Joe Bip

It looks like Jazz Loft is still taking preorders for it.

However, it looks like this set has four alternate takes missing on the Complete set (which I just recently bought for better or worse but haven't yet received): You Are My Lucky Star, I Could Write a Book, There Will Never Be Another You, and Yesterdays.All 4 of these are included in the RCA box (assuming the Yesterdays is the version with Coleman Hawkins). The box also has Don't Stop The Carnival and Jungoso. According to JSngry, Don't Stop the Carnival is on both. I know Jungoso is listed on the track listings for both. As for the "bonus tracks" (which I supposed were alternates) of "You Are my Lucky Star," "I Could Write a Book," and "There Will Never Be Another You" on Disc 2 of Original album classics. According to the track runtimes listed at Barnes and Noble they are all almost exactly the same length as the tracks on Disc 4, so I guess this confirms what JSngry said: they're not alternates and they just repeated the same takes. It seems like a pretty sloppy release but undeniably a good value.

However, it looks like this set has four alternate takes missing on the Complete set (which I just recently bought for better or worse but haven't yet received): You Are My Lucky Star, I Could Write a Book, There Will Never Be Another You, and Yesterdays. I also wonder if they remastered these again since 1997, but even if they did they're probably not too different. I have good vinyl pressings of a couple of these, as well.

Braxton seemed to have quite a favorable contract in terms of how much of his work Arista was releasing, but it seems a little unclear just how fully they financed and supported some of these recordings. I was recently reading that, referring to For Four Orchestras, executive producer Steve Backer had stated, "I can't think of another instance where a black musician, coming from the jazz tradition, has been allowed that kind of liberty, where that kind of money and that kind of energy have gone into a project with such limited commercial appeal." But Braxton himself said he had to front a lot of the money himself in order to do the project because Arista wouldn't take on the whole risk. "I spent so much money, and I owe so much that I came to Italy to escape my creditors and get as far away from them as possible" (Jazz on Record: A History). I haven't yet read the Mosaic booklet, so apologies if I'm duplicating anything said therein.

I'm not too familiar with the discographies of Stanley Clarke, Michael Brecker, or Return to Forever, and missed those. I almost guessed Return to Forever but I'd already filled in Chick Corea and couldn't believe that Return to Forever would also be included, especially with so many important artists missing. Clarke and Cobham also overlap with groups included. A more challenging and representative test might have included albums by Armstrong, George Lewis, etc. and a couple of free jazz pioneers of the generation after Ornette -- just my two cents.

Another heads-up: I got an email for another promotion in addition to the $5.99 special: buy two releases from the cart (as opposed to queue) and then get a free CD to redeem in January. I saw people on another forum talking about this as a buy 3 get 1 free promotion, but the email I received definitely said buy 2 get 1 free -- so perhaps it differs from one account to the next for some reason. Either way, worth looking into, especially because it can probably be combined with the $5.99 sale that's going on through 11/19. I'm probably going to use this opportunity to clear out my queue (probably leaving a few in there to last me until January when I can claim my free disc) and then quit. They need to improve their selection pretty drastically or I don't think they're going to make it. If anyone wants a good chuckle, browse their "classical" selection by looking at "artists a-z" (here) 95% of it is not classical. Joan Armatrading? Chuck Berry? Then when browsing "jazz" artists a-z you find pretty much the same artists. It's as though they're cross posting things in a ridiculous number of areas to cover up how meager the selection has gotten.

Thanks everyone for the replies. The Jazz Heritage release is a sort of nefarious-looking budget item from 1992 that I would guess does not have the best sound, but I was trying to investigate it because it was the cheapest option for me. Ultimately, quality won out in my decision and I decided to go with Storyville's "The Duke Box" from 2006, which includes the Fargo discs.

I've had the Book of the Month Club vinyl set for years and am looking at buying a more complete version on CD. The Storyville set is out of print, and it seems like the Definitive option is gone, too. So I'm looking at either the Jazz Heritage release (black and white cover) or the one on Jazz Classics (yellow cover with drawing of Duke and Webster). My main question is which has better sound. I'm looking to avoid the kind of poor noise-reduction that you often find with early live recordings like this one. If anyone has either compared these or simply knows if one or the other sounds bad, I'd appreciate the tip. The issue of completeness seems a bit frustrating because each set lists a few tracks not included on the other (unless these are just track listing errors), but the more important factor for me is how they sound.

It's worth mentioning that concurrent with Sun Ra - Continuation is a release of Bennink and Hazevoet's Calling Down the Flevo Spirit. About three years ago I learned from a reliable source I'll not bother to name that this would be one of the next UMS releases, and I'm glad to see it's finally going to become a reality. This was right around the time that the series went alarmingly from around 12 releases a year to 2 or 3, and almost all Sun Ra and Brotzmann. I'm not complaining about these Sun Ra and Brotzmann reissues per se; my point is that I started to worry even more that the series was having such a hard time that they were having to stick to the better selling artists (as opposed to, say, Starship Beer, I'd imagine). I wish there were enough support for them to up the flow again, but in any case it will be interesting to see what UMS brings us next year -- another volume of the Steve Lacy Cassette Archive perhaps?

$19.98? Ridiculous. Buy.com has it for $13.99. A little too soon to tell what DustyGroove's price will be. Edit: While I was posting on the subject of Sun Ra, I thought I'd mention info about the new releases from Norton but now I see jostber has already posted about them in the Sun Ra Corner.

Ivory Hunters was released again this year by Lonehill, although I haven't heard it. Seems like a good alternative to Blue Note's $17-SRP burned disc, assuming the sound isn't notably inferior.

