Niko

after having bought about 150 CDs at 2001 2,99 sale in the last two months I try to restrict myself a little, for the usual reasons, now, there are those four CDs which (of course) are somewhat different, but also somewhat related, and I decided I'd buy one first and then maybe add some of the others... but I can't decide with which one to start. I don't have any Chet Baker except the Paris Studio album with Dick Twardzik (but just read the de Valk book and am curious), no George Coleman except Maiden Voyage, no Mabern, no Gregory Herbert, no Buddy Terry... these are the four CDs, I'll write in brackets what "attracts me to them" Chet Baker "On a misty night" (3 Dameron tunes, curious about Baker and especially George Coleman) Chet Baker "Stairway to the stars" (also 3 Dameron tunes, curious about Baker and especially Coleman) Chet Baker "Once upon a summertime" (curious about Gregory Herbert and Baker) Harold Mabern "Few miles from Memphis" (Blue Mitchell is on it and I'm curious about George Coleman; might be sold out soon) I'd really be thankful for a hint at a good starting point... niko

i recently switched on the TV at 10 in the morning and found a 30 minute excerpt of some concert of Don Menza and Carl Fontana with the WDR big band... nice surprise

in this interview: http://members.aol.com/pgrsel/barrett/twink.htm Stars drummer Twink mentions that all Stars gigs were recorded... not the greatest interview possible (my favorite Q/A is Ivor Trueman: What about Mick Farrens solo album, Mona? Twink: I play drums on that.) but it's also a little about Tommorow that predecessor of Yes

sad... his solo albums are so beautiful, had thought of him this morning, (my favorite Barrett song) FEEL You feel me away far too empty, oh so alone! I want to go home Oh find me inside of a nocturne - the blonde how I love you to be by my side they wail... the crowd on her side she straggled the bridge by the water... She misses her crawl far ley grew heady aside in a dell inside an eye be the lonely one, my bride how I leave on the waddling wheel they flail... a gasp shringing a bad bell's ringing the angel - the daughter... You feel me...

funny, when I posted I also thought it was Danny Thompson... but Thompson only plays on Drake's first album "Five Leaves Left" (don't have it here but I think it doesn't have any arrangements for bass section), on Bryter Layter the bass player is Dave Pegg (Fairport Convention??) and on one selection Ed Carter... I once read a (relatively old) interview with arranger Robert Kirby who really seemed to feel a little bad about getting this wrong credit, so one might think it should have been corrected by now

on nick drake's "bryter layter" (not exactly jazz but ray warleigh, lyn dobson, chris mcgregor on it) the brass arrangements are still listed in the credits as "bass arrangements" - must be somewhat depressing for the bass player...

my brother started (at age 5 or 6) playing using the suzuki method... the advantage was that he (and the other children) really had fun playing together, started to love playing music... the disadvantage was that at age twelve when he got another teacher he had to learn a lot of technique because in that suzuki group he didn't hold the violin the right way..., he didn't stop playing then but I think some of his friends did. I think whats problematic with violin (oboe is similar) is that it often takes years until it begins to sound good (on the other hand it is at most technical levels relatively easy to find people to play with, orchestras... later on) edit: i would also definitely not recommend starting violin without a teacher... there may be instruments where one can just try around for some time, maybe clarinet, piano, drums (although in all those cases there will be technical arguments against it). with violin i do not think this is a good idea (besides the technical issues i suppose its not that easy to figure how its supposed to be played)

just rembered that spann's flute playing on side by side were one of those things that brought me to jazz (12 years ago when I was 14) - haven't pulled it out in years but will do that this afternoon...

this record is great + you have another French horn player (David Amram) on it and can figure out if you have difficulties with the French horn as a solo instrument in jazz (my tendency) or with Watkins as a player. Just heard Watkins' short solo on Our Delight from Tadd Dameron's The Magic Touch and thought that this was a place where maybe a French horn solo was really more fitting than a trumpet or trombone or ... solo; still I don't think there are many

it's good that you bring her up - she must already feel like Dewey Redman with her daughter being discussed here all the time... (Monday Michiru is her (and Mariano's) daughter, or am I making this up (?))

