chandra

That is really very sad. The word 'prodigy' does not seem to do full justice. He seemed to have been one of a kind...

This was floating around a year back and I was rofl because just the previous day, at a greek restraunt the waiter gave us a spoon out of his pocket!! ----- A timeless lesson on how consultants can make a difference for an organization. Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant. After a while, we noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange, but I ignored it. However, when the busboy brought out water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around the room and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, "Why the spoon?" "Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting, experts in efficiency, in order to revamp all our processes. After several months of statistical analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. This represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel is prepared to deal with that contingency, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift." As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it immediately with his spare spoon. "I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now." I was rather impressed. Later I noticed that there was a very thin string hanging out of the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. My curiosity got the better of me and before he walked off, I asked the waiter, "Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?" "Oh, certainly!" he answered, lowering his voice. "Not everyone is as observant as you. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save time in the restroom." "How so?" "See," he continued, "by tying this string to the tip of you know what, we can pull it out over the urinal without touching it and that way eliminate the need to wash the hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent." "But, after you get it out, how do you put it back?", I inquired. "Well," he whispered, lowering his voice even further, "I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon."

I am curious if any of you visit http://www.jellyroll.com/ I happened to read this review of Ken Burns PBS Jazz special and I thought the views are probably in line with many at organissimo. http://www.jellyroll.com/2001/kenburnsjazz.html

I will have to vote for Ice cream. Now, for a dumb question, what is the difference between the two? Ice cream is made from unspoilt milk where as frozen yoghurt is made from spoilt milk, is that it?

Agreed that even for a rich player 1.3 million is a hit. But the part we have not gotten into here yet is: What is the probability of getting caught in the new process they have negotiated? Are there surprise, unannounced and random checks by a third party?

I concede a bit to you on the short term public shame part of it, but on the money side, for multi-millionnairre ball players, loss of 10 day or 30 day pay is nothing. Back to the public shame part, fans are quite forgiving. Play this scenario out for giggles: a top notch player gets caught and there is all this media frenzy over that, the player gives an explanation that he took a cough medicine and did not know it contained the prohibited substance, sits out the 10 day suspension. Yeah, there is a bit of short term shame in getting caught. Let us continue.... Play off time, seventh game, crucial stage, our man hits a home run and wins the game. Everything is forgotten and he is a hero. Several variations on this theme can be played out. My point: Fans don't hold any of these transgressions against their favourite players if they win games for their teams.

In my book, this process is very weak. If the goal is zero tolerance for steroid use, this penalty system has to be tighted up a lot to achieve that. May be a major public outcry and a decline in baseball popularity will get them in that direction. And there has to be public shame in getting caught. This kind of weak process is what happens when one has to negotiate the process with the entity you want to clean-up. ( I realize why they have to negotiate .... ). How does this compare with NFL?

I am not that sure about that. How does MLB's process compare to other leagues in U.S.A. and the Olympics, does anyone know? From what I read, the process may be adequate but the penalty is not damaging enough to discourage players from going the illegal steroid route. I am a bit suspicious when MLB has to negotiate with the Players Union to come up with this process.

This technique works for selecting text in this forum too... Try it. BTW, don't send the curses to silicon valley. Bill isn't there, he is a few hundred miles and couple of states up north.

What is the deal with Wal-Mart? Something specific to jazz or just its hugeness or its not-so-union-friendly attitude.

Yeah, I agree what you say about Arif Mardin. I don't even know what he did with Norah other than providing adult supervision and possibly have some major input on one song in her first album. Her second album does not reveal much Mardin influence. I heard a few cuts from the Dana Owens album at a late night talk radio station ( as bumps between segments ). It sounded very good. Especially, 'I put a spell on you'. I just finished reviewing a 5 CD box set on Blues music and this song sounded Blues to me. Is it? Actually, I was a bit taken aback by how good she can sing. I knew Queen Latifah from a silly sitcom and a few bad movies ( I have never heard her rap ), so this much quality out of her came out of nowhere for me. From what I read, every time she appears in public and sings, the sales of the album go up a lot. But she could not devote much time promoting the CD because she is busy filming her next movie. But expect much more press and high profile appearances late March onwards in support of this album.

As I was reading the thread, I thought, how come the posts are so male dominant, and then I saw Patricia's post. That gave it some balance, but still so skewed... I know it is all in jest but Patricia, I didn't see much smilees there, so I hope taste in music did not get in the way of relationship....

A friend gave me this CD to listen to. I made it through 4 songs before ejecting it in disgust. I gave my friend a burn of Ray Charles and Betty Carter and she has thanked me every day since. Ooch... You should have given track 5 a chance.. Fever with Natalie Cole. I thought that track was fun, playful and energetic and vintage Ray Charles...

OK, Cool. Thanks for the headsup, I'll watch out for that.

