The roster might suffer a little bit but Pierre has one of the great contemporary piano players Larry Willis as his A&R man.I sold jazz CD's (or ranbnthe section in shop where we also aols B&W,Krell,Mac,Mid fi etc) and had four trust builders.Being fan oz Young -Zoot-Cohn- to say Hay Allen and Scot hamilton today light line I have alwayus enjoyed thos cats and players who could feel at home in aromatntic swing idiom or kick out the jams in the Webster Hawkins Gonsalens Rouse mode (kind of like ray Bryant on keys who could play in ANY idiom!).
I would tell people get 1)Charles Rouse "Unsung Hero" on CBS.Was his awesome Epic LP "Yeah!" and half a Bethlehem LP he shared with Seldon Powell ("We Payed our dues" for those still collecting/paying original pressings prices now that there in the stratosphere.Another great Charlie Rouse who mainly known as Monks last and longest side man (altter forming "Sphere" with Kneny Baron,Buster Williams and Monks drfummer Benn Riley.His final CD was a great swab song with Sihab Shihab ,The expoatirot multi reedist mster and they played thier asses off going out like the Lions they were on "Atablemates (Uptown Records) 2)Eddie Higgins with Ray Drummond and Ben Riley" called "Haunted Heart"t.As smooth and perfect as a lush romantic a trio CD could be,Bill Evans (a freind of Higgins as he told me in a club once)at his best level (no shit!) 3)Any of the Venus "24 Bit Hyper Magnum Sound " CD's LP's (but get CD because of dynamic range.Best horn players and piano guys recorded prefectly.Better than JVC XRCD.Try and of the 4 Archie Shepp Ballad LP's ("True Blue","True Ballds" etc) all recorded by same group over a few days .Chilling how life like they are and for me possibly the best recorded jazz ever from a sonic viewpoint.Lp's ad tatcile sound but again dynamic range makes it owrth CD.Also they re-released good stuff like some Al Haig Lp's like "I love You" off Interplay.As good as anything Classic has put oput in re-issue and proves great Lp's can be sources from digital.Bad one s like 80's Stones LP's were screwed up by the "5th Beatle"- engineer who see themselves as "the additional artist" and mess up a poerfectly good master.In the 80's these guys made bad digital transfers for CD and then used those digital tapes to make crappy LP's, when they perfectly good analogue tapes were still availible-but then "digital" was sexy.Since about 1995n engineers started to understand digital and all Red Book CD's have goten better.Listen to Creedence CLeawater Revivals CD's in 80's and new ones with K2 20 bit transfer.Same for the Fantasy/Prestige catalogue.Listen to new versus old Kenny Dorham "Quiet Kenny" CD.Night and day!! Or of course new Miles "Kind of Blue" which is now correct speed and sounds great! (I have 5 diferent CD pressings of that LP (including one South African)and each such one stinks until the last two and a slightly better Japan Press (but that is no gurantee as many know).Only took them 4 maybe 5 re-issues to get it right.
But right after Venus are some Mappleshade's.Best is Clifford Jordan's "live At Ethell's" where volume setings are achieved through seting the distance of performer to mike pre-recording (likew was done by Rudy Van Gelder and everyone in the 50's ( and long before) not knob twisting Like all Mappleshades they use hi-end Omega Mikro (The hi-end Mappleshades cable line ) with the shortest cable possible,modified mikes and STRAIGHT to two track tape.NO BOARD i.e.no EQ,no compression,no expansion,no filtering etc.The result is so clear You can hear the flutter of fingers across the keys on the Sax and breathing in the room.It's the CD of Mappleshades to get.Cliffford Jordan never made a bad CD under his name just some lesser ones.(also check out his wonderful "Two Tenor Winner " with with Junior Cook)But Mappleshades "Live At Ethells is a MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!!Trust me.I sold it for 6 years abd got 99 out of 100 people say it (and they) were incredible.If not they really wanted smooth jazz a'la Rick Braun or some crap like that.Not that I couldn't reccomend Fusion clasic like "Return to Forever" ot go back to the "Hot Fives and Sevens" but this tuff wasaccessibl;e and terrific.IMHO.
Chazzbo
