Kevin Bresnahan

Michael Cuscuna had said that when he asked Wayne about that session, Wayne answered something like, "That was Duke Pearson's idea of a fucking record". With all three of them gone now, I guess that's all we'll ever know about it.

According to the liner notes from the Mosaic box, the problems with the "Meet Me At The Jazz Corner Of The World" tapes are baked in: Although all of the sessions in this collection were recorded by the extraordinary Rudy Van Gelder, there are sonic problems on two sessions. The drums were recorded very ‘hot’ on the March 14, 1961 session and sound at times on the threshold of distortion. On the live Birdland date, there is a vibrating, fluttering distortion that takes place intermittently in the horns and sometimes the entire ensemble. These problems exist on the original master tapes. They have been corrected as much as possible, but are still aurally present.

Bette Midler - Cool Yule (Columbia). This is a very well done Christmas CD. Midler's voice is in in great form & the backing musicians, from a string orchestra to a big band, are all very good. As I listen to this, I find myself wondering why it never really got the playtime that a lot of other Christmas CDs made back then (2006) did. Maybe because she was already in her early 60s by then and radio wanted youngsters? I am still shaking my head after reading that she turned 80 this year. I had no idea she was 80.

From his numerous posts over the years, I would not have figured Brownie as someone who always listened to free jazz.

Christmas music is reissued over & over & over again, just like any other music. Just check discogs for how many versions of Guaraldi's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or Nat King Cole's "A Christmas Song" have been reissued. Even lesser-known titles like Scott Hamilton's "Christmas Love Song" has been reissued as "Late Night Christmas Eve".

I have both but prefer the Timmons. Patterson's efforts just don't seem to hit me right. This is an excellent Christmas disc. I haven't played that one in a while. Maybe tonight will be the time?

Um... what are you talking about here... are you implying that simply because Amazon is selling the download, there is no need to reissue it on CD? What artists have taken that stance? Are there really artists that only sell downloads now? If true, that's a new one on me.

Today I broke down and bought the $8.99 download of Joey DeFrancesco's "Home For The Holidays" from Amazon. I wanted the 2-CD set but I've never found an affordable copy and it doesn't make any sense to pay crazy money when I can get it all for $9, even if I don't own a hard copy. FWIW, these downloaded files sound very good to me.

I actually gave up and got the download files. They are clearly from the masters and sound great, so I really can't complain too much. I do have a nice playback setup (Raspberry Pi4 with Volumio) for my mp3 files in my main listening room, so I'm OK with it. I'm about to pay for the mp3 downloads of the Joey DeFrancesco holiday set for the same reason.

Although I've listed many of these in other threads over the years, here are some more jazzy Christmas albums I've picked up over the years: Barbara Dannerlein - Christmas Soul Bobby Timmons - Holiday Soul Christian Sands - Christmas Stories Eddie Higgins - Christmas Songs (Venus) Jeff Hamilton - Merry & Bright Tim Warfield - Jazzy Christmas Tony d'Aveni - Winter Wonderland Urbie Green - A Cool Yuletide

I have to admit, until I read his obituary, I was unaware at the breadth of his playing. I thought he was a straight-up jazz guitarist. What an incredible discography: https://www.discogs.com/artist/268217-Phil-Upchurch?superFilter=Instruments+%26+Performance. He played with so many artists across genres from jazz to blues, from funk to rock, from R&B to gospel... even multiple Christmas albums... he was there.

Guitarist Phil Upchurch died November 23rd. He was 84. Looking at his extensive discography, I'm surprised I saw him up on a stage playing Jazz several times, with the last time most likely being the only time I managed to see Jimmy Smith live. His obituary almost glosses over his Jazz credentials to focus on his hits with Michael Jackson. https://variety.com/2025/music/news/phil-upchurch-dead-guitarist-composer-1236599436

I was only able to see them live once on their lone tour of the east coast a looonnnng time ago. They were great then too. If these shows had happened during the summer, I might've made the trip one of the bennies of being retired - but not just after Thanksgiving. Also, I was under the impression that these were anniversary celebrations and not an indication that the band was back to doing live shows on a regular basis. Last I heard, they were on a bit of a hiatus. They haven't released anything since 2017.

Which eventually (inevitably?) morphed into a 38 CD set in 2019. If you want to hear that, get your wallet out as it was very limited and goes for big bucks today.

JD Allen - Love Letters (The Ballad Sessions) (Savant). I like ballad dates for listening while eating dinner. This one is very well done. Pianist Brandon McCune is a new name for me (though it looks like he's been on the scene for quite a while) and he plays very nicely here. Another name to watch for I guess. Weird that the subtitle is "The Ballad Sessions" since it was recorded in one day. I haven't seen Allen play live in a long time. There was a time when he seemed to come through Boston 2 or 3 times a year.