Kevin Bresnahan

I have a feeling Jerry Jones is going to find a way to hire Bill Belichick & if that happens, the Cowboys defense will likely be turned around pretty quickly. As shitty as the Patriots were this past year, their defense was still really good. They lost 8 games by less than one score. If the Patriots had a functioning offensive line & the NFL referees didn't suck as bad as they have, they might've been a playoff team. That being said, Prescott's only got one more year on his contract and I don't see any reason why they'd extend him as he hasn't shown anything in the postseason (plus they already owe him $45 Million for next year). I suppose they could go "all in" for 2024/25 in their last year with Dak, and hope he can finally get his act together in the playoffs.

I'm a bit happy that I was never ever able to "hear" an amplifier or speaker wires or RCA interconnects or AC line cords. I tried tube amplification a few years ago because I always wanted to, but alas, I didn't hear any difference between those tube amps & the solid state amps they replaced. Plus, they were hot as hell. The only thing I futzed with over the years that made a huge difference to what I heard was speakers & once I settled on B&W speakers, I haven't had to change much. I'll probably have to re-cap the crossovers at some point, but with my failing hearing, that day may never come. Having said this, there are possible electrical reasons that the old 80's era Sony amplifier didn't sound as good as your new amp. Older electronics, particularly from the early to late 80's, were susceptible to bad caps. These caps often fail slowly and if they are in an electrical path that handles audio, it could affect the sound... scratch that... it likely will affect the sound. Caps are used as filters. They filter noise in particular. If you have a filter cap start to fail, it could allow more noise into the circuit. There are other possible failures going on like a failing transformer or even custom ICs. If you happen to be Facebook friends with our forum's host, Jim Alfredson, he has been repairing old electronics as part of his piano tuning business and he posts videos showing all kinds of issues he's been finding with these 80's era synths/amps/preamps. Bad caps, fried traces, cracked boards, cold solder joints, bad op amps, bad ICs... The list goes on & on.

The last audiologist I went to was many years ago... probably 35 years back now... and even then, my right ear had a significant dip in the mid-to-upper audio frequencies. I think the graph showed a pretty good suck out at 8,000 Hz. I'm wondering if hearing aids would even help with that or if they would improve my tinnitus or make it worse.

I've started to think about hearing aids. I went to a lot of extremely loud rock concerts in my teens & twenties and, sad to say, I sometimes left those shows with ringing ears. I stupidly didn't even think about hearing protection. My right ear is much worse than my left, so headphones aren't a great option for me. I also have tinnitus, which has begun to make sleep difficult. We use an air filter/fan as a white noise generator, which helps mask the ringing in my ears, but as my hearing continues to fade, hearing that fan has become a bit difficult.

Considering Al suffered what was described as a major heart attack in September, I would think that this meal should be of the "low fat" variety.

Hazeltine is the pianist for One For All, who are as close as we can get today to hearing The Jazz Messengers. I also have a few of his leader dates. I really like the 2 dates he did for the Chesky label, particularly the Jobim tribute, The Jobim Songbook In New York. I have both of these Chesky sessions on SACD and they sound very good. I also enjoy a few of his Venus recordings, sadly only available as expensive Japanese imports. I never did get around to getting all of them. I should rectify that one of these days. This Venus CD gets some play time here:

According to Michael Cuscuna, Donald Byrd didn't want this released. It's weird how Blue Note has moved from a label that listened to the artists to one that just looks for the next buck.

Great stuff. Their "lesser" wine, Mongrana, is also very good if you're on a budget.

https://www.organissimo.org/forum/profile/561-sgud-missile/

Phil Kelly, who used to post pretty regularly on the old Jazz Corner forums, has died. Phil had a 40 year career as a composer/ arranger for film & TV (including over 700 national TV commercials). He started up a big band when he retired as a hobby. Phil & I conversed every now & then on the JC forums and at one point, Phil sent me two of his big band recordings, "Convergence Zone" & "Ballad of the Bouncing Beagles", both on the Origin label. I have enjoyed them for many years. https://www.sigsfuneralservices.com/obituaries/phillip-kelly

I'm kinda bummed that Wallace retired before I got a chance to see him perform live. I don't think he came through Boston many times though.

