DrJ

Hey, done, a long time ago! I went for a Mapleshade Samson rack about 3 months ago, and my turntable now rests quite comfortably atop that in vibration-free bliss! Someday in the future, I'll probably get the bug to upgrade to a better turntable than my current Technics, but it will definitely have to wait, especially if I keep finding auctions!

I love turning people on to unjustly obscure jazz...my wife's stepdad was up last weekend and I played COMIN' ON for him and he flipped, especially over the killer version of "Tenderly." He's a big jazz trumpet fan and I just knew he'd love Reece. Now he's lookin' for it - and here I had already got it for him for Christmas and was just checking to make sure he'd like it (didn't tell him that of course)! Hope he doesn't find it, probably pretty safe as he's not an on-line shopper and it's long out of the stores around here.

Lon turned me on to Hodes some years ago, and I do love his playing. I just scored the OOP Mosaic Commodore boxes and the Hodes Blue Note box at an auction and I'm really looking forward to revisiting the music (I've pieced together pretty much all the BN stuff between CD-Rs and Japanese reissues on CD but have NOT heard most of his stuff on Commodore). Of later material I've only really heard PAGIN' MR. JELLY (Candid) and really enjoy it. Anyone got his recordings on Mercury? I have a single track on the Mercury jazz 2 CD complilation that was out as part of the Verve 2-fer series a few years ago, and it's typically excellent.

This auction was a weird "good collecting luck that never happens to me" thing - I stumbled across it in a local losting (local being defined a bit loosely as I live in Davis CA near Sacramento and it was in Carlsbad down South). I made an offer that I thought was fair of $1000 for the whole bunch, including shipping/etc and he accepted without any bartering etc! In retrospect I should have offered a little less to start and then bargained if needed - but it seemed fair and really is. Basically I just figured the $10 per LP that these went for way back when from Mosaic and added it all up. A few of the spines of the boxes apparently have some cat scratch damage, although I have been reassured that all of the LPs and inner contents and rest of the boxes that do have scratches (e.g. the front photo art) are in mint to near mint condition. So not a "steal" exactly but overall a very, very good deal, based on what I've seen these things go for on Ebay - even when they have gone for less exhorbitant prices. Sidewinder, you're right, just the Commodore boxes alone as a trio could fetch $1000 - in fact I was ready to pay that for them on Ebay not long ago but something made me hold off and I'm really glad I did. $1000 is a WHOLE lot of money to pay for LPs all at once for me, but I'm willing to reduce my annual buying budget over the next year to absorb it, based on the scarcity of the material and the greatness of the music! Heck, I've been looking for an excuse to slow down and savor what I have anyway.

I was going to say change both your interconnects and your speaker cables to higher end stuff first. The rest of your gear doesn't sound terrible - yeah Infinity's aren't trendy and all but I had a nice pair of Crescendo Infinity's for many years and got tremendous enjoyment out of them with a very workmanlike, Denon AVR3300 home theater amp-based system - probably not much different than your Harman Kardon in terms of quality level. I'm not sure how your Infinity's compare but my guess is they aren't that bad and your interconnects (especially) and speaker cables (maybe less so) may be the problem. It seems kind of painful to go and spend a ton first on that stuff but as others have pointed out you may find your decent sounding system begins sounding great. If not, it's not like you won't need this stuff when you go to better components, you'll DEFINITELY want to have the best quality interconnects and speaker cables if/when you do that. One last thing - for better quality amps (including of course tube stuff) it's good to go with high quality RCA-type interconnects with your CD player for sure. However for more middling quality amps, especially the multipurpose solid state home theater variety, my ears have told me that going with a good quality digital interconnect (if your CD player has a digital output and I'm pretty sure an NAD should) is a better option - you get more detail and, although there's going to be a little digital harshness, things sound much more lively and "present." Once you get into upper middle range gear though, go with a top quality RCA type interconnect for sure.

Scored at a local auction with a block bid for a whole bunch of OOP, mostly early BN Mosaic sets - most of them vinyl: 35#107 Ike Quebec& John Hardee (4LPs) 37#109 Complete Sid De Paris James P Johnson/Ed Hall Blue Notes (6 LPs) 38#146 Complete Decca Louis Armstrong (6 LPs) 39#110 Complete Sidney Bechet Blue Note (6 LPs) 40#119 Pete Johnson/Earl Hines/ Teddy Bunn Blue Note Session (1 LP) 41#115 Benny Morton/Jimmy Hamilton Swingtet Blue Notes (1 LP) 42#112 Complete Thelonious Monk Black Lion/Vogue (3CDs) 43#114 Complete Art Hodes Blues Notes (5 LPs) 44#123-4-5 Complete Commodore Jazz (66 LPs, all three parts)!!! 47#103 Complete Blue Note Albert Ammons&Meade Lux Lewis (3 LPs)

Thanks for posting that info!

