king ubu

Got that one recently and gave it a first spin yesterday - quite a ride! True, the solo material is great, but I quite enjoyed the strings date as well, in fact your last phrase sums it up well for me, too. And it's always a delight to hear Ray Nance! Also played "On the Spot" for the first time, and there are some stunning bits on it as well... Jimmy Owens does fine on trumpet, and Jaki switches between alto and piano - it ended up being much more interesting than I thought it to be from looking at it. As for the Lennies material, I guess I'll have to take it out again soon... favourites of mine would be the Candid solo disc, and then I assume "Out Front" next. None of the OJCs/Prestiges I've heard struck me as absolutely great, but all of them are fine at least - a nice run of albums, it seems (I think there's one or two I still miss).

Funny, his playing on "Star Bright" never caught my attention. yeah... I mixed it up with should have been Duke Jordan's wonderful "Flight to Jordan" (with Reece in the frontline) - my bad.

I first noticed him on "Back at the Chicken Shack", then again several years later on his own "Up at Minton's", and then again a third time, a while later, on Reece's wonderful "Star Bright"! Good call on "Soundin' Off" - and interesting about comparing his hard-bop vs. soul jazz playing. Not sure where I stand on that, not even sure the distinction makes a lot of sense... Where'd you put the recordings with Roach? They're marvellous! Some on Mercury (part of the great Roach Mosaic), and then there's a marvellous live recording out on Enja, "Long As You're Living Yours", by the same band (w/Tommy T and Julian Priester).

Yup, the Minton's is very good, in my opinion! Some mighty fine blues playing by Turrentine, and one of the most sympathetic bands he led, the trio of Parlan/Tucker/Harewood. Add Grant Green, and it can't be all bad! The three albums he did with this band and brother Tommy in place of Green are mighty fine as well (two are on the Horace Parland Mosaic, the third is on his own Mosaic). Hustlin' is very good as well. And another classic sideman album is Kenny Burrell's "Midnight Blue". Also the collaboration with the Three Sounds is good ("Blue Hour" - make sure you get the expanded Connoisseur 2CD set!) On second thought, none of it is really that great, but then that's Stanley Turrentine... he's all about sound and feeling, and he's great at that! But he's not one of the most varied or whatever, but he's great at what he does! Some more: Smith's "Back at the Chicken Shack" is great as well ("Midnight Special" didn't click that well with me and "Prayer Meetin'" I still don't "get"). Another fine one is that one Rare Groove, quartet with McCoy Tyner... ah yes, "Easy Walker" - some very good stuff on that one!

Well, in my case it's not their own previous reissues, but rather things like their Frank Rosolino album which includes the Mode album (fantastic album, but readily available from VSOP). The Mode album by Eddie Costa is now also part of such a package, I think, and the McRae. If their releases were cheaper, I wouldn't mind the occasional duplication, but unlike Lonehill, they cost a fortune and some...

I have the 90s Avenue/Rhino version of the Bethlehem sides of McRae... more and more, these Fresh Sounds tend to combine some used-to-be-readily-available with more obscure material, it seems. I'm unwilling to pay their way too high prizes just to get 20 minutes of bonus or whatever there is... the McRae doesn't do that much for me, anyway. I love her Columbia (Sony/Legacy) homage to Billie Holiday, though!

Hey, wait a sec, "South Park" will enter history as one of the big cultural achievements of the American empire!!! Sad news about Hayes' passing, he was one of a kind!

Playing the Masekela now :tup

got a reply within a few minutes this time! looking forward very, very much to this box!

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...;hum+dono\ it was mentioned previously in the Joe Harriott thread here, but this above is the latest info I think... no news since, I assume

They seem to be a bit 'hit or miss' as far as replying to e-mails go. I e-mailed them today to ask what the price was going to be so it'll be interesting to find out whether I get a reply. I usually end up ringing them direct and ordering over the phone. Easy enough when you live in the UK but not so good if you have to ring from abroad, I know. Ah well, eventually if it's about business I guess they should be interested to sell me the box, and as long as I get the news from here, that's alright... it's my second mail there, no reaction to the first.

Happy Birthday!

Great! I sent them a mail, do they have some kind of mailing list or does one just have to visit their site from time to time to see what's going on?

Still have to read that thing from David Sherr (thanks for sharing, Nate!), but I still felt like weighing in here... stacked up most of Criss' OJCs in one my many Fantasy buying panick attacks, and some of it is really, really good (and all the rest is at least good, too). The two albums with Walter Davis are likely my pick as well, but there's some good stuff on all the other albums as well... even the pop tunes I enjoy, which rarely is the case. I do have a weak spot for "Ode to Billie Joe", however, but also "The Beat Goes On" and even "Eleanor Rigby" is ok in the hands of Criss... but then some of the other tunes are kitschy pop/movie stuff, too, such as "Cry Me a River", so including some newer stuff wasn't that much of a departure - anyway I still was surprised how good all these Prestige albums work as albums, how good they hold together and how they make sense, one by one. I guess that's a nice production job done there! That video thing mentioned above is great, too - quality is quite bad alas, but Criss is playing great! Was lucky to find that DVD on sale a couple of months ago when the local summer sales started... wouldn't have noted it otherwise!

and thanks Niko for that link - just made use of the fast (and paper-saving, 2-on-1 and double-sided) printer at work

Yes, he's indeed... special on the JATP sides. But on those Nat Cole albums (I think he's on "Penthouse Serenade" as well), he's perfectly fine! And "After Midnight" is highly recommended, some of the best later Cole, with guests Willie Smith, Sweets Edison, Stuff Smith and Juan Tizol (one at the time, each has three plus a CD bonus track, I think).

haven't read any of his books yet (I think...) but I'm rather ambivalent about him, too... also what's that crap about "different civilisation"? different culture, different tradition (or rather "own" instead of "different" - why always define identities by just putting up borders and fences against the "others" and "different" ones?) alright, but what's a "different civilisation" supposed to be? and one last nitpick: Putin talking about Russia setting up a democratic society?!

and here I am, thinking it's about that again (still a fun read!) http://www.mingusmingusmingus.com/Mingus/cat_training.html

Happy Birthday, Lon!

Sad news, though to be honest I wasn't aware he was still around - I think I first heard him on Nat Cole's "After Midnight" sessions, several years before I first heard Pres...

I'm only just catching up with the first batch (and I still need all of those Verve Newport 1957 releases as well, except for Basie and Dizzy where I have the old versions). Glad to say this second batch looks much less interesting to me... also why are the Giants of Jazz billed as Blakey & ... ? The Shirley Horn will be of interest, eventually, and also the Tjader. And as far as Witherspoon is concerned, his "The Concerts" twofer (one of the two original albums being from Monterey, a bonus track of which is also on the new CD) is highly recommended - wonderful singing, and two great bands, including Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Rowles and others.

Early Hans Koller, definitively - but later on he went places... his playing on the marvellous Oscar Pettiford Black Lion album (with Attila Zoller and Jimmy Pratt) is great - after that the next thing I know are his MPS albums, the first of those ("Exclusive") has some more tracks with that Pettiford group, but after that, Koller opened up wide!

How about Bill Holman and Jimmy Giuffre?

Flurin - this is one that you MUST get. Yes, I know that applies to all Mosaics. But this one more than most. Believe it ! Beg, steal or borrow. Or raid the gnomes of Zurich.. holy holy... sounds like I need it badly! I'm in a bit of a stupid situation here, an organ-hating friend got it and was a bit dis-pleased first, so I said I'd buy it from him, but by now he seems to have kind of grown to it... guess I better order one myself, eventually.

shucks, I still need this one...