king ubu

Funny you include Z.T.'s Blues - that's one for the overrated thread, in my opinion... since people over there are just listing what they can't "connect" with, that would definitely be one where that's the case for me... Is Nigeria the one with Blakey going apeshit during Clarke's solo on "It Ain't Necessarily" so? That tune is soooo feghing great, it overshadows the whole 2CD set with these Green/Clark sessions for me.

Sonny Clark Trio is another one... not sure what I'd throw out to have that one in, but it's terrific! I think I like it best from all of Sonny's great BN albums.

Several of these are out now in Concord incarnations (universal logo on the traycard), including the Stitts, Brother 4 (rather lame) and I think I also saw the Scott/Stan T one (great one! as is the other Rhoda, with Lem Winchester and Kenny Burrell, respectively). The Booker/Patterson is out again, too. Seems Concord is not just deleting the stuff...many Pablo things I saw, also of course tons of the "classic" albums (Trane, Miles, Monk), and some of the later things, too (80s Jazztet, those glorious Art Farmer albums on Contemporary, etc). And to return back on topic at the end, I don't dig Houston, really... got an album (twofer) of his in the 2001 sale and I think it's pretty lame. Same goes for his sideman appearances... rather boring player. Red Holloway has not been discussed yet - he's on the great "Soulful Drums" twofer (sold as by McDuff nowadays, not by Dukes). Pretty good one, but Holloway has his bag of Griffin licks in there, which is a slight letdown... otherwise a very joyful and nice player. Oh, another favourite of mine is the after hours like Bill Jennings/Jack McDuff release in the Legends of Acid Jazz series! Probably lame for some, but I enjoy even their take on "Volare"...

Unit Structures is da shit, folks! It's difficult stuff, you might have to even try and concentrate, hit repeat, sit down and study - it's not your easy peasy Cornbread (run of the mill, as are most of Mogie's BNs - my fave? "Procrastinator", and fasten your seatbelts, I like "The Rajah" quite some...). Read up Ekkehard Jost's chapter of CT (in "Free Jazz", originally published when, late 60s I think?) - anyway, "Unit Structures" is a milestone of the music, of whatever music... only recorded in a very bad (amateurish?) way, alas. An RVG remaster wouldn't help there, as he is the messenger and knows exactly crap how they wanted to sound etc... I assume Cecil really wanted that album to sound like poop?! Cut that mythologistic crap, BN is just one of a bunch of great labels, RVG is just one of a bunch of able recording engineers (why does the Contemporary recording quality never get discussed, for instance? State of art, yet it's all BN BN BN BN!)

Sydney Bechet and Art Hodes and Albert Ammons and Meade Lux and James P. and Edmond Hall and George Lewis et.al. may be the truly underrated BN recording artists...

Oh, and this thread's about as overrated as is Blue Note in general.

just dropping by to say I *love* shawn's new avatar!

true! (uhm, the J.R. part, don't have the album, but I'll look for it!)

tough call, I am not sure at all, but just going on impulse, I'd say: - Monk Genius Vol. 1 & 2 - Bud Vol. 1 & 2 - Ornette @ Golden Circle Vol. 1 & 2 - Andrew Hill "Point of Departure" - Eric Dolphy "Out to Lunch" - Cannonball Adderley "Something Else" - Hank Mobley "Soul Station" that's already ten, and they include no Jackie Mac (probably Let Freedom Ring, or Destination Out), no Mogie (Procrastinator), Blakey (Free For All or Moanin'), no Silver (Stylings? no idea which I'd pick there... maybe Song for My Father?), JOS (Back at the Chicken Shack!!!), no Larry Young (Unity), no "Idle Moments", no "Stick Up!", no "Unit Structures" (HELLYEAH! Pity RVG wasn't able to record that one decently)... and no Bechet, Edmond Hall, James P., no Art Hodes, no Tina Brooks, no Joe Henderson (Page One?), no K.D. (Whistle Stop), no Dexter (Our Man in Paris), no Herbie Hancock (Inventions & Dimensions). Not easy, indeed!

