Yes, Louis Armstrong's office/den was (and still is) nice. But it was not Louis' first and very personal choice to decorate his private haven. He liked to cover entire walls with his personally applied collage of clippings, photographs, hand-lettered statements and other media. His wife tolerated it, but did not like it. Eventually she convinced Louis to go for wood paneling. He was often changing the collages, taking some parts down and putting up new parts. You can see that in the second photo. The camera's flash in these photos makes reflections from the tape and laminates in the collage (not paste) and ruins the effect of the collage, which was probably far better in person with normal lighting. Note the image just above the tape recorders. His wife Lucille may have decided that the only way to get Louis to take that down was to cover the walls with some real expensive wood.
Louis loved those reel to reel tapes. When his wife had the office redecorated, she was sure to conceal his tapes behind doors, and be able to close off the sound equipment as well. She bought a new telephone after Louis passed. Louis himself did not like frills, but he went along with Lucille's preferences, especially in the famous bathroom.
I could talk about the Three Kings all day. Not sure if the SF Fillmore allows walks inside when shows are not going but making a visit to just walk up the stairs and hallway to where the stage is and then the upstairs bar would be worth it for all of the vintage artwork and iconic photographs on the wall.
A couple of Speakers Corners vinyl spins today. Highly recommend these if your fans of the recordings. Ry Cooder - Jazz and Nina Simone - Sings The Blues
Many forget that Benny Carter was known as King Carter. The name faded away when he dropped out of the life of a touring jazz musician to work in Hollywood He was a rare musician who mastered both reeds and brass
This has an odd inscription, probably made up on the spot. He was known to be witty. Somebody seems to have cut out their name in this inscription.
I fondly recall hearing Benny Carter at Yoshi's sushi restaurant in Oakland CA in 1992. Got to sit right up front, and 'the King' was still in top form.
So many great shows at Yoshi's over the years. I haven't been in a long time and they were having difficulty filling the slots with jazz to keep the doors open before the virus. NP Clifford Brown - The Complete Bluenote/Pacific Jazz Recordings Disc 4 (Live At Birdland)
@Sorcerer - Thanks for the recommendation. I follow your logic on filling gaps where no APO SACD exists. Is CD Japan up and running again, or is CD Banq the safer bet at this point?
NP: Sam Jones - Cello Again (Xanadu, Bell Sound) After the Dave Holland solo cello album on ECM, "Cello Again" is relatively light on cello. Jones is part of a quintet, and it almost sounds like the upper register of a bass. Less classical than Holland, more straight ahead.
It depends on where you live. Shipping to the Netherlands from Taiwan was never suspended. For Japan, it depended on the prefecture. Tokyo was in a state of emergency so shipping was suspended for a while, while other prefectures like Osaka were able to ship (registered) to here without delay throughout the lockdown. According to this page shipping to the USA was never suspended from Taiwan. Dennis on the other hand is still waiting for shipments from CD Japan (Tokyo prefecture).
In the mid 1970's, one of my close friends, a man from Jamaica as old as my parents, had Benny Carter over as a house guest, along with Alan Dawson (drums) and Roland Hanna (piano). I was the other guest. Benny was such a gentleman that the conversation never veered away from gentlemanly topics. But he retired at about 10PM. Drinks were poured a bit more frequently. I remember talking with Alan Dawson about his days with Booker Ervin. All I recall, perhaps due to the alcohol, is that Alan revered Booker. After Alan retired sometime after midnight, my friend and I basically laughed with Roland Hanna, who had a hearty laugh, until about 4 AM, when my friend's wife got up to go to work.
In my "music office", I have a second high back desk chair. I came across a giant plush sheepskin in my recent reorganization, and I threw it over the chair. So, I was sitting here listening to some intense music with my eyes closed. I squinted them open and nearly jumped out of my seat because the image of a giant abominable snow woman came into sight. My nerves settled when I realized it was the sheepskin. I gotta stop drinking dark roast coffee all day long.
I’m iffy on bop/hard bop. I think I’m also bigger on piano and percussion than something like the trumpet.
np: Brad Mehldau Trio - Anything Goes One of my favorites, has a nice relaxed feel compared to some of the live recordings with the same line up. I believe one of the last sessions with Jorge Rossy.
Perhaps you've said and I missed it but are your impressions of the fully unfolded MQA version or the regular CD version on these discs? I have the MQA Jazz sampler that came out a couple of years ago and still haven't gotten around to doing a shoot out with Blakey's Moanin' that I have on SHM-SACD. I've held off on buying MQA discs because of what seems like more digital rights management.
Two people on the Arcam CDS50 thread claim the player now supports MQA. I could find no reference in either the manual or firmware notes, so I am not completely sure what I am listening to. I just know the jazz masterings done specifically for MQA discs I have heard are really good. I also have the MQA of The Velvet Underground & Nico (stereo, flat transfer) on the way, it's been delayed since 30 March from CD Japan. Somethin' Else might sound exactly like the SHM-SACD for all I know, since I don't have that disc.
And speaking of Blakey, I got an order in this week from Acoustic Sounds that included Blakey with Monk on LP from Analog Spark. Absolutely killer and right up there with a Tone Poet or MMJ pressing. This is my first record from Analog Spark and probably not my last. Highly recommended.
If your Arcam is like my Oppo 205 there should be some indication that MQA is in operation. But if it's just the bog standard CD layer that you're impressed with, I take that as a very good sign!
