mjzee

The Quebec is a great session. I love Kenny Burrell's playing on that. I'll probably get the Duke Jordan. I've always been intrigued by the cover - Reid Miles almost never used serif type - the cover almost looks like a Riverside rather than a BN. I have the others - the Morgans on the Mosaic box. I don't particularly care for the Chambers - too much solo bass; it's just not that interesting a lead instrument.

New Wine in Old Bottles is great. Jackie was on that day.

Just the 30-second samples available on eMusic. Sounds like a cassette recording. Spirited performance. "Spitballs" is just soprano sax and drums (Artie Tripp/Ed Marimba). It was a great version of the band.

New on eMusic: Captain Beefheart Live at Bickershaw 1972

The Mary Lou Williams - Cecil Taylor is a train wreck. It's worth hearing once, just to experience how awful it is. I was at that show, and remember the expression on Bob Cranshaw's face on stage, as in "What am I doing here?" There was another John Lewis - Hank Jones recording, a direct-to-disc for a Japanese label, called Piano Play House. George Duvivier and Shelly Manne supporting, but there are 2 tracks that are just the duo pianos. More info: Piano Play House

Another good one, if a little lacking in fire (clever title, too): George Shearing & Hank Jones - The Spirit of 176

I think the real reason they shut down the old BNBB was all the anti-Norah Jones rants. I really couldn't blame them if that were the reason. Imagine if this BB was full of anti-Organissimo rants - how long do you think this would remain online?

I really like this: Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones - Our Delights

RRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrockin' !! [i like The Donnas, actually] I can't wait to hear this. "Spend The Night" is an amazing album, and interesting lyrically; my wife and I have spent some time discussing the songs. And they do rock out; the drummer and guitarist are very impressive. eMusic just has so much! Everytime I look, I'm surprised. This time out, I found not just all The Donnas indie releases, but Dar Williams, Nick Lowe, and all of Moondog's European releases. Also, I just looked at Fantasy's website, and they seem to have acquired Telarc - guess all of their stuff will show up on eMusic soon. And Charlie Hunter's next album is on Fantasy. Lotsa good stuff to look forward to.

This month's downloads: Leroy Carr (3 tracks) From "This Bird Has Flown" (3 tracks) The Donnas Turn 21 Spyro Gyra - Morning Dance Trudy Pitts - Legends of Acid Jazz Ron Affif - Vierd Blues John Coltrane - The Believer Gerry Mulligan - Idol Gossip Mal Waldron - Impressions Roy Haynes - Cymbalism Red Garland - Solar

There's a cloak-and-dagger aspect to the Hatto revelation that I find intriguing. The Wall St Journal in February published an article, and here are two excerpts: "But earlier this month, Brian Ventura, a classical-music fan and financial analyst in Mount Vernon, N.Y., said he put Ms. Hatto's "Liszt's 12 Transcendental Studies" into his computer to transfer it to his iPod -- and was surprised when Apple Inc.'s iTunes software identified it as a CD by another pianist, Laszlo Simon. "At first I thought it was a misunderstanding," Mr. Ventura said. "The next morning, Mr. Ventura said, he went to Amazon.com and found samples of the Simon recordings, which sounded very similar. That left Mr. Ventura wondering: Had Amazon somehow posted the wrong clips? ""I really didn't know what to do about it," he said. "I wanted very much to believe that the Joyce Hatto story was true because it's such an amazing story." "He emailed critic Jed Distler, which led to an investigation by Gramophone, a United Kingdom classical-music magazine. Gramophone sent the recordings to a sound engineer, Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio, who said 10 of the Hatto tracks were indeed from a 1987 recording by Mr. Simon on BIS Records. (Mr. Rose's Web site includes an online demonstration that lets you listen to the Hatto track in one ear and the Simon track -- slightly time-shrunk -- in the other.) "Gramophone's story led classical-music experts and fans to put on headphones and join the hunt. That led to a deluge of charges that more Hatto recordings were swiped from other sources, sometimes with audio trickery involved, such as shrinking or stretching the length of the recording." "As the affair has unfolded, classical-music fans have been slugging it out on online forums and Internet newsgroups. Technically minded fans, meanwhile, have wondered about iTunes' role as a techno sleuth. "Like many digital-music programs, iTunes recognizes a CD put in a computer by querying a database maintained by a company called Gracenote, of Emeryville, Calif. Gracenote recognizes a CD by the number of tracks it has and the length of each of those tracks; when combined, the two form a mathematical fingerprint that Gracenote says is essentially unique for CDs with more than about five songs. "In comparing the Hatto and Simon CDs, Mr. Rose noted that track times had been shrunk or stretched, and the fifth Hatto track is 13 seconds shorter than the fifth Simon track -- because it is actually a recording by Minoru Nojima. Would such discrepancies throw off Gracenote? The company said a single outlier would tax the system's matching ability but shouldn't throw it off, though it is impossible to say without examining the actual CDs. And even then, variables in CD pressings might leave the question unsettled." What struck me when I read the article is that the reporter didn't try to recreate what Mr. Ventura said he experienced. It would have been an easy experiment: just put the Hatto CD into a computer and see what iTunes returns as the disc. It would be interesting if iTunes did not return the Simon data, but instead identified the CD as Hatto. I guess what I'm trying to say is: did someone in the know tattle on Hatto/Barrington-Coupe and use iTunes as a camouflage?

