Alexander

Well, while Snoop has certainly got the attitude to play Miles, isn't he a little tall for the role? As I recall, Miles was not a big man, and Snoop's kinda lanky. Am I wrong?

If its played well, I enjoy the sound of an electric bass just as much as an acoustic bass.

Elvin has left the building... Rest in Peace.

Indeed, and if it proves to be a hoax, I for one believe that Andy is either behind it (as in from beyond the grave) or would absolutely LOVE it. I can think of no greater tribute to Andy Kaufman than to fake his return from the dead!

I LOVE Faces. Ron Wood was a KILLER guitar player (played a pretty mean bass, too). Pity he wound up being overshadowed by Keither Richards in the Stones. Listening to those Faces albums, he was ten times the guitarist Keith is. "Long Player" and "A Nod's As Good As A Wink..." are my two favorites. The Small Faces, the group that morphed into Faces, was an awesome band too. "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" is a psychadelic classic. Right up there with the Zombies' "The Odyssey and the Oracle."

YAY!!! Now, if they'll just RVG Compulsion and Andrew, we'll be all set...

Um...what was Pam before? Canadian? Swedish?

My wife's a regular viewer, and I occasionally catch a few minutes here and there. I watched the last fifteen minutes or so of last night's results show. So, LaToya's out. I'm not suprised, frankly. I think it's obvious that people are voting based on how "cute" the contestants are, and frankly the majority finds little white girls and little asian girls to be cuter than African American women. Pity really, because LaToya was the best looking of those four, and she could sing too. I predict that the little Leanne Rimes clone is going to win...

Why did Alex Haley write "The Autobiography of Malcolm X?"

"Don't you EVER touch my stereo! These're MY records!!!" Got it shortly after it came out, and it's certainly wearing well. It took a few listenings before it really took, but it is pretty damn good. Title track is PHAT... B)

I notice that the rot seems to affect CDs from the eighties. Those of us who have been upgrading are in pretty good shape, it turns out!

Well, I used to BE one of those "knowledgable employees." In fact, when I worked at the B&N, we had a FANTASTIC staff in the music department. A bunch of VERY knowledgable people. We had TWO jazz guys (me and Brian), a classical guy, a woman who knew international music very well, several people who knew a lot about different rock genres... I used to say that we had an independent store staff in a corporate building. And people really appreciated it, too. Every one of us had a bunch of regulars who knew they could come to us for good advice when it came to music. Well, now that I no longer work at B&N, I can tell you that the music staff got treated like SHIT by the company. Hours were often cut. We were often understaffed. I got frequent complaints from the higher-ups that music department employees were too lazy, surly, etc. But the fact is that you don't hire music people for their people skills: you hire them for their knowledge. As long as they were polite to the customers, I was happy. I tried not to lay too many rules on them, etc. Well, pretty much everyone who was there under me is now gone, replaced (I hear) by teenagers who are just putting in their time in order to get the paycheck. It's a pity, because we had a good thing going there for a while. But we weren't willing to "play the game." We didn't like promoting stuff just because the company told us to do so. We tried promoting *good* music, and often succeeded (I can tell you about days when every disc I played on the in-store system sold). Even during the periods when the store was tanking, the music department was making plan. But you see, when you work for a company like B&N, it's not about selling music. If it were, they wouldn't care what we did or how we did it. It's about doing what you're told, following the rules, and sticking to the planner. We didn't do that, so as far as the company was concerned, we were bad employees, no matter how much money we were making for them. It's not just about money in those places. Its about power: Who's got it, and who doesn't.

I don't quite understand this. If a person peruses the bins and decides to purchase something, he/she then walks out of the music dept. with the item and proceeds to make their way toward the battery of cash registers often located in another part of the store (at least down this way, I think??). Since the music dept. staff clearly can't stroll arm-in-arm the 100 feet or so to the cash register with every person who exits the music dept. with a Freddie Fender cd, what exactly would the overlords expect the music dept. staff to do? Ditto for Borders where the cash registers (at the Pentagon City store) and music dept are located at opposite ends of the store -- about 150-200 feet as the crow flies (over the maze of book shelves). My store had two registers in the music department and a checkpoint device at the music department entrance. Customers were not allowed to purchase music on the bookfloor, and if they insisted, then we WOULD walk them up to the front register and wait until they were checked out. The big problem we had was with people defeating the checkpoint system by cutting the checkpoint tags off of the CDs with a razor blade. We'd find the tags all over the department, hidden behind things and inside the listening stations. The main problem was that we had one or two employees back there watching over a dozen or more customers, it was very easy to distract us.

That's gotta be Renee Rosnes. She's married to Billy Drummond. She is an amazing pianist. Her recent album with the Danish Radio Big Band is the shiznit.