Thanks for this information, very sad but he's left a lasting legacy.

I stand corrected - and educated. You all are amazing, thanks for setting the record straight.

Yes, should be available and yes, you should get it. The Selects are really quite a bargain when one is dealing with a musician of Reece's caliber. If you were ever going to go for just one Reece Blue Note though, my strong bias would be for COMIN' ON - out as a Connoisseur edition and unissued at the time of recording, but NOT for any quality concerns let me tell you. I really love all his Blue Notes but that one is a tour de force, with remarkable compositions and contributions by the supporting cast as well as the usual Reece trumpet mastery.

Gratifying to see such a nice response to this great music! Dan - I think this version of "Willow" is breathtaking in a different way than the Turrentine/Harris version. Less overtly "soulful" but simply beautiful, again in struggling for words to come up with "lyrical" keeps popping up. I hate to get too carried away with the comparison thing though because the two versions are in fact so different - and I love both. Thanks for the nice comments about Alex's pics - I hope to udpate soon, he's actually quite a bit bigger these days (and just as cute!). Mike - Interesting to hear that Branford was influenced, I MAY have heard that somewhere and filed it away in my subconscious, but I don't think so - I think I was reacting pretty much to the similarity in sound. It's uncanny at times, although I think ultimately Branford phrases a little more "aggressively" on the soprano - kind of like Ornette Coleman's phrasing crossed with Lucky's tone!?! I actually have the Urania stuff and agree that it's quite different. Still I'm not sure that would exclude Mosaic from doing a collection - they have done some that are all over the map after all. I would just love to hear this stuff with better remastering (assuming they can locate original tapes) and with some decent documentation. But you're probably right, we'll likely never see it. Short of those, even though I have all of the stuff that's out I think a Select of the Milt Jackson/Lucky Thompson stuff on Savoy would make a head-turning collection and that IS a nice unified sounding body of work. Shrdlu - Yep, I gots LUCKY STRIKES and it's another gem but for some reason at this particular moment I'd give the nod to this Rivoli stuff, it's just got something that is getting to me. David, that's funny about your plan to recommend HAPPY DAYS, it MUST be in the air. I gotta catch up with HAPPY DAYS pronto, that's one I still don't have.

I generally avoid releases from the Fresh Sound conglomerate...but sometimes I cave, when I feel there's almost zero chance that the material is ever going to get a proper, non-gray market reissue. So I caved with LUCKY MEETS TOMMY, and I'm glad I did. This is Lucky Thompson playing both tenor and soprano, 2 sessions from around 1965 with Tommy Flanagan on piano, I think originally out on the Rivoli (???) label. The transfer is certainly quite listenable but not great, but the music is wonderful. What distinguishes this date for me is the chemistry between Lucky and Flanagan. This was an IDEAL pairing, the level of lyricism at times is almost unbearably high. It's like listening to two great wordless singers weave lines around each other. The version of "Willow Weep for Me" on the first session may be the greatest I've ever heard, right up there with the Turrentine/3 Sounds version on BLUE HOUR. Until now I thought Martial Solal was the ideal pianist for Lucky, but no longer. The only other musician other than Flanagan that seemed to have such a high level of chemistry with Lucky was Milt Jackson - those Savoy recordings of theirs I've also been revisiting lately would be near the top of the crate for the proverbial desert island. Other random thoughts and questions spurred by the LUCKY MEETS TOMMY CD: 1) Did Branford Marsalis consciously cop Lucky's soprano sound, or was it a coincidence? You be the judge. 2) Why hasn't Mosaic done Lucky justice by gathering up these various small label recordings (e.g. these Rivoli's, his Urania recording with Pettiford, maybe some others) and giving them a proper, legit reissue in good sound and with adequate documentation? Maybe as a Select? I e-mailed them again with this suggestion, but I'm not holding my breath. 3) Is there anything as sublime as Lucky playing a ballad?

Yes, Late, I saw that during a recent visit to Dusty Groove's Web site! I'm very excited about this! Did you also see they listed a QUARTET title for McKusick as an upcoming release? I'm not sure but I'm assuming this must be his Bethlehem date, which I already have. I keep hoping I'm wrong and they made a typo and mean to say his QUINTET on Coral is going to be issued too - but probably it's the Bethlehem. One last McKusick issue/question - has anyone heard the material on Savoy he's a part of? It's listed as part of a compilation but I can't find anything about whether he's just in the sections or if he is leader/solos/etc. OK, I lied - one more thing, as of the other day at least Dusty Groove was listing another copy of the "Ambrose" 45 for sale...

