Stompin at the Savoy

Yeah, too much at once is over-stimulation and I don't have enough time to digest it. It's like rushing through a huge museum and at the end you feel exhausted and can't really remember much. If a set has recognizable albums I'll usually listen to an album, repeat a few of the tunes that I liked and then put it aside for another day. Sometimes, like recently with the Bob Crosby set which turns out to be really engaging, I listen to one disk per day and repeat some items. That Basie Roulette Live set is great! Desert island stuff.

Yeah, that's true. Oftentimes the individual cds would be more expensive. And in some cases the box set is the only practical way to get the music.

Over the years I've taken to buying a lot of box sets. I have individual cds too but somehow I seem to have plunged for the big sets quite often. In the beginning I would just play the disks one by one and maybe look at the discography a bit. Later I decided to rip everything to hard drives and other storage and play everything on computers and other devices. I used to be an IT database and systems guy so I just treat my music the way I used to handle data and have backup scripts etc. This arrangement means I can break up the box sets into digital playlists. Whenever a set has lp size albums on it, I break them out into single album playlists. I usually add a number in the playlist name (and sometimes a set abbreviation) so that the playlists for the albums in each set sort and show up in chronological order. There is a significant amount of curating work in doing all this and some might ask wouldn't it be easier to just buy the individual albums? No answer for that. I guess I just like the completeness of having the sets. Mosaics and some others have good sound, I suppose... How do you approach listening to these box sets and what do you think of the whole box set thing?

I just finished this. I found the first third or so, which covered her life up until she left the Clouds of Joy, pretty interesting. As it continued the writing deteriorated and took on a repetitive quality. It went on and on about Mary's efforts to get the Catholic church to let her stage religious works in church. I don't find her religious works as interesting as her jazz work so I ended up rapidly skimming a lot of that. This is an interesting subject but the book is not terribly well written. I have another bio of Williams, Morning Glory, on order. https://archive.org/details/soulonsoullifemu0000kern/mode/2up

I have quite a backlog of new stuff and am just getting around to this one. Listened to the first disk yesterday. I like it more than I expected to. Pretty swinging stuff. Bob Zurke! Sound is good.

https://flashbak.com/cab-calloways-hepsters-dictionary-a-guide-to-the-language-of-jive-1938-378657/

USPS acknowledges receiving the package and gave a delivery date of monday. Looking forward to it. Meanwhile on with my Freddie Hubbard Mosaic and Chron Andy Kirk festivals!

Playing the 1996 Connoisseur after reading another thread about Jutta Hipp documentary.

Ooh I got a tracking number!

Thanks for mentioning Dan Burley's Jive. I managed to find a copy just now that wasn't too dear. Also thank you Steve for the link to the Calloway pdf. Fun!

That's kind of a strange release. I looked on Amazon and it had a pic of the contents, which despite the tacky packaging were pretty good mainstream jazz stuff from Blue Note, Roulette, Pacific Jazz. Apparently this Battleguard-Twilight label is some sort of Capitol subsidiary.

Maybe advise them it's available any time they want to pick it up!

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