Kevin Bresnahan

I picked up the CD/DVD-Audio combo pack the other day and I agree it's a very nice date. Very much like Fagan's other solo dates and definitely in that patented Steely Dan mode. The 5.1 24/96 DVD-Audio is very well done too. Nice mix without some of the "gimmicks" that 5.1 mixes can have. He seems to have spread the individual instruments around with some bleed so that it really puts you into the sound. Kevin

I called Michael Cuscuna to ask if he was working on the next batch of Connoisseurs and he surprised me... apparently, the June batch is already decided and well on their way to release. Drum roll please\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./.\./ Jackie McLean – It’s Time (6 tunes) Art Blakey – Holiday For Skins (8 tunes) both albums on one CD Lou Blackburn – The Complete Imperial Sessions (19 tunes) Andrew Hill – Pax (7 tunes) the session with Joe Henderson and Freddie Hubbard - "One for One"? Gil Evans – The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions (15 tunes) Solomon Ilori – African High Life (9 tracks) - includes three usable tracks from unissued session Woo hoo! I am soooo glad I didn't pay those insane eBay prices for "New Wine Old Bottles"! Forgive me people, but why have I never heard of Lou Blackburn? It looks like Fresh Sounds already issued this material too. That's gonna hurt sales. That Hill session must be the date that made up half of the two-fer "One For One" that was recorded Feb 10, 1965. Was that in the Mosaic box? Kevin

I may buy one just to support the cause... I'll just give the CD away at work. I work with several smooth Jazz fans and I'm sure they'd appreciate it. Cancer isn't a laughing matter in my book, and I like to laugh. Kevin

I always wondered if Miles' comment to Alfred wasn't left in there to tweak the honchos at Columbia. Wasn't there some controversy that Miles' contract prevented him from doing this date?

I noticed that about the design myself. It's pretty funny that they chose to copy "the Blue Note look"... it's not like Blue Note's artwork is worth copying in the CD era, unless you want "Fixed cover to follow" on it. BTW, I highly doubt RVG could "remix" these dates. They all direct to two track or even mono. The most he could do is narrow or spread the stereo sound. "Mix" isn't quite the word for merely varying the stereo spread. Kevin

Where did I come off as some kind of Microsoft basher?? I like Microsoft. What I don't agree with is *anyone* who uses *anything* except EAC to rip CDs. EAC is the only tool out there that accurately pulls the music off of the CD. When used in combination with LAME and a high VBR rip, the results can't be beat. Matched maybe, but not beat, at least to my ears. I wanted to make it clear to users of Microsoft Media Player that you must go through the settings to use it without contacting Microsoft. BTW, if you want to get me going on "bashing" a ripper program, start talking about iTunes! I hate that program. Kevin

I don't know exactly what it means but if you look through the preferences, there are several that mention going to Microsft with one of them saying, "Update music files by retrieving media info from the Internet" and another that says, "Acquire licenses automatically for protected content". This last one is the one that will probably give you trouble with copy protection. BTW, in EAC, under the "Compression Options" menu, I have -V 3 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d in the "Additonal Command Line Options" entry. Make sure "Parameter passing scheme" is set to "User defined encoder" and check "Delete WAV after compression" or else you'll have some huge WAV files clogging up your hardrive. Kevin

I've recently switched to using EAC with the latest LAME encoder set to VBR q3 mp3 which is approx. 192 kbps. While slightly larger than my old CBR 128 kbps, they sound exactly like the source to my ears. Be warned that Windows Media Player futzes with the analog if you use it to burn CD-R back-ups. In particular, find the tab where they default to having normalization "on". Shut that off pronto. Also, be forewarned that by default Windows Media Player reports back to Microsoft when you stick a CD in there. It's set by default in several places. It looks for "licenses", which is a buzzword for "copy protected". Windows is big on copy protection. Kevin

I've been using a Philips SoniCare toothbrush for many years and the difference in my time in the cleaning chair has been night & day. I highly recommend the SoniCare over the Oral-B unit. Dmitry might disagree. Kevin

For crying out loud, for $6500, you could book a cheap flight to NYC and have Dmitry do it for less! I'd look into another dentist. That's outrageous. Maybe it's just LA? Do a lot of dentists get sued out there? I wonder how much of the bill goes towards their liability insurance?

