Alexander

Well, almost everybody who recorded on Fonotone did so under a pseudonym (like Fahey, Mike Seeger, etc.). A lot of the bands are just Bussard and his friends recording under various names... Do the notes give the AKAs? Yes, they do.

Where did you see it? Seems to me that at the moment the DVD is available as an import only. Anyone know when and if this is going to be released in the US? The clips I've seen look fabulous...

Well, almost everybody who recorded on Fonotone did so under a pseudonym (like Fahey, Mike Seeger, etc.). A lot of the bands are just Bussard and his friends recording under various names...

I have the Fonotone set, and while the Fahey material is outstanding, the rest of the set is wonderful too. Bussard really captured the first-take charm of the vintage 78s, but with outstanding sound. Recommended...

Most histories I've read state that Salieri DID confess to murdering Mozart after his botched suicide attempt. It's even recorded in Beethoven's conversation book. This doesn't mean that Salieri actually did it, but that by the end of his life he was clearly losing his mind. My point is that if anything Salieri himself began the myth. Pushkin simply seized on it and blew it up into drama, as did Shaffer in his play...

Neither the film "Amadeus" nor any of the numerous stage versions (Shaffer is notorious for rewriting) have claimed that Salieri poisoned Mozart. Salieri *thinks* about killing Mozart. Even plots to do so, but he never actually gets around to it. Mozart dies of an unrelated illness before Salieri gets the chance. What the play and film are about is how Salieri so resents Mozart's talent that he *invents* the story that he killed Mozart. From Scene 19 of the most recent version of play: "You see, I cannot accept this. To be sucked into oblivion - not even my name remembered. Oh no: I did not live on earth to be [God's] joke for eternity. I have one trick left me - see how He deals with this! [Confidentially] All this week I have been shouting out about murder. You heard me yourselves - do you remember? 'Mozart - pieta! Pardon your assassin! Mozart!' [Truimphently] I did this deliberately! My servents carried the news into the street...The streets repeated it to one another!...Now my name is on every tongue! Vienna, City of Scandals, has a scandal worthy of it at last! [Falsetto, enjoying it] 'Can it be true? Is it possible? Did he do it after all?' Well, my friends, now they can all know for sure! They will learn of my dreadful death- and they will believe the lie forever! After today, whenever men speak Mozart's name with love, they will speak mine with loathing! As his name grows in the world, so will mine - if not in fame, then in infamy. I'm going to be immortal after all! And He will be powerless to prevent that! [He laughs harshly] So, Signore - see now if man is mocked!" Remember that in "Amadeus," Salieri's quarrel is NOT with Mozart but with God. That is why the play is not titled "Mozart" or "Salieri" but "Amadeus" (which literally means "beloved by God"). Salieri wanted nothing more than to have the talent to praise God through music. God gives him the desire, but denies him the talent. Worse, the talent is inherent in Mozart (a spoiled, vulgar child) who does not use it for God's glory, but for his own. Salieri comes to hate God and swears to block his incarnation in Mozart however he can. Remember that Mozart was largely unappreciated in his own time and died in poverty. Salieri, by contrast, was as successful as a musician could be. What gets Salieri is that while no one else recognizes Mozart's gift, HE does. HE knows that Mozart is better than him and that he will be celebrated and remembered for all time. Salieri doesn't want worldly success (which he has), he wants immortality. In the end, denied the opportunity to kill Mozart, Salieri decideds to hitch his name to Mozart's by spreading the falsehood that he is Mozart's murderer. In the play, the final irony is found in one of the last lines: Two Viennese citizens speaking of the rumor state: "No one believes it in the world!" So Salieri is denied even the satisfaction of this last form of revenge...