As many of you know, I worked at Barnes and Noble for almost six years. For much of that time I worked in a supervisiory capacity, and for the last year or so I was the manager of the music department, so I have an intimate knowledge of this particular subject. First of all, I want to echo Dan's statement: Consider the message your actions send. An innocent person with nothing to hide *usually* (obviously not always) stops and shows his or her receipt to the clerk or security guard when the security device beeps. Shoplifters (as Dan suggested) just keep walking. Only inexperienced kids run. An experienced shoplifter (and believe me, I saw a lot of them over the course of six years) just keeps walking at a measured pace and refuses to stop. They also tend to wave receipts at a distance, rather than letting us examine them. I understand that this seems like overkill to you, but shrink (the retail word for theft) is a huge problem. Shortly before I left B&N, I was told in no uncertain terms that either I brought the shrink situation in the music department under control *by myself* (meaning: with no help from the company, and without spending any money on additional security equipment) or I would lose my job. So there's considerable pressure on employees to stop theft. I also agree with Dan that you're not "acting like a sheep" when you stop and let an employee examine your purchase. Think of it as helping the employees do their job. No one is going to take an item you paid for away from you. They will simply glance at the receipt to make sure that all of the items you paid for are on it, and send you on your merry way. I can't tell you how glad I am to be out of retail, but I'll not soon forget the lessons I learned while working there...

How about a little love for Renee Rosnes?

I've listened to it once through already (just got it the day before yesterday) and I think it's terrific and very challenging. I've only identified one track so far. It's the first track, and it's a cover of a Charlie Parker tune. It's the first track on this album. I'll post more when I have more guesses.

As with the various discussions on Norah, I feel compelled to ask why we're all so hung up on defining what is "jazz" and what is "jazzy" or "jazz-influenced" or "jazz-like-but-not-quite" or whatever. I've heard Krall when she was "jazz," and I have to say that I've never been impressed with her. She can play piano, yes, but her vocals have always been too cold for me to warm up to. Maybe if she did an all piano album (even Harry Connick's done one of those) I'd be more inclined to take her seriously. This album, however, is well-executed, well-written, well-played, and well-sung. So who cares what we call it? Call it jazz. Call it pop. Call it a cab. Doesn't really matter what word you use to describe it, does it? Back when I used to managed a music department, I used to fantasize about eliminating ALL of the so-called "genres" and alphabetizing EVERYTHING by artist name. It's music. For what it's worth, I think it's good music. Remember what Ellington said about there being only two kinds of music: Good music and the other kind.

They didn't have the Bud at Borders (or some bop fan beat me to it), but they did have the Zoot. It's very nice, although I'm puzzled that it's supposed to be a live album. It doesn't sound live! I don't hear an audience at all! Haven't read the liners, so perhaps there's a logical explanation for this... Very good disc, though. Primo West Coast jazz...

I LIKED "The Magic Hour!" I think I'm the only person who did...

I heard that Prince's last foray into instrumental jazz ("N.E.W.S.") was pretty horrible, so I can only hope that the Purple One would receive good advice were he to record on Blue Note. I got "Musicology" over the weekend, and while I think the title track is PHAT, I think the rest of the CD falls flat so far. Prince certainly doesn't sound as bored as he did on "Come" nor as overbearing as on "The Gold Experience" (the album that made me give up on Prince) but it's no where near as good as something like "Sign O The Times" or "The Black Album" (or the "Hits and B-Sides" greatest hits compliation for that matter). Maybe it'll grow on me, but for the moment I'm not too favorably impressed. And that packaging SUCKS!

Well, as a Costello fan, I was planning on picking this one up regardless of the reviews. Costello co-wrote a good number of the tracks, and the record bears his stamp (even if he doesn't sing on it). It's clear from listening to this that Krall has already picked up some pointers on expressive singing from old Elvis. At times, she almost sounds like she's imitating him! But it's all good. She no longer sounds like the ice queen I've heard on past recordings, so it's clear that Costello has had a good influence on her. As for the covers, she does a good Mose Allison, but that didn't surprise me. Her version of "Almost Blue" is superb, but again that's not a surprise. The song sounds like it was written for her already. I liked her version of "Black Crow," but she's proven in the past that she does Joni Mitchell well (she did a version of "A Case of You"). Problem is, Cassandra Wilson did "Black Crow" on "Blue Light Until Dawn," so the jazz-singer-does-"Black Crow"-thing has been done already. If I were producing this album, I might have suggested a different Mitchell song from the same period (how about something off of "Mingus?" Or from "The Hissing of Summer Lawns?"). Anyway that's a minor complaint. I've never been a Krall fan, but I liked this album a lot. And I also like Norah. So there!

I was born in Buffalo, NY which, as you can see by the map, is hard-core "pop" country. I said pop all my life until I moved to Albany, where they say "soda." Generically, I call it "soda" nowadays. When in a restaurant, I always ask for "coke," which usually works regardless of whether the place serves Coke or Pepsi (although sometimes the waitress will ask "Will a Pepsi be OK?") Now, here's the big question: Is it OK or okay?

Congratulations! Your story sounds uncannily like mine (my wife was also induced, had painful contrations for 8 hours, barely dialated, and had to have a c-section). As the father of a four year old girl, I welcome you to the club. Get the shotgun now so you can avoid the rush when she's 16!

I like reggae, but I have to admit that I've never really checked out ska or rocksteady (except for American and British pop artists who were influenced by those genres). I listened to some samples on-line, and I think I'm ready for an intro. I've ordered the Trojan Rocksteady set (based on the discussion here) and the Deep Ska set. I'll let you know what I think of these when they arrive! Once again, this board inspires me to part with my money (although these sets are so cheap...)!