king ubu

I think it does go beyond that... but I can imagine hearing it, too... to me I guess seeing him live was the decisive moment that made me "get" him. No gimmicks, serious stuff, yet not without humour.

How 'bout Dhafer Yousef? I have a few of his discs and once saw him live - astonishing! How he mixes his pure oud sound, amazing (wordless) voice and adds ambient elements and some electronics (via his bands, not himself... Eivind Aarset, Markus Stockhausen...). I can't listen to it on any day, but every now and then I love his stuff!

That's exactly right about the slip-in page with the CD info; I have several of the early Mosaic CD editions. You already know that there's some fabulous music on that set. Yes, that's why I spent some $$ to get it (135$ to be exact... and it slipped through customs without trouble, luckily). I've got two early vinyls (Tina Brooks and Art Pepper), but then there's quite a gap... I think the next ones I have are in the 130s. From about the 150s/160s on I have most of what I wanted. But it's always a thrill when I get a chnce to grab another earlier one!

YOWZAH! enjoying looking at the Hall/Johnson/De Paris/Dickenson Mosaic (CD-version) that just arrived! know much of the music already, but this does look nice, very nice! the page with the cd-tracklists is a loose sheet, slightly smaller, put inside the booklet - was that how they presented their early CD-versions, with the booklet being just for the LP-version and thus they had to add an additional page?

This is some GREAT music... gee, I might still need it for the cover and the notes, although I do have the AEC box already...

ok, after all the fuss... I just finished disc one - some very nice stuff, mostly recent-ish, some of it suffering from the very same that lots of recent NYC mainstream jazz seems to suffer... but some of it very, very nice! so then, I've not read anything above, typed while listening... not many guesses, really, just some impressions. will not read here before having posted my impressions on disc two (tomorrow hopefully). DISC ONE #1 - Hm, I have a definitive feeling I should be able to pin these guys down... twin guitars... nice repetitive lines, very warm sound... touches of Metheny or Frisell, but these are younger guys, right? More likely someone such as Shepik, Cardenas... touches of Chris Speed, the Claudia Quintet... that kind of bag. Nice but not capturing my attention all that much in the end. #2 - Very good one! Great soprano sound, with a little bit of a husky sound... and just the right amount of "cry" in between to loosen it up a bit. Very nice touches from the drummer (those soft, soft rolls!). No clue really, but sounds like a pretty recent performance, too... a shot in the dark: Jane Ira Bloom (with Fred Hersch)? Ah, there's a 'bone in the ensemble, too... hm, no idea really who this might be, but this is nice! #3 - You seem to like your music high-pitched, huh? Nice arrangement here... jumpy piano solo... I like it more and more as it goes along. Nice alto solo... solid phrasing... Kenny Garrett? The drummer gets pretty busy - like it! And it does swing! #4 - Ooooh, nice! What's that tune again? Love it! Clarinet with strings... sounds marvellous! It's a Coltrane ballad, isn't it? Lovely clarinet playing! Oh, what's this now? Is this Trovesi? These rhythms with the tambourine or whatever it is... hm, the piano gets a bit too... easy-flowing simplish. Loved the opening and the clarinet solo, but then it kind of gets lost. #5 - South of the border... what kind of rhythms are these? Dense arrangement, nice flowing trumpet with a soft and classy sound. Dizzy's influence looms all over this... the hand drums and all the percussion gets a bit too much now and then, but the solos flow nicely on top of the rhythms and the bass carries it. #6 - Ooh, squeezebox... Dave Douglas and Guy Klucevsek are my first thought here... Charms of the Night Sky territory... but of course there's guitar and no violin... very nice! Sentimental, but never quite kitschy. And the bass keeps a good groove going all the time. Touches of "Love for Sale" early on... and some "Poinciana" kind of stuff. No clue who these guys could really be, but it's charming! #7 - More accordion here... and the tune is familiar of course, Miles second quintet material, or slightly later... one of the endlessly flowing open tunes (Directions?). Nice with the bass clarinet, accordion, vibes, double bass... and another lyrical trumpet soloist on top. Very good! This is one of my favorites so far! Good tenor, and a very nice arrangement! #8 - More similar stuff - very groovy! Great barisax accompaniment... very nice sound here, sparse and clear. Cool moment as the barisax begins the solo! Rough and tumble... ah, no solo really, more like a dialogue. Good stuff! Are there two drummers here? Another favorite, for sure! (And yes, I gave up the guessing/name-dropping by now... most of this seems to be from recent times and I'm not familiar with too much recent jazz of this sort... some of it I might enjoy better in a live setup, but this one here's fine!) #9 - Good sequencing, Jeff! This one I like a bit less though. Good groove, but the solo guitar sounds too thin and distorted, more Sco in there. #10 - Sorry to say, but by now the sound of several of the tracks gets a bit same-ish... tenor, guitar, double bass... nothing bad about this, but it just flows a bit too easily... Chris Cheek and Kurt Rosenwinkel are musicians that come to mind. I'm often having a hard time articulating what bothers me (or fails to grab me) about their music, and it's the same here... there's no fault to it, but it has a slightly cold feeling to me, even though the tenor solo is pretty good. Oh wait, there are two tenors... the second one, entering after the long solo has a less Coltrane-ish sound (did he have a longer solo first, too?)... anyway, no time to repeat now, and as is often the case with such contemporary jazz, my mind would wander again and not pay attention during a repeated listen either... #11 - Ha, what's that again? Fun stuff! Electric bass makes for a change in sound... gots his Jaco down... again twin guitars... that seems to be a sound you enjoy particularly? But this again feels rather cold-ish to me, I'm sorry to say. And the bass does get somewhat obtrusive. Thanks for the ride, Jeff! Looking forward to disc two now! The opening tune sounds good so far!

