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Everything posted by Norm
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That scene after the first Octet performance, I think it was, where they mess up bad? The low camera angle as Monk in his coat walks away from the camera into a room, and there's a styrofoam coffee cup on a low table and Monk just wacks it, hard, out of complete and total anger as he goes buy. That, too me, was the most humanizing moment in the film. When I saw that this whole "he's crazy and lives in his own world of music like a little baby" media contrived persona was demolished with that cup. Yes, that was the scene, but it was really the whole scene because I really felt it showed how the music grew or broke down very honestly. I think one of the songs performed in it was "Evidence." I mean, the whole documentary was fantastic, but I just felt right there with that scene in particular....like I was in the room.
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I bought it from bargainentertainment as well, but was only charged 2.98 for shipping (through Amazon). Never had that happen before (reverse shipping charges?); maybe you want to contact bargainentertainment to see what the story is. Happening to be listening to disc 4 right now when I read your post, and am loving it.
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Just watched the Straight, No Chaser documentary for the first time tonight, on 7/4's recommendation. Wow! That was amazing. All of the footage was fantastic...I particularly like the performances in London, I think, with the Octet ( Johnny Griffin on sax). I wanted doc to keep going and going, but yes in the end it left me with more questions than answers. So, I'm very happy to see this thread on the new biography and to see that virtually everyone is pleased with it thus far. This moves to next position on the to-read list.
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Yes, if you want the best sound on a CD I would purchase the FLAC. You can then add those files to an alternative media player (not Itunes, which as far as I know deals exclusively in MP3s). I use Winamp Player (free download) which can play and burn FLAC files. You can burn your CD using the Winamp player in FLAC and then if you would like to listen to these on your IPOD you can then import the files to Itunes. I forget if it will convert them automatically or if you need to do it on your own beforehand. But I went through this process a few weeks ago and I located a free software program online that can convert FLAC to SHN (another uncompressed format) as well as both FLAC and SHN to MP3 (obviously you can't work your way up from MP3 to better sounding FLAC). Let me know if you need the name of the software and I'll try to locate it.
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Thanks for bringing this to our attention (at least those of us who don't have it). I read through the entire related thread and while I trust Chuck that the K2 monos sound better, it seems both are now out of print so for $4.30 this seems like a no-brainer (for someone who doesn't have any previous versions).
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I agree that XTC, especially Skylarking, really gives off a post-Beatles vibe. Another artist whose beautiful songs always remind me of what a contemporary stripped down version of the Beatles might sound like is/was Elliot Smith, before his tragic death 6 years ago. Especially songs from Figure 8 and XO. EDIT (added clips):
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How about George Harrison's immediate post-Beatle release, All Things Must Pass? I don't have it (yet), but I've heard from others that it along with Lennon's Plastic Ono Band is one of THE essential post-Beatle recordings to pick up. I have the latter, but I haven't fully warmed up to it yet. I have to be in the right mood to listen to it.
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Ian Macdonald, The Beatles, Wong Kar-wai and Randomness Forewarning: the following LONG post consists largely of rambling thoughts and half-baked ideas (and thus many -- perhaps most -- readers may wish to skip over the post entirely and I don't blame you!). These ideas have been on my mind lately and since I don't blog, keep a diary or have another outlet, I thought I'd try to set them down in rough form. There is much up-thread discussion of Ian Macdonald's Revolution in the Head. I'd like to add my impressions of his book so far and then share how some of the ideas he brings forth have converged, by chance, with some reflections I've had on the films of Hong Kong director, Wong Kar-wai. There's a randomness in this connection that matches the themes of randomness in each of these artists' works. First I should mention that I find Macdonald to be a particularly insightful (I know that term is overused but it seems applicable here), fair, and balanced critic; while I can appreciate the directness of his writing, it sort of hits you like a gale force wind. Take for example this passage from his introductory essay: (on the 60s): "and while censorship was rolled back, homosexuality legalized, and women given the benefit of the pill and abortion on demand, the loosening of over-restrictive divorce laws inevitably created the conditions for the replacement of marriage by relationships in the Seventies and a widespread collapse of the nuclear family during the Eighties. Immediate sexual gratification became the ideal of a society in which church-going was falling in inverse relationship to the