Jump to content

SEK

Members
  • Posts

    784
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

Everything posted by SEK

  1. "First Meditations" is my choice for sure. I've connected with it very strongly since I first bought the LP back in 1979; it's been right up there with "A Love Supreme" for me. I think it's a mellower meditation than Trane's better known "Meditations", and I prefer the experience. "Sun Ship" is my other favorite on this list. "Kulu Se Mama" and "Interstellar Space" are the only other Trane recordings from after this that I often listen to.
  2. If it's a back spasm / pinched nerve, what worked for me was, at the outset, ibuprophen 800 mg. 3 times a day or 600 mg. 4 times a day (buffered well with hunks of cheese). You may be able to taper the dose down after a few days. Whatever it is, I viscerally feel for you.
  3. I think that Chauncey was well-covered by the Spurs at that juncture. Rip would normally be a good second choice. I've always liked Robert Horry, just not tonight.
  4. It's shareware that's fully functional for 30 days (I bought it, BTW). I think that it leaves A1 DVD Audio Ripper in the dust (tried that too; YMMV, etc). Since you don't Google , you can find it at DVD Audio Extractor (http://www.castudio.org/dvdaudioextractor/). Enjoy!
  5. I use a nice program in my PC called DVD Audio Extractor. It can extract the audio tracks (Dolby 2 or 5.1) from commercial DVDs, at a variety of bitrates and into a variety of file formats (including wave). I just used it to extract the musical tracks from my Randy Weston "Live In St. Lucia" DVD and made CDRs for our car. I place the DVD in my computer's DVD reader, use DVD Audio Extractor to create wave files, then use Nero to edit those files and burn them to a CDR. If the DVD chapters do not require editing (ie. the selected chapters on the DVD correspond precisely with how you'd like the tracks on the CDR, then you can more simply use DVD Audio Extractor to make an image of the selected audio portions of the DVD, and then a program, like Nero, can make a CDR from the image file. Another way that I've transferred DVD audio to CDR is through my stereo system, which includes a DVD player and a CDR/CDRW recorder. The results are almost as good, but it requires a little more effort.
  6. It's my least favorite Charles Lloyd ECM. "Canto" is my favorite; I think that all of his recordings with Bobo Stenson are worthwhile. "Hyperion With Higgins" is a nice ECM session with another tight ensemble backing him.
  7. I've never felt compelled to buy any of the Miles tributes. What I've heard at friends' houses has been quite sufficient. I'd always opt for Miles doing Miles. That's how I experienced it, back when I did vinyl. I like the Nessa Leo Smith recordings the best, and I think that "Spirit Catcher", sonicly and compositionally, is the most wondrous Leo Smith recording ever. As I posted earlier, I would certainly welcome a CD release of "Spirit Catcher", but I think that it's unlikely that there would ever be sufficient market support for it, even with the addition of an alternate of the harp piece that Chuck mentioned in his January 2 reply.
  8. Taking lessons from Bill Walton? Bruce, I think you'd do well to not be so distracted by sports columnists and other parasites, and just try to enjoy the games. The real drama is usually on the court. That's one reason why I love the playoffs. I get to spend more time seeing, in action, more teams and players from around the NBA who I didn't get to see as often during the regular season. Manu Ginobili is one of the players who I've really enjoyed watching during the playoffs. Is there a way to bring the San Antonio Spurs into the Eastern Conference? They sure seem to play "the right way". Go Pistons! :bwallace2: :bwallace2: ... for at least a few more games ...
  9. It's never blasphemy, Guy. We listened to Far Cry just the other day, and both my wife and I enjoyed it very much. Jaki, indeed, plays superbly on it, as usual, and Booker Little too. The Five Spots are great too. Good thing there's no need to choose between them. My favorite Eric Dolphy recording is often the one I'm listening to, and I've been revisiting a lot of Dolphy lately.
  10. I'll also echo jazzbo's sentiments about Miles's "Big Fun" and Jimi - all of it (Hendrix concerts were early contributers to my hearing loss). John McLaughlin's "Inner Mounting Flame" and most large-ensemble salsa/Latin music sound great with the volume cranked up too.
