mgraham333

sooo much beauty....

I say we take him out back and beat the crap out of him.

I played this one again today. It's not my favorite style, but when I get in the mood it does nicely. I also popped in Lou Donaldson's - The Natural Soul. I thought the two albums played well together. I am particularly fond of the final track on TNS, People Will Say We're In Love. I saw this track listed on the Donald Byrd & Doug Watkins - The Transission Sessions Conn (another fave). Altough it didn't have Byrd playing much (if at all). Not to hijack this, but does anyone have any recommendations for People Will Say We're In Love with some trumpet?

Jim: I wish you and your wife a quick resolution to this unfortunate situation. The only thing I might add is keep a diary. Document everything. Wake time, sleep time, all meals (time and content), the time and duration of any dizzy spells, the circumstances surround them, pretty much everything. If you can get a doc to listen, having this information might help. Best wishes, Matt

20% Off Selected Verve, Impulse & GRP Jazz Titles Now through November 28

I was over on AMG and noticed they had clips for every track of the Roy Eldridge set. Same thing for the Johnny Hodges and I would suspect the rest of them as well. Kinda nice when Mosaic for whatever reason chooses not to offer them.

You may want to scroll down to the first bold sub-heading labeled, "Where did all the music go?" “DIRTY pop with wonky beats and sleazy melodies” is how the Sweet Chap, aka Mike Comber, a British musician from Brighton, describes his music. The Sweet Chap has no record deal yet, but he has been taken on by IE Music, a London music-management group that also represents megastar Robbie Williams. To get the Sweet Chap known, last year IE Music did a deal to put his songs on KaZaA, an internet file-sharing program. As a result, 70,000 people sampled the tracks and more than 500 paid for some of his music. IE Music's Ari Millar says that virally spreading music like this is the future. It may indeed be, and nimble small record labels and artist-management firms will certainly get better results as they find ways to reach more people via the internet. But the question facing the music industry is when that future will arrive. And the issue is most urgent for the four big companies that dominate the production and distribution of music—Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI (see chart 1). So far they have been slow to embrace the internet, which has seemed to them not an opportunity but their nemesis. Rather than putting their product on file-sharing applications, they are prosecuting free-download users for theft. They have certainly been struggling: sales of recorded music shrank by a fifth between 1999 and 2003. Today, there is more optimism. In the first half of this year, global physical unit sales of recorded music rose, albeit by a tiny amount. The industry claims that file-sharing has stabilised thanks to its lawsuits. The number of music files freely available online has fallen from about 1.1 billion in April 2003 to 800m this June, according to IFPI, a record-industry body. That said, internet piracy is rampant, and physical CD piracy continues to worsen. But big music's attitude towards the internet has changed, too. Over the past four years the big companies have come a long way towards accepting that the internet and digital technology will define the industry's future. Thanks to Apple and its enormously popular iPod music players and iTunes download service, most music executives now believe that people will pay for legal online music. (Although they have mushroomed, legal online downloads account for less than 5% of industry revenues.) The big companies are trying to work out how they can harness the internet. Consequently, they are having to rethink their traditional business models. In the physical world, the big companies have the advantage of scale. In addition to marketing clout, they own a large back catalogue of music that can be repeatedly reissued. They are also bolstered by music-publishing businesses, which collect royalties on already published songs used in recorded music, live performance, films and advertisements. Historically, the majors have controlled physical distribution of CDs. Yet that barrier to entry will erode as more music is distributed on the internet and mobile phones. Artists can, in theory, use the internet to bypass record firms, though few have yet done this. The principal reason most have not is that they need marketing and promotion, which the majors also dominate, to reach a wide audience. The majors have a tight hold on radio, for example, by far the most effective medium for promoting new acts. (Perhaps their lock is too strong: Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney-general, is investigating whether the companies bribe radio stations to play their music.) Could the internet challenge them on this too? So far, bands have not been launched online. But that could change, and there is already evidence that data derived from the preferences shown on illegal file-sharing networks are being used to help launch acts. Much will depend on whether the majors choose to address a problem that is just as important as piracy: these days they rarely develop new artists into long-lasting acts, relying instead on short-term hits promoted in mainstream media. That has turned off many potential buyers of new music. In future, using the internet, the industry will be able to appeal directly to customers, bypassing radio, television and big retailers, all of which tend to prefer promoting safe, formulaic acts. That could give the majors the confidence to back innovative, edgy music. But much smaller independent labels and artist-management firms can do the same, offering them a way to challenge the big firms head on. Even in the physical world, the big firms are struggling to maintain their traditional market. Supermarkets have become important outlets, but the likes of Wal-Mart stock only a narrow range of CDs, choosing to shift shelf-space away from music in favour of higher-margin DVDs and videogames. That is a symptom of another headache for all music firms: they face ever more intense competition from