Big Al

That session with Wes Montgomery is all kindsa sweet!

The Genesis 1970-1975 box Phil Keaggy - Phantasmagorical: The Master and the Musician 2 With the Half-Price Books gift card, I got the following LPs: George Benson/Jack McDuff (Prestige 2-fer) The Art of Freddie Hubbard (Atlantic 2-LP comp) The Crusaders - 1 Wes Montgomery - California Dreamin' Commercials to Cringe To (some weird LP I found in the spoken word section; it's a parody of 60's commercials, almost like a Stan Freberg record. Pretty funny stuff!) Haven't decided what I'm going to use my Borders gift card for. Probably Pat Martino's El Hombre, thanks to Sangrey's thread about it!

Not so fast. There is talk about the Lions going after some new management and coaching. We already know that they own a fistful of high picks in the draft. Teams can turn around quickly in the NFL. Lions have been to ONE playoff game in the 40 years that Ford has owned the team. Unless he suddenly figures out how to run a football team and how to hire talented managers... or until he sells the team... nothing will change. Holy shit.... THIS is what Cowboys fans have to look forward to!

I'll never forget the first time I saw her as Catwoman. Julie Newmar was hot, no doubt, but in a very vampy campy way. You figured she had a heart beneath that leather and fantastic body. Eartha Kitt, on the other hand, looked so seductively EVIL that you KNEW all manner of bad things would happen if you joined her side... and yet, it would be soooooo worth it! That purr and that figure..... YOWZA indeed!!! That and her hilarious voice-over as Yzma for The Emperor's New Groove. Sounded like she was having a blast doing that. Based on what I've seen and read, she looks to have lived life to the fullest. RIP Catwoman.

WOO HOO!!! I GOTS ONE RIGHT!!! I don't have any details, though.... OK, details - this is, somewhat astonishingly, from an album by Vince and Bola Sete, http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...10:0zfexq8gldte though Bola Sete must be off having a quiet cough and a drag. It doesn't say who the bass player & drummer are, so I don't know. MG Wow! Gonna have to check that one out!

You got THAT right!!!

Having said that, I think I'm gonna apply for the Cows head-coaching job. Apparently qualifications don't matter and expectations are extremely low, so I should fit right in. Plus, my press conferences would be more like parties: I plan on FAXing my resume tomorrow!

IF, and I realize this is a VERY BIG IF, the Lions draft well they could be a very good team in a year or two. They have two first round picks(1 + another around 15 courtesy of the Cowboys), and two third round picks(Cowboys again), so the Lions have 5 picks out of the first roughly 80 picks. Plus, they might hire Jason Garrett, which I believe could be a good thing. I know Detroit didn't win this year, but AFAIC they were a far better team than the Cowboys. The Lions don't have the talent, obviously, but they've got the heart. The Cows, OTOH, are a talented, overrated, gutless bunch of weasels "led" by a simpering wisp of a "head coach" and the man who pulls his strings.

WOO HOO!!! I GOTS ONE RIGHT!!! I don't have any details, though....

Well, blow me down! MG Sheesh! Tons o' notes and I don't even consider this guy in my guesses.

Apologies that my answers aren’t the usual long-winded drivel of the past. Then again, maybe this is a good thing? The usual disclaimers apply. As I said in the signup thread, this disc will definitely keep (you) swinging! I don’t know the answers to any of these, so these comments are for entertainment purposes! 1. Fats Waller or a reasonable facsimile! 2. Rabbit doing “When You Wish Upon a Star?” 3. Nice update of “Django” 4. Vince Guaraldi? Bill Evans? Bass/drums sounds more like a Guaraldi unit. 5. No clue, but I like the energy! 6. Nice tribute to the Hot Club of France sound. 7. I hadn’t even noticed the track changed! Nice segueway! 8. Scott Hamilton and someone similarly like-minded? 9. New version of old Dixieland sound. Very nice. Peanuts Hucko maybe? 10. How ‘bout a little salt peanuts to go with your Dixieland? Cool! Drummer reminds me of either Krupa or Rich. 11. Started off like “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.” Swings like crazy! Art Tatum? Tons o’ notes! 12. “Money Jungle” sounding tribute to that album’s “Solitude” with clarinet thrown in for good measure. 13. Is anyone else hearing various Christmas songs quoted throughout this jumpy little tune? 14. Kinda Monk-sounding to start it off, has some Monk phrasing. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it could be a platypus. 15. Sounds like a nice knockoff of the classic 50’s hardbop quintet style. Nothing wrong with that, and everybody does a good job of swingin’ that mother! 16. Nice two-trombone harmony on “Love is Here to Stay.” Are they paying tribute to JJ and Kai? 17. Sounds like Hampton Hawes “Played Twice” (I always mess up the names of Monk tunes). Just has the nice East-Coast-sounding-West-Coast sound that I always identify with Hawes. 18. WOW! Had I seen this on paper—female singer, violin—I would’ve just passed on it and missed out on this terrific little gem! Can’t wait to find out who this is! 19. Keep swinging, indeed! Great collection, Durium! Now off to read everyone else’s guesses!