rise of television ownership. As tradition became outmoded and a dispirited Christianity forfeited influence, the public focus began to shift from nostalgia and compensation of a reward in heaven to an eager stress on the present combined with an impatient hope for social heaven on earth in the near future."” My jaw just about fell to the floor after I read that paragraph. Like any skilled writer, Macdonald is able to weave several themes and big ideas into his work. I suppose what I'm most impressed with thus far is his ability to get me, the reader, to sharpen my focus on just what I like about the Beatles (no author has ever done that for me before): a prime example is his de-coupling of the lyrical and musical content: superbly innovative sounds alongside haphazard and sometimes rather mediocre lyrics. Connected to this, Macdonald points out the primacy the Beatles placed on randomness, eschewing convention and structure, even to the point that an attempt to decipher their songs in a logical way would render many of them virtually senseless. Rather than make a direct point (and I should point out I’m speaking of post1964 stuff here), the best of their songs stitch together all kinds of lyrical and musical pieces like a collage in an effort to evoke a feeling in the listener. For me, four songs in which this comes across particularly well are "Rain,""Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane," and "A Day in the Life."”I mean I love "Rain," but its not as if I sit there thinking about the greatness of the lyrics and try to reach a definitive conclusion about its deeper meaning; its as if, rather, they used their respective talents simply to piece it together in a very eclectic pastiche of sound, reverb, lyric. I actually enjoy the fact that the song is open and not conclusive. And this leads to me to the work of Hong Kong Director Wong Kar-wai, whose films (e.g. Chungking Express, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, My Blueberry Nights) I’ve been enjoying immensely lately. As I mentioned in another thread, I find the soundtracks he puts together quite evocative (everything from Spanish songs by Nat King Cole and Cantopop, "California Dreamin," a sped up version of "Happy Together," to tunes by contemporary folk crooner, Cat Power and 1940s Shanghai ballads), but his camera work (visuals) and approach to each story he tells are just as captivating. Like the Beatles, it seems to me, he places primacy on the randomness of life situations often expressed in chance relationships and just as fiercely jettisons structure (intro, climax, resolution) and any sort of conclusion in his films. They are left open and incomplete just as Beatles songs are. I get the sense that they serve more as snapshots of certain people's lives and the struggles they're enduring (often in relationships) than as vehicles for making this or that point. There's no ultimate moral. Finally, I feel there’s a point that connects some of Macdonald's discussion to one of Wong's films, In the Mood for Love, which I consider to be his magnum opus to date. The film is set in 1963 in Hong Kong, which as a British colony provides an interesting site for the convergence of Western and Asian styles and ideas (much as Shanghai or Saigon would have 30 years earlier). The basic story revolves around two couples who have moved into the same apartment building and an ensuing affair between the man from one and woman from the other. We never see the faces of those involved in the affair; rather those whom are cheated on are our main protagonists; we see them as they realize their spouses are engaged in the affair and as they begin to develop romantic feelings for one another. In the end they show self control, refraining from acting on those impulses, which from a "contemporary" perspective (I was born in 1973) seems kind of antiquated. Well, to bring this back to Macdonald: in his intro, he stresses how the Beatles and groups like them in the 1960s were in essence rebelling against the monotonous, well-regulated and overly structured family life of the 1950s replete with as much sexual repression as Victorian times. In particular, Macdonald lists the years of 1963 to 1973 as the decade when this soft rebellion (my term) against the conventions and staid old life took place. And here he’s not referring to the civil rights movement, rising public awareness over the imperialist aggression of Western countries, and the women's movement persay, which were all outgrowths of the larger movement, but a much more general rejection of past convention. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that Wong set his film in 1963 at the interstices of Western-Chinese contact, just on the precipice of this collapse of holding to traditional values. As someone who was born at the very tail end of the aforementioned decade, the inner struggle that the two main protagonists coped with makes much more sense after reading Macdonald. Like the Beatles and Wong, I have neither a point nor a conclusion
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I probably haven't read a work of fiction in nearly 5 years. I've just begun Ha Jin's Waiting. I've also heard that his bigger work, War Trash, is quite good. Anybody familiar with the work of this author?
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Jazzbo...that SACD wouldn't happy to be a hybrid, would it? It is OOP but used copies are available; nevertheless, the product description at Amazon is a bit unclear about whether its a hybrid disc or not. If not, I guess I'll go for the 1996 release.