I agree--Lil Green wrote the tune, and she's an interesting/overlooked figure in 40s blues/jazz. Thanks for the pointer. It has been a bit of an education already. From not knowing who wrote 'Romance in the dark', now I know some bio of Lil Green and about her other songs as well. Very cool. I have this 5 CD set 'Martin Scorsese presents The Blues, a Musical Journey' and darn it, I don't see any Lil Green songs there. So this may be another case of 'being overlooked'. ( there is no index by performer/composer so I may be just missing it, there are around 120 songs there). I found some 20 second samples at allmusic.com of Lil Green singing the song and I get the idea. Fortunately, different samples started at different times into the song to get a better overall idea. I will get an album with her version and listen to it fully. It is a bit raw and rough and sounds like ol' blues and I like that . Dinah Washington's version is a lot closer and similar to Lil Green's version, though a bit smoothened out. Compared to these two, the Norah Jones version is quite different and does not sound like old blues. It is not rough, it is more melodic and sounds more 'sophisticated' ( using that word jingerly since I can't think of anything else to express it ). Now I am wondering if that kind of singing is considered 'Blues' or it has to be raw and rough like the Lil Green original... One thing I get is, had the subject matter of the song is about despair rather than romance, Norah's style would sound very jarring even if pleasant.

I don't know how to evaluate a particular version of a 'Standard', other than whether it appeals to me or not. I like the version of 'In the dark' ( officially it is called Romance in the dark, I think ) that Norah Jones did in Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland (Jan. 2003). I then found a version done by Dinah Washington. It is quite different in style and so it is probably not fair to compare. Dinah's version has more energy but Norah's version sounds more melodic. What I mean is, for example, while singing the line 'In the dark' Dinah sings it pretty straight, almost speaking it whereas Norah's version has more ups and downs melodically with a little twist here and there applied to the notes. Melodically stronger versions appeal to me usually so I marginally prefer Norah's version. I have learnt by reading these forums that people like a singing style that shows emotion. So, almost speaking a verse at the right time may be the right treatment to give to a song and so many of you may consider a melodically stronger treatment 'immature' or 'inexperienced'. I don't know, I have not really heard a lot of standards. I would like to hear your opinions.

I feel there are 5 or 6 top notch songs in that album and on that merit itself deserves the recognitionand sales. The 'contrafactual' argument 'what if he was not dead' bothers me. I read a few news stories mentioned a similar thing, some in sort of a lighter vein which is fine. I also hear people saying that this is demeaning to his life time of work. This usually bugs me if it comes from someone who has not really been that kind to Ray over the years or does not really otherwise care for his music. I don't know why it has to be the best of his 5 decade long career to have higher sales and grammy recognition. It is just good this year, compared to the competition. At some point, one also has to account for why this album sold more than any of his other albums. Better marketing, Starbucks alliance, you get a bit of mindshare from every one of his duet partners, bigger market due to higher population than when he did his acclaimed past works, etc. But most of the musical journalists forget to mention that there is some good music from Ray Charles here as well ( not all tracks, in some tracks it is easy to feel his failing health in his voice ). But giving this 'dead guy' hypothesis some weight, how consistent is this? Is there data to support this? One needs to look at positive correlation( a well knonwn musician who released a record in the year of his death gets Grammys and lot of sales ) and negavtive correlation( a well known musician who released a record in the year of his death does not get any grammys or recognition and no one cares). Are there such data points from the past? My feeling is this phenomenon is isolated to a few great legends...

may be she does yoga!!

Both Norah and the Green day Punk Rocker Billie Joe Armstrong got to sing the following lines: Jai guru deva om Nothing's gonna change my world The translation of the first line is: 'Salutations to the heavenly teacher' This coming out of a punk rocker is a coup in itself

Sweet picture: Billy Preston and Norah Jones

Interesting. We can make a market as they say in wall street My reaction was the opposite. For that song, with the original version still in my head, the soul and R&B treatment sounded out of place. Anyway that is in the neighborhood of nitpick, they all did it for a great cause and hope they generate millions of dollars.

I think Alicia Keys has a good voice and can sing very well but her vocal histrionics starts to bug me. That is what most everyone in American Idol does. If she does that in her own songs, that is one thing but on Beatles' 'Across the Universe' that they all sang for Tsunami Relief, she launched into such vocal gymnastics which was a bit jarring...

Fine Ass C. Shmoove First thing tomorrow, I am headin' to the pimp council for the name change!

Here are some pictures from the press... Is it orange or Saffron? Color means different things to different people. Saffron has a bit of spiritual connotation in my mind and Orange brings out a sense of flamboyancy in me. The close-up shot looks breathtakingly beautiful...

If that is all they are doing, it is very easy to circumvent by setting the system clock back.... Not that I am advocating it but meguesses there is something more..