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Mingus recorded the concert for his own record label. The LP has all the annoucements accompanying the concert, but that was edited out on the Japanese CD reissue.

Dimensions (it's not on Milestone) is a wonderful McCoy Tyner recording from 1983 or 1984 featuring John Blake (and Gary Bartz). This was the first McCoy Tyner band I got to see live, on several occasions, and they were tremendous.

I have this on laserdisc, not LP or CD, but there's a Roy Eldridge Live at Montreux recording, from 1977, with Oscar Peterson, Bobby Durham and Nils Pederson, where Roy plays incredibly--one of his best recordings.

Just in case you missed it, the recently released Horace Silver live concert "Paris Blues" has some of the best Blue Mitchell (and Junior Cook) I've heard.

I like one of his late recordings, Inside Straight, a really nice live concert in a studio recording.

The Dizzy Gillespie and Machito recording is pretty close to masterpiece status, it may be Dizzy's last great recording, and he is in amazing form.

I have Commitment on Muse and Don't Look Back on Strata East, both on LP and both goods ones in my memory.

Dizzy Gillespie y Machito, Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods. That is a tremendous recording, from 1975 on Pablo.

I quite like Larry Coryell and have gotten to see him live on three occasions in different settings, all pretty memorable. Once, he played a solo concert at a small club in Arlington, Texas. A second time, I saw him at the Time Cafe, playing with a Mingus Big Band offshoot called Five Guitars Play Mingus. His solo on Better Get Hit in Your Soul was thrilling and had all the other guitarists looking on with admiration. A third time, at the Blue Note, in a double bill with Mark Whitfield. He was really fantastic this evening. If you prefer the more rock influenced side of his music, I would look for Cause and Effect, with Steve Smith and Tom Coster, from 1998, and Spaces Revisited, from 1997.

Actually, John Kennedy Toole did write another novel. It's called the Neon Bible. It's good but not a comedy." Good comic novels are rather hard to come by. In addition to A Confederacy of Dunces, probably my favorite of all, there's a novel called "Pizza Face" by Ken Siman that is hilarious. I've also enjoyed immensely recently the black humor of the Lemony Snicket series of children's books.

In addition to that great duet recording with Hampton Hawes, Soapsuds, Soapsuds, his duet with Ornette, is another highlight.

I saw one edition of Mingus Dynasty, it had Dannie Richmond, Johnny Coles, Ricky Ford, Richard Davis and Horace Parlan.

I don't have much in the way of her recordings, but I did see her a few years back on organ backing up Henry Threadgill, and she was really something.

I saw Mingus play some of the Changes music a few weeks before the recording session from the second row of the concert hall. He was certainly very large, dressed completely in black, and left most of the soloing to Adams, Pullen and Walrath, but played extremely well, with energy and intensity, played an incredible solo on For Harry Carney, spoke very lucidly and with a droll sense of humor, and did not appear to me to be "heavily medicated." His bass playing did not seem to decline until the Three or Four Shade of Blues sessions.

I disagree that Mingus sounds "muted" on Changes. Actually, he is at his peak, and For Harney Carney features one of his deepest and best solos on record. Mingus Moves isn't perfect like Changes, but it also is a rather powerful recording. Also, I don't know about this business about Roland Kirk teaching George Adams a lesson on Mingus at Carnegie Hall. Kirk is unbelievable on that recording, but Adams is rather strong also. There's another jam session, Newport in New York, where Kirk teaches Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims, James Moody, and Flip Philips a similar lesson (that is, he can overwhelm almost anyone at a jam session).

That's the greatest jazz group of the last 30 years, in my opinion.

They already fixed Mingus and Friends (at Philharmonic Hall). The whole concert was re-released as a 2 CD set a couple of years ago, though the Mingus quote is apt ("too many friends").

A series of these Pablo Montreux concerts were released on laserdisc. I have six of them, and they are really good.

I haven't seen her recently, but I've seen her live twice (the first about the time of Blue Moon Daughter) and she was an outstanding live performer and had a very fine group on both occasions.

Here are some of my favorite live blues discs: Albert King--The Blues at Sunrise (great live set at Montreux capturing Albert's guitar at its most powerful) Freddie King--the beat 1966 (DVD) (amazing appearances on Dallas TV show; also some later live recordings) Freddie King--Rockin the Blues Live (Crosscut LP; perhaps never reissued on CD, but the best live concert recording I've heard of Freddie) Junior Wells and Buddy Guy (Bourbon CD: Japanese, maybe not easy to get but the best live Buddy Guy and Junior Wells release I've heard) Buddy Guy--Live at the Checkerboard Lounge (JSP CD; not a great night but a pretty good one). Buddy Guy--the Real Deal (backup band is mostly mediocre, but well recorded and Buddy sounds pretty intense, mostly playing his Chess recordings). Otis Rush--So Many Roads (the most intense live recordings I've heard of Otis Rush in excellent form). Since I have been so fortunate as to see all of the foregoing artists live, I might mention a few other blues artists I've seen play brilliantly, though I'm unaware of other live recordings: Fenton Robinson (not sure any of his recordings really captures him, but he sure was fantastic), Melvin Taylor (get any of his Evidence recordings over the last several years), Guitar Shorty (pretty unheralded, but one of the best, still), and Lucky Peterson (hasn't made a complete recording, but a great live blues artist).