king ubu

Seriously: one of my all time favorites! That Blue Note box set is one of the most often played box sets at my place. And then all the recordings from Café Montmartre... love it! ubu

You know, I just don't like his sound...

Thanks everybody for all the recommendations - I only have the early Mosaic and some stray later CDs. I still have the question open regarding the OOP Holman/Russo set: what albums was the music from that box taken from? Does that box include several complete or almost complete albums, or does it have two tracks from this and three from that etc? Then another question: at a shop closing down I had a look at the Chronological Classics 1950 and 1951. They have the Innovations tracks (I have that 2CD set). Was there anything between the music on the Mosaic and the Innovations orchestra? thanks, ubu

Atlantic New Orleans. I'm on the buy-when-it-hits-the-running-low-list-strategy. Can't afford any other way no more. So I only have like 12 or 15 that are in print still. When I have some money to buy 3 or 4 (shipping and custom taxes make me often more than one at a time, usually), I get either those on the "running low"-list, or, if I have those already, the ones with the lowest numbers. ubu

Oh, HELL I WISH I WAS 15 YEARS OLDER!!! I got started with Tristano/Konitz/Marsh, probably around 1998 - it was pretty new when I got it, but not the latest release anymore, I guess. Oh how I miss some of the older ones that were never reissued on any other label! ubu

Hey deus, wazzup? You stopped growning or what?

For everybody within reach of SWR2: next week, their series with recordings from the archives will bring forth a Coltrane broadcast. The David Wild site lists a Coltrane concert in Stuttgart on November 4, 1963. Tunes performed that night were: The Promise (7:33), Afro Blue (6:43), I Want To Talk About You (10:55), Impressions (29:10), My Favorite Things (19:19), Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye (6:25), and Mr. P.C. (35:32) Must've been quite a concert! I don't have the European Tours box yet, and I don't know if these tracks are included there, but it seems that box is quite a mess as far as annotation goes. Maybe someone can give some insight about this. Anyway, sound quality should be great (it was with tha Mingus stuff broadcasted last year). Here's the promotion from the SWR2 web: The important part: Thursday, March 4, 19:05-20:15 ubu

Bought this one today, for a very good price at a shop closing day after tomorrow: Disc one is composed music (4 numbers), disc two has 19 free improvisation. I will report back when I heard it a couple of times. ubu

Please do post the link, ghost, and forgive me for not linking your thread in my first post! ubu

The notes of the Reprise Ellington box try to single out which arrangements were done by Duke and which by Strayhorn - if they're correct, in those years most of the outstanding arrangements (all those pop tunes, Mary Poppins etc) were done by Strayhorn. And he really works wonders on some of them! ubu

I heard him on a broadcast with Charlie Mariano. Quartet, live in Germany, with a very good german bass/drum team. Great music they did play, also a tune by Juris, if I remember right. Congrats on that gig! ubu

Lon, thanks for creating this planet! EKE, thanks for bringing up that old thread. No time yet to read it. Regarding Strayhorn: I just got the Jazz Scene 2CD set (what a marvellous package), and I was really delighted by the few Strayhorn sides on disc 2! Also the few other things I have with him on piano (the small group sides on the Webster & strings set, some with Hodges) are beautiful. ubu

EKE, your post makes me want that MCA set even more badly! I listened to the Okeh set last week, and I really love the music! And then let me put in a good word for Freddie Jenkins! He was no slouch either! And Lon, thanks a lot for the Strayhorn corner - if there's one for the Duke, there ought to be one for Billy, too. (And to EKE thanks for linking things together, no need for me to edit my fist post ) As an aside: I was listening to the Cootie Williams on that Jazz After Midnight Jazz in Paris CD again this morning. And somehow that music never really grabs me. The organ player is horrible, the sound of the guitarist awful. The tenor is alright, very much in a rhythm'n'blues manner, but alright. Cootie then even fails to grab me on the slow numbers. What a contrast to the basie-ish tracks on the same CD, led by Joe Newman and featuring Frank Wess, Henry Coker etc! ubu

Where did you get that from? He's got his own website, so it seems he gotta be around... I recently got his Bethlehem album, and I rather like it. Cool cover, too: ubu

I think it would be appropriate if we had our own Duke Ellington corner on this board. The reason I start this now, is that I have been in hospital for the last weekend (nothing bad, luckily, but still...) and let me bring the Reprise box, as well as the Great Paris set (which holds the live recordings made during the Reprise years). And I have to admit it was the very first time I really listened to the Mosaic in its entirety and not while doing something else. I have since been on some sort of an Ellington trip, listened to the "Unknown Session", to Johnny Hodges' "Used To Be Duke" and "Everybody Knows" and some other Ellington related music. And of course I enjoyed it very very much. Now to have everything neatly linked, here is what we have already: Duke Ellington Photo Album (Started by our greatest Ellington fan EKE BBB) Album of the Week: Black, Brown & Beige (Columbia 1959) (again courtesy of EKE) A thread on recent and upcoming CD reissues Another thread about a batch of Columbia reissues Ellington Treasury Shows The Jazz Violin Session Ellington on LP The Ellington Suites Favorite Ellington LP Cover and another recent Ellington thread Mosaic Single: Newport 1958 Reprise Mosaic and Collectables reissues of same material Variety/Vocalion/Okeh Small Group Mosaic and again The Storyville "Duke Box" Ellington in the 60s and 70s The Blanton/Webster Years (RCA 3CD Set) Of course there are lots of other threads were some Ellingtonia were/are being discussed, but I think the man deserves his own little corner. ubu edited to add a couple of more links to other Ellington threads

Better get the Tristano/Konitz/Marsh fast! A great set (and the one that started my love affair with Mosaic records, my very first one ) I just got the New Orleans, and I really enjoy it. If you like musicians like George Lewis, this is a very nice one to have! ubu

