king ubu

alright, brownie beat me to it...

OK in the liners: "... the ballad 'Goodbye' (Jug's own choice) was the last number of the last day. That, of course, means that it was his goodbye, because this was the last time Gene ever recorded. Less than five months later, his then-undetected cancer had killed him. "(...) In retrospect, I have t feel good about the fact that, since there had to be a last date, it was one like this." If OK is to be believed then, Ammons didn't know and that tune is just a coincidence (while the album title is not, of course...)

Louis Armstrong, the 4CD Columbia/OKeh compilation - very nice, with the lengthy essay by Dan Morgenstern! (I assume sound sucks, but then I have the Hot Fives/Seven Columbia set, but all the other music I don't have in any other form, so I'm not bothered by sound that much...)

very sad news

I best play the four discs I have first and then decide... although the ones with Lacy and Bailey I don't have and they look best to me...

took me a while to get into Haynes (Roach as well - dug Elvin, Blakey, Philly Joe right away), he might be one of the most nuanced and sly ones around... (that to not just say: I'm shocked of his name appearing here...)

a moderate correction/addition: the two dates on disc 6 (both also from the sessions that ended up mainly on "April in Paris") indeed contain several splendid tunes/arrangements, with great solo spots of Wess, Foster and Coker!

Hiseman is also with Westbrook currently (or has been, fairly recently) - definitely not a boring/bad drummer, I think. Another comparable (?) person, Tom Rainey - not one I'd have gone far to get discs with him, but with Tim Berne, he's very strong!

Oh yeah - often rolling over the heads without using his own head .... He'd never make my favourite drummer list, but that swing disc he did with Schlüter and Nabatov (on act) is great, I think!

Thanks for double-checking, Matthew - it's a bit confusing... I'll take a mental note about the box for a later time anyway, as I have never seen any of the other single disc releases before or after that sale where I got those four.

almost done with disc 5 by now - the first Joe Williams session is terrific! and as always I'm rather underwhelmed by the "April in Paris" material - just one of many similarly good Basie albums, I never understood why this was such a classic, Atomic and other of the Roulette dates are better, as is, in my opinion, the Gus Johnson material (mainly the dance sessions) of the Verve period. How is the Basie Verve set ?.......I'm thinking about ordering this soon . Plenty of good music (I made it to the first tracks on disc 6 today), but there's a bit of a sameness to some of it. Not sure that's fair, but mainly the second band was an arrangements/textures/ensemble-based outfit, not a bunch of individuals having fun like the old band, still, let me try... First you have the sessions with Paul Quinichette (and then also with Lockjaw) - Quinichette is great, so is Lockjaw, two very individual voices that stand out. Then the Dance Sessions - one date with a few very nice Joe Wilder solos. The two Franks, Wess & Foster, some of Fosters arrangements are great, he - and a bit later Thad Jones - bring some bop into the band, Foster's rather agressive/hard sound and style of soloing are great. Wess who's in the Hawk tradition is good as well, and his flute (not there from the very beginning, first he's only on sax) brings in a new colour that's pretty nice. Then enters Joe Williams - some of the sides he cut with the band are terrific, classy stuff. Also there: the famous (but see my comment above) "April in Paris" album sessions, a small group date with Buddy Rich on drums, a band/small group date with Oscar Peterson (and Basie on organ or sitting out on one big band cut). So in the end it contains lots of good music, but still I think it's not totally unfair to mention the sameness... Oh, and as much as the crowds seem to have loved Sonny Payne's showmanship, Gus Johnson (who as Mr. Albertson mentions in the liners, was ousted by other band members, eventually) is the better drummer, I think - a terrific big band drummer, while Payne is good fun and more than able, but not quite up to Johnson's level, I think.

These are the cds from the 30th anniversary box. The ones with Lacy are very good. Thanks for the link - looks different from the ones I have, or I haven't looked close enough to see... John Carter/Centazzo/Vinnie Golia/Gregg Goodman - USA Concerts West (Ictus Reissue Series #3) (trio with Carter/Golia, duo with Goodman - all previously unissued) Centazzo/ALvin Curran/Evan Parker - Real Time One (Ictus Reissue Series #4) (#1-4 orig. released as Ictus 0006, #5 prev. unreleased) Centazzo/Trovesi - Shock!! (Ictus Reissue Series #9) (orig. released as Ictus 0016) Centazzo/Lol Coxhill/Franz Koglmann/Giancarlo Schiaffini - Situations (Ictus Reissue Series #12)* (first 7 tracks - prev. unissued - are Koglmann/Coxhill/Centazzo, rest is Ictus 008 with Schiaffini & Coxhill) These are on the Felmay label, rather than on Ictus itself, numbers are rdc 5028, rdc 5029, rdc 5043 & rdc 5046.

almost done with disc 5 by now - the first Joe Williams session is terrific! and as always I'm rather underwhelmed by the "April in Paris" material - just one of many similarly good Basie albums, I never understood why this was such a classic, Atomic and other of the Roulette dates are better, as is, in my opinion, the Gus Johnson material (mainly the dance sessions) of the Verve period.

yesterday discs 1-3 of the Basie Verve set, hoping to continue today and finish tomorrow!

I posted about this group's Zurich gig over here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...st&p=577007 Still have good memories of the music, but the lack of audience was a shame! As far as I understand, it's more of a co-led Ullmann/Swell band, with most of the music being by Ullmann. I assume in the US they give Swell main-billing while over here Ullmann is a bit better known and thus goes first?

Thanks for your reply, Matthew - I'll have a look at the Ictus page (or was that the DMG page or something - the one with infos on the individual discs) once I'm done with the army crap (two more weeks to go). So the packaging is different, but the contents are the same?

I'm home for the weekend between some more weeks in the army band, so forgive me for not going deeper into the thread and the web, but is this Ictus box different from the single disc releases that generally get lukewarm reviews in Penguin? I got four or five of those in a sale a couple of months ago, as yet unplayed... Is the stuff in the box better, if it's indeed different stuff, or are the Penguin chaps totally missing the point there?

payment & mail sent!

Belated best wishes!

Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" - great one so far, but I'm only into it by 150 pages or so...

Hope you had a good one, belated best wishes!

Moholo is still active, he appeared here with a swiss group (he was the leader, of course) a few months ago and probably a second time - I missed it, though...

Thanks brownie, being at work I couldn't find the correct quote within a reasonable amount of time... that whole thing is rather worrying!

so that weirdo chap with his tongue out on that photo and unable to bind his own necktie, he seems to have said something like "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left." http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/...icle2314202.ece

I haven't seen it yet, don't know if it's out already or not... Intakt releases more/faster than ever before, they seem to do pretty good, which is great! The Anderson/Schweizer/Drake I think was out for release (with the cover backed white instead of black) two years ago or so, but then disappeared and now it's finally in stores... no idea what happened, but this just as an example that their fast release schedule isn't really documented on their website in a proper way... Just did some googling and found the Sommer/Smith is already out!