Stompin at the Savoy

I was wondering why this set has been out of print for 30 years. I mean Miles Davis - they are reissuing him over and over all over the place! And yet this sat for 30 years. I was listening to it yesterday and it occurred to me that that this set is somewhat challenging for a novice jazz listener. Most of the studio stuff is fairly short tunes with theme statement, solos, theme statement, coda. But this set is sort of for the advanced class. Sometimes the melody doesn't appear till way into the tune and in a mutated form, the solos are abstract and experimental - without some background it could be hard to grok. I was very impressed with this when I got it back in the nineties but I have listened to it less than other miles. I think everybody should hear it at some point but it maybe is not the best set to play to a jazz newbie. Yes, I have had better luck bringing newbies to a live jazz performance than playing a record for them. You are there, watching them play, picking up cues from the audience - it's exciting.

Jim, that is a really dumbass attitude. Sorry but true. Your argument boils down to if somebody doesn't understand this music the way I do, they are stupid, insensitive clods. Brilliant Jim, and dumb.

Yes, the perception was based on ignorance. Congratulations, you understood what I was trying to say! How about you? If you listen to northern Indian classical music are you able to pick up all the nuances? Do you understand the different sections and different rhythmic breakdowns of the piece? Are you able to appreciate it as well as somebody who is into that? (Or substitute any other music form which you don't happen to be familiar with). I'm pretty sure there is some music somewhere which will sound like nothing to you and fail to do anything for you and you will think to yourself it all sounds like much of a muchness - ie noodling. Not because you are unthinking or the music is bad, but because you have no background. Peking Opera. Music in Japanese drama.

Well Jim I disagree completely. If one has no structure upon which to hang the sounds coming at you, if you are unable to anticipate anything or see any regularity or pattern, it becomes noodling. It can't be that for me because I have a background from listening to this music. But it absolutely can for someone who doesn't recognize what tune it is, when the piece ends and repeats, what the musicians are trying to do etc. They have no way to organize the data they are receiving. I recommend you listen to the set for a few minutes and place yourself in the position of a pop music listener who has never heard the tune.

To elaborate on that, the band is playing mostly standards like Stella by Starlight, Green Dolphin Street, etc, but they are deconstructing these tunes, trying them with different tempos and rhythms, playing with the structure, ignoring the melody, etc. But if one does not have even a passing familiarity with Stella by Starlight, how is one to interpret this performance? Very differently from someone aware of the tradition.

I played some of this once for a friend who listens to pop music. His reaction was that he didn't much like jazz that seemed like "noodling". I wonder if there was a problem selling a large, relatively expensive set like this with music like this. I guess it actually may be difficult to appreciate these live sessions without having experienced quite a bit of jazz and understanding the context? The music is kind of 'advanced'?

Whoa, this is starting to sound like a real mastering mess! They are going to have to clarify the sources they are using before I would consider a new "remaster".

Hearing that they were on sale I decided to try out some cheap earbuds - Soundcore P30i - which are similar to P20i but with noise cancelling. They arrived today and are not too bad in a pinch, like in a dentist office, riding a bike or some other public situation where it feels a bit clunky to wear bulky headphones or they might fall off, etc. The controls are fiddly, require some memorization (tap twice on the left ear, etc), and there is a tendency to activate every switch while trying to screw the earbud more tightly into my ear. The soundcore app is ok but they don't have a pc version so you have to use a phone or something, which means I have to keep putting on 3x cheaters to see anything - this is not an old person's world.

It's unclear whether the CD set mastering is any different from the earlier Legacy CD set, which I have. I might be interested in a hi res download but they don't seem to mention any downloads. Probably end up sticking with original cds... It's a great box and I've often wondered why it remained oop for so long.

Anker Soundcore brand makes some inexpensive blue tooth products (made in China) which have pretty good sound quality and offer noise canceling. I like the full over ear headsets they make, for example Q35. They have earbuds which probably have similar electronics. With blue tooth you get marvelous freedom of movement but the signal occasionally cuts out when you turn your head just the right way or get into a corner of the house where reception is poor. The dropouts are pretty rare and I just accept that. Another approach I sometimes use with iPhone is a small adapter which plugs into the the phone power port and has a mini-plug socket on the other end. Then I plug in wired Sony Studio Monitors or other phones, such as lightweight Koss SportaPros. To me Koss SportaPros sound better than most earbuds and are less wearying on the ear, physically. Sony Studio Monitors etc sound better but they are bulky.

Yup.

This seems like a really interesting release. I'm up for it!

Bill Evans could not make a bad record. A couple of decades ago I reached a saturation point and decided to stop buying Bill Evans records. I still enjoy his music and welcome reissues of classic Evans like this but feel no need to upgrade.

This is just my opinion - some dude on the internet - but I think this would be better if the bass had more of an acoustic feel. It sounds like a pickup to me (what do I know?). I feel that a big acoustic bass has a lot of tonal character if well miked. But this bass sustains a lot and has a sort of fundamental tone, it's hard to hear the woody goodness of the instrument. To me it seems overwhelming and boomy. The horn is playing something that could be intimate but the bass is playing to an auditorium.

It's a very fine set. I love it. I think I paid more for mine.

https://i.postimg.cc/xcYz7S0B/IMG-0461.jpg

Arg! Grum.

I received the set today but haven't had time to read book or listen. Will report back later.

Droste effect.

If you rip all your albums to a hard drive (and have a fairly extensive collection) it's a snap to do this with any reasonably good music player application, such as itunes. I often check out all the versions I have of a song. Not all album metadata contains all the participants but it often does, so I can often search and find sideman appearances too. The difficulty for most with a large collection is if you haven't been ripping everything to hard drive all along, it could take a long time and a lot of labor to rip them all now! Many years back I wrote to allmusic asking them to expose an interface which would allow you create queries connected by 'and' and 'or' to allow search for two musicians on the same album, etc. They never replied and the site has gone downhill so badly I no longer use it.

Presto has this as a download (44.1 kHz, 16 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV - cd quality), for a few weeks the price will be $14.25. Thinking of picking it up.

I haven't really used AI besides Google search ai summaries, ai summaries of comments on articles in newspapers etc. Those are often useful if not exactly brilliant. As a whole I find AI to be in its infancy and interesting if not quite ready for prime time. Unfortunately the way AI is being developed now it is a huge electricity hog which has already made electric power more expensive and promises to continue to do so. There are a lot of ecological and safety problems around this technology which are not being addressed.

https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/promotions/blue-note-downloads/browse I took advantage of it to get Duke Pearson - The Right Touch. Some of the Capitol Vault Series (mosaic and mosaic select as downloads) are also included in the price drop. Might pick up a few selects I don't have. Some of these are a pretty good deal, for example if you don't have the Elvin Jones Mosaic (which is dynamite) you can get a legit copy for $25. Here are the Capitol Vault series: https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/search?search_query=capitol vaults

Freddie Green very up front and audible on this album. This is becoming a fave. It's like the archetypal small group swing date.