Could be you're right Shrdlu, about the source material. But a couple points: - I have always felt that home-job CD-R transfers of LPs sound miles better than most record company CDs transferred from LPs. I have no idea why this is - shouldn't be the case as far as I can tell, but there it is. Some of the best-sounding CDs in my collection are just straight up, no fancy stuff LP burns using my inexpensive Sony burner. Go figure! - Some of the other "Blue Note Works" discs sound good to me but EASTERLY WINDS isn't one of them. Again could be that the original recording is the main culprit, but whatever, it sounds muffled and lacks bite. There's a vinyl quality in the sense that there's no harsh high end, but none of the transparency and dynamic range of a good LP.

Wow, that's kind of an unexpected one, but a welcome project. I'm glad I only have a couple of his Verve dates already. I would MUCH prefer to see Mosaic do a COMPLETE BASIE ON COLUMBIA box, but this will be nice nonetheless.

Gigi Gryce/Cecil Taylor NEWPORT (Verve Mini LP) Basie - AMERICA'S NUMBER 1 BAND! (Columbia/Legacy box) Bidding on some stuff at a local auction as well...so who knows?

Leeway, "tube friendly" is tough to summarize concisely. Basically, wolff is on the mark - depends on whether you want to go with low output tube amps, like the Audio Note Meishu single-ended triode type that I have (a MASSIVE 8 W per channel! ) or a higher output tube amp (I know less about those). Wattage output is, in my book, VASTLY overrated as a desirable characteristic for home listening, especially for jazz, unless maybe your listening room is stadium-sized. But if you go low wattage, you generally will need a very efficient and sensitive speaker (rule of thumb is 90dB or greater, although don't listen to the numbers - listen comparatively). I have Zingali speakers (www.zingali.it) which are admittedly kind of esoteric and pricey, but absolutely gorgeous to look at and when paired with the Audio Note stuff, really impressive sonically. If I'd been able to justify the cost I would have gone for the .4 model which has even better bass response, but the .2 model I have is really enough for my small listening room and less costly (and bulky). I don't like the .3 as much - smaller bass cone, sound wimpier than the .2. The .2 has 91 dB sensitivity with an 8 ohm impedence. Some people I've talked to believe that to TRULY be tube friendly you need speakers with a lower (4 ohm) impedence, but my ears didn't pick up much or any difference. There are many fine speakers that sound great with low output systems. The only reason I found these was that I am lucky enough to have a local tube specialty dealer, and after years of assembling systems he hasn't found a better matching for the price than Audio Note/Zingali - and my ears agreed with him. It's hard for me to picture trying to buy anything like this without LOTS of listening time - I had assembled a really good "on paper" system when Web shopping that sounded fair but nowhere near this good. Interestingly the only other system I heard that I considered was built around Meridian solid state stuff and B&W speakers (their G series CD players are amazing) - a very different kind of system and damn fine but no less pricey. Their CD players incorporate the common up/oversampling approach most people use these days though and ultimately still sound a bit harsher and less "vinyl like" than my set up with the AN tube DAC. Audio Note eschews this, and uses a "1x" sampling approach (no over/up sampling, everything comes off the disc as-is). Not sure exactly how they do it but it makes intuitive sense to me - why introduce all kinds of artifact into the signal - and however it works, this does make a HUGE difference to my ears. Things sound natural, sweet, not at all "digitized."

Well I THOUGHT this one was on the way...until D.G. (T.B.) sent me an "out of stock" e-mail. They're great and all but this happens WAY too often, I have begun to really suspect that they advertise stuff like this even when they only got a couple copies in stock, in the hopes you'll go there and while "buying" (which later turns out not to be possible because they have no copies even though it's still up on the site) you end up buying other stuff. That's happened to me now several times, and it's not that I mind buying from them but the point is take the damn thing off of the "available" list if it's not available - had I known I would NOT have bought the other CD but would have waited until BOTH were in. Now I gotta pay postage TWICE.

Interesting take on the music. I have honestly never heard this in his music, although I do hear a tremendous amount of energy and yes, some urgency, but it's never had a (for lack of a better way to put it) real dark edge to me. Not saying it's not there, not by any means - just that it didn't strike me that way. But I will relisten, and freely admit I could simply be missing it. If anything I find his playing seems more (again for lack of a better word) comfortable (not as in "easy chair/falling asleep" but as in sounding comfortable in one's own skin/with one's own art - maybe "realized?") since the Muse days - listening for example to HARD GROOVIN', I hear the frenzy but sometimes there didn't seem to be anything much worth saying. Seems to me right after that he really got on to something good artistically (as a leader - was a fine sideman for a long time before). Anyway, BALAENA is one of my favorite tenor and rhythm CDs of any era, though, and the couple of Candids with Jaki Byard and then the other Candid HOT BRASS are way up there too. Jazz Friends has some nice releases - Andrew Hill's solo piano date, the piano trio with Hanna/Davis/Cyrille, and the Tapscott/Simmons are all good ones. Hard to find.