Wasn't it "Salt Peanuts"? Either way I agree. Guy See? These titles somehow don't connect with the music, so no one can remember the titles of tunes you know like the back of your hand. MG you certainly jest, sir? to answer the original question, yes, I do many birds, ahem... KoKo is Cherokee, simple as that, no way anyone who really "heard" that Savoy side cannot remember it! Da shit, as they say. Quite an interesting thread here. Allen, the OJCs I am still missing (but "Bird at St. Nick's" is around in a sale, I'll look for it). Anyway, this altissimo thing sounds interesting. The sound issue I can't relate to, either - some of this stuff is soooo goddam good, sound won't matter once you're into it!

There's a sale going on here, too, albeit not at these great prizes (roughly 11$ per disc, this is two thirds of regular nice prize releases). I realized after buying a bunch that all are new, Universal pressings of OJCs. The traycard has the Universal logo printed on it, and so do the CDs themselves. I take this as a good sign that a whole lot of the catalogue is being continued.

"As for the brilliant Mr Altman himself," Ms Morrison added, "I suspect he might find sardonic comedic potential in all of this."

Goodbye is a good one, I think. Stenson has that ability to add small little idiosyncrasies or just a touch of irony to his elegiac playing. Or he just gets slighty out of the metre or plays his virtuoso runs totally unclean... stuff like that... was nice seeing him perform solo a few weeks ago. What he does is just a wee bit out of the ordinary and that's what makes it good, in my opinion.

After having seen that recent Danish documentary about Ayler, I really wonder about the part of mysterious (self-styled mystery and immaculate?) Mary Maria Parks... she seemed to have played a major part in tearing the brothers apart, and also in isolating Ayler from virtually all of his friends... so if it was his wish to do a record with her singing, maybe it was her wish to have him wish to do it, first? A rather problematic character, it seems... And Don Ayler's situation is tragic, to say the least. Very, very sad!

Saw the Hank Roberts / Marc Ducret / Jim Black trio last night - da shit! A great, great concert!

Do you keep all these brochures? I enjoy the old ones I got from you, brownie, but the new ones I don't keep all of them, just like every 5th or so... too many things stacking up all the time...

Alas, prizes for the Concord box over here are crazy, prob. double from what you describe here Concord has always had bad distribution and exorbitant prizes over here, those two-in-one sets were prized like two full discs, for instance - I hope their Universal distribution deal at least makes the stuff easier to find now - good sign is kind of an OJC sale, if you call 9€/11$ a sale, for switzerland it is... anyway, all of these have the Universal logo on the traycard, the CDs themselves look slightly different (Universal inprint, too, instead of ZYX), while the paper of the booklets has become even thinner (US editions - mostly I know for Blue Note - use much better paper than you'll ever see over here, don't ask me why).

that's all it isn't on the live recording I've heard...

I have a terrific live broadcast of her band, very, very good music, warm, lyrical, lots of beauty and soul in it... Trygve Seim on saxes is great, and Jon Christensen is a masterful drummer (but that's no news I hope). I am not sure - once again - if the coolish ECM production sound is good for this music, as it seems to warm to me... I should check this out, and that other one, "The Source", too (by Trygve Seim, see more info here: http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/ECM/1900/1966.php)

you can read his "maybe you're right" reply that way, too...

well, aric called Bley "whoever" above, so I guess that's not a reason to convince him of anything!

traditor, the latinist in me, would translate as "he who spreaded traditions" or something, btw. and labelling Bethlehem as a West Coast label is a rather strange idea...

Mingus & Dexter & Teddy Edwards were what? Not your typical west coast stuff, no? And Roach-Brown started out west, too... Free Fall may be Giuffre's greatest record - why would you expect him to do west coast stuff? Was he even from the West Coast? What he did was some kind of folksy version of what Horace Silver did in an urbane way, I think... country funk, whatever - it's warm, swinging music that often had a rootsy feeling (talking of his Atlantic stuff now), but even on his first two Capitols he did things that may be closer to NYC third stream experiments than to West Coast, or so it seems to me. Anyway, I simply don't care if Giuffre is North, South, East or West, or a traitor or traditor or anything - he is a great musician (sadly unable to play for years by now due to health issues, as far as I know).

Funniest national anthem ever must be the Italian, especially when performed by a brass band running around on a square, while playing it... (so witnessed by yours truly in the beautiful city of Como) in other countries, these soldiers would have been arrested for making fun of the national anthem, but in Italy they were ordered to behave like that...