other kinds of entertainment, especially among the young. In theory, then, digital technology offers the majors an escape hatch. With infinite space and virtually free distribution online, every track ever recorded can be instantly available to music fans. Of course, smaller firms will be able to do the same thing. Where did all the music go? According to an internal study done by one of the majors, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the drop in sales in America had nothing to do with internet piracy. No-one knows how much weight to assign to each of the other explanations: rising physical CD piracy, shrinking retail space, competition from other media, and the quality of the music itself. But creativity doubtless plays an important part. Judging the overall quality of the music being sold by the four major record labels is, of course, subjective. But there are some objective measures. A successful touring career of live performances is one indication that a singer or band has lasting talent. Another is how many albums an artist puts out. Many recent singers have toured less and have often faded quickly from sight. Music bosses agree that the majors have a creative problem. Alain Levy, chairman and chief executive of EMI Music, told Billboard magazine this year that too many recent acts have been one-hit wonders and that the industry is not developing durable artists. The days of watching a band develop slowly over time with live performances are over, says Tom Calderone, executive vice-president of music and talent for MTV, Viacom's music channel. Even Wall Street analysts are questioning quality. If CD sales have shrunk, one reason could be that people are less excited by the industry's product. A poll by Rolling Stone magazine found that fans, at least, believe that relatively few “great” albums have been produced recently (see chart 2). Big firms have always relied on small, independent music firms for much of their research and development. Experimental indies signed Bob Marley, U2, Pink Floyd, Janet Jackson, Elvis Presley and many other hit acts. Major record labels such as CBS Records, to be sure, have signed huge bands. But Osman Eralp, an economist who advises IMPALA, a trade association for independent music companies in Europe, estimates that over 65% of the majors' sales of catalogue albums—music that is at least 18 months old—comes from artists originally signed by independents. In the past, an important part of the majors'R&D strategy was to buy up the independent firms themselves. But after years of falling sales and cost-cutting, the majors have little appetite for acquisitions, and now rely more on their own efforts. What Mr Levy calls music's “disease”—short-term acts—is not solely a matter of poor taste on the part of the big firms. Being on the stockmarket or part of another listed company makes it hard to wait patiently for the next Michael Jackson to be discovered or for a slow-burning act to reach its third or fourth breakthrough album. The majors also complain that the radio business is unwilling to play unusual new music for fear of annoying listeners and advertisers. And while TV loves shows like “Pop Idol” for drawing millions of viewers, such programmes also devalue music by showing that it can be manufactured. Technology has made it easy for music firms to pick people who look good and adjust the sound they make into something acceptable, though also ephemeral. The majors could argue that they can happily carry on creating overnight hits; so long as they sell well today, why should it matter if they do not last? But most such music is aimed at teenagers, the very age group most likely to download without paying. And back-catalogue albums make a great deal of money. The boss of one major label estimates that, while catalogue accounts for half of revenues, it brings in three-quarters of his profits. If the industry stops building catalogue by relying too much on one-hit wonders, it is storing up a big problem for the future. A new duet There are signs that the majors are addressing the issue. Universal Music and Warner Music are starting up units to help independent labels with new artists, both promising initiatives that show that they are willing to experiment. Thanks to the majors' efforts in the last few years, their music has already improved, says Andy Taylor, executive chairman of Sanctuary Group, an independent, pointing to acts such as the Black Eyed Peas (Universal), Modest Mouse (Sony), Murphy Lee (Universal) and Joss Stone (EMI). And yet even if they can shore up their position in recorded music, the big firms may find themselves sitting on the sidelines. For only their bit of the music business has been shrinking: live touring and sponsorship are big earners and are in fine shape. In the past 12 months, according to a manager who oversees the career of one of the world's foremost divas, his star earned roughly $20m from sponsorship, $15m from touring, $15m from films, $3m from merchandise and $9m from CD sales. Her contract means that her record label will share only in the $9m. In 2002 Robbie Williams signed a new kind of deal with EMI in which he gave it a share of money from touring, sponsorship and DVD sales as well as from CDs, in return for big cash payments. Other record firms are trying to make similar deals with artists. That will be difficult, says John Rose, former head of strategy at EMI and currently a partner at the Boston Consulting Group in New York, because many artists, and their managers, see record companies less as creative and business partners than as firms out to profit from them. Artists' managers will resist attempts to move in on other revenue streams. Peter Mensch, the New York-based manager of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shania Twain and Metallica, says “we will do everything and anything in our power to stop the majors from grabbing any share of non-recorded income from our bands.” Mr Mensch says that one way to fight back would be to start his own record company. Independent labels are also gunning for the big firms. For one thing, they are fighting to stop further consolidation among the majors because that would make it even harder for the independents themselves to