Big Al

Sinatra - Songs for Swingin' Lovers James Brown - Make it Funky: The Big Payback Jobim - Terra Brasilis Wes Montgomery - Tequila Jack Wilson - Easterly Winds Clash - Give 'em Enough Rope Byrds - Younger than Yesterday Jackie McLean - Right Now Lester Young - Pres & Teddy Chuck Berry - The Great 28 Hubert Laws - In the Beginning Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil Jimmy Smith - A Date with... (toss-up between Volumes 1 and 2) Bill Evans - Quintessence John Coltrane - Coltrane's Sound Today, anyway.....

Skid! How are ya? Sayyy, y'know what'd be greeeat? Ummmmm..... yeeahhhh.... just wanted to go ahead and tell you that your uhhhh..... "avatar"..... (take sip of coffee) yeeaahhh.... ummmm..... you might wanna go ahead and turn down that Aldo Nova CD, because it's making the co-workers chew through the wallpaper.... okay? Thaaaaaaanks!

Mavs are gettin' their clocks cleaned in the 3rd quarter again.....

I listened to some clips of this at Barnes & Noble during lunch today. Sounded a lot like his last album, which didn't do much for me. I s'pose this means if you liked the last album, you'll love this!

Good to be back! Thanks for all your hard work, Jim!

Hate to be a pessimist about my own team, but it’s all over now including the shouting: Dirk’s calling out Erick Dampier for Dampier’s playing, and Dampier’s calling Dirk’s comments “stupid.” Which they are, if anyone’s been paying attention to Dirk’s so-called “playing.” This’ll be an easy sweep for Phoenix. And to think Mark Cuban thought Nash wasn’t worth the money. Unbelieveable!

Oh I'm sure the answer is Liz, but these days the answer ain't so obvious anymore!

WoW! Thanks for bringing this up! I’d never heard of this disc, but I need to pick this up pronto! Evans’ recordings of Zindars’ compositions are among my favorites of his, and “Elsa” is one of my favorite songs, period!

Man, I knew I was clueless, but how could I be so ignorant when it comes to trumpet players? I'm so ashamed!

Ah, what the hell. I was gonna save this for my plane trips next week, something to listen to on the new MP3 player while flying, but I got the disc in the player and I’m settling into a groove, so might as well let the usual cluelessness start flying: Track 1 – no clue. This maybe sounds like one of those orchestral things that Jobim did in the 70’s. Track 2 – Well, this has to be from Evans’ Riverside debut. Always wondered what this sounded like! Track 3 – At the risk of inciting blasphemy, my first thought was that this was Wynton playing over one of those classical pieces he used to be so fond of. Then I figured it might be Miles and Gil, but no, this trumpeter sounds too much like he’s trying to say, “Look at what a technical wizard I am!” That just screams Wynton!!! So much so, that I lost interest at the 3:24 mark. Forgive me if I’m wrong; shoot me if it’s someone who doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with you-know-who! Track 4 – “Freedom Jazz Dance,” to be sure; let’s see if I can recognize anyone in the next 6 minutes! I sure dig the guitar accompaniment without the piano! I bet I could find out who this is thru an AMG search, but I wanna see if anyone comes to mind! That bass player is playin’ like fire! Could that be Billy Higgins reprising his role from the Eddie Harris record? That sure is his style! Gabor Zsabo on guitar? Ah well, song’s over; I’ll do some searchin’ after I’m all done with the whole disc! Track 5 – Answered above, although I’m not convinced I got the track # correct; I gave away my copy as a gift to a friend years ago. The name of the song is “The Naked Camera,” though. I need to see this movie, even though much of this music isn’t in it! Track 6 – If track 5 is Herbie in Blue Note mode, then this has to be Herbie in Sextant-era Mwandishi mode! Eddie Henderson and Bennie Maupin are da shizzit!!! Track 7 – Thought it might be a version of Kenny Burrell’s “Chuckin’,” and maybe it is. Hell, what do I know? Still, the piano sounds like Herbie AGAIN! So maybe this is recent Herbie! Track 8 – Not really sure what to make of this one. I don’t know if it just sounds too generic or whathaveyou, but nothing really stands out as being all that identifiable! Track 9 – I know nothing about unaccompanied trumpet solos! No clue, no guess! Track 10 – At 24 seconds, that little blast of cacophony was 48 seconds too long! Track 11 – The tenor sounds like Shorter; the trumpet maybe Freddie? In fact, the more I listen to this, the more I want to say this is VSOP, despite the fact that I’ve never heard them! ORRRRRRR, maybe...... no, I just can’t do it. Who’d be so cruel as to put TWO tracks from you-know-who on a BFT? Track 12 – Lost interest very quickly. Not a big fan of this kind of piano playing. Wait, having said that, I don’t know what I was thinking! Lemme go back and listen again. Oh fercryinoutloud: that’s got to be Andrew Hill! DUHHHHHHH!!!! Track 13 – Rooster sure loves them trumpet players! But there’s no piano player! Yet that’s gotta be Tony Williams on the skins! It’s not Miles, although he certainly recorded without pianos a bunch! No, it couldn’t be....... Track 14 – Ahhhhhhhhh! My kinda groove!!! I’d know Jackie Mac anywhere! Wow, a guitar with McLean! George Benson, maybe? And who is playing that wicked electric bass? No clue, but eager to find out! This has all the trappings of a CTI-type project! Track 15 – Ahhhh, another guitar-instead-of-piano track. Maybe it’s Sonny with Jim Hall. Nah, the fidelity sounds a little too recent, Lovano perhaps? Track 16 – Okay, you got me here! Could this be that really long track from the Herbie Hancock Quartet album with you-know-who? That’s all I’m coming up with, cuz that sure sounds like Tony Williams on the skins again. Man, I’m gonna get reamed for a bunch of these. Time to go back and see just how badly I did!