Let me put it this way: after the first 45 seconds, "Straight Life" grooves like a MF. 17 solid minutes of burning groove like nothing else. Buy it for that track alone!

Well, a quick Google search yielded a link to a review on this page:

Sweet! I'll have to take a break from listening to the sports-talk radio shows trashing the Cowboys to listen to this!

Just off the top of my head: The entirety of the following albums: Herbie Hancock - MAIDEN VOYAGE (especially "Dolphin Dance") and EMPYREAN ISLES Wayne Shorter - SPEAK NO EVIL Freddie Hubbard Blue Notes - HUB-TONES, READY FOR FREDDIE, OPEN SESAME, and BLUE SPIRITS Tina Brooks - TRUE BLUE Art Blakey - FREE FOR ALL, UGETSU (especially the title track), and MOSAIC Freddie Hubbard CTIs - STRAIGHT LIFE and SKY DIVE Stanley Turrentine - SUGAR And many, many, MANY more!!! More than enough to last me a lifetime, as I'm discovering right now while spinning the Atlantic 2-LP set THE ART OF FREDDIE HUBBARD.

Since this thread started, I think I've managed to find every CTI album with Freddie on it. FIRST LIGHT and SKY DIVE are unreal; heavy HEAVY on the groove! KEEP YOUR SOUL TOGETHER does just that, and then some! Despite the "leftover" feel of POLAR AC, I love it just the same. Then, of course, there are the two volumes of live albums he did with Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, and Jack Dejohnette which feature NASTY versions of "Hornets!" All of it fantastic, and can usually be had fairly cheap at your local used vinyl store!

Remedied that with a trip to Half Price Books, where they had the 2-LP The Art of Freddie Hubbard. Spinning it right now; very nice!

As Big Al's alluded to, some of us are Cowboy fans in spite of the owner. Probably most that fall in this category have been fans since long before Jerry Jones rode into town on his wildcat. Correct. But just to show you what a gutless bunch this is, NOBODY sounded angry or frustrated after this loss. Tony Romo shrugged this game off by saying "I've had worse things happen to me." Well, isn't that comforting? Apparently the plane ride back from Philly was something of a party atmosphere. Coach Candyland was his usual whimpering sniveling self in today's press conference, saying that he was working on a plan and that he was putting it together and that there would be changes. Not in his personality, style, personnel, attitude, or anything else. But there would be changes. The only person who was even remotely pissed was Bradie James, and that was only because some idiot fan went out to Valley Ranch wearing a sandwich-board that said 'The Cowboys have no heart." Unfortunately for this guy, one of the few people on that team that has any heart--James-- happened to walk by. Anybody else would've just shrugged it off. Then it was revealed that Jason Garrett is interviewing with the Lions. Do you know how COOL that would be if Garrett takes over the Lions and leads them to the playoffs (or even a victory), while the Cowboys continue to languish in mediocrity? I'd love it, since it isn't likely the Cows are gonna be anything resembling a playoff contender, much less a Super Bowl team, in my lifetime.

She made the most of the situation she was placed in; can't fault her for succeeding on some level. That said, I have yet to hear another singer perform "Ipanema" so perfectly, IMHO. She captures the simplicity and sweetness of that song, where others turn it into something either more schmaltzy or schlocky (Sinatra came close, but he too was working with Jobim). Small doses is enough for me as well, but oh my those doses.... her rendition of "It Might as Well Be Spring" with Stan Getz..... whoa!!!

Maybe I missed an earlier thread, but these titles just appeared at BMG: Luiz Bonfa - Violão e o Samba Elizeth Cardoso & Ciro Monteiro - A Bossa Eterna de Elizeth e Ciro Eumir Deodato - Idéia João Donato - Chá Dancante Quarteto Novo - Quarteto Novo Walter Wanderley - Samba no Esquema de Walter Wanderley Anyone know anything about these? The only info provided is the usual long-winded AMG Thom Jurek babble.

Sad but not wholly unexpected. I was seriously bummed when he cancelled his show in Ft. Worth last summer because of health issues. My dad and I had planned to go see him, my dad being wholly responsible for me liking jazz and knowing who Freddie Hubbard was thru the Blakey MOSAIC album, and we were pretty bummed when that didn't pan out. So many beautiful solos, but if the only solo he'd ever done was the one for Herbie Hancock's "Dolphin Dance," that would've been enough to make me a fan for life. So many great albums, I don't even know where to begin. Open Sesame, Ready for Freddie, Hub-Tones, Blue Spirits, Straight Life, Red Clay.... and that doesn't even touch on the Atlantic stuff that I've never heard. And sideman appearances! The cat was as busy as Billy Higgins! RIP Freddie. Thanks for the great music, of which there was BEAUCOUPS. Keep your soul together.

Damn straight!!! Damn straight!!!! Damn straight!!!!!

