Week 1 in Review

I'm not 100% sure how to go about this yet, but I feel like it might be a good idea to take a stop and look back at the end of a week and look at what The Albatross has dealt up.

There has been a pretty fair cross section of what makes up The Albatross. There was some fairly well known jazz, some stuff that perhaps only existed for a short period that I would never have run across had I not worked at the store. Some stuff that I may have thought would be a good idea but didn't turn out to be the case, and some tragic causalities. Let me run down the greater hits and misses:

Top Hits

The top discs, the ones that actually made it onto my diminutive MP3 player for casual listening pleasure:
Henry Mancini Music From Peter Gunn
UMO Jazz Orchestra Electrifying Miles
A sharp contrast, but as far feel, fairly similar dispite the drastically different approaches/instrumentation etc. Both are fairly groovin' in their own way and make good traveling tunes.

The misses - these would be discs that I've unchecked on the iTunes playback, music that I would end up skipping anyway:
Paul Brady Oh, What a World
After Hours 4
Paul Brady has his niche to be sure (at least five people liked him on the Amazon page) but it's just not my thing. And After Hours 4 just didn't live up to what I wanted "Acid Jazz" to mean.

Most Revisited goes to:
Spook! Henry Mancini.
Seriously, I can't get enough of that track.

Most Embarrassing - tracks that I would feel a need to explain should they pop up:
Have to go with Al Jolson. Perhaps I'm being too sensitive to something no one cares about, but when he starts imploring Mammy, I would definitely feel the need to explain why.

The Greatest Tragedy:
Has to be the empty Dirty Dozen Brass Band Voodoo. I would love to have had that old favorite saved on the hard drive.

Biggest Surprise:
The CD that surprised me the most, where my perception didn't match what I eventually heard, has to be The European Broadcasting Union Jazz Orchestra. I warmed to that CD over the course of listening to it a great deal and came to respect it.

I'm pretty happy with the project so far. I actually find myself impatiently waiting for the next set of CDs and it's good to make something of this lumbering beast. If you've been reading I hope you've enjoyed it and would dig any input. Be sure to join the Facebook group for updates and some insight to the process including pictures of the various stages of The Albatross and previews of upcoming CDs if you're interested in checking them out ahead of time. And, if you're so inclined, please feel free to pimp this through the social media of your choice, buttons are available to the right.

Thanks for taking the journey with me so far.