I'm starting to wonder if BMG isn't going under. It seems as though yourmusic.com was a nice offshoot, a clearinghouse disguised as a lower-priced alternative to their "official" record club. I mean, there’s hardly anything “new” to speak of, just the usual smooth crap, lounge-type singers, and the occasional comps. And it’s been like this for the last five months! This ain’t a dry spell; this is a company that’s about to close its doors!

No need to send me a burn of disc one! I've figured out that only the first five tracks' playing order has been switched somehow; everything else looks fine. I can always re-program my CD player to play the songs in the correct order! Thanks for the offer, though!

I only had five or so titles in mine. Now it's down to zero! And the site won't let me add any titles to my queue!!! Somethin' fishy's afoot here......

Classic Football HECK YEAH!!!

Yeeaaahhh buddy!!! Mine's a little different, it's the joystick variety and only has games like Missile Command, Asteroids, Pong, Circus, Yarz Revenge, Adventure; pretty much all the games I played! Who needs 3D anyway? 2600 forever!!!!!

Track 5 I knew the moment I heard that opening bass figure!!! What a great album that is; sure wish it would get the "deluxe" treatment or something like that. I'd love to hear some more music from those sessions! AMG incorrectly lists it as track 7 on the following link, but it's actually track 5 from the Rhino version of this album! Joe Henderson just SCORCHES on this track! [EDITED to correct my incorrect track listing, as well as to correctly identify which track on the BFT I was referring to!]

So THAT'S where I put that.... Uh, I mean, I received all my discs today. Thanks Tom & Chris!

Maybe none of them knew the PROPER way to tie a tie! I speak from experience here; I can count on zero fingers the number of times I thought I'd had a perfectly centered tie, only to have the wind blow and show just how off-center it truly is! Which is why I only wear Bugs Bunny & Veggie Tales ties. That way, it's SUPPOSED to look off-center! No matter wear I where them! B-)

Only two? I'm up to five so far.... "white box"? WTF?

Phil Keaggy's self-titled album from '96, cuz right at an hour would be the way I want to go. Plus, it was the last good album he put out anyway, so.....

Yeah, it was great... Guy Who y'all talkin' 'bout? Mavs in 6. They're on fire right now, and if Dirk can even out his D with some O, watch out!!!

OOOWWW!!! There it is!!!

Man, some of that stuff that James Brown did in the 70's is just OOZIN' all sorts of funky greeeeaze! "Make it Funky," "Papa Don't Take No Mess," "The Payback," "My Thang," "Hot Pants," "Get on the Good Foot," "Ants in My Pants," etc etc etc!!! Then there's all the instro stuff the JB's did!!! Good LAWD sooooo greeeeeeazy!!!

DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! Favorite Sparks CD? Tie between his appearance on Reuben Wilson's BLUE MODE and Plas Johnson/Red Holloway's KEEP THAT GROOVE GOIN'! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!

I've heard OF it, but never heard it. Kessel's one of those artists I keep telling myself I need to get CDs of, but never actually do it. Shame on me! -_-