take a drive to Tower which for me involved a couple of hours. This was my way of chilling especially during stressful times. My favorite was Saturday afternoon trips to Stamford. I would drive through a number of small New York and Connecticut small towns, drive back roads and play music in the car. It was always the same; I'd get to Stamford off the Merritt stop at the doughnut shop across from Tower, get a crueller and a cup of coffee and then go shopping. On the way back I would take a different route and go through rural northern Westchester towns. Sometimes I would bring home eight or ten CD's sometimes only one. But never did I not find something that I wanted. The saddest thing for me is that I have no reason to make the trip to Stamford anymore. Life goes on, habits and preferences change, Tower will go and I will adjust. It was nice while it lasted.

#2892 arrived today. I've had this in my sites for awhile - glad for the heads up on this board. When I sometimes train employees I do sessions on making work personally unique. One of the things I do as an illustration is play "Chickory Chick" by Sammy Kaye and after taking comments (always bad) I play the same song by the Gene Krupa band with O'Day's vocal. Not only do people like the song more they actually listen to the lyrics which kind of fits right in with the topic - well almost. Anyone who can take pop schmaltz and make it into jazz is quite special.

I've had this for a day and lsitened to it several times and I am absolutely stunned not only at how good they were that night but at the quality of the remastering. I know people said it was good and I have a lot of material Ted Kendall worked on but this blew me away. I was expecting something better than the usual quality of NY radio broadcasts of Parker, Davis, etc., that are available on various labels but this is just unbelievable. My thanks to everyone who worked to make this material available. Its really a gift.

My compliments to the Librarian.

$12.76 - you can't go all that wrong for that price Tjazz - if it's awful, you haven't lost much. Nice catch. What is the sound like on these discs - can you comment? I have some Shaw material on Chronological Classics which ranges from excellent to marginal.

Beware of 10-CD German box sets. They tend to heavily use noise reduction and process the hell out of disk transfers. Some German companies re-channel for a phoney stereo affect. This box retails for 49.95 at Collectors Choice Music web site. My experience with CD Universe is that when they post new imports, they slap a price on them that is ridicously below retail. You pre-order it and it never comes in-stock. Then they cancel the order. Usually by that time the price is raised to where they intended it to be. They tend to be a bit frustrating to deal with in that respect. I would tell you to wait until you have some feedback on the quality of the Shaw 10-CD box in terms of sonics before you purchase it. Even it sixteen bucks (god fobid CD Universe should ever have something in stock that they advertise) it may be so annoying to be unlistenable. If you want to collect Shaw a better idea may be to get the 8-CD Bluebird box and fill in from other Bluebird and Chronoligical Classics releases. Hindsight, Storyville and other labels have some great radio transcrptions of Shaw available with really good sound. The Shae band playing live is even more fun to listen to than the studio recordings. Anyhow, that's my nickel.

One more - Coleman Hawkins. I read a rumor somewhere that there would be a Tommy Dorsey Centennial as well, but so far no dice.

I was in Tower Records on Broadway and 4th today and they had a Bill Evans set on display, for sale with significant rust on the case. I was suprised how bad it really was. It did not appear to be discounted.

This is a great set. the remastering is excellent and the source material is in great shape. What you don't get however, are complete programs. That isn't a problem with this box because the music is so wonderful. As mentioned earlier Storyville has issued about ten complete shows on CD which are of equally good quality. I cannot say enough about Ernie "Bubbles" Whitman as host. The complete programs did not simply showcase music but also comedians as well. Jubilee is one of the best variety programs ever produced. The artists were all presented respectfully. The Hindsight box is awesome. If you want to hear complete Jubilee programs you can pick up a double CD in MP3 format with 86 shows and almost forty hours playing time from OTRCAT: http://www.otrcat.com/jubilee.htm The quality ranges from awful to excellent and is generally good.

I've purchased 30 - 40 CD's from Caiman and had good service 100% of the time. Only once were they out of stiock on a title and they gave me the option of receiving a refund or waiting for the item to come back in stock. I waited and got the CD because it was a title that had gone out of stock in the past from a small label. I believe the reason you sometimes see multiple listings for the same item is because they may offer the itm for sale from different suppliers who wholesale at different prices. That is probably also why some items they sell has expidited shipping option and some do not because some items their supplier actually ships the CD to the customer for them and it depends on the shipping options the supplier orders. Many times Caiman has had CD's in stock that no one else has, including remaining stocks of out of print items. No one in this thread mentioned CD Connection - I did in another posting: Posting A great company to purchase from in my estimation. This is not a commercial - like you all I buy a lot of music and I like to purchase from places that actually have the item in stock as opposed to Amazon or many times CD Universe.

Does that brass figalagee have bronze oak-leaf palms? Excelsior.