compete for shelf space and airplay. IMPALA will soon take the European Commission to court for allowing Sony and BMG to merge earlier this year. But the small firms are also optimistic that they can grow at the expense of their big rivals. The majors are cutting back in smaller markets and dropping artists who lack the potential to sell in lots of countries. That leaves a space for the indies. For example, Warner Music Group is thought to be readying itself for an initial public offering in 2005 and, as part of cutting costs in Belgium, it dropped artists this year. Among them was Novastar, whose manager says the group's latest album has so far sold 56,000 copies in Belgium and Holland. The more the majors scale back, the more the market opens up. People who have left the big firms are starting up new ventures. Emmanuel de Buretel, previously a senior manager at EMI, is about to launch an independent record label called “Because”, with help from Lazard, an investment bank. Tim Renner, formerly chairman of Universal Music in Germany, will soon set up a music internet service, a radio station in Germany and possibly a new record label. In the material world Meanwhile, the majors are trying to plot their move to digital. Making the transition will be tricky. Bricks-and-mortar music retailers need to be kept happy despite the fact that they know that online music services threaten to make them obsolete. It is still unclear what a successful business model for selling music online will look like. People are buying many more single tracks than albums so far. If that persists, it should encourage albums of more consistent quality, since record companies stand to make more money when people spend $12 on a single artist than if they allocate $2 to each of six bands. Or it could mean that the concept of the album will fade. Online pricing is unstable too. It is likely that download prices will vary in future far more than they do now. Apple forced the industry to accept a fixed fee per download of 99 cents, but the majors will push for variable, and probably higher, prices. Online prices will have an impact on prices in the physical world, which are already gradually falling in most markets. But the result of all these variables might be structurally lower profits. Edgar Bronfman junior, chairman and chief executive officer of Warner Music Group, expects that paid-for digital-music services via the internet and mobile phones will start to have a measurable impact on music firms' bottom lines as soon as 2006. The new distribution system will connect music firms directly with customers for the first time. It will also shift the balance of power between the industry and giant retailers. Wal-Mart, for instance, currently sells one-fifth of retail CDs in America, but recorded music is only a tiny proportion of its total sales. The best distribution of all will come when, as many expect, the iPod or some other music device becomes one with the mobile phone. Music fans can already hold their phones up to the sound from a radio, identify a song and later buy the CD. At $3.5 billion in annual sales, the mobile ringtone market has grown to one-tenth the size of the recorded music business. But can paid-for services compete with free ones? The paying services need to put more catalogue online if they want to match the file-sharing networks with their massive music libraries. And it is still unclear how much “digital-rights management”—technology that restricts how a music download can be used—people will tolerate. Another key issue is interoperability: whether the various new devices for playing digital music will work with other online stores. Apple's iPods, for instance, work with iTunes, but not with Sony Connect or Microsoft's MSN Music Store. Too many restrictions on the paid-for services may entrench file-sharing. Out of the more than 100 online music sites that exist now, a handful of big players may come to dominate, but there will be specialist providers too, says Ted Cohen, head of digital development and distribution at EMI. iTunes is like the corner store where you buy milk and ice cream, he says, but a customer does not spend much time there. Real Networks'Rhapsody, on the other hand, charges a monthly subscription in return for unlimited streaming music and gives descriptions that lead people to new artists. Recommendation services like these, as well as people sharing playlists, will eventually make the internet a powerful way to market music as well as to distribute it. Jiving with the enemy In September, according to comScore Media Metrix, 10m American internet users visited four paid online-music services. The same month another 20m visited file-sharing networks. The majors watch what is being downloaded on these networks, although they do not like to talk about it for fear of undermining their legal campaign. Online music might truly take off if the majors were to make a truce with the file-sharing networks. The gulf between the two worlds has narrowed now that the industry sells its product online and allows customers to share music using digital-rights management. As for the file-sharing networks, “the other side is more willing to talk and less adversarial,” says an executive at one of the majors in Los Angeles. Music industry executives say that Shawn Fanning, founder of Napster, the first file-sharing network, is working out how to attach prices to tracks downloaded from such services, with a new venture called “Snocap”. Mr Fanning tried to make the original Napster legal back in 2001, but the music industry decided instead to sue it out of existence. Sam Yagan, boss of eDonkey, currently the most popular file-sharing network, says he had meetings with three of the four major labels last summer about how his network could start selling their music alongside free content. As IE Music's experiment shows, that is not an impossible dream. Music executives may not have the confidence yet to make a deal with their arch-enemies. But eventually they have to get bolder. It seems clear that the only way for the majors to stay on top of the music industry into the next decade is to take more risks—both technological and creative—than they have done for a long time. Source: www.economist.com

