king ubu

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!

Zentralquartett is fantastic all the way! First choice for me would be this one: http://www.intaktrec.ch/069-a.htm "Careless Love" I don't have, "Plié" is almost as good as the above, and so is the most recent one, which is their take on traditional songs from Germany. Sommer also has a new one coming out of his duo with Wadada Leo Smith: http://www.intaktrec.ch/128-a.htm And here you'll find all his Intakt releases in one place: http://www.intaktrec.ch/babysommer-a.htm

one of my latest, and a good one: also, finally the 8CD Duke Box has shipped...

Very sad news

I don't really get it that so many of you despise that Thad Jones album! I have the Mosaic and like all of it, although the second one with Mitchell is probably better and my favourite likely is the United Artists album with Al Grey added. Anyway, his three BNs have a freshness and a modest way of being just slightly more interesting than the usual hardbop stuff on BN. Thad is just a bit too sophisticated for run of the mill stuff, and I like that a lot. As for the others, I have all of them as part of some boxes (Dexter, Hill, Byrd) or in older editions (Mac & AT). Not sure I need to upgrade/replace any of them, maybe the AT? THat's a fine one in my opinion, probably one of the least known BN albums?

Not counting the early Pathe titles, the Columbia/Brunswick/Master titles (not counting alternates and the small group stuff on Mosaic) runs to 7 cds. I have the Classics and deleted the small group stuff for some cdrs and have 7 discs (180 titles) covering 1931-1940. The Pathe titles were included in the French lp series but will probably be excluded in the future Mosaic box. Thanks for the info, Chuck... I'll just keep looking for anything including material I don't yet have I guess. It's probably difficult to have the full run of early Ellington without ending up with a number of duplicates... My Storyville box just shipped, finally... won't be there to listen to it when it arrives, but I'm still looking forward to the day I'll have it in my hands!

So you say you didn't get the hybrid SACD? The OJC sounds a lot inferior! OJC, yes. No SACD on display in any of the stores here, usually... I never bothered about SACD and I think it's safer to keep it that way for now... (same with the whole japanese reissue material... I don't even dare think of it!)

saw a great and a lousy concert last night (double bill): Susie Ibarra Trio w/Craig Taborn & Jennifer Choi - everybody by now knows uub's got a crush on her, I assume, and indeed she was terrific, very sophisticated approach, great groove, and a beautifully tuned set of drums, really a sound of her own... but, BUT... the other two were just so talkative, fake, boring - bullshitting all the way, nothing felt in there, all just made up facade... really annoying, and mostly pretty ridiculous, pathetic, Taborn doing boring neo-/pseud-romantic stuff, and Choi helping him making sure the music didn't breathe once in a 45 minute set... no space, no sense for pacing, a totally misled concept. The tunes all sweet and often almost like what's called "Salon-Musik" over here, muzak of the worst kind, all beautiful surface and nothing below that - and no, irony was NOT involved. Misguided in the sense that they don't know what they actually do there - bullshitting in what I assume is more or less the Harry Frankfurt way of defining it... Second was the Co Streiff Sextett - she's a local alto/soprano sax player and the Sextett have their second CD "Loops, Holes and Angels" just out on Intakt. The band includes another reeds player, Tommy Meier (tenor sax & bass clarinet), Russ Johnson on trumpet, a local bass/drums team, plus Ben Jeger on piano, accordion, farfisa and some other old synthesizers. They did a superb set, lots of the music being really group-music, not about egos and solos, but more about creating colours and grooves, doing a tune from Mali, some almost highlife like material, and lots of other great things, you can hear much of jazz history in there, from basic blues to Sun Ra and Roscoe (both of whom were covered on their first disc, "Qattara", also on Intakt) and Fela Kuti (nothing of his on disc, but they do some in live shows, not last night, though). Anyway, this more than made up for the pastiche banality of the Ibarra trio... Again let me stress that Susie Ibarra is a master percussionist, no doubt about that, just she ought to do different stuff... and Taborn is quite interesting and good when playing with Tim Berne... but then again his own disc "Junk" (?) on Matt Shipp's pretentious label is pretty boring, too...

oh, and I do like the cover of this CD a lot!

Finally got it, almost done with a first spin - pretty good! I think I like it better than the two "funky" GG albums I've heard. Only got "Alive" and "Carryin' On" so far... generally I like his earlier stuff quite a bit better.

I and Nate Dorward (visiting from Toronto) heard Golson live at the Jazz Showcase last year. He was in very fine form (i.e. Golson; Nate was in fine form too). That's good to hear Larry - too bad I had my only chance to hear him when he had a bad day/night, then He's really some kind of idol for me, so I was pretty sad after that concert - if his music wasn't so dear to me, I'd not have even bothered to type the above post, I guess...

I only have the Funky one on Arkadia... I don't like it that much, I have to confess. I also saw Golson live with his Clifford Brown homage band - not one of the best concerts, he seemed tired, no air, his sound was still there more or less, but much less powerful, and his lines were rather boring/clichéd most of the time. Sad, since he's one of my favourite tenor sax players of any era and I definitely would have preferred to hear him 10 years ago when he was still in full possession of his powers as a player. He also relayed much on his stories, they ended up often being half as long as the songs following them... I'm not critizing him still doing his thing, in fact it's wonderful that he still is able to do it, but it's just not the same thing as you hear on older recordings.

Yes, but "Free" is so good, just get for the worst case that you're going to miss the Mosaic (I wouldn't though, it's a great one!) Another for the Philadelphians (OOP as well, I think).

Indeed very good! Although French Amazon shows them with a 2007 date, they've been reissued in those nice cardboard packages by Owl/Universal over here several years ago. Here are the covers: These Sunnyside reissues are listed for just 8 euros on Amazon France - don't forget to order via big-o in case you feel like buying them!

Thanks a lot for posting that, Ed! Very helpful!

Thanks for clarifying - new name to me, will take a mental note and check it out if I have a chance!

Is this pianist Johnny "Manhattan" Taylor? I have him on that fantastic 1980 LP by ZA saxophonist Joe Malinga... never met his name elsewhere before...

That was it! Thanks Claude! No idea how that came to be checked, I never twitched with these settings!

no one?

seems that was one of the main sources, yes - check the introduction, other sources are mentioned there (I don't have any closer info btw, although I'm listed there...)

Yeah, and 1949 for 1948 and Birdland for Royal Roost is pretty exact in the Rosey world...