The contents of my Ornette box slide out too easily and too quickly: if I don't handle the box very carefully, I find the contents on the floor. Same with the Mingus Atlantic box. The individual digipaks in the Ornette box are beautifully designed, and the book is very readable. The kind I most dislike are the Mosaics that are unnecessarily large and bulky. I totally agree about the Coltrane box - I love seeing that cool tape reel box. I dislike Mosaic packaging because the black and white photo covers are artless and the typeface is ugly (not as bad as Pablo LPs but close), and the booklets separate on different pages the track listings and personnel listings. The Miles boxes are nice, but the book spines are too stiff - it's difficult to open the books. Other box sets I like: Capt. Beefheart Grow Fins, Charlie Parker Savoy & Dial box, also the Savoy Live Recordings box, The Savoy Story (nice large type in the booklet), Clifford Brown Blue Note (just beautiful design and use of photos), Grant Green retrospective. A booklet that I think is top notch, both for design and content, is Sonny Rollins Complete Prestige Recordings.

I do know that (Enja, Steeplechase, West Wind, Black and White, etc). But I knew these releases on Inner City. And some of their own titles, like the Jeff Lorber, sold respectably.

While you're largely correct, I can think of some odd exceptions. 1) There was a series of funk jazz albums on Inner City that involved graduates of Miles Davis's '70 bands: Mtume playing with Hubert Eaves (? I think that was the name)...there were others, too, if I remember the names, I will amend here. They were very bland funk albums. 2) There was an odd album, also on Inner City, called "The Three", a trio of Joe Sample, Ray Brown and Shelly Manne (well, they are all West Coast guys). Now on eMusic: The Three 3) Alphonse Mouzon was in Weather Report, then made many fusion/dance albums on MPS. 4) Idris Muhammad seems like a guy who went the other direction: from a dance/fusion focus to becoming a respected Jazz drummer.

Faddis had good chops, but worshipped Dizzy too much. There also always seemed to be steady work for trumpeters who could hit those high notes (Maynard Ferguson, Al Killian, etc); I guess some people liked it. At a JATP session, it was akin to the fat lady singing. During the '70's, I thought most Muse albums looked cheesy, populated with nobodies. I can moderate that opinion somewhat now, but back then I knew no one who listed to Jimmy Ponder, for example, and couldn't figure out why these albums kept coming out. Eric Gale had that sound that Paul Simon liked, but it seemed like he only had 6 notes in his repertoire. Steve Khan did some interesting things on Novus. Sammy Cahn's son, by the way. In the '70's, I remember really disliking certain artists, thinking they were overhyped (at least in the NYC area). Two in particular were Lester Bowie and Betty Carter. I remember having impassioned discussions with friends about the relative merits or lack of same ("How can you like Betty Carter? Haven't you heard Abbey Lincoln?" etc.). Then I remember hearing about Lester's death and feeling a loss. It seemed like those impassioned opinions paled next to the loss of a person's life; the opinions really weren't that important, y'know? You may like a person's work or you may not, but they only have a certain number of years on this earth.

Dunno. There's no correlation to the CDs on the website. Perhaps you could judge by the track timings?