I did this review for a magazine whose name escapes me. The circumstances surrounding this was our church's youth director (at the time) was also a contributor to this magazine, which was devoted to film scores and soundtracks. He knew I liked jazz and asked if I would listen to 3 CDs he'd received and write a brief review of each of them. The target audience was film-score fanatics, hence the explanation of some things we probably take for granted around here. The date says April 2002, but I honestly can't remember. Submitted for your enjoyment, FWIW. It probably explains why this is the only review of mine to ever be published. ************ Sony/Legacy continues its reissue campaign with a series of curious releases, three soundtracks which share a common thread of jazz. What makes them such curious candidates for reissue is the fact that none of the three releases had bad sound to begin with. Additionally, with so much other great music yet to see the light of day on compact disc, one has to wonder why the time and energy was spent on these three releases which were already available, when that time and energy (not to mention the money) could have been used on other, more essential releases. While each soundtrack has its moments, by far the least useful of the three soundtracks is the soundtrack to the film BIRD. While the concept was novel at the time of its release, the execution was badly flawed, and the sound upgrade only accentuates those flaws. The original concept was to take original sax solos by Parker, and superimpose those solos over recordings made at the time of the film (1985), to make it sound like Parker was playing with currently living musicians. The result was akin to a band playing along to a transistor radio, as many of Parker’s solos sound like they were recorded in another time zone, much less another time altogether. So with this in mind, one has to wonder who will want to shell out the extra ten bucks for this upgrade: Parker-philes will have every one of these recordings in better quality on superior recordings; those who are just discovering Parker for the first time would be much better served by going for the original recordings on Verve, of which there are volumes; and film score fans won’t be served at all, as this is nothing more than a compilation of recordings that were used during performance scenes in the movie. Ultimately, this release begs the question: would anyone truly have complained if the original recordings were superimposed over the live performances in the movie? The next upgrade fares a little better in the improved sound category, the soundtrack to STRAIGHT, NO CHASER, the documentary about legendary jazz composer/pianist/iconoclast Thelonious Monk. What makes this soundtrack particularly interesting is that it succeeds in much the same way as a score would: it tells its story through music. Granted, these performances are also used like those in BIRD, as the movie is as much a performance piece as it is a documentary. But what separates this soundtrack from BIRD is that the soundtrack serves the same function as the film, documenting Monk’s life in his music. Again, there is no incidental music to speak of, but anyone with even a fleeting interest in the life of Monk would be well-served in seeing this movie and hearing the accompanying soundtrack. Clearly the best of the lot is the soundtrack to ROUND MIDNIGHT. This soundtrack scores high marks on many counts: first is the improved sound, which brings out the subtleties that were missing from the first issue; second is the all-around performances on the soundtrack. Spearheaded by the delicate yet swinging piano playing of jazz great Herbie Hancock, already a master at soundtracks having scored, among others, the avant-garde masterpiece BLOW UP, each song features a who’s who of legendary jazz figures: Dexter Gordon (who not only plays on the soundtrack, but also starred in the film and was subsequently nominated for an Oscar); Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Billy Higgins, and Wayne Shorter. It is a tribute to the strength of each player that the soundtrack succeeds as not only a fine jazz album (and a nice introduction to jazz in general), but also as a fine soundtrack as well.

Today was such a banner day for us Cowboys fans who despise Jones and how he's brought this team down to the depths: 1) The aforementioned embarrasment in Philly. This should finally expose Terrell Owens as the NFL's biggest fool, along with Jerry Jones who wanted him in the first place. 2) The Miami Dolphins are in the playoffs, and the Cowboys aren't. For anyone not paying attention, Miami was 1-15 last year, and then they brought in a new head coach: former Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells, a man Jerry Jones was still deriding as recent as a couple of weeks ago. 3) The San Diego Chargers are in the playoffs, and the Cowboys aren't. The Chargers' head coach is Norv Turner, the man all us Cowboys fans thought would be the perfect successor to Big Bill; the man who was passed over by Jerry Jones in favor of Coach Candyland himself, Wade Phillips. This Cowboys fan would love nothing more than to see the Super Bowl being played between the Eagles and the Dolphins/Chargers. Then I'd want to watch the Super Bowl with Jerry and say, "See? This is what happens when you have a REAL GM and a REAL head coach." Dave James said it best:

This Cowboy team has to be THE worst ever, in terms of talent and expectations. Eagles are annihilating the Cows, 34-3 barely into the 3rd quarter. Actually, the Cows are giving it away, which leads me to believe this is nothing more than open revolt against Jerry and Wade. Remember how Jerry ripped Marion Barber a new one a few weeks back? Jones has yet to say anything about the antics of TO and Pacman (who just muffed ANOTHER kickoff as I type this), but he rips one of his hardest players. As a result, Barber has been playing DOWN to Jones' expectations, and the rest of the Boys have been following suit. Can't say I blame 'em. If I was getting paid millions of dollars to be mediocre, I'd phone in my performance, too! I'd like to see Jerry explain THIS one!