What records disappointed your expectations?

[mandrill]

O'Neals Porch has never really grabbed me either. I don't dislike it, but there are many albums of his that I prefer to listen to.

I think I like him best with Other Dimensions In Music.

Same feelings about O'Neal Porch. Sounds too pedestrian to warrant repeated listenings.

IMO Parker's best group is In Order To Survive.

Peach Orchard might as well be his Magnum Opus.

[mandrill]

'the other side of jimmy smith' is most unfortunate.

I always suspected Jimmy Smith to be a one-sided player. No wonder his other side didn't work.

[Hot Ptah]

O'Neals Porch has never really grabbed me either. I don't dislike it, but there are many albums of his that I prefer to listen to.

I think I like him best with Other Dimensions In Music.

Same feelings about O'Neal Porch. Sounds too pedestrian to warrant repeated listenings.

IMO Parker's best group is In Order To Survive.

Peach Orchard might as well be his Magnum Opus.

O'Neal's Porch is the only Parker album to really blow me away. Different strokes....

[king ubu]

- Ben Webster - the famous one with OP trio/Ellis, what's it called again?

"Soulville." And I agree, was disappointed when I got it at the time it came out. Just compare it to the way Webster sounds on Harry Edison's "Sweets," from about the same time.

Uh oh... I am planning to order Soulville and Meets Oscar Peterson from yourmusic -- should I avoid?

Guy

Meets OP is the better date and I wouldn't avoid either.

I am with Chuck on this I guess, I like them both very much and don't prefer either one - but I guess I just like Ben Webster.

Get both of them, both are fine, in fact "Meets OP" is more than fine, one of my favourite Webster albums!

Remember, it's just the disappointed expectations this thread is about, not about an album actually being bad (at least I didn't want to say any of the ones I listed were bad, they merely did not meet my personnal expectations).

I find it very interesting how the time when different listeners came to jazz has an impact on their reaction to certain albums. For example, I did not come to jazz until the early to mid-1970s. When I first heard "Soulville" some time in the early 1980s, I loved it. I did not have the experience of hearing it when it first came out, in relation to the Ben Webster which had just come before.

...

You know, Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster was the first of these Granz retro thingies I heard, probably among my first 25 or so jazz CDs (and I knew it from the library before). I still love that one very, very much "La Rosita", "Prisoner of Love"... what they do there is likely a lost art by now and I feel it has to be treasured!

So "Soulville" not meeting my expectations has nothing to do with when I came to jazz (early to mid 90s, I was born at the very end of the 70s), but rather that - similar to "Side by Side" vs. "Back to Back" - the "place" for such an album as "Soulville" had already been occupied for a long time by "Encounters" (I also prefer that one over "Genius of Coleman Hawkins" and "Webster Meets O.P.", btw), and I didn't feel like having to change my perception in this case...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

- Ben Webster - the famous one with OP trio/Ellis, what's it called again?

"Soulville." And I agree, was disappointed when I got it at the time it came out. Just compare it to the way Webster sounds on Harry Edison's "Sweets," from about the same time.

Uh oh... I am planning to order Soulville and Meets Oscar Peterson from yourmusic -- should I avoid?

Guy

Meets OP is the better date and I wouldn't avoid either.

I am with Chuck on this I guess, I like them both very much and don't prefer either one - but I guess I just like Ben Webster.

Get both of them, both are fine, in fact "Meets OP" is more than fine, one of my favourite Webster albums!

Remember, it's just the disappointed expectations this thread is about, not about an album actually being bad (at least I didn't want to say any of the ones I listed were bad, they merely did not meet my personnal expectations).

I find it very interesting how the time when different listeners came to jazz has an impact on their reaction to certain albums. For example, I did not come to jazz until the early to mid-1970s. When I first heard "Soulville" some time in the early 1980s, I loved it. I did not have the experience of hearing it when it first came out, in relation to the Ben Webster which had just come before.

...

You know, Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster was the first of these Granz retro thingies I heard, probably among my first 25 or so jazz CDs (and I knew it from the library before). I still love that one very, very much "La Rosita", "Prisoner of Love"... what they do there is likely a lost art by now and I feel it has to be treasured!

So "Soulville" not meeting my expectations has nothing to do with when I came to jazz (early to mid 90s, I was born at the very end of the 70s), but rather that - similar to "Side by Side" vs. "Back to Back" - the "place" for such an album as "Soulville" had already been occupied for a long time by "Encounters" (I also prefer that one over "Genius of Coleman Hawkins" and "Webster Meets O.P.", btw), and I didn't feel like having to change my perception in this case...

Ubu - you've got that bang to rights. This thread is much more about YOU and your perceptions/expectations than it is about finding "bad" recordings. And, as you point out, that's more conditioned by what you've previously encountered than necessarily when you first started listening to jazz (though that may have a bearing on the matter of what).

MG

[king ubu]

I'm sure timing is crucial, but I wanted to point out that the moment I got into jazz didn't keep me from enjoying Granz' 50s retro stuff...