I've just noticed that the next 4 are up: A Foggy Day (Length: 17:56, Cost $1.99) Four (Length: 15:58 Cost $1.99) My One and Only Love (Length: 6:29 Cost $.99) Blue 'n Boogie (Length 7:33 Cost $.99) Were there any posted previously besides: Autumn Nocturne Flamingo I'll Be Seeing You Night And Day Nutty Sonnymoon For Two St. Thomas Where Are You ?

You are correct; serves me right for working off memory. Cees Slinger on piano (thanks, AMG!). Also, recording date is 2/5/69, not 1967.

Just added is one of THE GREAT Dexter Gordon albums: I have this on vinyl as Live At The Amsterdam Paradiso. 1967. Acceptible sound quality, tho the piano is really funky (I think the liner notes mention it was missing a couple of keys!). The pianist is Han Bennink. This is prime, supreme Dexter, playing with a real edge and high energy, just ripping into the music. Don't miss it.

I saw him at Jones Beach in 1987 (?), and I agree - a baffling performance, tho the sound mix didn't help. At one point, on a solo acoustic number, I honestly couldn't tell whether he was playing his guitar or tuning it. But I think the real challenge with seeing Dylan live is that one hearing simply isn't enough - the joys of his music unfold with the rehearing. I have a bootleg of a performance from Philadelphia in I think 1989 that's just great. I'm certain I would not have known how good the performance was if I was at the concert.

I liked Infidels a lot (Dylan sounded a bit berserk on it, but that's all right), and also really liked Real Live. Considered Empire Burlesque a nadir of sorts - the songs seemed pallid and contentless (and the album just goes on and on). There was a King Biscuit Flour Hour of the Dylan/Petty tour which is great. I also liked Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove - Dylan at his confusing best, with a lot of attitude: "Drifting Too Far From Shore" was everything that "Seeing The Real You At Last" was not, "You Wanna Ramble" presages "Someday Baby" from Modern Times, "Silvio" is of course great, and "When Did You Leave Heaven" is a wonderful piece of music - it shouldn't work, with Dylan playing with the song's meter, but it does. I think of these two albums as one; I believe the tracks came from the same sessions, and they're both so short that they can fit on one CD. Collected, the songs sound like a collected bunch of scraps, and the flow from one song to another seems almost like a mix tape. Where I think he really took a dive was with Oh Mercy - a humorless, dank album. I get it, Bob - the world's going to hell in a handbasket (or could it be that you're just getting older and the world is passing you by?). Only one good song, "Everything Is Broken," which has some clever wordplay and a good groove. And Under The Red Sky is probably his worst album, tho I think that's universally recognized. I haven't yet read Chronicles, but I believe somewhere in there he even admits that.

When the first album came out, I felt so relieved that Dylan seemed like a real person again, able to crack laughs and not take himself so seriously. There had been a string of albums where he just seemed so divorced from ordinary people, so solemn and self-serious, that it was great to hear him sing smutty double-entendres in "Dirty World," and do a great Springsteen parody in "Tweeter and the Monkey Man." So, yah, I loved that first disc. It was obviously a bunch of friends sitting around making music. And Orbison's voice is great: check out "Not Alone Any More." I never heard Vol. 3, but I guess I'll pick up the box set; it's pretty cheap at Costco.

This month's downloads: Charles Mingus in Paris - The Complete America Session, disc 1 Complete Dexter Gordon on Prestige, discs 6 - 10 Art Pepper - Gettin' Together Milt Jackson - Invitation Rosemary Clooney - Rosie Sings Bing Abbey Lincoln - Abbey Is Blue

Although I was never a fan of "Out Here," I've always thought "False Start" is a great pop album. Hendrix is only on one track, but he burns. It's too bad that Hip-O didn't think outside the box and include Arthur Lee's solo album, "Vindicator," which was on A&M (another Universal-owned label).

They've just added titles from the "Swiss Radio Days" series: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Lausanne 1960 Part 1 Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Lausanne 1960 Part 2 Ben Webster - Dexter Gordon, Baden 1972 Cannonball Adderley Sextet, Lugano 1963 Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Zurich 1962 Gerry Mulligan And The Concert Jazz Big Band feat. Zoot Sims, Zürich 1960 Benny Goodman, Lausanne 1950 Louis Hayes - Woody Shaw Quintet, Lausanne 1977 The Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra, Basle 1969 The Quincy Jones Big Band, Lausanne 1960