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Have you ever heard the early acoustic sessions of Blood on the Tracks bootleg titled - Blood on the Tapes? Well worth searching out. I actually prefer it to the official version. A couple of these made it on the Biograph box set. No, I didn't even know such sessions existed. Thanks for pointing these out. Given the responses here, I'll probably first pick up the SACD and then look for these later on. These songs certainly merit it.
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Well the various discussion of Lewisohn's works piqued my interest and led to investigate the matter further. In addition, when I was perusing the list of suggested readings in the back of the MacDonald volume, Revolution in the Head, I came across this snippet: "Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions is an indispensable day-to-day account of the making of the The Beatles' records. For those uninterested in technical details, his The Complete Beatles Chronicle combines the gist of Recording Sessions with the data on their performing career previously published in his The Beatles Live! (1986), thereby qualifying it as the standard Beatles reference book." Thats quite an endorsement. In trying to decide which one to pick up, I went to my university library and checked out The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (206 pages) and perused Chronicles (it is held by the University music Library and is non-circulating). The latter is quite a bit larger (roughly the same dimensions, but 360 pages). Here's the conclusion I reached: if you are a musician, you may wish to pick up the Recording Sessions volume but if you are like me and more of a Beatles fan and aren't as interested in the technical details, as Macdonald put it, then the Chronicles might be better. Both are beautifully illustrated with photographs (I've never seen before), song lists, images of parlophone records, ticket stubs etc. Anyway, after some searching on Amazon I found a used / like new hardback edition of Chronicles for 11.99 plus shipping. On the other hand, I know that some were expressing dismay over the high prices of the OOP Recording Sessions. If you are patient and would like a new copy of Recording Sessions, the paperback edition (2006) can be ordered from Tower Records for $24.99 (if you have another item it will ship for free). The only catch is that they list a ship date of 3-5 weeks from the time the order is placed. Anyway, I'm confident that between Chronicles, Anthology, and Revolution in the Head my Beatles library will be as complete as it needs to be, though I might borrow Spitz's biography from the library.
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Nice to see this thread. As fate would have it, I pulled out my old CD of Blood on the Tracks for the first time in several years about a week ago and was blown away. I picked this up a decade ago, but for some reason it slipped under the radar for several years. The music is great but this is a pretty old copy and the mastering is just aweful. I just checked Amazon and it appears there are two relatively new re-issues: a regular redbook CD issued in 2004 and a hybrid SACD issued in 2003. Noting that I don't have any SACD player, can anybody advise if either of these sound better than the old issue? Any preference? Both are about the same price in the very reasonable range of $9-$10 New.
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Here is the beginning of 'Straight no Chaser' where you can see Monk dancing in circles: Enjoy! Thank you! That was awesome. Speaking of Straight no Chaser,' the album not the documentary, I'm wondering if people who have the CD could chime in with which version they have. I don't have any but definately want to pick it up and on Amazon I've come across only 1996 release by Sony. Is the sound OK on this one? Is there a better one?
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I saw him do the dance at The Colonial in Toronto probably in the late '60s. By that time it had been written about that I sort of expected it and would have been disappointed if he hadn't. Very Cool! Was he wearing any headgear? I thought I've seen some images of him donning one of those hats worn traditionally in the Ottoman Empire, called a "fez" I believe, that looks like an upside-down cup-of-soup bowl with tassels. It just seems like it would fit with that repertoire. I'm going to have to check out the film mentioned by 7/4, if its still available. I've GOT to see footage of this!
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Anybody here a fan of Grizzly Bear? I have one of Grizzly Bear's old ones, Yellow House, which is pretty good, though, I have to be in the right mood to really enjoy it. But I've seen them perform two songs from their newish one, Veckatimest, on late night shows over the past couple of months and each has sounded incredible. Not sure if they are representative of the album as a whole, but if so this looks to be an excellent album.