funniest thing I've seen all day!

Get the teaser trailer here

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Dang, Rooster. The first thing I thought of when I saw centon was cylon.

I'm a fan of the new Costello album as well. I read the reviews on Amazon after I picked this one up at Borders and there seems to be a mix of opinions. Although that's common for albums from "legends" (using the term loosely, if not inappropriately) I liked this one as much if not more than Brutal Youth and the stuff with Burt B. I never have gone back to pick up some of his older "classic" (again with the terms...) albums. I should since many have been remastered and rereleased with bonus material. As for the comments about Lucinda. I unfortunately have to agree. Although after a few listens I her part grew on me. I haven't picked up anything of Lucinda's since Car Wheels, which I really like. Her voice can be grating at times, but a few of the tracks are quite blisfull (with beer in hand).

20% off almost everything in the store good through 10/18

New home for Jazz at Lincoln Center NEW YORK (AP) -- As jazz enters its second century, the music that had its humble origins in street parades, dance halls and brothels is moving to one of the world's most prestigious addresses. The new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center is the $128 million Frederick P. Rose Hall, a 100,000-square-foot palace occupying two floors in the new Time Warner Center -- the first performance, education and broadcasting facility custom-built for jazz. It's just a block from the site of the former dance hall where, in 1917, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band gave the first public jazz performance in New York City. "I never could have imagined this when I came to New York," said trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, JALC's artistic director, who arrived here in 1979 as a teenage prodigy to attend the Juilliard School. "We were always playing in the most raggedy clubs, or if not raggedy, just smaller spaces." Now, "we have a hall where you can do operas, ballets and more formal presentations. We have a place for public dancing and a club for people who like to hang out day and night. We've designed studios for people to record in and spaces for teaching kids," said Marsalis, interviewed in the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, as pictures of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and other charter inductees flashed by on a video wall. In an homage to their roots, Marsalis and members of his Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will kick off the dedication ceremonies on Monday, October 18 -- also the trumpeter's 43rd birthday -- with a traditional New Orleans-style street parade starting at the Lincoln Center plaza's fountain. They will march five blocks down Broadway to their new home, playing a fanfare entitled "The Gift" and written for the occasion by trombonist Slide Hampton. The first order of business will be to open the 3,500-square-foot Irene Diamond Education Center, which includes a combined rehearsal hall and recording studio large enough to hold a symphony orchestra and choir, as well as two smaller classrooms where everyone from preschoolers to world-renowned musicians will teach and learn. The hall of fame, designed using materials such as cork, wood and brass found in jazz instruments, also plays an educational role with its interactive kiosks and touch-activated virtual plaques. On Monday evening, JALC will launch its grand opening festival with simultaneous programs in its three performance venues, to be broadcast by NPR and PBS' "Live From Lincoln Center." They will celebrate the theme of "One Family of Jazz," in which the musicians will be performing with family members, including Marsalis with father Ellis on piano and brothers Branford on saxophone, Jason on drums and Delfeayo on trombone. In the Rose Theater concert hall, Marsalis will lead the LCJO in a program with such guests as saxophonist Joe Lovano, violinist Mark O'Connor, pianist Marcus Roberts, and singers Abbey Lincoln and Tony Bennett. JALC's second ensemble, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, led by pianist Arturo O'Farrill, will play in The Allen Room, a romantic cabaret-ballroom where a 50-by-90-foot glass wall offers panoramic views of Central Park and the Fifth Avenue skyline. Pianist Bill Charlap and his mother, singer Sandy Stewart, will open the intimate Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. "We really have created a unique collection of spaces and experiences not only for New York but really for the world to experience this music, to see it in a different light and really become connected to it in a new way," said Derek Gordon, who took over this summer as JALC's executive director after 12 years at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where he created its jazz program. Lorraine Gordon (no relation), owner of the venerable Village Vanguard club, which in February will celebrate its 70th anniversary, wasn't afraid of competition from the city's newest jazz venue. "It's a welcome addition to the cultural scene where maybe jazz is elevated another step upward," she said. "I don't think it can hurt jazz." 