kenny weir

More than that, I was thinking today. I know there were things such as Louis Armstrong and Jimmie Rodgers recording together, but as far as I know the Ardoin sides with Denis McGee are really the first significant, concerted body of work in American music that blurred the colour line. I first saw Lynn play - drums - a few years before he went zydeco, in a trio with Warren Storm and Willie Tee at a Lafayette motel. Do The Freeze, babay!

Yeah, that's the sort of connection I'm thinking of. Sadly, I only saw Clifton once - at JazzFest, late '80s - and it was near the end. I also liked the first couple of albums by CJ, but that was a whole other thing. And I dug the hell out of Lynn August's albums - he played up the trad side of things, too, while having a booming R&B sound. Went on the road with him for two gigs in Houston! Is he still around?

Yeah, you're right. But still, that stuff does seem to have more of a traditional feel to it when compared to the R&B blast of Clifton's Specialty sides, which seemed to come pretty much out of nowhere.

I have the Arhoolie set, plus six cuts Columbia's Cajun Dance Party: Fais Do Do ... so I guess I'll pass on this. Especially as the Bear Family JD Miller set is about to be released. And the complete Bristol Sessions. $$$$$$ I agree about the Chenier/Monroe analogy. But for me Chenier was prettty much a one-off. I suspect there's a whole other cajunesque zydeco tradition that does draw on Ardoin. Stuff found on the Arhoolie set of early zydeco, for instance. What say you?

Different company, but Borders in Oz also belly up.

Huh?

Wow - I must be some kind of sicko. I've just read every word on Pug's blog about Hoffman and found it all far more interesting than anything on SHF. Fascinating!

We were burgled a couple of weeks ago - after kicking in the back door, the only they took was my Apple laptop. Strange - doesn't your average junkie crim value Bear Family and Mosaic boxes? Anyway, within 24 hours I was equipped with a refurbished, cleaned, near as new three-year-old iMac for $600 that actually suits my needs better.

My first reaction was "I want it I want it I want it". But then I thought, hold on - I don't even play much of the GD stuff I do have. And then I thought of all the different artists I'd get if I went out and bought 60 CDs. Then I thought about the Bristol sessions and Jay Miller cajun sets coming out on Bear Family this year - a much higher priority for me these days. The, ahem, issues they're having are mind-boggling. I've been watching this ongoing train wreck for years now. Fuck 'em. cdbaby, County Records, Arhoolie, cdconnection, Amazon, Worlds Records, Archeophone, sometimes Mosaic - places I buy from and never have "issues".

Good deal! And credit, too, to the great majority of Australians, who seem to have taken it all in their stride, beaten by a far better teams etc etc.

The story has morphed into the newspaper's self-defeating efforts to kill a viral vid that was doing it nothing but good: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/extras/2011/goldenvoice/dispatch-statement.html

Is this a forthcoming project? Details? D'ya have news on Bear Family J Miller project - number of discs, format? Excited about that one!

Great post, Allen! Does he think you're hot shit, too?

I agree, Steve. My hunch is way over half of the people interested in this set will have a great deal of the material already. I understand the points made by Jazztrain, and don't blame them for trying to cover the bases and perhaps even snag some non-nutjob customers. But it's disappointing nonetheless, especially - as you point out - as there's even more stuff out there.

Oh man, so happy this one is finally out! But - shit, really, they've included the Milton Brown sides? Those plus the Bruner, Tillman, Newman cuts and a few Dunn tracks mean I already have almost half of this set. Bummer. I'll have to think about it. Seems to me a pretty decent slice of the potential customers for this will be facing the same dilemma.

There's a version on Joe Sample's Did You Feel That? For me this is a one-off classic of modern funky soul jazz, with some great cooking grooves and fellow Crusaders on board. Just listening to it now, I'm afraid to say Sidewinder is prolly the weakest cut.

I assume you are aware that JSP has often "borrowed" masterings from the likes of Mosaic and Bear Family? BF won a lawsuit against JSP for stealing their Carter Family masterings - see this article. Oh yeah, up with all that. I would never buy the JSP sets concerned. But as pointed out above, some of their sets ARE well-researched and well-restored, and unique. The Cantors Klezmorim & Crooners and Carmichael sets, for instance. I'm uneasy about aspects of the whole JSP thing, but have drawn my own personal line at a place with which I'm mostly comfortable. What do you do, J.A.W? Boycott them completely?