Did you see the list price on these RVG CDs?? $17.99! No way! Their SACDs of these titles were barely above that list and there is a lot of extra manufacturing costs there. What the hell is RVG charging for his services these anyway? Big mistake on Concord's part if they think many of us are going to re-buy these. BTW, check out the "look" of these new Prestige RVG CDs, particularly the back. It's a Blue Note design! Same font, same layout. It was weird when I first picked up "Saxophone Colussus"... I thought it was a new Blue Note RVG. Then my memory clicked and I was really surprised. Kevin

Do you mind telling us how much they were? I am curious. PM me if you like. I am more curious to see if they come in and you find that they are US pressings of the hybrid SACDs. People over on the Hoffman forum have speculated that they might be. I can't believe they'd do that. Kevin

The CD has 6 tracks, totalling 42:50. They are: Out of Joe's Bag (Mobley) 5:07 I Should Care (Cohn-Stardahl-Weston) 7:44 Gettin' And Jettin' (Mobley) 7:46 Hank's Other Soul (Mobley) 8:44 Hello Young Lovers (Rogers-Hammerstein) 8:06 Three Coins In A Fountain (Styne-Cahn) 5:21 Three Mobley originals with Hank, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe? The Kelly/Chambers rhythm section was on "Peckin' Time", Soul Station". "Roll Call" and "Workout". The three of them were Miles' backing band at the time. I don't see how this could be considered an off-the-cuff blowing session. Well, I didn't rave about this one, if that's what you mean. I merely commented that the Japanese RVG CD sounded weird to my ears. As for the music, it's not one of my favorite McLean dates but I wouldn't dump it. Kevin

Couldn't disagree with you more on this one. There are days when I prefer "Another Workout" over "Workout". The 1960-63 era Mobley Blue Notes are my favorite and this one fits in perfectly. He was still blowing that hard bop but he was getting funky. I prefer it over the Mosaic material. Mobley's Savoy and Prestige sessions sound like blowing sessions to me. Kevin

I just got the planned RVG titles for this summer. I know a lot of people have wanted "Here To Stay" and there it sits! FWIW, I am so glad to see Mobley's "Another Workout" coming back into print and Lee Morgan's "The Cooker" has some killer Pepper Adams. The titles are... drum roll please... AUGUST Donald Byrd – Royal Flush Kenny Dorham – Trompeta Toccata Johnny Griffin – The Congregation (includes bonus track) Lee Morgan – The Cooker (bonus track) Hank Mobley – Another Workout Ike Quebec – It Might As Well Be Spring SEPTEMBER Donald Byrd – Off To The Races Freddie Hubbard – Here To Stay Bobby Hutcherson – Happenings Jackie McLean – Demon’s Dance Lee Morgan – City Lights Horace Silver – Doin’ The Thing At The Village Gate (includes bonus tracks) I have "Trompeta Toccata", "The Congregation", "The Cooker" and "Doin' The Thing At The Village Gate" (I think) on Japanese RVGs. All of them sound very good. I once owned the Japanese RVG of "Demon's Dance" and I thought it sounded like AM radio. We'll see if this new version gets it right. Kevin

Slashes mess up the file naming routines since in PC lingo, a slash identifies a directory tree. Rename the ballad medley with dashes (-) and you should be fine. BTW, you are much better off using Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs. If you did, you'd know if there were read problems and the audio extraction is much more precise. However, EAC is not an easy program to master so if you are not feeling like learning something new, stick with what you have. Kevin

