CJ Shearn

I'll check out the clips.Scott Neumann is an excellent drummer and is in bassist Mark Wade's trio where I first heard of him.

I'm going to push back a little. Maybe for you or I or the majority of this board, they aren't classic, but "Places and Spaces" most certainly is a classic for an entirely different generation. Not a classic for those of us who grew up on hard bop perhaps, but for those who embraced DJ culture and those who love soul, funk, R&B and hip hop it most certainly is classic, so I have to disagree there, honestly. As my tastes have grown further away from purist stuff over the years, I've embraced things 70's Herbie albums I never would have thought like "Sunlight", and albums like the 2 Herb Alpert/Hugh Masekela albums on A&M. So I can't agree with the "no real classics" comment. Yes the majority of those albums from that era of Blue Note are duds, but albums like "Live at Montreux" by Ronnie Foster are pretty good. Why? because he stretches in a way those studio albums don't show.

Damn. Saw this on Vince Wilburn's FB

I liked his disc "Victory", it reminded me a lot of a Branford trio disc, but a bit leaner if that makes sense, more concise. I really like his playing on "Snuck In" and "Snuck Out" by David Weiss, and "Liberation Blues" by Orrin Evans, and he absolutely killed during a live J@LC stream of Christian McBride's New Jawn, his new quartet. I guess Marcus Strickland is the regular saxophonist but Allen was subbing that week.

For anyone in the NYC area, Takeshi is a terrific pianist. I attended a solo concert in March, it was great, and I was honored to be a part of the promo video for his forthcoming album in June. Regardless of my involvement in that, he is a wonderful player and deserves a wider stage.

That's ridiculous, a "hi res" CD. UHQCD is a load of crap, I have a few. The CTI RVG reissued remasters I picked up while in Tokyo last November sound no different than regular CD b/c as stated above CD is CD. I have a friend who will be going nuts over this I'm sure. He has the Japanese SHM CD of Michael Brecker while I have the original, MCA/Impulse disc from the 80's. He was CONVINCED b/c it was SHM it would sound better, when I told him it's all in the mastering, not the material the disc is pressed on. He sent me the WAV files, I listened to my WAV files ripped from my CD then to his files and guess what? they sounded EXACTLY the same! That SHM used the old existing mastering. Why formats like UHQCD and SHM go over big in Japan is because Japan is a culture that loves limited edition special items, anything that can be made to seem special will. Japan only bonus tracks for example, but that's only there to encourage buying the product domestically in Japan as opposed to importing from overseas.

I may have to get this if you rank it that high.

Wait, it's exactly the same as the Legacy Edition, except without the Copenhagen DVD. Pass.

The Elvin is intense, Carter Jefferson on tenor, many tunes clock in at 20 to 30 minutes, and Marvin Horne on guitar who apparently lives in NY, and has been woefully under represented on records. His name, Dwayne Armstrong, Fumio Karashima and Andy McCloud were all new names to me. I have to wonder if the Griff/Lock concert was part of a Norman Granz JATP package considering the time frame? Griff had appeared with Basie on Pablo that summer at Montreux and Lockjaw had already been recording for them.

The Hubbard won't do much to change your mind, it's Freddie during the Columbia period really stretching, with a typical set list. "The Love Connection" is superior to the studio version, and that's the only tune that's fairly unusual in the setlist from official live releases. I like the album, some excellent Billy Childs work as well. I do feel the Elvin and Griff/Lockjaw releases are definitely worth having.

I love the sound of his bass drum, and just the coloristic playing he creates, like on "Titok" by Ferenc Snetberger and "Live in Japan" by Enrico Pieranunzi. The two Gary Peacock trio releases are terrific as well. Communication wise I see the KJ connection, musically, not so much. The Peacock trio is very ethereal and floating.

The putting things in any order you want reminds me of what Herbie talked about about Miles making his "wrong" note, "right".

