king ubu

I played parts of the Dodo last night... not unlistenable at all, but to me it sounds like in a very different tradition/line than the "mainstream" jazz singer - reminded me of some of the vocal stuff in the "Blues, Boogie & Bop" Mercury 40s set, you know, some of those tracks with anonymous bands, Helen Humes is the only bigger name in there, the others are Myra Taylor, Julia Lee and Roy Byrd. That's a more commercial kind of line, I guess, jump and blues, not "proper" jazz... if viewed as that, I have no problem with Dodo at all... and the music is not exactly the most subtle, either... just not what you'd expect to hear on Blue Note. Anyway, they did hardly any vocal sessions, and with "Portrait of Sheila" being such a great and unique album anyway, this won't stand up that comparison, but there's no need to compare it, I think.

used again for the latest Freshsound reissue, too:

chewy, the excitement about this release may be rather low as the date with Lacy and also the 1948 session with Sulieman are circulating among collectors... RLR is one of those Lonehill Definitive etc. bootleg labels making money from selling stuff that no one really owns (alright, there are copyright issues, sure, but it's not more legitimate to sell this stuff than to just give it away in trades or for free, if you ask me... these chaps seem to so to speak rip off traders and release this stuff, same for the Trane Showboat thing and some other discs I've seen in stores).

Excellent group to see live! Sorry to say I didn't find them convincing... mainly Lake, pretty uninteresting player, falling back on cliches too often, doing the overpowering high energy stuff, not building many coherent solos. Cyrille seemed tired but had a few good spots and generally played quite good. Workman was great, good sound (although pick-up > amp) and his solo spot (they did three solos towards the end) was beautiful. Also, contrary to Cyrille (disinterested) and Lake (arrogant, at least that's what he seemed to be, not only to me but also to a few friends who where there), Workman was projecting warmth and joy while on stage.

Simmons looks fine... but how much is NOK 83,-? (if they make it available for download then why only in Norway? ) (sound samples sound fine however) NOK 83 = $12.87 or £6.74, so they're not that cheap. No way I'll learn how to handle this stuff to pay that much for some lousy MP3s! No sir! for 13$ I want a high-quality product and a cover, too!

But it is *very* depressing, even more so as the Swell/Ullmann Quartet also features drum great Barry Altschul and their music, while likely not "new" or ground-breaking, is very intelligent and involving... trodding a path between free-ish improvisation and good compositions (by both the leaders, but mostly by Gebhard Ullmann, I think). Most depressing than is that you could attend *any* mainstream concert, regardless how boring the selection of standards that they'll play, you'd see three or four times as many people there...

latest additions: (again the "piano keys-version", not the digipack - last one from the Atlantic sales, nothing left there for me now...)

found this weird one... seems to be part (the Lörrach part, to be exact) of what's now on hatOLOGY and called "Lörrach/Paris 1966":

I want the dodo because of the dodo... see my avatar

Sorry to be late to the party, sounds like you had a good one... more best wishes!

late to the party, sorry... happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

Tonight: Trio 3 here in Zurich (Oliver Lake-sax; Reggie Workman-bass; Andrew Cyrille-drums). Same venue where the Swell/Ullmann Quartet played ten days ago with 13 people in the audience... I certainly hope the names of Lake, Workman and Cyrille will draw some more attention!

I have editions 4,5 and 7 and won't need another one... The Lonehill stuff is likely turning into a problem for more knowledgeable people, too, as there are so many labels popping up that release the same stuff all over again in different package and pairing and each time screaming at you "first time on CD" and some incredibly great new hyper remastering shitte having been applied, too (when they have just stolen the oldest CD version around and then applied some bad software)... this does start to suck. It also gets to be more and more a problem in CD stores, as the chaps there end up with tons of crappy material and seem to be lost on knowing which would be a legitimate version... They had the Dizzy/Bird Town Hall on Uptown half a year late, but for something like 25€ or more, and now there's only the Disconforme edition of it around... of course they feature "loving" new liner notes by "highly competent" jazz critics... all going down the toilet, it seems to me.

Right now Gil Mellé's "Tome VI" efore the two Randy Weston solo LPs I started a thread about some time Bback - both pretty good!

no time to play any of it yet - have been down with migrane most of last week and then went to two concerts (Rabih Abou-Khalil Group and Bobo Stenson solo, part of this year's jazznojazz festival in Zurich), had friends over, and had to record the nightly radio broadcasts from jazznojazz, too... looking forward to hearing your discs a lot, though!

Chiming in again to say thanks, the Dodo Greene arrived on saturday - haven't had time to play it yet, alas. Thanks, Shawn! (edited for spelling)

Indeed a good one, with Teddy and Victor Feldman!

No problem here, indeed... there are some positive aspects about not being in the EU, but generally I still think it would be better to join.

Just got the discs, thanks a lot!

latest additions: "piano keys" edition for the first two, digipack euro-edition of the third

Got this mail too, but call me old fashioned: I never got a handle around these downloads... no clue how this works... how much do they cost, per disc?

Yeah, I saw a short review of the film (got 5 out of 6 points) on swiss tv last night and it included parts of the rodeo scene. Hilarious! Seems he's facing some legal action now from Sinti & Roma foundations, though... start is today over here...

Don't give up finding "Very Saxy", it's very good, indeed. I don't like Person that much, so I prefer the other disc a bit, but it's all very good, actually. I bought my copy in a store here, only one I saw...

recently picked this one up, Onzy Mathews big band arrangements (unspecified personnel, the notes give a couple of names, though): Pretty good. Got it the same day as I got Jimmy McGriff's "Tribute to Basie", another very good organ w/big band disc.