'Core program and values' But some from the city's more cutting-edge "downtown" jazz scene feel the new facility's "Welcome" theme doesn't extend to musicians who don't fit Marsalis' neo-traditional jazz ideology that has little room for either jazz-rock fusion or free-form improvisation. "The problem I have is that you're going to have this enormous institution ... but it's taking the few resources that are put into jazz and putting it into one guy's hands," said saxophonist Roy Nathanson, leader of the Jazz Passengers, an avant-jazz group which has collaborated with Elvis Costello and Debbie Harry. "It gives people the illusion that jazz is being supported when many great musicians I know don't get supported." Marsalis insists that JALC won't change its programming philosophy just because it is expanding, adding that "there's room in the whole city" for everything to be played. "The heart of Jazz at Lincoln Center is about swinging and playing the blues ... because we feel that's the heart of what jazz is about," said Marsalis. "We're not against any type of improvised music playing ... but we have a core program and values that we stick to." "And as long as I'm the artistic director," he says, "we'll be dealing with swing with jazz." Marsalis has stuck to his principles since he was asked in 1987 to produce a three-concert "Classical Jazz" summer series at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. In 1996, JALC became a full constituent of Lincoln Center, putting it on an equal footing with the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic, even though it lacked its own home. Plans for the new jazz center began to take shape six years ago when $18 million in city funding was made available. JALC has raised all but $3 million of the $128 million construction budget, with about 30 percent coming from government funding and the remainder from private donors. JALC then brought in the world-renowned, Uruguayan-born architect Rafael Vinoly, whose works include the Tokyo International Forum and Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. But none of these experiences prepared Vinoly, a classically trained pianist, for the challenge ahead. "You have no precedents," he said, speaking in a box in the Rose Theater over the din of hammers and power saws as workers readied the hall for opening night. "You have no culture of how you approach this art form in terms of physical space. ... In jazz, there is this amazing process of interaction with the audience ... and intimacy." Vinoly successfully battled the complex's main developer to get the jazz center moved from the back to the front of the building, where the glass windows not only create a dramatic cityscape backdrop for the musicians but enable passers-by in the street to see the bands performing. "There is no better advertising for jazz ... than an orchestra playing," said Vinoly. "And the whole thing here is that you see the art form right in the guts, at the center of gravity, of this whole enormous monument to commercial activities." JALC also brought together specialists from two leading acoustics design firms to form a special consulting team, "The Sound of Jazz." Marsalis was well aware of the limitations of Lincoln Center's Alice Tully and Avery Fisher halls, which were designed for unamplified classical music but muddied the sound of a jazz ensemble. "It's safe to say," Marsalis said after leading rehearsals at the Rose Theater, "that this will be the best concert space to play in and hear jazz." Respecting an American art The new facility is state of the art, yet still embraces the jazz tradition. The 1,100-1,231-seat Rose Theater, whose design was inspired by small Italian opera houses, builds on the legacy of concert hall jazz that began in 1938 when Benny Goodman performed at nearby Carnegie Hall for the first time. The Rose Theater, paneled with African movingui wood, has 11 movable towers with tiers of seats that can be positioned for in-the-round seating to create an intimate setting for jazz performances with the farthest seat only 88 feet from the stage. The room can also be converted into a traditional proscenium theater for opera and dance by leaving the towers backstage and raising the retractable ceiling. The hall can even be tuned to fit a classical or jazz performance because the acoustic devices overhead and along the side walls can all be adjusted. The entire hall itself is a floating "box within a box" that sits on rubber isolation pads to eliminate vibrations from the subway below and other background noise. The 300- to 600-seat Allen Room, done in light maple wood, has seven tiers of seats that resemble a Greek amphitheater. But it can also be turned into a ballroom-like setting by raising alternate tiers hydraulically to create four levels that are wide enough for banquet tables and dancing. The 140-seat Dizzy's Club, with its curvy bamboo walls, offers the intimacy of a typical New York jazz club, but without packing the patrons in like sardines. The club will offer music 365 days a year, including low-price Monday night shows featuring jazz bands from area colleges and special late-night hang sets for jam sessions. As he walks through the House of Swing, Marsalis can't help but reflect on how attitudes toward jazz have changed over the music's first century. "In the early days, everybody liked jazz but because it was played by black musicians, it was looked down upon due to racism and ignorance," Marsalis said. "And then you can add the fact that Americans also have a natural disdain for their own arts. "Now we have Jazz at Lincoln Center, which is a sign of the maturation of our culture that we can respect an American art and a sign of the abatement of racism and ignorance -- although we have a long way to go." source: CNN