How is Larry doing these days?

Blue Mitchell - Step Lightly (Blue Note). This is the LT-1082 pressing. While I've found that some of these LT pressings aren't in the best sound, this one sounds very nice.

The Modern Jazz Sextet (Verve).

I remember seeing The Outlaws live in Springfeild, MA during their 1979 "Bring It Back Alive" tour, with them riding high on the FM hit of the 20 minute live version "Green Grass and High Tides", which we jokingly called "The DJ needs to take a dump". I am almost positive that the show I saw had Nantucket/Molly Hatchet/The Outlaws but history seems to drop Nantucket from that show's listing (although The Outlaws had Nantucket on the bill during concerts right around then). I seem to remember the crowd booing Nantucket off the stage so maybe that's why they've been forgotten. I don't think it was their fault though. The stage was clearly not set up for them and we could barely hear them. But that show closed with The Outlaws doing "Green Grass and High Tides", with all of the band on guitars at the front of the stage by the end. It was one of the most exhilarating endings out of all of the live shows I ever saw. The LP doesn't hit the highs of that live show, but it comes close. Now spinning on vinyl, The Outlaws "Bring It Back Alive" (Arista).

Whenever I listen to Sonny Stitt's "Pow!", I think, I have to go see Kirk Lightsey someday.

As far as I know, Kirk has not played in the Boston area for as long as I've been going to Jazz shows, which close to 35 years now. I hope I get the chance to see/hear him live someday. Does he post his upcoming tour dates anywhere? A Google search only pulls up old dates.

Today, that might be true. But back in the 60's & 70's, a lot of music buyers wouldn't even buy a mono record. So record companies came out with fake stereo, which was considered an improvement over the mono by most buyers. Remember too, that "hi fi" was not really a thing back then, so not many people did the A/B comparisons that we read about regularly today.

Whenever I see that I cover, I always think it's Darren Stevens from Bewitched.

Gene Ammons - Blue Gene (Prestige/OJC). I do love the way Gene does the blues. Always swinging. I believe that this 1985 OJC LP was the first time this session was issued in stereo.

Someone is saying that he was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII fame. If that's true, I'm somewhat surprised that this isn't making the news. He would have to be one of the last of them that fought in WWII by now.

I had no idea he was still with us. I haven't spun one of his Epic dates in a while. I'll try to do that today in his memory. I seem to remember liking "Gettin' Into Somethin'" the most.

Jerome Sabbagh - Vintage (Sunnyside). This all-analog LP is wonderful. Kenny Barron is such an asset on any record date and that is certainly the case here. Sabbagh's tenor is backed by Barron, Joe Martin on bass & Barron's regular drummer, Jonathon Blake on drums. If I had to find any fault, I think Side A opening with a medium tempo tune followed by two slow tunes, didn't seem to fit. It seemed like it might have been better with the medium tempo tune as track 2? Maybe they didn't want to open with a slow blues or maybe it was a cutting thing? If all-analog vinyl is your thing (it's not one of mine TBH), you should pick this up. It does come with a download card, so I am happy for that too. I like having a digital version of my LPs. After all, I can't spin my records in my car.

Can someone contact the board software person and have them institute a simple redirect for www.organissimo.org to automatically kick it over to www.organissimo.org/forum? That is a pretty simple thing to do. Right now, if one of us gets onto a new PC and doesn't remember this forum's address, although a few guesses should suffice, they might never make it back. Also, it's hard to send someone here to try to get them to join up when the parent site is dead. It's a bit of a bad idea to click around a dead site. You never know what might lurk in the scripts.

Well, if anyone gets an extra "A Caddy For Daddy" Tone Poet LP, that's about the only one I'm thinking about picking up these days.