Today's JAZZ playlist

Yes, exactly! And these were some of the greatest musicians who ever played. When I listen to some of the group stuff, you just want to follow the fascinating harmonies and lines Tatum is playing. It's like when the horn player stops, the tension goes away, and now we can get into what we should have been hearing all along. And this is said with absolutely no disrespect to the great players playing with Tatum. Everyone does their best to make it work, but Tatum just doesn't need anybody. What the horn player sometimes plays, doesn't always jell harmonically with what Tatum is doing. This reminds me of how sometimes pianists, have to watch what they are playing when they are playing behind a singer. I remember reading Tommy Flanagan talking about how he had to do that, when he played with Ella Fitzgerald. The pianist he said, can't be as adventurous harmonically. But wait now - I think I remember Flanagan saying that they couldn't be as harmonically adventurous as they could be playing with an instrumentalist. So I think in Tatum's case, HIS harmonic approach was just so fascinatingly different, that he had the same dilemma that Flanagan is talking about, but with instrumentalists.

The trio album with Jo Jones and Red Callender works, because they are accompanying Tatum. Tatum's is the main voice. If you listen to "Just One Of Those Things" and "Love For Sale", it's intense. They add something to what he is doing, driving him to amazing rhythmic heights in the trio format. Not that Tatum needed them either. But Tatum takes their support and goes off like a rocket on those tunes, and works with their rhythmic backing so beautifully throughout the album.

The sessions with Hampton and Rich work well in my opinion, because when Hampton plays, it's almost like two keyboards jamming. He does a lot of stretching out with Tatum and it just seems to work. And Rich provides solid rhythmic support.

I'll give those side preference next time I pull this behemoth out.
 
I'm Catching up.... You are soooo right. I am a huge Heathkit fan and that particular brand is kind of snubbed on some boards. I recently completed a rebuild of a 1971 built unit with my son for his high school project. You all might remember as I presented it to everyone here. (Thanks again for the encouragement guys!!). I used a new selection of caps and replaced some critical ones with real polystyrene's. Well on sort of a lark I took it to a local "audiofile" store as they have a "test and tune" every once in a while where you can hook up your gear to their super duper $10,000 per piece equipment. To make a long story short, they were blown away by the music coming out of their Diamond 802 D3's ($15,000) by my little Heathkit receiver. They offered me $2000 for it on the spot. We were hooked up to a reel to reel and then a turntable and both times everyone was very impressed. We then hooked it up to a set of restored Klipsh corner horns and were once again very impressed. Both setups sounded as good and in some instances better then some of their really high priced(overpriced) gear. I of course took some of my favorite tunes, Buddy Rich's Keep the Customer Satisfied and a reel to reel of Nancy Wilson and Cannonball(my dads). I must say I liked the corner horns better then the Diamonds. But the little Heathkit held its own against their stuff. The Diamonds did handle the crap music a bit better (they actually played rap).

Anyway, it was a very enlightening experience. Yea, the newer gear has all the great bells and whistles but with the right selection of rebuild components and correct selection of parts and pieces, our old $1000 dollar gear sounds every bit as good as their $10,000 gear. Ours might be a bit behind in lab stats but I don't listen to lab stats I listen to Music.

Well done. Very well done. My congratulations.
 
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An interesting one I picked up. Its all compositions of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) performed by the Woody Herman Band from 1978. A very interesting and a good look into the jazz side of the heart and soul of "The Dan". Of course the Woody Herman Band is spectacular in its execution of every piece. It says something when a master like Woody says he was impressed with Aja.
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Hey Chris , I just reread your post carefully and I think I understand exactly where your coming from and I agree with you....:beerchug:

QUOTE="FOH Engineer, post: 10408459, member: 251600"]Who said that stuff?? I might be misunderstanding your post. ..the guys here on this thread including you get it when it comes to love of music...The post I made has nothing to do with posting playlists, but I understand and agree with everything you said...There a weeks I listen to 20+ hours of live music! and still love sitting at home spinning albums....What I was referring to is gear snobs that buy gear as status and don't really care about music as such , but prefer to have bragging rights on gear ownership...While I own as much music gear as anyone, it's immaterial to me how much gear costs, and even less about stats...For me it's all about what the ears think.
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Yeah, I think we're on the same page.

Yesterday and today is actually a perfect example for me.
I've been on a 60s Ike Quebec jag since the end of the work day.
A Cd on the living room system, followed by a "regular" FLAC file, then a 24/96 vinyl rip in FLAC, another FLAC on the cans before bed, and now I'm streaming his 45 Sessions via Hoopla through earbuds while waiting for my kid's dance class to end.
And I've enjoyed ALL of it.

Man, Quebec's later period Blue Note stuff really hits the spot for me.
I really need to get a list together and get the ones I don't already have.
 
Well done. Very well done. My congratulations.
It was fun. Here's the whole story... I had expectations of being pretty good but not as good as I thought. They ended up hooking us up to an a/b/c switch and the 1971 Heathkit was pitted against an Anthem MRX 1112 ($3500) and then a Denon AVR-X4300($1200). I thought I was being bias but I thought my old receiver actually sounded better then these guys. It was kind of funny as they had a customer who was looking at the Denon and was very impressed with the sound until they switched over to the Heathkit. The owner of the place just stood there listening to Buddy Rich and the band absolutely hammering "Groovin Hard" at about 1/2 volume. When it finished he started playing some ELO(Electric Light Orchestra) from a reel to reel and wow!! It sounded good when "Telephone Line" started. the customer, who was purchasing a Denon like I was pitted against said. "I want that one, does it come with blue tooth" I just kind of giggled and said, "Ahhh no, its a 1966 design and its a 1971 receiver, so no blue tooth or 9.2 or 7.1 or any of that stuff. Just stereo". He said "Too bad it sounds darn good" That's when the owner butted in and said "They don't and won't make em like that anymore." Of course all this time My son was just Beaming as he was the one that put almost 50 hours into it. We were well pleased and celebrated our success with a dinner at Ruth's Chris. All good fun and going to that store was very enlightening as the employees and the owner all enjoyed the nostalgia and the head to head comparisons made. We all enjoyed the Music regardless of what system it was coming from. Needless to say My son is hooked on the hobby.

Its fun when you can get together with folks that really are into our hobby.
 
An interesting one I picked up. Its all compositions of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) performed by the Woody Herman Band from 1978. A very interesting and a good look into the jazz side of the heart and soul of "The Dan". Of course the Woody Herman Band is spectacular in its execution of every piece. It says something when a master like Woody says he was impressed with Aja.
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Probably not Jazz but the second side of this record is all big band arrangements of songs from Aja.....so I was forced to dig out "The Dan"
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I'll give those side preference next time I pull this behemoth out.

And of course, all this "critiquing" is not done in any way to slight these sessions. I love them. I may feel that Roy Eldridge's Verve sides with Oscar Peterson for example, may work better for Roy, if you know what I mean, but I dig what he and Tatum were doing together, as well as what the other musicians were doing. Long live different settings and approaches, and thank God the Tatum group sessions were made.
 
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