They are not the same. A bootleg (assuming it is not a pirate) is rarely a perfect substitute for an artist's officially released works... In both cases we're talking about a recording for which the artist has not been compensated. Dylan, for example, HATES bootlegs and has reportedly freaked out at the prospect of making rehearsal tapes that could be leaked (he once walked out of a rehearsal session with the Grateful Dead because the rehearsal space was full of recording equipment, even though Jerry Garcia assured him that none of it was on). Does this prevent me from owning a copy of "A Tree with Roots?" Hell, no! Dylan can hate boots all he wants, but the fact is that they are available and there are plenty of people out there (like me) who want to hear them. Artists (like Dylan and Zappa) are so often ofended by boots because they feel that people are making money off of their (inferior) product. As for your claim that owning burns makes people less likely to buy a commerical copy, I know that it's not true in my case. I recently LEGITIMATELY downloaded several Beck albums (I paid for them and everything). I loved them so much that I went out and bought commerical copies of the lot. Similarly, when a friend burned me a copy of "Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s" over the summer, I was on-line ordering a copy from CD Universe BEFORE THE DISC WAS FINISHED PLAYING.

I don't live in Austin, but my aunt does and she's an excellent jazz vocalist. Anyone who lives in Austin should go see Suzi Stern sing. You'll be glad you did! So much for my obligitory plug for a family member...I feel so dirty!

I disagree, Dan. You say that receiving/giving burned CDs and illegal downloading (getting something for nothing) is the issue here and not whether or not the artist receives royalties from the transaction. But I thought that "supporting the music" WAS the issue. If the issue is "getting something for nothing," then is it also "unethical" to give a CD (a real one, not a burn) to a friend? I've done it TONS of times. Sometimes I'll upgrade a Blue Note CD to an RVG edition and give away the old copy to a friend. Sometimes I'll just decide that I'm tired of a given disc and I'll decide to give it away rather than sell it. I've been on the receiving end of this type of transaction too. Now in this case, someone has gotten "something for nothing." Is that wrong too? I would argue that buying bootlegs is the same issue as burning CDs. In both cases the artist who created the music has not been compensated. And for the record, I own several boots (some of which I've bought, and some of which were lent to me for copying). And, yes, I sleep fine.

I've only got his most recent CD which is an interesting take on a couple of Mozart concertos. Rather than doing a jazz trio arrangement (which is what he's done in the past) this CD is for jazz trio and string ensemble. The trio parts are improvised, the string parts are not and are taken straight from the Mozart concertos. So you have Loussier and trio improvising on Mozart in front of a string ensemble playing Mozart straight. It's pretty interesting. I'm interested in checking out some of his other stuff...

Actually, I would think that it would be the other way around. The museum would sue *him* for the worth of the vases and take him for every penny... You know: "You break it, you bought it..."

Of course not! Are people with money the only ones allowed to read great literature? Libraries, friends, family, used bookstores, .... Treat music like a book: lending it out is fine, copying it is not. Downloading it is not, unless the artist has been compensated. Should musicians be treated any differently than writers? Just because technology has made it possible doesn't make it right. I've photocopied entire articles I've wanted friends to read. Is that bad too? Hell, I've even photocopied entire short stories (entire plays, even) for my classes because the school doesn't own any copies of the work in question and I don't want to make my students buy them. Is that wrong too?

I also don't like the implication in #2 to that I am "weak" because I have recieved burns from friends. Poor, maybe, but certainly not weak!

I couldn't vote either. I know a lot of people would put me under #3 (especially since it was a disagreement between me and Chuck that started this whole thing in the first place), but I still maintain that there is a big difference between downloading illegally and making the occasional copy. I do not illegally download music. Period. I won't say that I never have, but I have come to the conclusion that it is wrong (not to mention a major hassle). All of the downloading I do these days is through legitimate services (iTunes, eMusic, etc). Friends sharing music is very different, to my mind, from making music available to everyone in the world for free.

Incidentally, there was a contestant on that America's Next Top Model TV show a few years back named Naima.

Woody's son is named Satchel after baseball player Leroy "Satchel" Paige, not after Louis "Satchel Mouth" Armstrong.