Apparently real but these photos were taken by the vet. In the bigger pictures around the 'net, you can see the stainless steel vet table in the background. Kevin

From Snopes.com (the Urban Legends website): Origins: An alternate version of this e-mail provides the additional information that the dog pictured above is a female bull terrier named Inca who had her memorable encounter with a porcupine in May 2005: "Inca apparently did not know when to quit when she encountered the porcupine on Victoria Day, May 23rd. These are the pictures the vet sent before the long (and expensive) procedure to remove the quills. She had thousands of quills, and her tongue was so covered, she could not close her mouth." "It was pretty scary at first. She is doing okay now, but looks like a World War III survivor as they had to cut some out in places, stitched between her toes, and many quills bled on removal." "Here are still quills buried in her, but they should work their way out over time (I pulled four more today). She is on antibiotics and pain meds and thankfully is doing quite well. Maybe she was showing off for her new boyfriend, Rocky, I don't know; but he only got a few in him, which friends were able to remove. Ike, of course, had better sense." "I sure hope that the Queen of Quills has learned her lesson..." BTW, all dogs are dumb! I thought I had a smart one until the day she decided that skunk looked like a playmate. Kevin

The thing that's weird about that eBay LP is that from everything I've read, these labels never stayed on the record. Those Transition LPs were made of polystyrene or something like that and the glue they used on the labels supposedly never stuck well. These photos on eBay make it look like the labels are stuck right on there. Also, the vinyl looks like... well, vinyl. Chuck Nessa mentioned that he had an original of this. Maybe he can tell us of that eBay auction is for an original or not. Kevin

No, not Lon. It was me and it was 6 boxes at a Sam Goody in Revere (?) Massachusetts and the price was $1.51 EACH. I read about the deal on the rec.music.bluenote newsgroup one night and when I got to the bottom of the post and the guy said, "So if you're near the Revere Sam Goody store", and I ran out of the house. My wife thought the house was on fire! BTW, I left two boxes behind. Another member here bought them. Kevin

That's weird... the Japanese CD, TOCJ-5885, has a reproduction of the LP artwork and it says: Songs...Side A: RETURN TO PARADISE Tiomkin 12:52 PHINUPI Burrell 9:24 Side B: PHIL T. McNASTY'S BLUES Traditional 4:53 MORE OF THE SAME Jones 10:01 PANONICA Jones 3:49 For TRANSITION... Bob Guy/Engineer Tom Wilson/Cover Art, Photos A Live Concert Jazz Production by Tom Wilson

You lost me Chuck. Private joke maybe? BTW, I don't understand why anyone would want "The Jody Grind" RVG'ed. It's been revealed that "The Jody Grind" master tape is gone and that all CD releases have used an LP master tape (known in internet parlance as a "needle drop"). I suppose RVG did a nice job with Duke Pearson's "Sweet Honey Bee", which has the same problem, but from what I heard when I compared the original CD to the RVG, it wasn't a dramatic improvement. Kevin

Norah's "film debut" was a cameo in Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock's "Two Weeks Notice".

Yeah, you could mount that F: drive in another machine (or externally to another machine) and get the info off of it. However, if that drive fails, you won't be able to recover that info off of C: unless you have the system set up as a dual hardrive RAID. If these files are that important to you, you should have them permanently backed up on optical (CD-R or DVD-R) media. I recently switched over to DVD-R and I am amazed at how much information I can store in 4.7 GB. However, I have also found (rather painfully) that cheap DVD-R discs fail prematurely. Stick to Taiyo Yuden-made blanks and you should be OK. Kevin

The XRCD of this date is one of the best-sounding CDs ever made. It comes out of my speakers like I'm there. I also picked up a 24 bit-96 kHz DVD-Audio version on an expensive Japanese import and it sounds very similar to the XRCD. BTW, the Pablo CD says "Stereo" but to my ears, it sounds mono. If it's stereo, it's not panned very much. Was Granz experimenting with stereo in 1956? Kevin