Make your own band

Well call me a flip flopper (ahem) but I said: Now I say: The mood must have hit, because I was playing this last night and this morning and really liked it. It does tend to oodle around here and there, but there was a lot more to like than to dislike. I also said: Now I say: I played this again and would have to rank OLAP behind Unity and Mothership. A little too "out" for me. I'm not giving up on it yet

What a geekfest! Gotta have it!! I knew you were my kinda moose.

One of these days I am going to do something like this and have all of my music available at the touch of a button.

I'm finally starting to get settled in my new house. There are still a lot of boxes that haven't been unpacked. I'm sure that will be the case for a while. I'm a little surprised in how long it took me to get my stereo hooked back up. I took my time and did a little better job of cable management than I have done in the past. It still largely resembles a plate of Spaghetti.... Anyway, either the fresh Monster cable that I used or the new room acoustics or a combination of both have made a major difference in the sound quality. I'm hearing subtle details in the music that I've never heard before. The very first track I played was title track of the Art Blakey RVG, Moanin' . For me, that song is the quintessential hard bop track. Just an amazing song. The entrances Morgan and Golson make are fabulous. I followed that with a little Joe Henderson and then as all of you suggested, Jimmy Smith's House Party. Alas, at a little after midnight it was a party of one.

As for the previous discussion I totally understand where Ed, jazzbo, and Leeway are coming from. I found myself running through those very same thoughts and feelings. Where I am now is the only thing that is going to stop me from buying the music is the music itself or my new mortgage

I listened to all of the new Conns at work today, except for the Horace Silver. I skipped that one based on feedback here. Thanks everyone for saving me some money I wasn't able to give these my full attention, but from what I heard of the Hutcherson, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. That could change upon closer listening but for some odd reason I don't think it will. I couldn't really get into the groove with the Sam Rivers. I guess I should have known better after Fuschia Swing Song. It will take a certain mood for this one to come of the shelf. This was my introduction to Jack Wilson. It was pretty good. Of course having McLean and Morgan helped quite a bit. I'm starting to appreciate Larry Young more and more. I enjoyed Mother Ship from the last batch and Unity gets its share of play time too. I think I'll have to play OLAP a bit more to get a better read on it. Dance With Death was by far my favorite of this batch. After Black Fire and Passing Ships I really started liking Andrew Hill. Point of Departure was my introduction to Hill and it came a little to early in my jazz experience for me to truly get it. DWD just gets me a step closer to being a total Hill fan. I'm still unpacking boxes at my new house and am also trying to figure out where to run cables for the main entertainment system so it may be a while before I can really give these discs the attention they deserve. I can't wait!!

bacon,bacon,bacon,bacon,bacon! It's bacon! Dogs don't know it's not bacon...

too funny!