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crisp
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Posts posted by crisp
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I read about this album last week, thought it sounded interesting and looked up Kovacs on YouTube (he seems to have made no impression here in the UK).
I *want* to like him, but I'm nonplussed I'm afraid. He's certainly original, and I appreciate what he's aiming for, but the laughs aren't there for me. The deteriorated picture and sound quality of the clips don't help, but it's not just that. There's one clip of him doing a drunken cookery demonstration that just bombs with the audience, and with me -- it's no Guzzlers' Gin that's for sure. If I were describing his comedy to a fellow Brit, I'd say it's like an early Vic Reeves. Perhaps I should keep working at it.
BTW I'm sceptical to read on his Wiki entry that Craig Ferguson was influenced by Kovaks -- growing up in the UK when would he have seen him?
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I love later Peggy Lee (so wrong but in many ways so right), but Where Did They Go? has never grabbed me apart from I Don't Know How to Love Him and Losing My Mind. I've never noticed I Was Born In Love With You, but as it's a Bergmans lyric I'll give it a closer listen.
I do however have a soft spot for her previous album, Make It With You, arranged by Benny Golson. Some pleasant soft-rock songs in there and it works as a whole piece. Sebesky always strikes me as a track-by-track man rather than an album man, like Quincy Jones, but Golson knows how to put an album together.
As for CTI, that label seemed even less interested in singers than Blue Note did. Lee would probably have been submerged in a sea of instruments, but it would have been a nice sound I'm sure.
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thursday, guitarists jimmy bruno and jack wilkins appear in a duo setting.
Wow, I may go to that.
I was in NYC for the first time last week, standing outside Smalls debating whether or not to go in as I discussed it with the doorman. Ended up going down the road to the Village Vanguard and seeing Terrell Stafford -- very good, but I wish I had spotted this thread earlier.
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The Dave Brubeck Quartet Columbia Studio Albums Collection 1955-1966 is £90.25 at Amazon UK.
That's only about £9 less than Popmarket, but if you're in the UK you will avoid the shipping and customs costs you'd otherwise pay. Works out as £4.75 a CD.
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See my post above yours: no Henderson set.
Got it. Thanks again. If it's all pretty much on other Mosaics I'm not bothered by this.
Whether this music has been out before on CD or whatever, I DON'T have it, so I'm excited. I havent been around as long as most on the forum (27 yrs old), so most of this music is new to me.
Yup. Moreover, I'm 43, have been buying jazz records since I was 18 and since I don't care for public domain CDs and want the music mastered (mainly) from the originals and in one place I too am very excited by this set. Oh, and it's the first time I have owned a copy of Hawk's Body and Soul.
Thanks for your comments on the Sinatra session too.
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Well, I have asked Scott about a Henderson set. I'll report back when I hear from him. I checked and they have indeed duplicated material before so to speak, so that policy (which I was told did exist) seems to be flexible.
That's right, they won't reissue entire sets (hence the first vinyl-only Hodges set will never come out on CD, dammit), but there are duplications of individual tracks and sessions all over the place.
I hope you're mistaken about there being no Henderson set, unless the bulk of it would be a repeat of the Hawkins set, in which case I really don't mind. Thanks for checking.
The session that I listened to several times was the Metronome All-Stars session:
That's the session I'm most apprehensive about. It's a stellar band (although I never thought Sinatra quite fitted in), but they only play two songs, repeatedly, which could be quite taxing. Are the solos sufficiently varied from take to take?
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I was home alone last night, so I spun the first two discs. Can't explain why in technical terms, but it was sheer pleasure -- the vitality of the music just jumped out. It might be my antediluvian mindset but I can fully appreciate how exciting these sides must have been at the time.
The remastering is among the best I've heard on a Mosaic set -- inevitable crackles aside it sounds as fresh as paint, very immediate and involving. The Henderson sides are especially strong; looking forward even more to the mooted Mosaic of that band. I can't remember when I have enjoyed any part of a new boxed set more, and I even warmed up by playing the last disc of the Louis Armstrong Complete Masters set, which I have just been finishing.
What type of whisky would go well with this set? Or should a guy opt for a martini instead?
I ended up drinking a Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Rioja we happened to have. Everyday stuff, but it worked.
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Mine has no number! Unless it's written somewhere other than the usual place. If not, I'll write a nice number 1 on the inside cover and head over to eBay...
It's now pre-printed at the bottom of the booklet's back cover. But your idea works too!
Ah, thanks. I was looking at the inside front cover. Now I have to wait until tonight before I can check it. The suspense will probably kill me...
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Mine has no number! Unless it's written somewhere other than the usual place. If not, I'll write a nice number 1 on the inside cover and head over to eBay...
