It's crazy, I thought I'd have 9 or 10 hours more every day to get things done after retiring from my day job at the end of December, but that hasn't happened.

If anything I've been busier than ever and the days whiz by, and before I know it the day is over! How can that be?

One of the things I have been having fun doing is running down records that I've been wanting to get my hands on, and I've found Discogs to be an incredibly handy resource to do that.

Discogs opens up a worldwide market for finding records, and pretty much you can find anything you want in any condition you are willing to pay for if you exercise a little patience. Highly recommended.

Usually my purchases from Discogs run less than $20 USD, for records in near mint condition.

One of my goals has been to build my collection of music by guitar players, first because I love listening to people playing the guitar, and secondly listening to records by guitar players keeps me motivated to practice playing my own guitars, in hopes that I'll improve my own playing.

First up is Together by jazz guitarists Larry Coryell (April 2, 1943 - February 19, 2017) and Emily Remler (September 18, 1957 - May 4, 1990), both sadly deceased now.

Together was released in 1985 on the Concord Jazz label, and proudly features the words "A Digital Recording" on the front cover.

The fact that it was a digital recording put me off at first, but it turns out that I needn't have been concerned, as this is a great sounding record in spite of its digital origins.

On my Thorens TD 124 with the Audio MusiKraft Denon DL-103 the overall presentation was warm and inviting, with beautiful tone and nuance, and the musical interplay of post bop jazz between Larry and Emily is sublime.

Together inspired me to get Larry's autobiography Improvising, which I just started reading, and is an easy recommendation for those of interested in guitarists and the life of Larry Coryell.

By the way, check out my new page here at Jeff's Place, The Bookshelf, which lists some recommendable books about audio and music.

Larry grew up where I live, and I had the good fortune to study guitar with the gentleman who taught him how to play jazz guitar way back when, John La Chapelle, a marvelous human being, a fantastic jazz guitarist, and a friend that I got to spend far too little time with before he passed.

That's Larry and John in the photo above playing some songs together in a concert for us locals some years ago, and it was a magical night of superb jazz!

Anyways, if you run across Together by Larry Coryell and Emily Remler be sure to snatch it up, you won't be sorry, it's a great record of guitar jazz that quickly became a favorite of mine.

Another treasure I found on Discogs was the Ted Greene album Solo Guitar. 

Ted Green (September 26, 1946 -July 25, 2005) was a remarkable jazz fingerstyle guitarist, studio musician, author of important books on guitar playing, math whiz, and guitar instructor, but chances are you may never have heard of him.

Discogs mistakenly refers to Solo Guitar as "acoustic" jazz, but it is not. Rather, Ted Green played a highly modified Fender Telecaster that rather amazingly rivals any classic jazz box like the Gibson L-5 for tone.

This is a wonderful album of solo guitar jazz and is well recorded (mastered by Bernie Grundman), and I highly recommend it.

Discogs says, "Two different covers exist with same catalog number and same matrix etching," so don't let the cover throw you if you see one different that the one pictured above.

Ok, that's all for now!

As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!