I still don't get these, really:

- Diz & Getz

- Getz & J.J. at the Opera House

- the one with Dizzy, Getz & Stitt

But I quite enjoy the Dizzy/Rollins/Stitt one, which happens to be the last one of those that I got... (a case where preferences did change after I came to know another similarly conceived album)

Also I feel like most of the Dizzy albums now in the Mosaic don't live up to my expectations (Something Old, Something New, Electrifying Evening, also the Impulse Swing Low one), which is why I've not yet been trying to find a reasonably prized Euro/Universal edition of that Mosaic... (but I know I'll get it, eventually).

I think Dizzy may be a case in point... is there any album of his that really lives up to the expectations, aside from his sides with Bird, and say the Massey Hall and Town Hall discs, and his own early big band dates for Savoy/RCA/etc? I really don't know... I mean I can hear why he's so great and I enjoy his playing, but there's no album I've heard yet that I really think is great. My favourite (as an album) might be, hold tight, the stoopid latin jazz album, "Jambo Caribe" - it's just great stoopid fun from beginning to end!

[Niko]

I think Dizzy may be a case in point... is there any album of his that really lives up to the expectations, aside from his sides with Bird, and say the Massey Hall and Town Hall discs, and his own early big band dates for Savoy/RCA/etc? I really don't know... I mean I can hear why he's so great and I enjoy his playing, but there's no album I've heard yet that I really think is great. My favourite (as an album) might be, hold tight, the stoopid latin jazz album, "Jambo Caribe" - it's just great stoopid fun from beginning to end!

don't know it long enough to really say something but at the moment i really really like that 1968 Reunion Big Band MPS album

not to forget the subject of the thread:

Dizzy Gillespie - Digital in Montreux

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm sure timing is crucial, but I wanted to point out that the moment I got into jazz didn't keep me from enjoying Granz' 50s retro stuff...

I still don't get these, really:

- Diz & Getz

- Getz & J.J. at the Opera House

- the one with Dizzy, Getz & Stitt

But I quite enjoy the Dizzy/Rollins/Stitt one, which happens to be the last one of those that I got... (a case where preferences did change after I came to know another similarly conceived album)

Also I feel like most of the Dizzy albums now in the Mosaic don't live up to my expectations (Something Old, Something New, Electrifying Evening, also the Impulse Swing Low one), which is why I've not yet been trying to find a reasonably prized Euro/Universal edition of that Mosaic... (but I know I'll get it, eventually).

I think Dizzy may be a case in point... is there any album of his that really lives up to the expectations, aside from his sides with Bird, and say the Massey Hall and Town Hall discs, and his own early big band dates for Savoy/RCA/etc? I really don't know... I mean I can hear why he's so great and I enjoy his playing, but there's no album I've heard yet that I really think is great. My favourite (as an album) might be, hold tight, the stoopid latin jazz album, "Jambo Caribe" - it's just great stoopid fun from beginning to end!

"Swing low sweet Cadillac" is my favourite Diz album. The interplay with Candy Finch on "Kush" is some of the most exciting music I've ever heard. Did you notice that "Mas que nada" was included in at least one Acid Jazz compilation? I think I'll get it out and play it later.

MG

[Clunky]

I'm sure timing is crucial,

Too right, how often have I tried listening to a new album in "the wrong mood" and got too little out of it. Revisiting reveals a much better session than first spin.

"O'Neal's Porch" has been mentioned, I thought it was great when I first heard it but I rapidly grew bored of it....

[king ubu]

I think Dizzy may be a case in point... is there any album of his that really lives up to the expectations, aside from his sides with Bird, and say the Massey Hall and Town Hall discs, and his own early big band dates for Savoy/RCA/etc? I really don't know... I mean I can hear why he's so great and I enjoy his playing, but there's no album I've heard yet that I really think is great. My favourite (as an album) might be, hold tight, the stoopid latin jazz album, "Jambo Caribe" - it's just great stoopid fun from beginning to end!

don't know it long enough to really say something but at the moment i really really like that 1968 Reunion Big Band MPS album

not to forget the subject of the thread:

Dizzy Gillespie - Digital in Montreux

I got the Berlin one on your recommendation, it's good, but it's too short... and there are too many fine musicians that don't get heard in solo! I generally like the live material more than the studio stuff with Diz, that applies to his group with James Moody, the Gillespiana stuff with Leo Wright, as well as to the 1957 big band.

Again, let me point out that I have all this stuff on CD and like it - it just to me never really lives up to my expectations, it's like it all should have been a notch better...

[king ubu]

I'm sure timing is crucial,

Too right, how often have I tried listening to a new album in "the wrong mood" and got too little out of it. Revisiting reveals a much better session than first spin.

...

Now that's a different story altogether, reaching out for the right thing at the wrong time or vice-versa! Happens quite often of late, but that's likely because too much new stuff has piled up over the last 2 years or so...

[king ubu]

"Swing low sweet Cadillac" is my favourite Diz album. The interplay with Candy Finch on "Kush" is some of the most exciting music I've ever heard. Did you notice that "Mas que nada" was included in at least one Acid Jazz compilation? I think I'll get it out and play it later.

MG

I'm not leaning that much towards acid jazz today... I used to like it much more, but that's where I got into jazz, starting out with funk, both old-school and new stuff (Crusaders, Larry Graham, Sly Stone, Prince, Maceo etc.). Will play "Swing Low Sweet Cadillac" again to see how I like it nowadays!