Kevin Bresnahan

Was it live or was it Memorex?

A pressed CD, like the one you buy in a store, is made of hard plastic that's coated with a thin layer of aluminum. Unless you've somehow entered the Twilight Zone where plastic and aluminum are magnetic, there is no way any kind of magnetic storm could erase the information embedded there. I don't see a "smiley" so I have to assume you're serious here. Really? The only way a magnet could "wipe out a cd" is if you scratched it over the label side to the point where you scratched off the metal layer. There is nothing in a CD that can be magnetized. Geek addendum: Maybe you're confusing a pressed CD with a CD-RW? CD-RW technology works with a combination of magnetism and laser light. A small magnetic field is applied to the CD-RW to make the reflective layer pliant so the laser can deform the layer, making 1's & 0's. I imagine that a strong magnet *might* cause some of these little bumps to flatten, but I have never heard of it. Simply having a magnetic field in the absence of a laser should not be enough to erase even a CR-RW disc.

I understand your preference for analog LP. I do. In fact, for the fun of it, I've been buying more & more vinyl. But please stop with this whole "CD only gives a sample of the music" stuff. It's flat-out wrong. It's just the latest CD debunking theory making the rounds of the internet. If you take an LP and record its output into an analyzer and simultaneously record it to a CD-R, when you compare the analog output of the CD-R's playback to the analog from the LP, from 20-22,000 Hz, it will match perfectly. The sampling rate is good enough for 20-22,000 Hz. Nyquist's Theorem has been proven many times. I've been able to fool those who insist that "CDs suck" by simply playing a CD-R of an LP and comparing it to the CD. The surface noise identifies the "LP" to their ears. For it's ardent fans, it's all about the ambient sounds in LP playback. A CD-R of an LP can and will sound identical to the LP. Bad sounding CDs are usually because of bad mastering. What's on the CD is what the mastering engineer wanted on there. If they wanted to boost the highs, the highs are boosted. If they wanted to crank up the levels, the levels are cranked. If they want to make a near-perfect flat transfer of the master tape at a listenable level, they can do that too. If they want the CD to sound exactly like the LP version, they *have* to create that CD from the LP because it's the only way to get those ambient sounds onto a CD.

Red Garland "Soul Junction" dark blue label with RVG in the deadwax.

Curtis Counce - You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce (Analogue Productions Revival Series) 180 gram pressing Sounds great and such a beautiful LP cover. One of my favorites.

I don't get the renewal dates here... I was under the impression that due to the 1976 Copyright Act, all renewals are now automatic. This being the case, I can only imagine that these renewals were undertaken to transfer Hank's copyright over to his father after Hank's death.

I noticed the sound variations of this pressing too so I found a Connoisseur LP and it's better. Playing right now: Willis Jackson "Shuckin'"

When you say "the first Vanguard album", were you referring to the Solid State LP "Live at the Village Vanguard" or to Alan Grant's "Opening Night: Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band at the Village Vanguard February 7, 1966", which showed up on CD for about a week back in 2000? I do like that Opening Night CD quite a bit. I think I'll play it again when I get home. I just hope Alan Grant used good CD-Rs when he had these CDs pressed. Kevin

Write a protest song, record a video and put it up on youtube.com It worked for Dave Carroll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo). Believe me, if you do this and it goes viral, you'll be on Ellen next week.

Ahh, the old re-grind with the paper bits! I had a few of those back in the day. It was very noticeable with red labeled records. The red labels stood out from the black vinyl. They almost always caused a skip.

I just picked up a few more blue label Prestiges. One is Miles Davis's "Walkin'", which is one of my favorite Miles recordings. I hope this is better than the OJC reissue I have in my LP rack. I'll put it on after "The Immortal Lester Young" (Savoy) (RVG in the deadwax) finishes. "Old timey" sounding stuff on this record (can you tell I've never owned/heard it before?). Edit: Yeah! This blue labeled Pretige RVG LP of "Walkin'" sounds great. I suppose if I was "stuck" with the OJC LP, I wouldn't be totally disappointed. Word to the wise: if you really want a vinyl version of a Prestige record the latest OJC pressing is pretty darn good for the money.

And I'm staring to get back into vinyl again now... why was that? There is a lot of crappy vinyl out there. As much as we like to romanticize those days, there were a lot of reasons CDs took off and took over so quickly and completely. I remember my brother buying Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" and having to return it 4 times because he couldn't get one to play over the first few notes of the opening track. Eventually, we taped a few quarters onto the headshell and played through the speedbump. Took the quarters off and it played fine from then on.

I've used my trusty Discwasher D4 for decades. I will say that I think my old late 70s era brush is a lot better than the new ones in getting out heavy grunge. I also think that they changed the formula of the D4 liquid. The stuff I buy today smells weird. I used to zap my records with a Zerostat gun before cleaning with the D4 brush, but my old one died and a new "Milty" model is $100. Too much for what little it did.

