DMP

Ella always seemed polite, courteous, gracious - is that the way she was?

Sarah Vaughan!!

I'll never forget taking my parents to hear the Moody group with Tucker and Gladden at a club in Pittsburgh's Hill District - we were probably the only white people in the place, and when we went to leave, he walked us to our car, opened the door for my mom, and locked the door!

I attended a couple of times in the early years of this "festival" - early '70's - and it seemed to be one of those George Wein package deals, the kind you'd find in many places - good, but nothing unique. Heard Cannonball Adderley, McCann and Harris, Buddy Rich, B.B. King (among others). Of course, from today's perspective, that sounds pretty good...

Did anyone ever answer the question about the Ellington "crime jazz?" Is he thinking of the Asphalt Jungle music? And, has "Asphalt Jungle Twist" ever made it to CD? (I'm also a big fan of this period and the '60's RCA's - my favorite Ellington.)

I'm not paricularly bothered with the source material for the Desmond album one way or the other. Jazz musicians have always turned to left field for songs, with varying motives. While this might not be Coltrane doing Chim Chim Cheree (sic?), it's got some beautiful playing, and there's not that much unreleased Desmonf left - this could be one of the last. And I agree with the points about Hancock - he's more under-wraps then on the Summertime album, but he has a really nice solo on electric piano (in 5/4) - Paul Desmond and Herbie Hancock, hard to beat. (Well, maybe Jim Hall...)

An interesting batch. The only real turkey is the Benson. (Maybe the Evans, but it has real curiosity value.) (The Roger Williams reference above is pretty accurate.) (Of course, at that time, Williams was also doing a Ramsey Lewis imitation, too bad Evans didn't jump on THAT bandwagon.) The Desmond is good, I can't imagine anyone who likes him not getting this.

He's no Herbie Hancock.

At the "Itunes" store, the only track available as a single download is the introduction! 99 cents for Willis Conover talking for 44 seconds!! Is there a market for that? Do people load up their Ipods with this sort of thing??

I'm thinking a lot of people my age grew up the the Columbia samplers "I Like Jazz" and "Jazz Omnibus" - they were great introductions! And my introduction to the Pacific Jazz/World Pacific catalog was a 2 disc set called "Prime Cuts" which covered the entire history of the label (ending with Clare Fischer); most of the cuts were edited, but, then, what WASN'T on that label!

I've always enjoyed Sandi's posts. A quick (un-related to this thread) question - what's the status of the Lighthouse these days? The last time I was in the area there had been a fire at the adjoining building the night before.

And whatever happened to their Verve LP (eventually released several years after the fact)?

Landon "Sonny" Cox's reputation may well be earned, but he came by my house once (we were recruiting one of his players, but that's another story) and he couldn't have been nicer. Or more interesting. I was pulling out records for him to listen to all afternoon, think I finally had to cook up some excuse to get rid of him. He had "big ears" but was particularly high on Joe henderson and Davis/Griffin's Minton's stuff.

Archie Shepp "The Way Ahead" and Nancy Wilson "Lush Life." Not exactly sure what I was thinking.

Now that I think about it, "Powerhouse" might have also been out on the Applause label. Terrible sound, though.

The Mosaic is a big investment, but it's all there - and almost all of it (there was an issue of "Freedom Sound' earlier, and "Uh Huh" was on that Applause label) has never been out on CD. And almost all of the "live" stuff is in print. What's missing is a couple of cuts from that big band album, and the Les McCann session. By the way, I do think they evolved some in their PJ years - there was a change of direction when Buster Williams joined the band.

Even though it's from April, 1970, you might want to give Roy Brooks' "The Free Slave" a try.

Probably "underrated' by critics at the time, but pretty good sellers, so jazz fans were on to them. Hard to believe, but almost all their PJ albums - studio and live - are available once again! (And most of ther "live" CD's have extra material.)

I've always thought Peterson's solo on Charlie Parker's Verve "Night and Day" was the strongest of any by a sideman on Bird's studio recordings.

Right, Desmond doing Purcell (on CTI) is a totally different bag. Maybe that sentence should have been a separate paragraph. CTI's disco period was a little later, although when they caved they did in a big way.

In the Columbia Records "disco jazz" period there's Maynard Ferguson doing "Pagliacci" and "Scheherazade," and Hubert Laws doing "Romeo and Juliet" (the Tchaikovsky one). Also Paul Desmond doing Purcell on "Skylark."

Has anyone mentioned Bill Evans' album on Verve?

"Brass Shout" has been out as a Japanese import, don't think it was all that rare. (If I have it, sitting here in Pittsburgh, it must have been fairly easy to find.) Nice to see "Heads Up" out again, with the recent Hutcherson "Mosaic Select" a neglected period has been restored. Anyway, maybe the reports of the death of the music business have been premature.

William 'Bogey' Gaynair, "Africa Calling" (Candid) - never heard of it (or 4/5's of the musicians on it), but it's very good !

Roland Kirk does "Swan Lake" on one of his Mercury albums, and Gerry Mulligan (with Art Farmer and Jim Hall) does a Chopin piece on "Night Lights" (Phillips).