king ubu

So I played discs 1-3, parts of disc 4 and then (in chronological order) disc 7. First impression: darn good! Disc 7 contains three small group dates, the first pairing Berigan with Bud Freeman, and it's effin' ridiculous! The second has Johnny Hodges in, Teddy Wilson on piano as well as chubby Mildred (yup, I love her singing!) and no drums (funny John Hammond story - seems a drummer was scheduled but Hammond gave him a call not to appear without the other musicians knowing...). The third date is with Edgar Sampson and Eddie Miller (I like his contributions on the Classic Capitol quite a bit, but Bud Freeman is again providing highlights there, too), as well as Cliff Jackson on piano. And all three dates have Moncur senior thumping away on bass, and doing greatly! Really three fantastic dates! As for discs 1-3, some of that is just run of the mill stuff, Berigan accompanying singers (bad ones, mostly) with ARC studio bands, Berigan playing with the Dorsey Bros. (often backing the same bad singers), and Berigan with the Boswell Sisters or just Connie Boswell - some of those sides are again pretty great. Never heard Connie Boswell before, but she's fine! The highlight of these dates for me is the session (two tunes, two takes each) with Lee Wiley ( ) - Berigan had an affair with her, it seems, and he's backing her in a much more intense way than any of the other singers. Effin' great stuff again! Now I hope that the rest of disc 4 and discs 5 and 6 continue on the better side! I wonder: what else to get to have more *good* Berigan? Classics' run of releases picking up after the Mosaic ends? (Or even those covering the same years? Is there material on those volumes coming from labels not covered in the Mosaic?)

Happy Birthday!

Just finished discs 1 and 2 of the Bunny Berigan - some chaff and some fine things hidden in between (Boswell Sisters tracks) and the highlight to top it off: the date with Lee Wiley at the end of disc 2! It's also on Vol. 1 of the Baldwin/Devil's Music Wiley edition of course and was familiar to me, but it's still a great session to hear again!

He played as part of the Globe Unity Orchestra at this year's Jazzwoche (jazz week) in Burghausen in March and is also present on a 2006 recording of the Globe Unity that I have, so seems he's still/again part of that group.

Another for this set! The highlights for me are the two Golson quartet albums and the Jazztet Meets John Lewis, but actually all of the music is first rate! The Jazztet stand out from "your usual ole hardbop" in that they have tighter arrangements (in fact: they have arrangements, simple as that...) and their music is more varied than just the usual strings of solos. Maybe the Mosaic to compare this most is the J.J. Johnson. The musical results may be a bit tamer often than say your ole BN album, but there's much more to grab your attention, too.

If you want to go one by one, get "Big Jim's Tango" next. Next trio would be the "Public Theater" recording. But first/in between I'd get one of the great quartet sets (Live in Berlin or the Gershwin or the self-titled AudioQuest if you can find that). There are a few more albums of Bennies that I didn't mention in my post, newer ones, that means between 2000 and "Disorder" which is the latest release, I think. I kind of lost track as some have been released on small US labels that don't have any distribution over here (there's at least one, blue cover, something with "Moods..." in the title, "Moodsville"? I think it's been mentioned here but don't ask me in what thread...)

I'm quite a fan! The live recording Berlin 2000 (Disorder is from Berlin 2004 or 2005) with George Cables is great (a terrific "It's Only a Paper Moon", among other good things. http://www.enjarecords.com/cd.php?nr=ENJ-9425 Also "Big Jim's Tango", a trio with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones. http://www.jazzrecords.com/enja/4046.htm "Live at the Public Theater" is an early one in trio setting with Eddie Gomez and Dannie Richmond: http://www.jazzrecords.com/enja/9127.htm His debut "The Fourteen Bar Blues" (with Gomez & Eddie Moore) is fine but not that good, I think: http://www.jazzrecords.com/enja/3029.htm "Mystic Bridge", a rather unlikely encounter with Chick Corea, is pretty good (though not particularly because of Corea). It has just come out in the new Enja 24 bit series: http://www.enjarecords.com/cd.php?nr=ENJ-2108 His Gershwin tribute, "Someone to Watch Over Me", has a very annoying cover but it's another very fine disc, with Mulgrew Miller on piano: http://www.enjarecords.com/cd.php?nr=ENJ-9356 The other Enjas (Sweeping, Free Will, Talk of the Town and the newer Nearness of You) I don't know/have yet. Two other fine ones are on the AudioQuest label, the better of them it just titled "Bennie Wallace" and has Tommy Flanagan on piano throughout, with a few very fine songs being done. The other one's called "Old Songs" and is partly in trio and partly with Lou Levy on piano. He also did two albums for Blue Note in the 80s, I have "Bordertown" on LP. It's a bit of a ragbag, with changing line-ups including Scofield, Ray Anderson and I think Dr. John, too... not bad, though. Maybe a CD full of the best of the two albums would be a nice thing to have. To my knowledge, both are LP only so far and my hopes to find the other one aren't exactly high... http://www.enjarecords.com/cd.php?nr=ENJ-2108