in the amg review of elmo hope's sounds from rikers island there is a strange use of another word which is used extensively in jazz journalism: legendary. "Hope surrounds himself with musicians whose reputations are now legendary: Philly Joe Jones, John Gilmore, Ronnie Boykins, Lawrence Jackson, and Freddie Douglas." I immediately aggree that each of these artists is legendary in some sense or another in which the word is frequently used when writing about jazz... nevertheless it will be hard to find a meaningful definition of "legendary reputation" for which the reputation of Philly Joe Jones is about as legendary as the reputation of Lawrence Jackson... (whatever the difference is between being legendary yourself and having a legendary reputation) and the author (Thom Jurek) seems to know that, otherwise he hadn't arranged the names in that order...

thank you for your thoughts and for pointing me to Webster's... of course everyone knows what is meant by obscurity (in the case of jazz musicians) and that should be reason enough to just use the word without further thinking about it... what i think is strange about the way the word is used is that on one hand even jazz musicians who are by no means obscure are not leading a "glamourous" life in the light or are particularily well understood... on the other hand, e.g., playing trumpet or piano on Mingus Tijuana Moods is more artistic success than most individuals achieve in their lifetime so why call those guys obscure...

thank you! these days i'm pretty much addicted to their shops i was in düsseldorf twice yesterday (but bought nothing) and once in cologne... so i thought if i can get around beginning to order stuff at their website additionally that would be better (on the other hand there are the Patterson/Stitts, the Clay / Fathead Newman, ...) i asked the guy in cologne whether those records were out of their program or not yet really in it and he couldn't tell... now i have to work for at least two hours before i can allow myself to go to 2001 again...

does anyone know whether these additions are stuff from the Juli Merkheft... (and i can wait and get them at the store in two weeks) or whether they are items that have to be ordered in the internet? would be very thankful for a reply (left so much money at their store during the last few weeks and would appreciate the possibility to wait till july begins)

this is something i have been thinking about for a long time though i just realize that i can't really explain it well: when reading about jazz records one frequently reads the word obscure applied to musicians who did not become as famous as the rest of the band... as a native speaker of german i find that the word has some connotations of mysterious, spooky which may apply to someone who runs a homepage like this http://www.dickinson.edu/~zieff/index.html (don't know what's behind that) or to someone like dupree bolton who suddenly appears on the scene and doesn't want to say where he comes from, but i feel it is completely the wrong word for someone who just moved back to his home town / home country, quit music or just didn't record much in a long professional career for some other reason... does it have to do with my lacking knowledge of the English language that i find the word is used a little too much (yes i should give examples) or does someone else see it that way too? niko

didn't he also claim to have fixed Miles Davis' Bitches Brew? I think I heard that on the radio once... (the claim, not Bitches Brew)

how many Suzanne Vega / Norah Jones fans really care about the Blue Note label on their Vega/Jones discs? Would it really cost that much $$ to write green note on it and a little square or octogon...

i don't find it alarming either; it's not long ago that I bought a Suzanne Vega record, I don't put it on that frequently, nevertheless it's not that I wouldn't wish her a good record deal... But: somehow to me it feels wrong to change the course of Blue Note records that much: running Blue Note records means working in the name of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff - don't know much about their personal tastes in music but judging from the records they put out I don't believe they would be that happy with some of what's being published in their names these days... when those US3 Cantaloop etc things came out, well, I didn't like them, still I think, there was some reason that it said Blue Note on them... this may be real unimportant in the light of a dying music industry (this is the opinion of someone who doesn't make a living in the music business) but I think they could publish Norah Jones, Suzanne Vega, Keren Ann... under some other label than Blue Note...