Love this famous quote from Cecil Taylor. "Well, I love to practice, simply because that's preparation, part of the process of planning... There's nothing "free" about any of this; it's the construction of cantilevers and inclined pylons. I'm a great fan of Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish structural engineer. If you look at the plans for many of his constructions, they look like animals, or plants...Bridges. He's done other things, railroad stations... Because you see, we're dealing with space. And if you look at a bridge, you cannot ignore the spacial, rhythmic connotations, particularly when you look at cable-stay box girder bridges, and to me the most outstanding proponent of the cable-stay box girder bridge is Calatrava. I don't believe we have one of his cable-stay box girder bridges in this country. He's been in competition in Boston, which he did not get; in Frisco they got a poor imitation. They were first done I believe in Germany, after the second World War." ~~ Cecil Taylor" What helps me personally in approaching so called "free" music is recognizing the structures are not conventional in regards to my basic knowledge of song form, but there is still a form, and I can listen for what it is. As for the Miles stuff the form is always there no matter how out the Lost Quintet stuff got, or late Trane there is always a semblance of structure.

Right now Christian McBride's new quartet is playing "Sightseeing" from Weather Report on a J@LC stream, and that's an example of a "retro band" playing something in somewhat of a dialect informed by the Second Quintet, actually this version is flanked by a lot of free improv, but I wouldn't call what they are doing here as "cowardly". I understand the general sentiment in regards to most of that general area of music those types of "retro" groups play, but it's really just a different generation of players trying to see what they can do with that language, I really love those Tony quintet sides, "Black Codes", Wallace Roney's "Verses" and "Wallace Roney Quintet" if anything the latter is like an album after "Sorcerer" and "Nefertiti" the second quintet never made, but that may be a reason I enjoy it too.

Good luck! People say my collection of 700+ discs is too much, it's nothing compared to over 6,000 discs!

Herbie still explored that kind of writing with that sort of voicing for reeds and horns on "Come Running To Me", from "Sunlight" in a different context, but the clear link and line from "Speak Like a Child", "The Prisoner" (one of the few Herbie BN's I don't own, need to rectify that) "Tell Me A Bedtime Story", at least to my ear is there.

"Empyrean Isles" remains my favorite Herbie BN, and have "Inventions And Dimensions" on now which I haven't played in a long time. That one is brilliant because of the improvised structures, the locking in of the African/Latin grooves, and some of the first hints of Herbie's signature use of repetition, engaging and inciting dialogues with the rhythm section, this quality I think is wonderfully displayed years later on Milt Jackson's "Sunflower" and any of the sides with Tony Williams. "Happenings" is still great for his ferocious sideman playing, that is up next. I don't agree with the sentiments Chuck made years ago that none of these albums are great, but to each their own. Yesterday I dug back into the Columbia box as well.

Have you tried Exact Audio Copy or the AccurateRip feature of a program called Musicbee (a winAMP replacement?)

You are welcome . It really is one of Chick's recent best. I think it was Dmitry here, he is absolutely wild about the record and called it one that people would be talking about for a long time.

Especially how he dovetails into earthiness after the Trane solo. Should be reviewing this in the next few weeks.

http://bit.ly/2EDz4hG

I was gonna make the Miles my last CD purchases for a while but these may be it.

The Steve Tibbetts is, really, really good. I'll be reviewing it.

Me too. I picked this up in Shinjuku last year along with the Elvin Jones and Freddie Hubbard. Maybe the most aggressive Arthur Taylor I ever heard and he's high in the mix but I don't mind that. I saw the Woody Shaw in the store but didn't get it.

A massive innovator whose importance cannot be ignored, I have a long way to go with familiarity with his music besides "Conquistador" and the "Pontos Cantados" track on "One Night With Blue Note, Preserved, Vol 2" and the "Imagine The Sound" documentary, but his sound and influence is so wide. Parts of Yosuke Yamashitas's classic "Chiasma" definitely remind me of Taylor, as does Alfredo Rodriguez' performance of "Oye Como Va" on the 2012 Mack Avenue Superband album.