king ubu

I finally played all of the Farlow a few days ago - terrific set, definitely! Then started (finally...) with the Krupa/James one, only disc 1 played so far, but enjoyed it a lot! Those trio with Ventura are pretty nice, too, not just the big band sides!

Good news - taken from WXU's latest email (sent out two hours ago):

Happy birthday, Nate!

Happy Birthday, Marty!

See my reply to your reply to my other post Have a good start into 2006, you too!

See my reply to your other post!

This may help: http://www.kind-of-blue.de/seiten/boxen/ja...armonic_box.htm (listing of contents of the "official" Verve forties JATP box)

Keep the good fun comin'! Have a warm ale on me (without bubbles, of course...)!

Picked these two in a sale today: Playing the later one right now. Not as good as the Dörner/Mahall (with Schlippenbach, playing Monk) and Wogram/Mahall sets I heard at unerhört in November, but I quite like it. Mahall may indeed be the very best bass clarinet player since Dolphy (at least over here in Europe), and John Schröder is a great drummer. Möbus (guitar/leader) is maybe the weakest of the three. But all in all I find this quite an enjoyable disc. Not sure I'll like the Ali/Rhames - never heard Rhames before... but for a prize of 10 CHF (ca. 6.50€) I had to buy it... (only later I realized it's a live set from Willisau, 1981). Anyone knows any of these two discs? (edit: had a wrong pic in here, originally...)

I played the whole Farlow set yesterday - great GREAT music! (But Kessel and Moore are *not* on this )

Checking this out now. Piano far on the left, yes, "hidden" bass on "Gymnopédie", too... I guess my very first notion (remembered by Lon) was pretty much correct. Sound is ok, but it's no way a great sounding reissue - definitely not. Good to have the music, though, but *IF* the Americans get a better-sounding version, that sucks!

Very sad news, just heard about it elsewhere.

Big relief! Indeed from what he said in the interview we did I wasn't really afraid it was anything serious, but still! ******** Happy x-mas and all, to my fellow funny rats!

Sounds reasonable ..... Being late here... although couw told me about this thread. Got the Euro version in the meantime and *love* it, but sound is indeed merely ok, not at all outstanding. I didn't listen to my disc closely enough to hear those bass lines, but I will try and play in on headphones.

Well yes, happy Saturnalia, everybody! Being an atheist in many cases is being as dogmatic and believing in similar metaphysical stuff than being religious of any kind... thus agnosticism may in the end be the preferred choice here, anyway. No epiphanies needed for that! Now let's start the eating and drinking, ok?

Happy birthday!

Sad to see this goes so slowly! One of the very best Mosaics, in my opinion!

Leloir did some magnificient photos... one of the very best, in my opinion, as far as jazz photography is concerned! Here's one of the most recent "hors séries" Jazz in Paris releases using an Leloir photo (others in the booklet, too, or at least one other): (release recommended by yours truly, too, btw!)

Happy birthday!

One of my underlings from the Reich asked how the new Fohrenbach set was - I though this here was the right place to answer that question. So here's a few impressions: First session (CD1 #1-8), rec. 1954: rather conventional swing-to-bop mainstream, with nice tenor playing by Fofo (as it seems he was called). Second part (CD1#9-12, CD2#1-4): OUTSTANDING STUFF! First half of this 10 incher with the weird title "Mais qu'avez-vous donc fait de la face chachée de la lune, docteur Fohrenbach?" contains the "visible" side of the moon: a great quartet session with the trio of the late Arvanitas (Jacky Samson, bass - erroneously listed as playing guitar - and Charles Saudrais - drums). Four great cuts, all originals by Fohrenbach, who's sound is by now significantly different, more modern, very nice! This is from 1978, btw. Second side ("invisible" half of the moon) contains "you can do everything with a tenor sax and a magnetophone": experimental overdubbed tracks featuring Fofo and tapes of more Fofo, tenor exclusively, except for one track that also contains piano. Great version of "Peanuts Vendor", plus a standard "Body and Soul" and Giuffre's "Four Brothers", in addition to two more of his own pieces, "Narcissus 1" and "Narcissus 2". Then on we go wiht the unreleased portions of the set: first there's his band Sexfide (feat Roger Guérin & Bernard Vitet on trumpet, Pierre Cullaz on guitar, Bibi Rovère on bass and Jean-Louis Viale on drums). Four lenghty cuts from 1966, of which I've up to know only heard the first one,s o I cannot say a lot about this date or what follows (a track with Geo Daly also from 1966, three tracks with Fofo on organ and unknown orchestra, plus one last cut from 1963 with Ivan Jullien (he's on the Porgy & Bess JiP) and a couple of others unknown to me. In short: the Sexfide and magnétophone tracks to me have a vibe similar to Gil Mellé's music: experimental, yet swingin, cool, yet passionate at moments. Very very nice music! The date with Arva is great, the early sides are good, too. No idea how good the rest of disc 2 is, though, since I haven't yet heard it. But from what I've heard so far, it should be good, too!

Daniel, I have that Mosaic.... still mostly not heard yet, but I got it when it sold out... I guess I'd know where to ask for Pearson recommendations, anyway, would the board not turn up what I was looking for! The problem then is that I'd had to order the BNs from the US, which sucks... that's prob. the reason why I am not in possession of any Pearson RVG (I don't even know if there's just one or if there are more, I completely lost touch with BN's reissue schedule).

Same here... love "Tree Frog Tonality" but merely find the Golden Quartet albums ok... I think I liked the second one a bit more, though. Will have to play them again soon to find out what they do to me nowadays.

Just how cool can you get, man? I'm cold, man! Almost dead-cold... Sersiously: Jackie does some great burning playing on this disc, but the rest is your usual hardbop schtick. Not that that's a bad thing per se, but still... as for Pearson... I haven't heard that much of his work, only the occasional sideman disc, and some of those mid-sized groups he arranged for BN (like those Stanley T albums) - and somehow this is all good and nice, but... failed to really grab me so far. Again I repeat: except for your longtime avatar big band disc (good one!), I do not own any of his leader albums.

Amen ! The definitive issue.. huh? there's a definitive issue of this already? they don't wait, do they! playing the album in question now... wanted a fix of your formulaic hardbop, after all the weirdo and ratto stuffo I've been playing all day long... I guess I'll join the queue behind you, Hans, if that's ok. Seriously: this is an ok album. I like Byrd quite alright, but I never thought him to be particularly great on this disc. Also I'm not sure how well I really like Pearson on these Byrd dates ( ), plus I'm not sure I like Humphries banging away... leaves Jackie Mac and Doug Watkins, both of whom I love... but that's not enough for a totally successful album. For me, this disc is just one of a larger number of good hardbop albums, not much more.

I totally agree with your earlier comment (post #3). I guess I'm not a great Byrd fan either... Oi, but you're still not half as cool, man!