I had a burn of this one (courtesy of some nice board member ) and recently bought the US BN CD (coutesy of another nice board member ). Love it! Frankie Newton is quite an interesting trumpet player! Very laid back, understated. This might be the main reason why he has not more of a big name, I guess. ubu

Now seriously - the names that popped up first were some of the usual suspects: Ira Gitler, Dan Morgenstern, Nat Hentoff. Cecil can be interesting (as can be Mehldau, methinks), but very hard to understand. Others I like: Bob Porter, Larry Kart, John Litweiler, sometimes Leonard Feather, Brian Priestly. Never a fan of Orrin K, I think Chris A's remark hits the spot (and he certainly knows, anyway). ubu

Don´t know much about the gush or Bush thing but I did enjoy his liner notes for the Art Tatum Complete Group Masterpieces! So did I! Other favorites might be Cecil Taylor and Brad Mehldau ubu

Luke, please do spam us (best in the new releases section) once you have news about this! Several people here should be interested, I guess! ubu

I read through the whole thread this morning - very very interesting, and thanks a lot for starting this discussion, John! And thanks everybody (particularly Jim, Free For All, John L, also Simon Weil, and everybody I forget ) for your insightful comments. Now of course, we cannot argue as far as taste is concerned. I personally love Miles' harmon mute sound, as well as his open horn sound. I love his ballad playing, his uptempo playing is incredible too (I'm spinning "Motel" from the "Ascenseur pour l'echafaud" soundtrack right now - mute and up and great!), and as has been noticed, his mastery of the wide range of medium tempos is astonishing. I have nothing to add to what Jim wrote about Miles' style (fluffs and all) and timing. His time is something I can marvel about without end. Take "Steamin'", take "'Round About Midnight", take anything... the influence of Ahmad Jamal has been stated, I think, but as far as Miles' coming into his own in the mid-fifites is concerned, I think it can not be overvalued. Now about his band-leading - I guess it would not be right (this has again been stated before, but I try to express my own opinion here, also to let John know what I feel)..., so: I guess it would not be right to just consider Miles a "catalyst". He was that, as much as you can, I believe, but he was also much more than that. He was an opportunist, maybe, but not the usual opportunist going with the times, floating along. He was the kind of person who had the nose to smell novelty, to smell possibility, to smell future, indeed (as far as music goes, of course). That quote about the band playing him and after a week he playing them in THEIR style is a case in point, I think. He was able to make his musicians playing better or different than they were without him. He saw their potential, he saw abilities they themselves might not have been knowing of, and he knew ways to make them fulfill his expectations. And in this way, the thought of Miles or not Miles on "Bitches Brew" is a thought that's not thinkable - that music would not have been there without Miles. Also, with this in mind, you cannot say he had no hand in creating the new "styles" of jazz he did create. Catalyst he might have been (another aspect of this is seen if you have a look at the "fusion" bands that emerged out of Miles bands, or were founded by Miles sidemen: Tony Williams Lifetime, Weather Report, Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra - some of the most stunning, freshest sounding music of that time, I think), but he had his own part, and no small one, I think, in the development of the music we call jazz, too. He might have been an innovator thanks to his gift of anticipating things, without him really trying to be so innovative (well, later on he might have consciously tried, and in the eighties he somehow gave up trying, but in the fifties and sixties, I'm not so sure all he did was consciously achieved). About Miles "street credibility", his wise guy style etc, I think Jim has made some very good points. You never can decide on that "inside"/"outside" thing, indeed. I read his autobiography a long time ago, but this double-sided image was one he also played with, and was one of the strongest impressions made on me while reading. Another point: regarding the "romanticism" of Miles (see Simon Weil's posts and the "attacks" against him: I don't see a way to look at Miles without looking at the social development of the US in the sixties and seventies, really. His will to play the rock audiences, to be sort of another Sly Stone etc certainly has to do with the development of the society as a whole, and with the crisis of the (traditional) "jazz scene" in the same years. He was looking for new ways, new directions (not only in music, but also in style, clothing etc) in a changing society. Here I might add that I am not yet as fully into electric Miles as into the fifties/sixties Miles, but I have almost all of his official releases (also recently got the JJ box and LOVE it), and I really love that music! I have been exploring Miles pretty much in a chronological way, and this has helped me understand his going electric right from the start. Also, as has been noted, his chops around the Fillmore dates, are incredible, and as good as any jazz trumpet players' chops, I dare say. I guess this sums up some of my thoughts about Miles. Hope you can follow. ubu

I have one track from that TCB disc on some sampler, and I always planned to pick the CD up since, but have not come around buying it. That one track sure's very fine. Here's the link to the label: http://www.tcb.ch/ And to that CD: Jazz Station Runaway ubu

Uh, this is pretty embarassing! I have that disc, Mike, but did not listen to it a long time. I listened on cheap headphones and was still pretty high right after the operation when I took the notes I posted. No time so far to listen to the disc again, however I really did enjoy it, Vint! ubu

John, just wanted to let you know I'm still here (after having been in hospital since Friday, therefore my late reply), and that I still dig Miles a lot ( ) and always will, for similar reasons expressed by Lon early on in this discussion: Miles was pretty essential in bringing me to jazz, he was one of the very first musicians that I deeply immerged and felt an urge to explore and read about - and of course obviously, I "get" him. I had no time yet to read through the whole thread, but this seems to be a pretty interesting discussion, so thanks for starting it! ubu

Well now, lieber Gott... after you almost wiped me out, I am really considering closing this thread down immediately Now seriously, due to a stay in hospital (appendix), I missed several of your birthdays, and I am really sorry for that. All I can say is: Alles gute zum Geburtstag, and may you grow to be 99 soon, so this game will be over ubu