Yup. I've been toying eith the idea for many years and came very close to buying a Decware Zen Torii, but the price was just a bit too much for my (wife's) budget. I was able to pick up this Quicksilver GLA for $700. The only drwaback was that it arrived (via UPS) looking like it had been run over by the UPS truck that delivered. I had to replace the destroyed fuse holder on the back panel because they sheared it off during the "drop shipping". I am thinking about putting in Psvane 6CA7-T or KT88-T tubes in next. That's one of the nice things about this amp - self biasing. I can drop in a whole bunch of different tubes with no worries, BTW, this LP of "A Night In Tunisia" is awesome!!

Now playing with tubes... I just picked up a Quicksilver GLA EL34 tube amp. Teddy Edwards - The Inimitable Teddy Edwards (Xanadu) Once you get past the wonky piano & bass sound, this is a pretty nice date. Great solo intro to "Stella By Starlight" by Teddy - worth the price of admission alone. Up next: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - A Night In Tunisia (Blue Note) A blue label Van Gelder pressing. Looking forward to it. Kevin

Val, I agree with you that she has done a fine job keeping the place afloat when most Jazz clubs have folded. However, even you must have gotten a chuckle out of her "nice to the people" comment. I have heard from many "people" who have been treated anything but nice by Lorraine at the Vanguard.

"We are totally devoted to the music. We don't talk about commercial things like marketing. I don't care if we're not busy one night or if we lose a dollar or so. We offer a pure experience listening to jazz. If you have the right music, and you're nice to the people, and the people enjoy the club, then that generates its own good feelings." Ha ha! Lorraine nice? Not to most of the people I know. One prominent Jazz figure has told me he'll go back into the Village Vanuard "when the bitch dies".

My comment was meant mainly to address Dan's "read better books" statement. I think the majority of the Harry Potter books were well written. The last couple could have used some editing but I think Rowling got too big which led to her having carte blanche in the end. But let's get back to these kids that can do anything!

The Harry Potter books are well written and I commend Rowling for writing books to pull in young readers. I enjoyed every one of them. Anyone who watches the movies and thinks that's what Harry Potter is all about is missing a lot.

Recently, I've been having fun buying Van Gelder blue labeled LPs at Stereo Jacks. But I have to say, I think I'm seeing part of the reason why Blue Note had the cachet back when these LPs were issued. You see, I've been buying Van Gelder blue labeled Blue Note LPs as well and there is no comparison. The Blue Note pressings are almost all better-sounding than any Prestige pressing. I've plunked on mint looking blue label RVG LPs and heard fuzzy distortion, rice crispies, inner groove distortion and a lot more. There are better sounding versions out there too. I happened to have a new OJC vinyl pressing of Gene Ammons's "Boss Tenor" and you know what? I'm keeping the new OJC and trading/giving away this old RVG STEREO LP. The OJC pressing blows the RVG away. The other thing I've noticed about these Prestige RVGs is that you have to inspect the *vinyl itself* when checking it for scratches. There were several mint-looking blue label RVG Prestige LPs where the vinyl had dimples and marbled vinyl. I think the marbled areas are what was called underfill. Nasty looking. I imagine they woouldn't play very well so I didn't buy them. Kevin

Ha ha! You give me too much credit. My oldest does not take rejection/disappointment well at all. My youngest is much better at it. Truth be told, I'm still working on them, even when they're 22 & 19. I hope I put them out into the world in decent shape.

I would say "let's blame the parents" but since my daughters are from this generation, I can say with a straight face that it ain't us! I think I first noticed something was wrong when our oldest daughter started playing soccer. Her team sucked. I mean really sucked. Among a whole bunch of sucky teams, their team sucked the most. I don't think they won a game. At the end of the year, we started to leave the field when the coach called everyone aside and handed out trophies. Yup. Trophies. I asked him what they were for and he said "It's a participation trophy". I have tried to keep my daughters above the stupidity. I keep warning them that in real life, there are winners and there are *losers* too. I don't know if a lot of today's kids can handle rejection. The therapists will be making a fortune in the future.

Valerie - I think you're right - their proposed prices are steep, especially in this economy and especially for Jazz shows. How are they going to book 250 shows a year with enough name cachet to fill the club at $35/ticket? Jazz fans are notoriously cheap in Boston (according to the few waitresses I've talked to about it). Is it any better out in LA?

Neil Young's anti-digital stupidity shines through again. Dumb quote of the article right here: "Such a format, he said, would contain 100 per cent of the data of music as it is created in a studio, as opposed to five per cent in compressed formats including Apple's AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)". As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon". So Neil, only 5% of the actual analog input is recoverable from a digitally compressed file? Really? So instead of a 20-22,000 Hz analog playback, we only get 20-1,100 Hz playback? While I admire Neil for trying to get the music industry to get its stuff together and end the Loudness War, saying stupid stuff like this will not help. Digital is here to stay. Target things that will improve the digital files out there, like better mastering.

The Sweets Edison date can't hold a candle to what that Lalo Schifrin CD was going for back in the day. Didn't a copy sell on ebay for almost $300 one time... or was it $500? The Alan Shorter CD fetched some good money for a while too. Kevin