Hey, this looks cool! Thanks for the heads up. If anyone now remembers (it was what, 18 or 19 Blindfold Tests ago!) I was able to put together the first Blindfold Test disc and it focused on jazz from around the world, mostly outside the U.S. and the U.K. I have become a huge fan of some of the great Polish artists and so I'm very keen to hear this stuff. I just friggin' placed an order with The Bastards and wish I'd seen this before doing so!

JAW - as I mention in my post, it would not surprise me in the least to learn that the TOCJ of EASTERLY WINDS was dubbed from vinyl. I'll be able to tell tonite by listening on my home system. So is the Conn also an LP dub?

I have very few Lacy CDs but would love to hear more, these are great recommendations. REFLECTIONS I love - some of the best Monk interpretations ever. He's great with Herbie Nichols too - recently got a used copy of the disc that I think was under Mengelberg's name CHANGE OF SEASON: THE MUSIC OF HERBIE NICHOLS (Soul Note). As much as I like the Herbie Nichols Project (and I like them a LOT, especially their first disc LOVE IS PROXIMITY), I have to say this CD puts all of theirs in the dust, in large part due to Lacy's getting so far inside Nichols' head. I recently scored a copy of the out of print Novus CD ANTHEM which is outstanding and has made me want to explore more from that particular configuration of musicians he was using around that time. All the Novus discs look really promising based on the AMG writeups at least.

Well, YOU in turn HYPED ME Rooster...I just placed my order with D.G. (otherwise known as T.B.). This sounds like a winner to me. I almost pulled the trigger on his early live Canadian recording too but went for Lucky Thompson's LUCKY MEETS TOMMY instead. On a totally other type of trip, was also THRILLED to see notice that Hal McKusick's QUARTET and CROSS SECTION SAXES are slated for late November release and that D.G. plans to stock them! WOO HOO! Have my e-mail notification set up.... the Bastards

Snagged the Conn of CONTOURS yesterday and A/B'd it with the Mosaic version. Definitely the bass has been BOOSTED on the Conn compared with the Mosaic. Still quiet, and still I believe strongly something that was in the original recording, not something to "fault" McMaster about...he actually brought it up for the Conn, sacrificing a little clarity in the high end but overall the Conn is an improvement over the (perfectly acceptable) Mosaic remastering.

EASTERLY WINDS is a good one, listened in the car this AM to the TOCJ. I'm still not that enthused about the first cut, it may be more creative than most of the "Sidewinder" wanna bes but it still sounds somewhat dated and half-hearted to me (Billy Higgins just never seemed to be in to a lot of those types of tunes - his rolls and fills at such times sound almost tongue-in-cheek). But the rest of the record is quite strong, with a lovely ballad and some nice modal up tempo numbers. McLean takes solo honors for me, sounding quite like his usual self and bringing an edge that is much needed, while Morgan is a little laid back but still great. Wilson peels off some nice ideas, though I would never be able to pick him out of a piano players' line up blindfolded, and it's ALWAYS good to hear Garnett Brown get some solo space. It's worth noting that the sound on the TOCJ is not fantastic - it sounds very much "veiled" with the high end rolled off, unusually for that series. It could very well be in the original tapes (it has that kind of "distant" sound that many later 60's BN had, so very different than the nice, intimate sound of stuff from earlier vintage), OR the Japanese may not have had access to the original master and had to use an inferior later generation copy or even may had to have dubbed it from LP. I'll have to listen on my home reference system to see if I can pick up any tell-tale surface noise. The point is, it will be interesting to A/B compare with the Conn. Back to CONTOURS: I snagged the Conn yesterday and listened in the evening. Overall, it's a clear sonic improvement over the Mosaic box. The bass has been boosted a bit, most definitely - so those of you who felt it was quiet on the Conn would REALLY be dissatisfied with the Mosaic version! That sacrifices just a little bit of clarity on the high end, but it's still more than acceptable and overall there is better balance throughout the dynamic range and also some increased sonic detail (possibly due to a higher sampling rate or some other techno advance since 1996 when the boxed set was done). The good news is: the music still smokes! A truly timeless recording.