R.I.P. Roswell Rudd Roswell Rudd Trio - "The Unheard Herbie Nichols, Vol.1" (1997) Roswell Rudd (trombone, trumpet, percussion), Greg Millar (guitar), John Bacon Jr. (drums). (CIMP CD, 1997)
New York Art Quartet (1964) Roswell Rudd (trombone), John Tchicai (alto sax), Lewis Worrell (bass), Milford Graves (percussion), Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka (recitation). (ESP-Disk)
Jazz by Sun Ra There was an old mono Delmark reissue of this (Sun Song) in the shop yesterday which I was excited about, but it turned out to be so noisy I couldn’t do it at the asking price. I’ll have to get the Delmark CD at some point, looks like they have them available on their website.
Seikatsu Kojyo Iinkai - S/T Japanese free jazz from 1975. Features a young William Parker on bass and drummer Rashid Sinan who played on Frank Lowe's ESP classic Black Beings. Here is a very brief excerpt:
SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: For those of you interested in cool and West Coast Jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, you might want to check out my weekly jazz program… Jazz from the Left. Core artists include… Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Red Garland, Vince Guaraldi Trio, Chet Baker, Bobby Troup, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond and others from this (imo) timeless sub genre. It airs on about 20 stations in the US and a few overseas. The originating station is PRP.fm, 99.1 here in Portland where it airs twice on Sundays. It's also broadcast on shortwave through WRMI in Miami. Check it out. Let me know what you think at: jazz from the left at Gmail.com. I'm in the holiday mode right now and this week's program is one of my favorites… Cool jazz for Christmas. Next week is a replay of the most requested songs. These are not typical of the way the program usually sounds. Regular programs resume in January.
An old favorite from Blue Note, in its Music Matters 45 rpm 2 LP incarnations mastered by Steve and Kevin Gray: A simply GIGANTIC album, one of the most compelling and exciting "inside-out" dates of the era. When the solo section of "Passion Dance" first kicks in, swinging like mad after the life-affirming statement of that regal opening theme, it gives me goose bumps every time - the very essence of jazz. You just KNOW you're in for quite a ride, and the rest of the album fully delivers on that promise. Joe Henderson and Elvin in their absolute prime, great compositions, and yeah, Ron Carter, not exactly a slouch! And it is quite impressive that McCoy was able to make such a strongly individual statement, reflecting what he'd learned with Coltrane but ultimately sounding very different than that imposing body of work. Picking my favorite Blue Note recording is very hard, but this one would certainly be in my Top 10, up there with equally compelling dates like UNITY, POINT OF DEPARTURE, OUT TO LUNCH, and a few others. The other thing to comment on is just how much better this LP pressing sounds than any prior release. Unfortunately this just never was one of RVG's better sounding original recordings - it's all a bit grainy and squashed and with quite a bit of overloading on some of the instruments, especially Elvin's kit - but this is likely to be as good as you'll ever hear it sound. MILES better than the CDs, certainly. Don't know how it was done, but Steve and Kevin managed to work some magic here, folks. Essential. Merry Christmas, everyone!
For a cold and windy December afternoon. Bill Evans - You Must Believe In Spring Bill Evans, piano; Eddie Gomez, bass; Elliot Zigmund, drums. (Music On Vinyl 33.3)
Music Matters 45 rpm 2 LP edition. Sublime sound, and one of Byrd's best. It's one of those albums that just sounds effortless, and is chock full of great playing. In one way it reminds me a lot of Hank Mobley's SOUL STATION album, starting off with a nice mid-tempo swinger and never looking back, but of course with a bigger front line (and what a wonderful one it was). Byrd and Pepper Adams were a dream team.
Shunzo Ohno Quartet - Falter Out Smokin' early fusion joint from Japanese trumpet player Ohno, who would go on to drop some killer albums for the East West label. This is a really creative recording with nods to Miles and Herbie but with several choice hard bop tracks for good measure. Top reissue for 2017!
And now for something completely different. A question to all the jazz nuts out there. Does anyone have any experience with that big bunch of Verve / Polgram two fer ones issued between 1977 and 1980? This must have been a BIG reissue program, because there are so many of them. So far as I can tell, virtually all of these were mastered at Masterdisk, by, wait for it, a Mr. Robert Ludwig. Though interestingly, he gets credited on the jackets, but the deadwax is always GK for Gilbert Kong, HW for Howie Weinberg, etc. The sound on the ones I've cleaned and played so far has been very good. Weird is also, the running order on all the original albums has been completely changed. It looks like whoever did it reordered the tracks in chronological order. Ie., put them out on the reissue in the order in which they were recorded. Novel, but it makes sense to me. I like the way it was done with the two Ben Websters, "Tenor Giants" and "Ballads". Though with others, particularly with the Billie Holiday, three issue set of two LPs each, it gets really confusing. Here are some of the issues I've accumulated to date.
And for the Billie Holidays, now these get really confusing once you start looking at the running order. And then the original issues of where all the tracks came from. Downright weird. But it looks like someone took some real trouble in chronologically ordering all this stuff. I'm asking myself what tapes they used? If they actually got the masters to create the production tape.
And this is one that actually got its first release in this series: Johnny Hodges, "the smooth one". It was originally intended for release in 1961 but never released. Though apparently test pressings were made. Again, Bob Ludwig credited with the mastering. My copy has Masterdisk GK in the deadwax. So I'm guessing Bob Ludwig was overseeing Gilbert Kongs work.
I have this one effectively it states inside mastered by Robert Ludwig at Masterdisk, mine is a French pressing but there's none initials in the dead wax