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I'm not familiar with that book so I can't really comment. But you did anyways! Because I presumed that the question was asked of me. Is here general agreement that these new editions are worth getting even if you have them on cd already? Is the difference that notable? After some further forays, it appears that there were two different versions of the book by Lewisohn (not the "Chronicles" which appears to be a separate volume altogether) but the book on recordings 1962-1970. It appears that you have The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: the Official Story of the Abbey Road Years, 1962-1970. Is that the exact, full title of the book you have? I thought I read that this is the U.K. released version whereas the volume I checked out from the library today is the U.S. version and titled similarly but just a bit different: The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Session Notes, 1962-1970 by Mark Lewisohn and Paul McCartney (There is a several-page interview with Paul McCartney at the beginning of this volume. Its 206 pages and quite large (oversize) with lots of photographs. Does the volume you have pretty much fit this description? I'm just trying to get a handle on whether these are pretty much the same book issued separately. Unfortunately my university library seems to have stripped the original cover and put on one of those standard library jackets, making it difficult to identify. But yes it appears both are currently out of print and thus quite costly. Bummer...
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By the way, anybody here see Monk live? I just read the entry for him at Wikipedia which suggested that he would get up in the middle of a performance and spin around in a dance like whirling dervish? Is this true? This just makes him all the more intriguing, as if his approach to composition and playing wasn't fascinating enough in itself.
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From NPR, in celebration of Monk's birthday: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2009...sc=fb&cc=fp I've got Thelonious himself spinning right now.
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Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser For my next book, I'm probably going to go with something by Michael Pollan to continue with the theme. Can't decide between The Omnivore's Dilemma or In Defense of Food.
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Thanks, but I'm still learning how to read. "The Real McCoy" also plays fine for me. I happened to be listening to disc 5 when I read your post, but I was already into the last track. Since I'm reading a book and might not have noticed, I went back and listened to the whole track again and no skipping. Weird that its showing up in some discs and not others. Speaking of the last disc, they really pack the music in: 79m, 58s.
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Hmmm...this is interesting. I've come to Jimi only lately. In fact, I picked up my first set of his this week. This stuff sounds great to me. I don't have any of the Experience Hendrix studio albums issued in 1997, but I've heard elsewhere that they are pretty decent. Oh, I'm sure there are Japanese releases costing an arm and a leg that sound better...but isn't that always the case. The stuff I've heard that one should avoid like the plague is the stuff supervised by Alan Douglas who brought in studio musicians to "help" finish studio recordings and Reprise releasing everything under the sun that is unfinished and bastardized, and then MCA trying to fix all the screw-ups of MCA and Douglas. For alternative takes and live cuts, though, I'm really enjoying the 4-CD box set pictured above. Anybody else have this one? Dissatisfied with it? If so, what should I be looking into? (as it sounds mighty fine to me).
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A few days ago received an order from Tower Records including the following: Lee Morgan - Lee-way Miles Davis - Filles de Kiliminjaro Hank Mobley - Quintet Cannonball Adderley Quintet Live at the Lighthouse For some reason, they mistakenly included the soundtrack to Finding Forrester which features tunes from Miles and Bill Frisell. But since I've been busy with two of the Coltrane Prestige box sets I haven't even unwrapped any of these CDs from their shrinkwrap.
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With an endless muzak loop of Kenny G's "Songbird" playing over and over and over and over...
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I ordered Fearless Leader from the same source on Wed.. Hopefully they had more than 1 copy & mine will arrive soon. Yes, they definately do as they are still showing that they have units available on their Amazon Marketplace page. I imagine you'll get yours tomorrow, if not then definately on Monday. I live in L.A. so its a straight shot from NJ to LAX, which may explain why it came so quickly. BTW, the item arrived perfect except as someone else noted that the upc was slightly gouged. Man, as someone else mentioned in another thread there has got to be a place in hell for the individual who sits there gouging out the UPCs. Anyway, getting this box has saved me so much because I had planned to pick up Soultrane, Traneing IN, Lush Life, Black Pearls, Coltrane and others -- none of which I have or even have heard. Can't wait to dig in. You know, they don't gouge the UPCs out of spite. It's a requirement for selling cut-outs. If you want the box for $15, you'll have to deal with a gouge or a cut or a hole in the case; if not, you can always pay full price for a non-overstock/remaindered copy. Yes, I do realize that. I was being more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, just kind of joking (that line about special place in hell I saw in another thread on the forum and it just made me laugh. I guess its just funny to think of the guy who is sitting there all day gouging the UPCs). Anyway, its well worth it (for me at least) to get it at this price.