six string

Donald Byrd - Long Green The Savoy Sessions -1976 Reissue w/Frank Foster, Hank Jones, Paul Chambers, and Kenny Clarke

Paul Desmond (Artist House)

Paul Desmond's From the Hot Summer (A&M/CTI) RVG mastered.

Kenny Burrell's Jazzmen of Detroit on BYG followed by Kenny Burrell's Out of this World - Prestige Blue Label

Mark Murphy does a version too on an album with the same title.

Indeed. I didn't mention that I had this on my original post. Everything else I have is on lp, but I bought this cd based on my love of the "other" live album with this band. I've never seen or heard of that album he did with the MJQ. That's a perfect match, if I ever saw one. Today I listened to Blues in Time to try and figure out why I wasn't very enamored with it. I seem to really miss hearing a piano or guitar with Desmond's playing for some reason. It's hard to explain.

I have Concierto on lp and it is indeed a beautiful album. Probably one of my favorite CTI albums. Hot Afternoon should be in my hands in a week. Yippee! The Penguin Guide didn't have many nice things to say about Skylark, but I don't always agree with their opinions anyway. I'm glad others have weighed in positively on the album.

That's another Desmond album I've never seen. What's the overall sound of the album like?

Several years ago I acquired a nice collection of jazz records from a friend. Amongst the records were several Paul Desmond albums that I've fallen in love with. I have since bought more Desmond, so I want to know what's missing from my collection that I should own. Here's what I have: Glad to be Unhappy Easy Living Pure Desmond Take Ten Bossa Antigua The Paul Desmond Quartet Live First Place Again Desmond w/Strings Blues In Time Bridge Over Trouble Water Today I ordered: From the Hot Afternoon Paul Desmond East of the Sun Of the ones I own, Bridge Over Trouble Water and Blues In Time are my least favorites. Covering Simon and Garfunkel was not the best idea imho, but it has its moments. Blues in Time has never caught on with me either. I'm not sure why, but it doesn't get me like the albums with Jim Hall. I know he has others, so before I get more obsessive about collecting his lps, I'd like to know what else I should get by him. Thanks for your help.

Jazz Sahib -Sahib Shihab (orig. savoy) Mono of course.

It's very good. A real eye opener for me.

California Here I Come - Bill Evans (Verve) followed by Jaki Byard w/Strings (reissued Prestige)

Sigh...I still don't own that album. So many rekids, so little time (and money).

Arrived from CDU this morning and all is well in the jazz world. I should think about scoring Takin' Off, but it'll be a long while before I take Magnificent Thad out of the CD player! JRM has been more miss than hit over the last year. They're pretty bad about keeping new releases in stock... but they have a ton of $30+ imports that no one will buy. I picked up the Magnificent Thad yesterday and put it on while cooking dinner. It finished while we were eating and I just went over and pushed play again! With all my anticiaption of this release (I had never heard it), it still blew me away.

I'm curious too. I just listened to my copy last night for the first time and would agree with what others have said about the sound and the content. Both are very good. There are a couple of places where the audience is clapping after some of the solos and the sound of the clapping seems real loud to me, a bit jarring to my ears. It's a tiny complaint of mine because otherwise it's excellent. I need to relisten to Stella for this darkly funny business.

I picked up the Clark Terry cd Serenade to a Bus Seat recently. Good sound and solid playing. I'm not the biggest fan of Clark Terry because of those partially slurred notes he plays a lot. It sounds like he's playing underwater or something. I know, I just don't get it. Guilty as charged. What I do really like on the album are the solos from Johnny Griffiin and Wynton Kelly. It's a very good album imo.

Paul Desmond's Glad to be Happy (mono RCA) followed by Sam Rivers - Simmer (ABC)

He hasn't been very forth coming about it, has he? He was quick to denounce another person's use of a worn out tape for the Chet album.

Here's a link to a Hoffman member's concern about a 45RPM copy of a Cannonball Adderly album that has some really bad flutter on it. I've been watching this one for a while and Steve has yet to say anything. http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthre...750#post2876750

It's a mystery to me too. I prefer it to BB as well.

Witch Doctor's Son - Johnny Dyani w/John Tchicai and Dudu Pukwana (Steeplechase) followed by Angolian Cry - Johnny Dyani Quartet (Steeplechase)

Thanks, Chris. I wasn't there so I don't know. My sources are the musician's interviews I read, and I hardly recall any complaining about VG job. I didn't intend to place him on a pedestal. And I didn't intend to understimate the major role of producers, how I could, I work in the broadcasting industry. What I wanted to say is that a recording session, like shooting a movie, it's much more complex and difficult to handle then remastering existing tapes. You have to manage a lot of things, often it's a matter of luck, everything went well, from musician's mood to tape recorder machine, or something went wrong: mics failed and a cat is drunk and plays too loud or too low. So it's too easy, and as I said ungrateful, to complain about the "lack of air between instruments" after 50 years of technical progress in audio industry. Maybe Hoffman will do a better job in remastering VG tapes then VG himself, but, as Paul said, he wouldn't have any tapes w/o VG, and Lion, of course. I knew exactly what you were saying Porcy62.

Cheers porcy. From what little I know (since I wasn't there), this has a nice ring of truth and I certainly want to believe this myself. The only title in this group of records I may indulge myself is Basra. I have a Japanese RVG remastered cd as my only source of this great album and if I was going to allow my curiosity to get the best of me, this would be the title I would do that with. It's a lot of money to spend on a reissue and getting up after every song is not something I want to do. If I could find an affordable original, I would get it instead.

I tried to have a discussion on the Hoffman board about the lifespan of mag tape and had a post of mine deleted and a couple of them edited by either him or his gorts. I made a statement about magtape having a life span like everything else in this world and Steve responded with "Where did you hear this fiction? I told him that I had been told by a friend who is an audio dealer who is an analog fantatic to the point tha the doesn't own a cd player and uses only tube equipment, etec. He said, and I'm not quoting here because I don't remember exactly what he said, but that mag tape had no limited life span. One of his gorts chimed in stating that tape would last forever, or at least two hundred years. I tried asking more detailed questios about this subject but was either ignored or I received incomplete and sometimes monosyllabic answers from Steve. Next thing I read about the Chet Baker album Chet is that his product is better than another one because they used the wrong tape. One which was worn out. WTF? I understand that he might feel a need to protect his job and his products, but he is coming off as disingenuous. So his forum isn't really a forum like this one. It's merely there to spread the gospel according to Steve.

Spinning a new purchase of mine First Place Again - Paul Desmond w/Jim Hall, Connie Kay and Percie Heath (Gold labeled Warner Brothers) It's fantastic. Up there with his RCA albums with Mr. Hall.