18-February-1999 -- Judith Hurley writes:

I'm looking for a CD by Roland Hanna called "Round Midnight". It's [apparently] out of print. Amazon.com, lists it but the site says they can't get it [because it is out-of-print by the label]. It was released on the [Malaco/]Town Crier label, according to a printout I got at Barnes and Noble. The date [of release] isn't clear and I have several conflicting pieces of information, but it's a relatively recent release [1990s]. I emailed a request to Birdland in Portland, so far no reply. Any ideas?

Judith, you weren't kidding when you said that you had received conflicting information regarding this recording. Let us tell you what all we found out in the WWW ether and then we will tell you what we think about it.

According to The All-Music Guide (http:/www.allmusic.com/) Sir Roland Hanna's "Round Midnight" was released on the Town Crier Label in March of 1987. The AMG lists this recording as being in print. Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com) indeed lists this recording, but does so as being out of print from the label, encouraging the reader to look back from time to time to see if it has been re-released. EVERYCD (http://www.everycd.com) lists "Round Midnight" as being available at the affordable price of $10.99. CDNow (http://www.cdnow.com) had no listing for this disc, either under Sir Roland Hanna or under the label name.

What does this all mean? We tend to trust what CDNow has to say. They typically have the most up-to-date catalog (never believe that any Internet music source catalogs are exactly up to date as that has never been our experience). We believe that this disc is no longer in print. Below are listed some sources of used and out-of-print CDs that we were able to identify from a WWW-wide search we conducted using Hotbot.com:

http://musicandmoviemart.com/ (Music Mart)

http://www.northfork.net/com/yankee/ (Yankee Search)

http://elusivedisc.com/ (Elusive Disc)

http://www.hungryheart.com/ (Hungry Heart)

http://www.gatefoldrecords.com/ (Gatefold Records)

http://www.atsar.com/ (Astar)

http://www.goboyrecords.com/ (Goboy Records)

We hope this helps..

13-February-1999 -- Don Crocker writes:

I have just read the notes on the back of Columbia's reissue of Miles' Kind of Blue. The claim, as you are no doubt aware, is that the original CD (the one I have, of course) is "off key" and that the new CD is musically true. Is there any validity to this? Since I made a tape of the album, bought the album, made a tape of the original CD and then bought the original CD ... am I nuts to be thinking about buying the reissue? Your comments and suggestions will be most appreciated.

Don, discussion of the tuning of Kind of Blue has elevated this fact to the point of urban myth. The in or out of tune-ness of this album tend to be a matter of interest or concern to only the most attentive and well-trained musicians. Kind of Blue (and Sketches of Spain) have been touted to be the jazz recordings owned most often by non-jazz listeners.

Our LTTE Editor is much like you. He owns the LP, the first CD released and the re-released Columbia Legacy disc. His reasoning is threefold for having purchased all of them: (1) the discs are purchased over a period of 20 years as they became available. At the very least the fidelity has improved from one release to the next. (2) The newest release has an alternate take of "Flamenco Sketches". And (3) This music is arguably the most import jazz release ever and there is nothing wrong with honoring it as such. So, no you are not nuts for wanting to buy this re-release. Some music one just must have. We think this is just such music. Thanks for the question and keep on reading.

06-February-1999 -- Katherine Digman writes:

I am looking for liner notes on a Prestige album which were written by Michael S. Harper. In these notes, he discusses some of his poetry, specifically notes on "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" and "Rueben, Rueben." I would assume that these would be on a John Coltrane album, but am not positive. If there is any way you could help me, I would greatly appreciate it. (Note: these poem were published in a 1970 book, so it is quite likely that they would appear on a contemplation of some sort, rather than an original Coltrane release, but again I am not sure).

Katherine, we searched high and low for these notes regarding Dr. Harper's comments regarding his poetry. Here is what we know:

Michael Harper's poem "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" was published in a 1970 collection of poetry with the same title. The poem itself contains references to Coltrane's album "A Love Supreme" which he recorded for Impulse! in 1964. Coltrane's Impulse! period was the last before his death in 1967, well after he had recorded for Prestige (He recorded for Atlantic between the two), so Dr. Harper's notes would probably not be in a Prestige Coltrane compilation. We have looked in the liner notes of the Coltrane Impulse! compilation and were unable to find such notes Dr. Harper's e-mail address is Michael_Harper@brown.edu. It was published his web site. You may want to write him directly.

If any Jazz Poetry buffs reading this can help out our inquirer, please write to Katherine Digman.

06-February-1999 -- George Henegar writes:

When I was in my teens, I was growing up in the Chicago area. I used to sit up at night and listen to the Yvonne(sp?) Daniels and Sid McCoy show on the radio. I used to love that cool jazz they played. That was in the '63-'65 era. I have been trying to find out who was popular back then, so I can kind of re-create my youth. Well, of course, I know some names but not the songs and albums. Now we have this tremendous thing called Internet. Do you have any suggestions on where to look?

George, here you are asking for our trade secrets. And you know what? Unbeknownst to our LTTE Editor, we are going to let you know. When asked a question such as yours, the first place we will go is to the All-Music Guide Web Page (http://www.allmusic.com) and search for the individuals in question under artist. For example, we were able to find information about Sid McCoy, but nothing about Yvonne Daniels. Next, we may probe the entire Internet and our search engine of choice is Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com) where we would search for the names as exact phrases. Once this information was acquired, we might query the larger Internet music providers such as CD Universe, CDNOW, or EVERYCD. That is typically what we do. But don't let the editor know we let you in on this, because he may think we are trying to give away the farm in trade secrets. Mums the word, man. Good Luck searching and please keep on reading.

01-February-1999 -- David Douglas writes:

I am looking for a CD recording of the original "Music from Peter Gunn" the TV series of the '60's, by Henry Mancini. It was originally released on RCA. I saw it once a couple of years ago as a German import and am kicking myself for not getting it at the time. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

David, the closest thing that we were able to find was a BMG Import (making it a German one) entitled "More Music From Peter Gunn. This is the music from the NBC television series, composed and conducted by Mr. Mancini. This CD release (BMG M13547) is part of the "Living Stereo" RCA series who have also been releasing a good deal of Fritz Reiner and Leopold Stowkowski recordings. These recordings have been remastered and have very good sound. This may be what you are looking for. Thanks for the question and please keep reading.

01-February-1999 -- Vincent Sabella writes:

Please tell me if you can, if The Complete Capitol Recordings of Bill Holman and Bill Russo include the tracks from 1955 Stan Kenton LP "Contemporary Concepts"? Some of those tracks include: "Cherokee", "Stompin' at Savoy" "What's New", "Yesterdays", "Stella by Starlight". I have been searching for those for years, and would greatly appreciate your research.

Vincent, we were able to track down information regarding the recordings you are referring to, but, sadly, none are presently in print. Stan Kenton's Contemporary Concepts was released on Creative World Records (St-1003) July 20, 1955 and later on Capitol (T-666). These tracks were subsequently assembled by Michael Cuscuna at Mosaic Records and Released as The Complete Capitol Recordings of Bill Holman (4-136) in a limited edition that due to its limited nature, went out of print. I would not fear, we are beginning to see the reissue of a good bit of the Kenton catalog by Capitol under the direction of Cuscuna and Bob Belden. So, we expect to see Contemporary Concepts back on the market. The editor owned a vinyl copy of the Capitol release and he enjoyed it very much. Thanks for the question and for reading AAJ.