One Night In 1955

I was at a thrift store in a different town today. And it's kind of fun to go to these because the stuff hasn't already been picked over -- by me. The thrift stores in my own town, I'm a regular, so if they haven't got anything new, I'm the first to notice.

I like to pick up CDs, because you can get them fairly cheap. One I got by Bjork, called "Homogenic." I'm not big into listening to her albums, but I have listened to them. But I always think it's worthwhile to pick up whatever there is. I have a couple of others, now this one. I'm happy to get it because I see at All Music Guide that this is rated at 5 stars. Pretty good, huh? I listened to the first few songs ... just my first dabbling ... and I liked it. But that's not a review.

One I got that I regret, a Camden CD (budget in the first place) called "The Original Recordings of Glenn Miller." I was already on to this one, since I've looked at albums for many years. It's not only short but it still has the old cover and they retained the line about stereo effect from monophonic. Just listening to the first couple songs, it didn't sound like it to me, which is an improvement. But the songs seem to have some distortion around the edges, listening on earbuds. And that's no good. Being a budget album, it is very short ... and not good.

The other four I got were jazz CDs, which I like sometimes. Put them on and jazz out. Not always but once in a while. They're cool looking and if I had more time to listen to music, I'd step right through them, yessir. One I did listen to all the way through, while doing other things. That's Duke Ellington's "Piano Reflections," recorded in 1953. The sound is excellent and it's quite a nice listening experience. I got "The Best of Art Tatum" on Pablo. Haven't listened to it or to the Ray Brown Trio's "Don't Get Sassy," but both look like super CDs. The fourth jazz one is "The Oscar Peterson Trio at Zardi's," recorded one night in 1955. I read the brief All Music Guide review of this one and it sounds pretty good. I listened to the first track only and it's clear as a bell. You can hear some of the ambience of the place. The applause sounds like there's about 20 people there. Nice CDs, that one being a two CD set.

I like the sense of that for some weird reason, a trio is recorded one night in 1955, it's basically forgotten, then put out in the '90s, and it's all right there for us to listen to, note by note.