Kind of interesting to note that this set is no longer showing up as "discontinued" at Amazon US, and they've raised the price to $55.98. No matter, mine is on the way from an Amazon UK marketplace seller. I've wanted to own this set for many years but I'm glad I held off for a great deal like this, as I've owned a lot of this material in three different forms already: the 3-disc Columbia Legacy set in the early '90s, then some of the best volumes of the Quintessential series, and most recently some of Hep's Teddy Wilson discs. I really need the whole shebang, though.

George Shearing Capital Live Recordings. Took me a long time to get around to hearing this -- Shearing just isn't too important to me. However, I've been pleasantly surprised a few times just on the first disc, such as the performance of Weston's "Little Niles" and the group interplay on Denzil Best's "Nothing But De Best." My only question is why Mosaic spread 4 1/2 hours of music across 5 discs. They could have put it onto four discs and still had quite a bit of room to spare. I've noticed this with a fairly good number of Mosaic's larger sets. I know that back in '94, when this came out, they might have been using discs that held 74 minutes maximum rather than 80, but even taking that into account it could have fit on 4 discs. I don't mean this as a criticism of Mosaic, whose efforts I greatly appreciate -- just something I've been curious about.

This is great news, and there won't be too much duplication for me. I've mostly been listening to Air albums like Air Song, Air Time, and Live Air, although I do have Air Lore on Vinyl. I just acquired Threadgill's Carry the Day and Where's Your Cup within the last couple of years, but I somehow managed to misplace the former CD, so I guess this set will remedy that. As for the 20-year span, it's a little unusual but nothing to get bent out of shape over. Mosaic is doing what they need to do to make some of this music more available, and I'm grateful for that. I know that such chronological jumps can be jarring on a single-disc compilation, but who would listen to a box set as big as this straight through? Just take into account the recording date of the material on each disc as you take it out to listen to it.

Is It Love or Desire is also out on 180g vinyl from Sundazed. I bought it as a gift for the significant other, so I won't be able to listen to it for a few more weeks. I'm told her sound on it is a bit different from the first two albums -- but still good.

I received the Wright CD from this series in the mail today and was surprised to find Frank's name spelled correctly on the spine and front sticker. I had been under the impression that the "Franck" typo was on the entire run of this. Because of this and the low price I found for a sealed copy, my first thought was that the label cheated on the "limited edition" and printed another batch, but if they had done that, one would assume they'd keep the web site active that's printed on the back (free-america.net). Also, I doubt sales for a Frank Wright CD would really be big enough to warrant going beyond the promised run of 5000.

Yes, until Odwalla got bought out by Coca-Cola.

Just received Get Ready to Receive Yourself in the mail and, as the disc is a little scarce, I thought some might be interested in a couple of quotes from the liners, which are also an appropriate tribute now. "Joseph Maneri is a genius whose aesthetics have been the source of influence for a considerable number of musicians who have received the recognition which Joe has not enjoyed. I hope that this recording is only one of many for this original American voice. He is an artist without peer." --George Russell "Observed as a teacher, I found Joe Maneri to be delicate and yet probing. As a creator, he organised a language which is his own, indicating courage and the light of truth." --Cecil Taylor

In case anyone is looking to buy the Frank Wright (Uhuru Na Umoja), Tower.com happens to have a really good price on it right now.

Apart from Kuhn, the pianist I associate most closely with Coleman's work is Bobo Stenson. In addition to the Coleman piece mentioned upthread, Stenson has recorded a number of others. On the album War Orphans we hear "All My Life" and the title track, which features Anders Jormin slowly moving from rhythmic to melodic playing in a way I really like. Stenson's albums Goodbye, Underwear, and Very Early also feature Coleman tunes, as well as a couple more within the group led by Don Cherry's on Dona Nostra.

Peter Brotzmann and Bill Laswell -- Low Life

I meant to say 72 steps in an octave rather than "72 notes."

One thing I've had a hard time figuring out is how Maneri's 72-tone system works on a practical level. I know there are fingerings for quarter-tones etc. but with 72 notes in an octave, it seems like a virtually impossible level of precision. One could use an electronic tuning device to tune the instruments in a group together, but then actually playing the instruments still amazes me. I'm not sure how this many microtones can be produced on reeds. Even on Mat's violin/viola where there is an infinite gradations of pitch, it seems like he would have to have superhuman ears (and hand-ear coordination) particularly while playing in a group with other instruments. Again, I definitely understand to some degree how microtonal playing is possible on acoustic instruments that require tuning, but with a 72-tone system I'm just baffled. Spent quite a bit of time online the last couple of days trying to research this but to no avail.

For years and years, my only exposure to Joe Maneri was In Full Cry which I bought on a lark. Not bad, but I wouldn't say I appreciated what made it different. Then in the past year I've started getting a lot more of his recordings: Dahabenzapple, Coming Down the Mountain, Peace Concert, and I just now ordered a used Get Ready to Receive Yourself. I really like his playing but probably still don't "get it" in the sense of being able to explain to someone exactly what it was he was doing. I didn't buy Paniots Nine, unfortunately, and now it's out of print. But according to Maneri's site, the title track was featured on the soundtrack to American Splendor, so I guess I heard a small part of the album once but didn't notice it!

I got all the Atlantic ones on vinyl cheaply but haven't gone any further. I'm just not a huge Mann listener. Haven't listened to them recently but if memory serves, Sharrock stays pretty much in the background on a lot of the Atlantic Mann discs. I've made a habit of getting as many things as I can with Sharrock. I generally love his sound, and the only ones I have that are painful to listen to are Live in New York and Highlife, mainly because of the keyboards. I love Linda Sharrock, too, although I haven't heard anything she's done in years.