How are Wes Montgomery's A&M albums? I never heard them...

Does anyone have a discography of these that could be posted here or mailed? This is probably the one Mosaic production I am most sad about not having been around in time to get it!

Cool album cover! I think it's silly really. So silly that it's cool again, but still silly. The album or the cover? It's out as a digipack "LPR", right? Got an earful of this in a store last week - I don't have the knowlege of it's surroundings so I can't really make a statement if it's better or worse, but I *love* Lateef and this came as quite a shock, I'm afraid... I think that they contain genuine playing and some attempt at artistic merit. For example, Miles' solo on "Code MD" on "Decoy" is a decent jazz solo. The long blues near the end of "Decoy" is not a commercialized cut. "You're Under Arrest" is a mess, in my opinion, but one can discern some artistic vision behind the efforts, as muddled as the results of the vision turned out. An album like Freddie Hubbard's "Splash" is far worse than these Miles efforts. "Splash" is pure schlock--disco lite, annoying even as elevator music or dental office music, with no redeeming value. If there is an album where Miles veered into over-commercialization, I would cite "Amandla", which to me has an almost easy listening sound to it. I agree with Claude here. "Amandla" has a couple of very good cuts (Mr. Pastorius, anyone?), so does "Decoy". "Under Arrest" never interested me much - too many bits and pieces (plus one of the worst album covers I've seen...) As for Eddie Harris, I'm not familiar with all his Atlantic albums, but "Plug Me In" or "Sylver Cycles" for instance have lots of great moments, and EH somehow just could pull this thing! His sound, you can even detect it on varitone very much, always was fitting for this kind of "sweet" stuff - his first hit, "Exodus" is where it all began, I think. In between he did those great quartet/quintet sessions with Cedar Walton and Billy Higgins, but even there, on some ballads, the side of his that's deemed "commercial" is there, I think. Anyway, I love him and think you can't blame him, with all the hardness and lack of recognition he had all through his life.

Sorry I'm a day late and a dollar short to comb through 500 pages of this Hysterical Mouse thread, but which Clusone 3 disk did you pick up? I have Soft Light and Sweet Music, and like that one quite a bit. I should add that I'm not familiar with the other Clusone titles-is it the Rara Avis one? Yup, "Rara Avis" (title mentioned in the post you quoted, but I didn't bring together titles and artists...). The other one, "An Hour With" is still around, too, but "Rara Avis" had been listed as OOP for years and now suddenly it isn't - probably they found another box of it somewhere... I only with the first McPhee solo ("As Serious as Your Life", hatO 514) would turn up again, too! Also Shipp's "Multiplicator Table" I missed, but at least I got a CDR of it... I also miss Gregorio's "Ellipsis" and Mat Maneri's "Acceptance" but I'm less sure I need these.

My question was actually if the bonus "Our Love Is Here to Stay" was the same as the one mentioned being on that other 4LP release... I knew there was a bonus version of that tune on the VEE, of course... Thanks for giving some info on the Lonehill, Garth - guess this one goes on my list, then, for lack of better options...

some samples up here, now: link - note that they're encoded at a crappy 128 are indeed just tasters that ought to bring some interest in the real thing! Support the artists as well as Jacques and his label by buying the actual product!

bumping this up again - discussions have barely started yet, so there's plenty of time to still join in! this also goes as an alert to those who got my spam PM without asking for the links - still plenty of time to download the files and give the music a listen, I'd enjoy any additional participants! also if anyone still hasn't figured out how to get the effing links to work or how to unpack these darnded rar-files, let me know and I will help you!