  11. Thanks. That was well-written and rather poignant.
  12. On Texas accents, sure they can be very thick and distinctive. But one thing that struck my wife and me, while we lived in Texas, was how so many of the actors there, from high school level on up, could lose their accents on stage (often a useful thing, in my opinion). This has not seemed to be as common among Michigan or Chicago professional and student actors, for some reason.
  13. I'm really looking forward to this series. Two great teams, and the coaches are pals and share similar perspectives on the game of basketball. I voted for my guys, the Detroit Pistons, but I really don't know which team will triumph at this point (does anybody?). In my opinion, anyone who would find the prospect of this series "boring" is not a true aficianado of the game, is very provincial, and/or has attention deficit disorder. I also think it's been too long since the Warriors have been contenders, btw. Next year, I expect that there will be a lot of flux in the NBA. Props to Doug Collins for giving the Pistons some respect that they still get toooo rarely on national tv and elsewhere in the media. I suspect that this sorry state of affairs will continue, even if the Pistons prevail through these finals
  14. Anne Bancroft was one of my favorites. She always seemed to bring a soulful resonance to her roles. She and Mel Brooks seemed to share a great love and life together. So my sympathies go out to one of the world's great comedic performers and writers.
  15. "Tribute" is my favorite, followed by "Dance" and "Conception Vessel". "Tribute" features two guitarists, Sam Jones (one of my favorites) and Ray Metzke, an early appearance by Carlos Ward, and Charlie Haden (back when he sounded more like himself). It's a beautiful program of music that I've returned to often (first on a domestic LP pressing and now on imported CD). All the songs are great, including my favorite versions of Ornette's "War Orphans" and Haden's "Song For Ché". "Dance" is by a trio with David Izenzon and Charles Brackeen that I like a bit better than "Le Voyage" which was released soon after it with Jean Franc Jenny Clark, instead of Izenzon. It's very lovely and evocative, despite Brackeen's tone sounding uncharacteristically light. "Conception Vessel" was Motian's first ECM recording. It features varying personnel: two fine trio pieces with Sam Brown and Charlie Haden; two duets with Keith Jarrett (Jarrett plays flute, for better or worse, on one of them); an impressive solo drum piece; and a nice quartet piece with Haden, Leroy Jenkins, and a flute player whose name escapes me now. These days, Motian's early ECM recordings are neglected, in the USA at least, mostly, I think, because of their availability here only as imports. Despite that, they remain my favorite Paul Motian-led recordings.
  16. Conrad, I'm very sad that your mother is having such a hard time. I hope for the best. Steve
  17. That would be nice, and I'll try not to hold my breath.
  18. I agree that the Pistons could have lost game 5 all by themselves. They did not need the refs' help, but the refs did step in to disrupt the Pistons' momentum at key points. (The Pistons-Pacers series seemed to have a lot more no-calls and consistency), Actually, both teams would benefit from more consistent calls by the officials. But one knows that usually different individual players are going to get different calls for the same behavior; thet's a given, and players do get paid millions to play through such differential effects of the NBA star system.
  19. This recording is a disappointment to me. It doesn't add anything significant to its superb predecessor, and the vocals are weak and wavering.
  20. So BruceW, how do you really feel about Larry Brown? GO PISTONS!! :bwallace2: :bwallace2:
  21. Among the solo piano recordings that are essential to me: Paul Bley - "Axis", "Solo Piano" Abdullah Ibrahim - "African Piano", "Ancient Africa", "Fats, Duke, and Monk", "Memories", "Ode To Duke Ellington", "Autobiography", "Matsidiso", "South African Sunshine", "African Dawn" Thelonious Monk - "Thelonious Himself" (John Coltrane and Wilbur Ware on the last track are a bonus ) Don Pullen - "Evidence Of Things Unseen" Randy Weston - "Rhythms and Sounds" (1978), "The Healers" (1980)
×
×
  • Create New...