The Tord Gustavsen Trio from Norway has only released two CDs so far, but those two shot to the top of my list within seconds upon release – not a bad feat if you consider that the list is several thousand CDs long – and they have remained at the top of the list ever since they got there. You could say that I have become addicted to them and that what we have here is one of those extremely rare occurences: 2 CDs I don’t seem to be getting tired of, at all. Continue Reading →
I have to admit that I have never held a project in my hands like this one. I do have boxed sets collecting an artist’s entire output that can’t match this one, I have label compilations that don’t reach the number of tunes on this collection and I have some lavishly-produced boxes that somehow don’t impress as much as this one does.
Hell, the entire background to this boxed set is about as unique as they come. Continue Reading →
God, I don’t know how often I hit the various online shops to check for prices … until I managed to snatch up a copy for 60 Euro on Amazon.fr. In December of 2004, Christmas came two weeks early to this household when “Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944)”, a ten-disc collection the size of a 78 album sleeve, arrived here in pristine-perfect mint condition.
Before I unpacked this stunning box, I opened one of the better wines I had left (a difficult-to-find 1992 “Puyfromage” from one of the smaller vineyards in southern France) and sat there sipping my wine while looking at the as-yet unopened Amazon package. Continue Reading →
Once in a while CDs just sneak up on me. More often than not they have been lying around forever and suddenly, while crawling around in front of my jazz collection, which is housed in low shelves, CDs literally jump out at me. I just have too many CDs and when the bug bites me, I try to listen to sessions I haven’t heard at all or just sampled and shelved away for some reason.
I wonder what went wrong when I went on a Monty Alexander and Ray Brown buying binge and stowed the CDs away. I was probably hooked on some other stuff (I did buy the CDs discussed below just when I entered one of those retro fits after having purchased the remastered Status Quo back catalog, which transported me back to my childhood and lots of air guitar playing in my 9 square-meter room at the time, so that might be an explanation). Continue Reading →
I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” Well, color yourself happy and call me shallow or just – as I do – go for Seneca instead: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” No matter what, I was damn lucky, and in my present circumstances that is not something that’s lurking around every corner. Several stars must have been aligned just right: I stumbled into this godforsaken CD shop populated by people who did not really know what they were selling. The usual money-making machinery. It was early in the morning, just after they had opened for the day. They were shop-cleaning, removing Britney Spears to be replaced with, err, Mariah Carey. All in all, a perfect day for jazz lovers.
As I was leafing through their jazz section, which consisted mostly of no-name, cheap, and copyright-free CD re-releases of the worst quality, interspersed with some better stuff (none of it recent), I saw this thicker ring-bound CD collection sticking out. To be perfectly honest, I had no idea what I was looking at. The cover is rather weird and only upon closer inspection are the words “London House” and “Oscar Peterson” discernible – most of the rest is illegible at best. Considering the low quality surrounding this find, I didn’t really expect much but still, I decided to have a closer look. Continue Reading →
If this isn’t the most daunting task ever, I don’t know what is. In 2009, Motown will celebrate its Golden Anniversary and by that time, all 12 projected volumes of “The Complete Motown Singles” are supposed to be available for those unable to track down the more than 800 seven-inch records or more than 16,000 recordings those 800 platters add up to. These stunning limited boxed sets (5000 non-numbered copies) will also certainly save you some space, and the remastering adds the final sonic touch to what is one of the most impressive back catalogs of the recording industry. It could be ALL yours if you have the cash. Continue Reading →
The problem with Jazz is that it’s old and because of that, many of the recordings are hard to come by or, at worst, simply unavailable. Add to that the absolutely shoddy reissue policy of major labels as well as the sometimes unbelievable prices for limited releases by labels such as Mosaic and out-of-print copies on eBay, and you are left with trying to find alternatives to get your fix.
In Europe – and this is something that bothers serious collectors – copyright laws are a bit different from the ones in the US, and recordings enter the public domain after 50 years. The problem is not that the music is available – after all, we’re tyring to feed our addiction – but that labels such as Fresh Sounds and Definitive Records don’t pay anyone anything for the reissues they put out. It’s pure profit for them. If you then think about the many jazz artists who lived or died in absolute poverty or the estates trying to preserve their legacy, things begin to look a bit more gloomy. Continue Reading →
Online music forums of all types are full of whining people. With that I don’t mean the usual online trolls and freaks, but those that constantly complain that their wallet cannot sustain their addiction to collecting music. One online mail order dealer that usually pops up in these “whiny” posts is Dusty Groove America. They’ve been called “bastards” (followed by a winking smiley) or “Dusty Grave” (followed by five thumbs up), but people have become as addicted to this shop as they have to collecting music. Continue Reading →