It's really weird - I've never had this happen before! The final attempt to grab one of the files from megaupload again failed at 80% after six hours... but the ones from Jeff were in within five minutes! Will play it in the second half of the week and post some about it, Tom! Thanks for bearing with me!

Much appreciated, Jeff! Worked like a charm!

Mine is still "to be shipped" after all these weeks... I wonder!?

Thanks a lot, Jeff - much appreciated!

That would be very kind, Jeff! I don't know what's going on here, but after my preceeding post I DID try once more and disc 1 is at 34% by now... so maybe in 6 hours it would finish, or rather over night it would stop again, I'm afraid.

I've missed this thread 'til now - many thanks for this rec! I'm curious - do you know if there are 4 discs in this set, or only 3? Amazon lists it as a 3-disc set, and I really don't want to order until I'm certain that both discs from Vol. 3 are included... Ideas? All four are in there! It's three jewel cases, three volumes... but volume three contains two discs (in a regular-sized jewel case).

Gerry Mulligan - Mosaic Select

asking again... after all day long and going up to 80%, another attempt just failed - everyone else here had no problems? Been trying for three days now... frustrating! hate megaupload! Definitely giving up, sorry to miss out, Tom! Would have loved to check it out! But now after all-day long telling to 2 more hours to go, it gives me that DL limit exceeded crap... pretty frustrated!

Don't Be a Dropout ?

Mamie Smith Bessie Smith Messy Bessie

Angel from Montgomery Mother Teresa Fela Kuti

As in: a Sam Rivers 43 disc set?

Not giving up yet...

I tried countless times for the past days to download, but the downloads never go beyond 1MB in size... frustrating. No one else having any issues here? I'm clueless what might be at the root of the problem, tried in various browsers, too.

Got the Al Cohn a few days ago and it's AMAZING! :tup

The Ayler "Holy Ghost" box... on and off, as I'm doing a chronological Ayler listen these days!

Interesting character, it seems! Chadbourne's write-ups are fun... but are they generally accurate beyond their hipster stance?

Very, very sad news.

That's the drummer on Redd's third BN album - who was he anyway? Never ever heard of his name anywhere else!