king ubu

I had no idea May had such a lenghty career - all I was aware of was his appearance on the Coltrane trio session (on "Lush Life", but the best track to me is the alternate take of the blues tune on "The Last Trane"). I also have the Baker Lerner & Loewe disc, but that's it. The Rouse looks great, but I guess it's one of those that Concord quickly put out of print - I mean, who the hell needs any Charlie Rouse disc!? r.i.p. Earl May

That 43/44 set sounds like a great idea! And to me it's rather obvious that Basie has selling potential too - they did the two Roulette sets, both of which are hard to find, then they did the Clef/Verve box, and now this Prez/Basie box, so... I'd be in on that 43/44 box, for sure! Why not someone drop them a mail about it! As for this Prez/Basie set - I got word (from Scott Wenzel via a friend) that it's too late to change anything about it and thus it's going to be a 4CD set with just those tunes included where Pres takes solos. Too bad, but it seems definitive.

If it's 126 tracks at 3 minutes, it would fit onto 5 discs, and it wouldn't make that much of a difference to potential buyers, I guess. Even if they spread it to 6 discs at roughly 60 minutes (instead of 75) playing time, I'd still prefer a complete Basie/Prez Columbia set to a 4CD one with all the tracks including Prez soloing!

Played Coltrane's "Interplay" box in its entirety over the last three days. Very nice one! The only regret is that the tracks without Coltrane from "The Cats" and "Cattin' with Coltrane & Qunichette" aren't there. I have the old OJCCDs of those and will keep them - the piano trio track on "The Cats" is great, and I've always had a soft spot for "Cattin' with", too... these two and "Burrell/Coltrane" are to me the highlights of this box.

Yeah well you know, the irony is that behind our house, there's nothing but a hill with some trees and a bit farther a little wineyard... (I bet you couldn't drink what they grow there... must be sour as hell!) - the road she was run over on is just the direction where never, not once, we saw her (we come home from there daily) and didn't think she'd go there at all... it's just too bad...

Yes, I have that Winding/Johnson and the JR Monterose - wish I had the Bud Powell! (Wasn't there a second RCA album? Has that one not appeared in this series?)

As much as I like several of the group sessions, the solos are even better! Not to be taken at too large chuncks, but astonishing from the first to the last beat!

Here's a quote from the reply I got from Mosaic's Scott Wenzel: "Initially, this was to be a Mosaic Select (3 discs) however, with the addition of the unissued material I was able to stretch it out to 4 discs. A good idea to have all the Pres recordings with Basie, but our main focus was the solo recordings." He said maybe I'd hear again from him (I sent along a link to this discussion) - we'll see - however, I assume this set has been planned and all, and possibly they are or have been working on the actual music already, so it might be too late to further expand it and make it a complete documentation of the years Prez spent with Basie... I still maintain that would be more interesting, and if it sells well, they could follow it up with a second set documenting the later Columbia years when Pres was gone - there's still plenty of astonishing music there, big band sides with great Shadow Wilson, with Buddy Tate, Don Byas, Lucky Thompson, and of course many of the key brass players who were still with Basie after Pres was gone, then the octet studio dates (though those are more or less or even totally complete on the Sony/Columbia 4CD set, so they could be skipped) right up to the first New Testament session in late 1951 or early 1952 (a tune or two from that session is/are also on the Sony 4CD set). That way, the gap between the Decca and Mosaic's own Clef/Verve set would be closed, except for the RCA dates (which are available in a Japanese 3CD set and also on a Definitive 3CD set), but those I've never found to be among the better Basie, so I wouldn't care to just have the Definitive crappy edition of those sessions.

Thanks everybody - much appreciated @ Tom: thanks for teaching me something new!

We haven't given any thought if we'll want another cat... but I'd sure like to! Thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated. Lon, it was a she... I thought that was clear from my first post, but I gather the word "cat" is feminine in english (a distinction I don't make, as there's just one article in english... in german or french, the article tells if it's feminin or masculin, so it's hardly possible to know that about english nouns for me.)

