Tom Storer

I resisted, I think, until around 1986 or 1987. I deduce this because I have some vinyl from around then. I gave in when the local record store switched all wall displays to CDs and put the LPs off in their own little corner. But I have never collected either LPs or CDs. I just buy them and they accumulate.

Was Gerry Mulligan a junkie? I thought he was just a serious drinker.

Happy birthday, Jim! And many happy returns.

Good for a laugh: China to Stop Spying on its People; Will Use Facebook Instead

Here's a neat little tool that will check that your Facebook privacy settings don't expose your information to the whole world: http://www.reclaimprivacy.org

RIP, Hank. One of the must-have trios under his own name was "Oracle" w. Dave Holland and Billy Higgins. I'll be giving that a spin tonight.

I hope Hank pulls though whatever current health crisis he is in, but the end is in sight for anyone who is 92. I wish him a soft landing when the time comes.

Some questions... How do we know these people are really virgins? What's to keep a non-virgin from trying to cash in? (Now that I think of it, I could use some cash myself. Hmmm.) Is the bidding cash only? What if some bidder offers his or her hand in marriage? How would that be evaluated? Is it heterosexual only? Can gay virgins apply? If a young man virgin is bid on by both men and women, will his wishes be respected or does he just have to submit to the highest bidder? How do we know the virgins (assuming that's what they are) will actually be deflowered? Will the proceedings be filmed? Will the deflowerings take place right in the TV studio? In a hotel room? In a harem tent? What happens if the deflowering, for some reason, is not successful? Say a highest bidder proves to be impotent? Will the second-highest bidder be ushered in?

You can indeed delete your Facebook account, by following the instructions Bill Barton gave above. As for email requests, here's what happens: say you're on Facebook and you think, "say, I wonder if Chris Albertson is on Facebook? I'd like him to be my FACEBOOK FRIEND!" You search FB for Chris using an email address you have for him. If that address is not associated with a Facebook account, you get the option to send him an email to invite him to Facebook. That's all--it's just the same as, say, YouTube providing a form to let you share a YouTube link with someone by email. The only way to avoid that sort of thing is not to give your email address to anyone. The reason Facebook requests come frequently enough to annoy is simply that Facebook is very popular.

Actually, yes, they are very different. Ornette asks questions and thinks about what it is to be human, Jarrett congratulates himself on how special he is. Contrast this: "So if life and death are already understood, what are we doing?" with this: "Charlie and I are obsessed with beauty. An ecstatic moment in music is worth the lifetime of mastery that goes into it." That said, I loved the fact that this quote of Ornette sounds like he could be talking about Jarrett: "I think he’s singing pure spiritual,” he said. “He’s making the sound of what he’s experiencing as a human being, turning it into the quality of his voice, and what he’s singing to is what he’s singing about. We hear it as ‘how he’s singing.’ But he’s singing about something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad." I can't abide Jarrett's Standards Trio or his solo albums, but I'll definitely check out the duos with Haden.

He was a fine writer. As a reader who didn't know him personally, I would argue with him in my head if my opinions went against his, and as Doug Ramsey said, arguing with him was a valuable experience. "Singers and the Song" is a classic. R.I.P.

If any board member owns that collection, please come to the white courtesy phone.

I don't suppose there's any known source for that first American Pop collection? I didn't even find it on eBay.

The Iverson blog on Waldron is here, incidentally. It's a good article. I haven't commented in this thread because Waldron is one of my least favorite pianists, but Iverson manages both to pay homage to a musician he counts as a vital influence, and to describe all the things I don't like about him... I know Waldron speaks to many. With rare exceptions, I can't get with it, and the above quotes address many of my difficulties with him. That's my problem, but I'm glad, and pretty impressed, that Iverson can describe things so objectively that even when praising, his evidence helps understand the opposite viewpoint.

That shock of the web community after years of solitary train-spotting is probably not quite the same phenomenon for younger people who have grown up with web access, and whose trainspotting developed in that very context. But I was well into my thirties when the web started to explode and I discovered jazz message boards. For years I had been the one guy in my successive social circles with an obsessive interest in jazz; it was exciting when I had a single friend in the same city who shared the passion. Therefore, like Bev said, my tastes were rarely challenged and my authority was accepted as a matter of course. Comes the web and boom, I'm just another schmoe who doesn't know even a fraction of it all. After that first cold shower, though, what an amazing opportunity.

Hope you liked the 40 beers and didn't drive the truck into the lake. Heh heh. This reminded me of Dylan Thomas's blurb for a Flann O'Brien book--"This is just the book to give your sister – if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl."