For about ten minutes of my youth I had similar feelings. Partially because I was a history major, but also just because I was young & stupid. Luckily one of my professors (who was one of those great teachers you feel fortunate to run into in life) frequently suggested various works of fiction to better understand history & life. I think he knew enough that sometimes there's more truth in fiction than there is in non. Absolutely. I once had a customer come up to me at B&N and ask me, "If a book is fiction, does that mean it isn't true?" I said that he was entering a grey area when it comes to questions of "truth." Many works of fiction, I explained, contain great truths even if the events and characters they describe aren't "real." I also pointed out many books that are sold as "non-fiction" aren't entirely "true" themselves. Rush Limbaugh is classified as non-fiction, I noted, but you'll get a big argument from me as to whether or not his writing is "true." The customer then stared at me blankly for a moment and then went to find somebody else to ask. As he walked away I shouted, "That's what you get for asking a grad student!"

I downloaded the entire EP. You get three songs ("Sparks," "Oh Row That Boat" and "Quick Ate"), all of which are three minutes long or less. You also get three videos: The "Sparks" iPod commercial, a brief "making of" documentary on the commerical (the title is a bit misleading. It doesn't show the actual "making of" the commercial, but rather it intercuts interview footage of Wynton (mainly talking about how great jazz is) with the recording of the tune), and a fifteen-minute long live video of Wynton's quartet performing the song "The Magic Hour." It only cost three bucks, so I figured what the hell? The live performance is quite nice. I have to say that I'm really enjoying Wynton's recent return to the quartet form. "J Mood" is one of my favorite Wynton albums, so it's nice to see him return to that "stripped down" sound. It's a refreshing change after his septet (which, while good as well, always seemed a bit more...pretentous).

Frey's deed is symptomatic of America's general dislike of fiction and literature. Apparently, his is not the first novel to be turned down by publishers, only to have it accepted once the author starts calling it a "memoir." When I worked at B&N, I used to hear from customers ALL THE TIME about how they thought fiction was pointless. "It's not true. Why should I waste my time reading something that didn't really happen?" I hear it from students too. That Frey did this is not surprising. That he got caught is amusing, but hardly shocking. The only reason anyone cares is that Oprah made his book into a best seller...

BTW,the Eminiem clip is pretty cool too. I especially like the bit where he pushes the obligitory "dancing iPod listener" out of his way...

Nice spot! Good to see jazz on TV. Most importantly, Wynton keeps his horn in FRONT of his mouth!

I was in 9th grade. It was Regents week at school, but as I had no mid-term exams, it meant that I had the week off from school. I had come home (from where I don't remember) and the phone rang. It was my friend Jason (now the artist behind the "Deep Fried" comic book). He told me that the Space Shuttle had blown up. I ran to the TV and saw the replay of the explosion. I don't remember what I felt, but I suppose I was somewhat shocked. Space Shuttle missions had become extremely routine by 1986, and most of us had stopped paying attention to them. We knew, however, that Chris McAuliffe was a part of this mission and that it was a big deal (first civillian in space and all that). I mainly remember the rather sick jokes that followed the accident, the mildest of which was that NASA stood for "Need Another Seven Astronauts." I remember my dad explaining that very often people respond to tragedy through humor and that such jokes are commonplace after a disaster. As for Chernobyl, I remember spending a lot of time discussing it in Social Studies class. I also remember a lot of sick jokes going around about that disaster. Such as, "What clucks and glows in the dark? Chicken Kiev."

Without Django Reinhart, there would have been no...Chuck Berry! It's true...he told me so during a radio interview I conducted with him (Chuck, that is) about ten years ago...

I'm a big fan of "Pearls Before Swine." This strip ran last week. I meant to post it then, but I forgot... Anyway, it's cute... Jazz Related "Pearls..."

Read Kafka's "The Hunger Artist" before embarking on any fast...