So I too am in the sad situation to report the departure of our beloved little cat. She was black as the night, wild as... a cat, and I had fallen for her charms about 5 or 6 ago, and for about 5 years, she was offered a home in our place. She had a good life here (not so sure about the years before...), and she grew to be 12 or 13 years old. Alas, she still was stupid enough not to watch the cars, and was knocked over on December 30th, found and delivered to the veterinary hospital of Zurich, where she died. Seems she was suffering for most of a night and most of the following day... nothing I can do by now, we didn't get a chance to see her, and it was by accident only that we found out what happened, just as we were putting up some notes about our missing cat. At least we know by now, but it's sad not to be able to say a last goodbye*! And I don't even have a photo to share... just one on my cell, but I can't hook it up with my notebook, for whatever stupid technical reason. *) I was with my girlfriend when we had to put her most beloved cat to sleep, a beautiful red/tigred male cat I grew to love, too, and I was with my mother when we had to put our family dog (I picked him!) of 13 years to sleep two years ago... both were very sad events, but at least we got a chance to see them a last time and we were sure there was no suffering involved - not so this time, alas.

Well, there's not much on the Shearing box there... except that one sir whom we'd expect to like it anyway mentioned he bought it... I'd still be interested to read a little more about it!

I did an earlier thread on this here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=36942 no opinion from me, as I haven't bought any of those sets so far (except for the great one by Klaus Doldinger)

I assume you guys are talking of Christopher Dell? He's very good indeed! If you have a chance, do check out his own project, DRA (Dell-Ramond-Astor, the names of vibist, bassist and drummer, respectively). I only have several live broadcasts from that trio so far, but I think they have three discs available! As they're getting better and better with the years, I'd go with the latest disc if you intend to buy one. Here's Dells homepage: >http://www.christopher-dell.de/<

more belated best wishes to both of you! :party:

Charlie Parker - The Complete Savoy & Dial Recordings (Savoy, 8CD)

Of late, mostly Duke Ellington Other things I listened large chuncks of: - various OJCs (Benny Golson, Barry Harris, Teddy Edwards, Johnny Griffin etc etc) - some of the old jazz Mosaic sets (Berigan, Bailey a.o.) - plenty of Miles, from the first Second Quintet dates with electric instruments up to the new "On the Corner" box) - plenty of early Charlie Parker (the Masters of Jazz series and more) - some "Legends of Acid Jazz" discs + related material (Houston Person, Sonny Stitt, Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Shirley Scott a.o.) and plenty of stuff I can't remember...

Hey, I only just saw this thread - I wish you the best of luck with this project, sounds exciting - too bad I'm not in NYC!

Just caught this - I don't know what to add, really, so just this: sorry to hear this, and I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you'll return soon to this place - I always enjoyed your humorous comments a lot!

Thanks Chuck - I wasn't aware that Ornette owns the tapes - that of course diminishes chances for a (non-pirate) CD reissue... how about "Ornette at 12", is that one worth looking for, too? (I guess the answer is "yes of course!"...)

I'll absolutely need to check that out! I've seen a cut or two by Mekuria/The Ex on a DVD compilation (off French/German arte tv, from the Frenche festival "Banlieues Bleues") - terrific! Also I picked up the Mekuria disc from the Ethiopiques series: Just yesterday I found pianoriental by Maurice El Medioni (for roughly 1 euro!) on the same label (Buda Musique) that puts out the Ethiopiques series: Looking forward to playing it!

Wrappingt up the Blanton Webster years - discs 12 & 13 of the RCA Victor Duke Ellington box

Sorry I'm late to the party - but the party will certainly continue tonight, won't it? So have one on me! Congrats & all the best! :party:

MG: that's another Mercury box - the one you think of is "Blues, Boogie, & Bop: The 1940s Mercury Sessions", 7 CDs. Some discussion of both here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...;amp;+bop\

That Brel box looks great! Here, it's still the Ellington RCA Victor box, now halfway through the Blanton/Webster discs!