This is a great thread. I'm taking notes of the recommendations. May I recommend Levon Helm's 2007 "Dirt Farmer," a sort of comeback album after a bout with throat cancer. Very rootsy and old-timey with a sort of rustic rock feel, lots of traditional material as well as some more contemporary stuff. Fantastic singing from Helm, who's from Arkansas and grew up on a "dirt farm"--in other words, he has real personal roots in this style.

I've recently been listening to Chris Smither, a finger-picking singer/songwriter with a folk blues flavor who writes memorable lyrics, often wry. Also John Prine--just ordered a CD of his where he does duets with a variety of female country singers. One at least is very amusing.

I saw him on Monday night in Paris--a club setting, not a concert, so I caught a 90-minute set. Same trio you saw them with, Florin, and I was similarly impressed. At 82, he's got a bit less control than he once did, of course, but he's an ideas man, and he's still a ballsier improviser than most players a third of his age. Truly one of the wonders of the world. Great band, too! I picked up his latest CD, "Lee Konitz New Quartet - Live at the Village Vanguard." I hope it wins awards.

I recently discovered the Scottish poet Don Paterson, who is also poetry editor at Faber & Faber. I think he's fantastic. His poem that seems to be most often reproduced is this sort of sonnet: Waking with Russell Whatever the difference is, it all began the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again, possessed him, till it would not fall or waver; and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin but his own smile, or one I'd rediscovered. Dear son, I was mezzo del' cammin and the true path was as lost to me as ever when you cut in front and lit it as you ran. See how the true gift never leaves the giver: returned and redelivered, it rolled on until the smile poured through us like a river. How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men! I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever. - Don Paterson This is also perhaps his most frankly sentimental poem, which of course is part of its appeal. He also writes longer and less straightforward poems, and he can have a wicked sense of humor. I also like Derek Walcott very much--he has a new book out of which I read a rave review. Also Robert Creeley, James Merrill, and W.S. Merwin when I have the patience to supply the punctuation. I recently read a book by Carol Ann Duffy called "The World's Wife," a witty collection of pieces from the point of view of the missus of famous male characters from history and mythology. Of historical poets, I like Shakespeare, of course; John Donne; Keats; Whitman; Dickinson; and I have a special fondness for Robert Frost, the first poet I was aware of (literally--my second-grade teacher had been a nurse for Frost in his last years and read us "The Pasture" and "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening").

I'm excited about this one! I love Mose but since "Gimcracks and Gewgaws" in 1997 there's only been the live in London things, which I felt were disappointing. Incidentally, etherbored, I love two of the Blue Notes: the aforementioned "Gimcracks and Gewgaws" and the superb "Ever Since the World Ended" from ten years before that. Both of those sounded great and had memorable new songs.

As a budding teenage jazz fan in the 70's, I had heard a few things by Ellington, but he was relatively far from my concerns at the time. I mean, there was Miles, there was Weather Report and Herbie and Chick, there was the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton, there was Gary Burton with Metheny and Goodrick... I had gone further back, and had seen Art Blakey and Roy Haynes and Milt Jackson. But big band? That just seemed old hat. But I was diligent in my research nonetheless. When I got to college I noticed that the library had a record section; you weren't allowed to check much out, but you could sit and listen with headphones. I selected a collection of Ellington from the 30s and 40s and Carney just leaped out at me. I think it was "Sophisticated Lady". That combination of elegance and power, of passion and reserve. It was such a gorgeous sound. I was astounded at the riches that collection offered, while I had been ignoring it as old hat. Quite a lesson... Carney has been a hero ever since.

Another vote for Special Edition, one of the great classics of that period. Blythe and Murray were a fantastic pairing. They're not half bad on McCoy Tyner's "44th Street Suite" from the early 90's, either. I liked Tin Can Alley and Inflation Blues, too. I saw DeJohnette not long after the "Special Edition" album with Murray, John Purcell and Peter Warren, the bassist on Special Edition. Whatever happened to Peter Warren? Somewhere in the basement I have a vinyl LP of his from the early 80's, which features, if memory serves, Purcell, DeJohnette, John Scofield and... could it be Ray Anderson? Not sure, too lazy to check. Good stuff, anyway.

Isn't "message board privacy" also a contradiction in terms? And yet you're happy to post here.

You can "deactivate" it (Settings > Account settings, at the bottom of the page). I think they "deactivate" rather than "close" so that comments you have posted on other people's profiles remain there. Just speculation, though.