I've picked up three of cut-price sets over two orders. Blind Blake - looking forward to getting to know an artist with whom I've only minimal exposure Memphis Jug Band with Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers Cantors Klezmorim & Crooners 1905-1953: Classic Yiddish 78s From the Mayrent Collection. 3cd set. This looks like one of those "more 'curated' sets". Very cool! It seems very hard to draw a hard yes/no line with JSP. And certainly a few reviews I've seen indicate a misunderstanding of what they're about. In the Penguin blues guide, for instance, the guy disses the Texas Blues set because it ignores many major Texan artists. That's NOT what JSP does in many cases. What they do do, as in the Texas set, is simply cobble together a whole bunch of loosely related artists and put it out there. Not a lot of curating going on. Other reviews at Amazon repeatedly whine about sound quality. But these are from folks who simply have little or no exposure to pre-war recordings of any kind. As one wag put it: "It's Paramount!" Another interesting thing: It's obvious to us here that in many, many cases JSP doesn't even aspire to the sound/production/research levels of Bear Family or Mosaic. Yet some of their sets start gaining collector prices; whether that's because they're actually OOP I don't know. They include from my racks (current lowest Aamzon price in brackets): Eddie Condon ($100 secondhand, $160 new) Texas Blues ($70) Western Swing And Country Jazz ($28, though I've seen it higher. Only source I know for the classic Smokey Wood sides!) Mountain Blues ($50) As well, I just noticed the Buddy Guy set going for $50 secondhand and $500 new! And the first Bill Monroe for $140 minimum and Masters Of Memphis Blues ($42).

Not feeling good about this - I'll be surprised if the outcome is as good as it was for the Chileans. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/explosion-at-pike-river-coal-coal-mine-in-new-zealand/story-e6frf7jo-1225956616227

Interesting thread ... My first reaction was to not read it at all because it would just make me feel guilty. After a little more thought, I realised I have been making changes. One of the best, inspired by my late dad's bowel cancer and my own issues wit lack of fibre, is to have made our own homemade muesli/porridge for the past year or so. Basically: 2 x 1kg bags generic brand rolled oats 1 x 1kg gb crushed oats 1 x 500g gb dates, chopped 1 x 250g gb almonds chopped 1 x 250g gb sultanas. Mix all and store. Soak two handfuls per person overnight with lite milk. Eat, heated or not, with chopped fresh fruit and topped with low-fat yogurt and cinnamon. Having this every day - and it's become such a mainstay I don't even think about going out for breakfast, something that used to be common - has improved my quality of life A LOT. As well, it's cheap - it's frightening how much packaged and pricey breakfast cereals a 54yo dad and 10yo son can go through. I was also, at first, inclined to consider the fact that I finally got 'round to starting a blog dedicated to the mostly ethnic cheap eats found on our western side of Melbourne. (Melbourne's west is what in America is referred to as the wrong side of the tracks. We have plenty of tracks; also a lot of trucks, industry, pollution, poverty and associated social ills. But it's home now. The idea of living on the "better" side of town seems absurd - as does the idea of living more 15 minutes drive from the nearest bowl of pho.) But the truth is, blogging-related meals average about two a week, and while they can be wildly unhealthy, they can also be real healthy (pho). Got to be careful, though - when it comes to butter, oil and fat of all kinds: My Indian, African (Ethiopian, Sudanese, Eritrean, Somalian), Middle Eastern and multi-Asian neighbours are devoid of fear or - frequently - any restraint at all! At home, vegetarian Indian and non-vegetarian Italian are our mainstays, mostly very healthy and again made easy by the resources in our back yard.

I'm not into computers. I don't even have a mobile phone. Despite my jest about being a convert, I don't consider myself a part of the Apple family. But I DO like the fact that, as it stands and granting the situation may change, I can get on with what I want to do without fucking with computers. It's that simple.

Ha ha - count me a convert, if not a zealot. Yet. I have the most bog standard entry level Apple laptop. Yet when it came time to start a blog, I was relieved to find that between Apple and wordpress.com, it was unnecessary to upgrade. I'm doing fine with that as is. I like the ease of use and security aspects. High prices? Depends on your perspective, I guess.

This doesn't fit my experience. Check out book listings on ebay and you will find that books don't sell AT ALL! Music cds still sell--at reduced prices, for sure, but they still sell. We're not maybe talking about the same thing. I can offload eight months worth of books here in Melbourne at a couple of places I've found where they don't cherry pick, just take the whole lot. Don't get much, but it's steady. With CDs I find folks are more picky - my minority tastes probably have something to do with it. Ebay? When we're talking about low prices, I can't see the profit in the hassle of doing the mailing - unless you're doing it all the time and in volume.

What I find is that, Mosaics and Bear Families aside, CDs - once bought - are worth so little that it's hardly worth the bother of selling them. Books I don't get so much for, but they seem to be holding their value better. At Melbourne bricks & mortars and the likes of Powells, recent releases are at least half the new price.