that's funny - Keren Ann is one of the two CDs I most often listened to these days when I wanted to hear something other than jazz (the other being Fehlfarben "Monarchie und Alltag", not yet signed to BN) - looks like I'll have to resort my CDs once again... now that Keren Ann is Jazz

www.sonnysimmons.org is a great great page, I discovered it some weeks ago after buying Firebirds and The Cry... so much information and I really like the way it is presented! thank you (and the others) a lot for maintaining it.

didn't find a Kirk thread in the Artists forum so I started a new one... (can't wait for the posts: look here, ... and here and here) (well, I really tried, it's not that easy) (and I do appreciate those links as they lead to a lot of valuable information)(this is the first thread I started I think) I stumbled across the following passage in the liner notes to Kirk's "Kirk's Work" with Jack McDuff: "Wherever we go," his wife says, "We spend all our time in music store looking for old sheet music." First I thought "well, that's just like you with your CD stores" but - Kirk was blind? The quote half suggests that his wife assisted him, still collecting old sheet music is an unlikely hobby for someone who can't see... Does anyone know something more specific about his wife and her being an important collaborator / about Kirk and sheet music (did he really collect it or was it just something they told the writer of the liner notes (Joe Goldberg))? Curious.. Niko

Estland, Lettland, etc - I know that these were the names the Nazis called these occupied countries or is that how they're still called in German? sorry to offend you... while writing I realized that I had to write the countries' English names but didn't realize I had already gotten one wrong... what Estland means is (*surprise*) land of the Ests which is not an especially imperialistic way to name it... i am to dumb to read the country's official website http://www.riik.ee/et/ but they sure don't call their country Estonia themselves - rather looks as if they call it Eesti. besides, as couw remarked many German families (including that of my girlfriend) come from that region and you just don't call the place where you (her grandparents) were born by its new name but by the name it used to have when you were young (that doesn't have anything to do with wanting it back!)... niko

from my German perspective it was somewhat depressing, the second time in three years we had a song that was really fine with me musically (Max Mutzke in 2004 and Country this year) and didn't win anything... that Estland, Lithuania and Latvia support each other I understand, but that Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia etc give all their votes to each other I can't accept - if they like each other that much why didn't they stay together... (Musically Bosnia which was 2nd or 3rd in the end was not great but somehow okay with me while Crotia which ended up in the top 10 (?) was incredibly crappy) if you've seen it in the 60s the last time you don't know it, as it has fundamentally changed its flavour since in 2004 all those (20 or so) new countries joined in - much more flutes and drums, and naked flesh since then - and they don't seem to write songs in these countries but rather ballet performances where someone is singing... Lithuanians were great, I found Spain a lot better than their 20th rank... i shouldn't take it that serious...

The second horn playing the head of Ghost of the Past clearly sounds like some sort of clarinet to me (it's somewhat softer than the alto saxophone and doesn't solo - I always thought it "symbolized" the Ghost of the past echoing Simmons alto and wasn't credited to emphasize that it was not just Lasha playing but the whole past of "Bird, Chu Berry, Clifford Brown, Richie Powell, Charlie Christian - all the outstanding musicians who passed before we even were present." I love those liner notes) Whether it's a normal clarinet, a bass clarinet or the alto clarinet Lasha plays on the cover of Firebirds - I can't hear, so why not bass clarinet...

A little late I bought the record on the strength of the line-up having never heard of Jimmy Woods... when I read the liner notes on my way home with statements like "It was a course in Sociopathic Behavior with Professor Diehl at Los Angeles State College (where I am majoring in Sociology) which clarified many of my thought on this subject [i.e. conflict]." I was a little worried about what I had bought there (like yesterday when I bought Aldo Romano's Alma Latina at a similar reduced price and don't like it at all so far) but now I listen to it very often... I also thought of hill's point of departure - while I share Joe's opinion on that one I really respect but don't really enjoy it (had never seen it that way but it's true) I find Conflict much more enjoyable...