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I try to see Smulyan play whenever he is in my area. He's a great bari player.

Just saw Gore Verbinski's Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die. Definitely entertaining and over the top in many places.

As mentioned before, Gary Smulyan is in Toronto, playing at the Rex with Neil Swainson and Terry Clarke. I have a spot booked for Sat., and I will probably swing by Wed. as well, though I haven't made reservations. Generally, Wed. and even Thurs. don't require them...

The Skip-Jacks – Let's Get Away From It All A recommendation from Jazz Wax today. Unknown to me before. Five way close harmony singing on pop tunes and jazz standards with a big band behind.

I had a lot of contact with Tony (Chaney) all those years ago, but at a certain point that stopped and I never heard from him again. I wonder what happened to him. I hope all is well.

Where did you get that one? Marquez' danzones are some of the most fascinating orchestral music I ever heard.

I hear you ! But I don´t think I needed to recalibrate my ears to new listening. Funky grooves and beats were around everywhere when I was a youngster. And Free Jazz had not completly died. So it´s natural that I dug the Miles from 1975 and Ornette Coleman from 1977 and saw them live exactly in that period. The first "jazz" I had heard when I was around 13 was Mingus with Dolphy. So it was the other way round: I "discovered" let´s say Bop and Bird THRU Dolphy, discovered acoustic Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman thru the way they played in the period of my youth. Later, becoming a jazz musician in the late 70´s I concentrated on acoustic jazz and still do, but had periods of electric only, and now I may have got back to more funky stuff, since you just get bored and tired of anything if there is no change, and I keep myself young and all my gang is much younger people. But I must admit I prefer the later PrimeTime from the late 80´s into the 2000´s because I dig the more modern electric sound of let´s say an electric bass, of drums etc. much more than that old 70´s sound of electric instruments. And it got to be LOUD !!!!!! Because I am loud 😀 Oh I know what you are talking about ! Same here, the mature powerful tone. Yeah, those tracks with the choir are fun, and Old Folks is a cute tune ! And they recorded well for their time: Let´s say compare "Swedish Schnapps" or other records with the weak sound of the Savoy records. On a Savoy Bird you never hear the drums properly, but on the Verves you hear them cymbals ringing. Only one downer I have to add: I like the more spontanous Bird in live settings, but only in live settings with congenial partners. My favourite Bird is on that Columbia double vinyl "One Night at Birdland". The sound quality is terrible, but it get´s more in what I really need to hear as a musician......That´s the stuff from what I LEARNED to play. Play those tempos, play piano with similar passion like Bud, demand drummers to play LOUD etc.🤣

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This is one music book that marked my early collecting days in the 70s and taught me a lot about the Blues. (Yes, I realize this book is outdated in some way now, but I find it still is fine.) Later (in the 90s) I bought a secondhand copy at Mole Jazz in London (1969 edition by Barrie & Rockcliff, London - 1978 printing) . However, as discovered later, my copy has two pages missing (p. 107-108). Not that much reason to worry, I figured, because back in 1979 I had bought a German translation of that book (a paperback publication that alas includes only a small part of the photos of the original publication, but at least the missing text segment was there to refer to). But flipping through the book again now, it's high time at last to try to complete that book. So my question is: Is there a forumist who owns this book (preferably a late 60s/early 70s edition) and would be kind enough to mail me scans of the missing pages 107-108? If so, please send me a PM. From what I have seen elsewhere and remember from the book I perused in the 70s, the pagination and layout remained the same through all or most of these early (US or UK) editions and printings from the late 60s and early 70s, and the total number of pages is 176. Just for orientation and in case there are doubts about the layout: Page 109 has one photo of Kokomo Arnold and two of Memphis Minnie, and the main text starts with "Perhaps it was there that he developed his use of the falsetto ..." Thank you very much in advance!

February 17 Fred Frith - 1949

James Brandon Lewis Trio - Apple Cores i don't normally like JBL very much but this is a much more energised record than his usual. It is still the same tenor playing

Decided to start the day off with some Bird. I have not listened to a lot of later Bird this decade and decided to put the final disc of this box set into the transport. Charlie Parker “The Complete Verve Master Takes” disc 3 360×404 35.7 KB Fully formed and mature Bird, powerful tone and as fluid and fascinating as a world class figure skater. No wonder he commanded so much respect and was so influential. That choir singing “Old Folks” always cracks me up. They get the vibe of the song and then Charlie just takes it somewhere else. I love Willard Robinson tunes.

Ts find

RIP. I watched "Conversation" last week.

Martial Solal - Big Band

I can't believe that the origins of this group goes back about 25 years. And survived through all those BBS changes. It's been a wild ride!

That's pretty ridiculous. How can they sell it for that price? I wonder if it's really "new".

R.I.P.

An artist indeed. RIP.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/16/robert-duvall-dies-at-95.html Too many great roles to list, but for some reason The Great Santini is always one of the first I think of.