sidewinder

Bobby Hutcherson 'Total Eclipse' in the Tone Poet version. It will be interesting to compare it with the Liberty issue. Edited to say that this version sounds pretty excellent to me. Certainly a step of two up from the DMM version I bought in the mid 80s. The gatefold colour pictures of Bobby and co. are great too.

A slippery slope.. ! Tone Poet LPs arrived today - very fast service from the UK Blue Note shop.

Last time I was in Foyles/Ray's the Jazz section seemed to have shrunk a bit. There was a small section with second hand 10" LPs but not sure if any 78s, don't think so. They had a note on the rack saying 'not buying any second-hand collections at present'. As for Mole - any evidence of the old sign and original shop presence, which survived into the 2010s, now obliterated with the King's Cross developments.

Pure Pleasure have never encountered any other incidence of this apparently, must have been a manufacturing balls-up at Pallas. The Rouse is good - very much 'of its time' but in a good way. Interesting that cello was used as part of the front line.

One of the Strata-East/Pure Pleasure LPs. Interesting session - sounds like a bit of 'Bitches Brew' influence in there plus David Lee on drums gives it a sound which is akin to Rollins' Milestone LPs of this era. Incidentally my Tolliver 'Impact' had an OK side 1 but some unknown Krautrock on side 2. Commendably, Pure Pleasure are replacing it with a new copy.

Got the email too so hopefully my full set minus vol 1 will be on its way across the 'oggin shortly.

Yeah, Chalke was pretty good and in a lovely scenic spot too. One of the highlights of the year. There was a recreation from scratch of the Anglo-Saxon Prittlewell Burial and this gave me the inspiration. Don't think whoever it was had any Mosaics but he did take a well-used lyre with him to Valhalla ! It would be ace to do this and then have future Baldricks + Time Team scratching their heads.

Inspired by the history festival attended last week I plan on doing a 'Jazz Sutton Hoo Burial' type of thing with a Saxon burial ship lined with LPs/Mosaics and maybe also room for my hi-fi too !

Just taken advantage of the Blue Note Store's 20% off sale to pick up a few of the Tone Poets on my back-list (Tex Book Tenor, Byrd's Eye View etc.) Talking of 'Byrd's Eye View' I actually handled a mega-rare Esquire pressing of that one the other week. It even had an original Transition booklet included within it.

I'm currently this week enjoying a major UK open-air historical festival at which Michael Palin (of Python fame etc) was due to appear tomorrow talking about his Great Uncle Harry and WW1. Just heard that he has had to cancel last minute due to catching covid so it seems to be going around at present (in N London at least).

Used to attend County and one-day matches back in the day as a youngster (saw some incredible players - Boycott, Alan Knott, Botham, Viv Richards) and for some years played in the occasional competitive 20 over evening works games. England performance against Australia predictably poor, they were outclassed. Hard to take this format too seriously though.

I think Dutton Vocalion lost interest in jazz at least 10 years ago. Maybe licensing got tightened up/made more expensive through Universal (aka monopoly operation). Like you, I picked most of those CDs up (thankfully). It really was an excellent series of releases. Now if only we could arrange things for Mosaic to be able to do big sets of Tempo, Nixa, Argo, Deram and Columbia/Lansdowne material (in my dreams !)

Thurman Barker on drums.

I attended a local beacon lighting on the evening of the 6th (hosted by local residents with bar and barbecue) There was a chain of beacons lit right across the South of England, areas that were used as training and embarkation bases. Must make a visit to Tarrant Rushton, where gliders took off for the parachute drops and still largely unchanged from that time.

Yeah, I figured that we did pretty well seeing him tour here at the age of 82. A great long life.

When I saw Eastern Rebellion, Sam Jones had very sadly recently passed. David Williams had recently joined on bass. Never heard Vols 5 and 6 so will look at checking them out. That Ultra-Vybe CD set looks nice.

Just digging out Andrew Hill 'Compulsion' (BN New York mono) to spin - spurred by reading a review of a 1967 'return from NYC' Chicago concert written by John Litweiler for 'Jazz Monthly' back in the day. Hill was with trio and special guests Roscoe Mitchell and Wilbur Ware. He switched to soprano sax on a few numbers, shown in one of the photos. Sam Rivers had been due to play as well but didn't make it. Interesting !

Too bad that Solal has retired but he was touring here well into his senior years. I saw him some years ago on his last UK appearances, Bath I think but not sure. Even more memorable was another Bath appearance, solo that time, in the 80s in the Georgian splendour of the Assembly Rooms. Updated to say that the last appearance was 2010 in Bath, feels more recent than that. With his trio. Article here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/may/20/martial-solal-jazz-piano

For £10 it was certainly a bargain - and a discovery for me. Beats paying £300 + !

I have given the Pure Pleasure of 'The Descendents of Mike and Phoebe' another spin this morning. First thing to say - this is a really nice album, classy stuff. After an initial spin I put it on the VPI record cleaning machine- definitely benefited, with more richness in the mid-range. Maybe these Pallas pressings benefit from this post-manufacture, quite noticeable improvement. If that £15 crate dealer is still peddling his wares I would recommend you London folks to pay him a visit !

Sounds as logical an explanation as any. Next up - Joy Marshall 'Who Says... etc.' On Decca (mono) from 1965. No doubt Tubby Hayes present in the sax section. Followed by Tubby Hayes/Paul Gonsalves 'Change of Setting', World Record Club (mono) from 1967.

Sounds dubious.. Spinning Joe Harriott Quintet 'Blue Harriott' (UK Columbia EP from 1959). Lively Joe Meek recording. Early group with the excellent Hank Shaw on trumpet (who I remember seeing years later at Ronnie Scotts). Kicks off with a fine version of Horace Silver's 'Senor Blues'.

Recently bought a copy of Ben Markley's 'Cedar - The Life and Music of Cedar Walton' - currently in the pending pile after I have finished the 3 extensive volumes of James Lees-Milne's diaries.

I've always been pretty happy with their Toliver Strata-Easts and considering the somewhat iffy quality of 70s vinyl of that era from the USA (crap shoot at best), they can be a pretty good option, being nicely done. Especially so at the £10 price point. The notification was by email for those on the Pure Pleasure mailing list. Initially I thought it was for just a couple of titles in low stock but turns out that it was for all titles they still had in stock (some being already sold out). Good to hear. That fine tune 'Avotja' is on it so that persuaded me to get it. The solo LP was also on offer but alas, failed to get that one.

RIP - I first became aware of him from the initial LP issue circa 1980 of Mobley's 'Slice of the Top' and being suitably impressed. Saw him about 20 years ago in Charles Tolliver's Big Band, where he was doubling bass trombone and tuba I think.