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Blasting out the office as we speak
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Liszt: the Piano Collection (EMI): 10 discs for £10.49 at Amazon UK.
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Mine arrived this morning as I was leaving for work. Caught the UPS man just in time.
Surely I can't be the first to receive it?
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Tut tut. It should be "grocers' apostrophes"...
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I'll never forget Chuck's prescient words about getting the OJCs while you could when the sale was first announced.
Londoners might like to know that Fopp in Covent Garden has lots of OJCs at £3 each or two for £5. The promotion includes Pablos and a few Verves (probably because Universal distributes them in Europe).
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Only sayin...
Yes, but we want someone to blame...
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Only sayin...
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Just had an email from True Blue saying that they will be selling these and other Popmarket titles from June. They are also available from Amazon.
I'm very pleased about this. Not only will it mean we might get more competitive pricing it also means I needn't face the possibility of dealing with Pop Market's customer service department again.
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Full details are now up on Mosaic's site: here.
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Ronnie Scott on '321..' ? Unbelievable - thanks for posting this.
Amazing isn't it? I certainly don't remember Eighties ITV being like this. And they weren't compromising -- it's a proper jazz performance.
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another thumbs up for 'Serious Gold' Pye- not sure if this has seen a CD issue.
If it's Pye then it is now owned by Universal. Vocalion could release it.
BTW I had a surprise recently when watching a repeat of the British game show 321 on Challenge. Ronnie Scott's band plays Cantaloupe Island, and Scott even helps with the quiz afterwards. Here's the clip as a reminder of the days when a jazz band could appear on peak-time ITV in the middle of a crummy game show:
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Lee Konitz, The Milestone Albums
Anybody know anything about this? Very cheap.
Thanks. Looks like a new addition to the same series that has straight ports of the pre-Concord Fantasy albums in budget boxed sets. Previous ones included Tatum on Pablo, Evans on Riverside, Coltrane on Prestige...
The track listing for the "new" Konitz is here.
Also, a search of Amazon.it brings up similar releases for Chet Baker and Eric Dolphy, also very cheap. Again, Universal has track listings for the Baker here and the Dolphy here.
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I started listening to jazz partly because I wanted vocal versions of the Great American Songbook that weren't by British dance bands or stage artists and partly because I'd heard it growing up (in England in the 1970s) and liked it. I pretty much simultaneously began buying Ella Fitzgerald and Ben Webster records, purely on the basis that, say, a Rodgers and Hart song was on them, and went from there.
I probably had one of the oddest entries into jazz, but I've come to realise that the same principle forms all of my music taste. I like melody, but prefer to hear artists put their own stamp on it or develop something new from it. I also like polished performances, or at least a sense that the musicians are accomplished, even if they are experimenting (and I prefer it if they are).
I've never much liked R&B, latin, world and even soul music because I find the melodies are usually too simple or repetitive, sometimes to the point where I find it annoying. But I focus on pop, classical and jazz for the opposite reason: the melodies are usually very rich. Growing up in the time and place I did, I felt expected to like rock music and its offshoots, such as indie. It wasn't until I realised what the root of my tastes was that I realised why I didn't like rock.
I'm not rigid or closed-minded, by the way -- there are exceptions to my reactions. I'd stress that this explains my prejudices rather than driving them. It's why I can get equal pleasure from, say, Josef Haydn, Lester Young, Ron Goodwin or Billy Joel when they might not seem to have a common thread, and why I dislike a lot of music that others who like some of those artists would enjoy.
Took me until my forties to understand that, but it's why I would say my taste has held up.
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If you look hard enough, you can find some real delights in the "easy listening" records of that era. A lot of the writers were "goos soldiers", but the best of them knew the meat was, and weren't afraid to give, as one of my buddies says, "three chords to pay the bills, and one to make me happy about it". And occasionally, as with Riddle's best work, "paying the bills" does not even appear to be a consideration.
When you're playing "songs", you're always looking for new ideas about how to harmonize them. These guys had some pretty hip ones.
Well said. I hate the disparaging and misleading term "easy listening" and appreciate your putting it in quotes. I prefer to say "orchestral pop" or "instrumental pop" depending on whether it's strings or not.
As for Farnon, Vocalion has put out a number of his albums over recent years. The latest reissues were this one and this one.
I think Tony Bennett recorded three albums with Farnon: With Love, Snowfall and Spotlight On Tony Bennett.
Kindle
in Miscellaneous - Non-Political
Posted
That's weird. I would have thought it would be easy for a search function to be incorporated, and very useful. Dickens for one has a habit of reintroducing on page 654 a character he's briefly mentioned on page 28. Used to drive me nuts when writing undergraduate essays.