Cleveland made 4 lps for Emarcy. All 4 LPs are included in the Lonehill double CD. That reissue even includes a track ('Our Love is Here To Stay') that was not on any of the LPs but first appeared on the Mercury VSOP 4LPs box in Japan Yeah, you see, I'm trying so hard to stay away from the evil Lonehill that I didn't even know how many albums it contained. I assume brownie, that "Our Love is Here to Say" is the track included as a bonus on the VEE edition of "Introducing"?

My "Rara Avis" and "Root of the Problem" hatOLOGY discs have already arrived. Gave the Clusone a spin and love it as much as I did last time (had it on CDR, copied from a library that had a copy). About the Potlatch sale, check out this post @ my blog with short reviews and look for the next post in an hour or so with some samples from these 8 discs! (crappy 128 kbs samples - I want people to buy the actual discs!)

The Cleveland can be had on a 2CD Lonehill "complete" set, in case you're interested in that... (I have the VEE, don't have the Lonehill, but it's still tempting to get the other two albums...)

Happy Birthday!

I love the Ilori and enjoy the Sabu as well! Great indeed to have some Arsenio Rodriguez... I know some of his tunes but don't have anything else with him.

First one that came to mind was the Bohemia material with Mobley, but Golson is terrific on "Moanin'" and of course there's "Free for All" and the Blakey/Monk album with great Griffin!

Happy Birthday!

I assume you all are aware that Potlatch has another June sale going on now... ordered five more, as if I need them... and gave all the ones I have a spin again - will do a little write-up and add some samples soon on my blog, in case you're interested! The Lazro/Zingaro duo, "Hauts plateaux", is about to go OOP - act quick, it might be the best of them all! It's fantastic, to say the least! Also that site here: www.discplus.ch, in fact does deliver the OOP hatOLOGY discs I mentioned in that post on my blog - I got "Rara Avis" and "Root of the Problem" yesterday (along with 10 or 12 other hatO discs, all for that tiny sweet price)!

thanks a lot for the headers, I already put one in use!

Guy I'm not sure there... avantgarde is not avantgarde any longer if it's 30 or 40 years old. It may be historically considered as avantgarde still, but hey, just if the public didn't catch up doesn't mean Brötzmann is still avantgarde - he's doing his schtick for too long now...

Jackie is most definitely stretching the boundaries of hard bop on several of the BN recordings, most notably Destination Out and the recording with Ornette, New and Old Gospel. This is the standard view of Jackie. As Steve Huey writes in his review of 1962's "Let Freedom Ring" "Jackie McLean had always been a highly emotional soloist, so it makes sense that he was one of the first hard bop veterans to find a new voice in the burning intensity of jazz's emerging avant-garde. McLean had previously experimented with Coltrane's angular modes and scales and Ornette's concept of chordal freedom...." So, whatever label it is called, several of Jackie's blue note recordings are good recommendations for someone who has expressed an interest in exploring music beyond hard bop. Yeah, sure he's stretching boundaries of hardbop, nothing I ever would deny! (And mind me, I love Jackie's BN output, have all or most of it!) But Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" had stretched hardbop limits, too, so did "Milestones" already. And how about Lennie Tristano's stuff? Nothing new under the sun in stretching the boundaries of hardbop - even more so as hardbop is very formulaic music that can be very tiring to listen if you're in for a slightly more adventurous and open-minded ride (that's my opinion, of course)! Mingus was stretching boundaries of hardbop as early as the late 40s I guess, but we can also agree on "Pithecantropus Erectus" (1956 - of course McLean is there again). Also, that's something else I find interesting: much of this boundary-stretching music I find much more "soulful" than stuff subsumed under the label "soul jazz" (Mingus prime example, but also things on Archie Shepp's early Impulse albums have that quality - nothing against "soul jazz", although I find the label about as stupid as "free jazz", this here being one of the main reasons).