Kalo

Sounds like I've got to get this.

This looks good to me!

Sad news. He was the greatest. I'd agree with that. Best comedy film ever on a luaghs-per-minute basis. "...and it's deep, too!" as was the majority of his comedy.

That sounds intriguing... Yeah, Nicholson's quite enjoyable. I first read him because I had seen a short interview with him where he talked about stealing from Berger. He's not as deep as Berger at his best, nor as fine a prose stylist, but he reminds me of later Berger in particular, in the way he'll take an odd premise and really run with it. At the very least, his books are among the most intelligent entertainments being written today. You'll dig him too, BruceH for the attention he pays to architecture, which figures more prominently in his books than most any other author I can think of. I've enjoyed all the books I've read by him and I plan to get around to all of them at some point. Jonathan Lethem is a vocal Berger fan (influenced by his serious genre parodies, I'm guessing?) as well as a Phillip Dick fanatic, but I haven't gotten around to reading him yet.

Jorrit is a very talented musician and an extremely intelligent guy. He lives in the Boston area and I was lucky enough to interview him for a profile I wrote for one of the local rags last year. I urge you to check him out if you have the chance. He's less overtly wacky and more dry-witted than many of the Dutch Scene musicians (the quote above about the flatness of Chicago as it relates to the flatness of Holland is characteristic), but he's cannily extending the tradition of players like Steve Lacy, Lee Konitz, and Ornette Coleman. Also a very open-minded explorer of contemporary electronic music.

Hey, I love Blues in Orbit too. No problems with Duke, just with Schaap. Kept my Such Sweet Thunder vinyl as well. And I'm mighty glad I did.

Same here. I'd particularly like to get Le Samourai but don't know how I'll pay for it. Anyone want to donate to the BruceH Criterion Fund? Please send all monies to me. I'll buy the discs, make copies, and send the copies to him.

I just saw Le Samourai recently, beautiful film! Also, some very interesting extras regarding Melville on the DVD. I also really liked Bob Le Flambeur. Bob le Flambeur has been one of my top ten films ever since I first saw it at the French Library in Boston in the mid-1980s. I've got the Criterion of that and I love it. Also have the Criterion of Le Cercle Rouge, an excellent Melville that came after Le Samourai and also features Alain Delon.

Just pulled the trigger on a pair of these myself. I need them for night listening, too. My downstairs neighbor just complained about my playing music too late. Given my late hours at my "day job" and the fact that I need to listen to music in the wee small hours for my reviews and articles, I need headphones bad. This thread came at an opportune time for me as well. I expect them to arrive next week. I'll report back.

I'd agree with that. This is very sad.

S'what I thought, but ghost's post made it sound like it was available again, so I was curious.

Nothing annoying about 'The Thought Gang' for me. I thought it was hilarious and recommended it to all my friends. Currently reading 'The Final Country' by James Crumley. Probably my favorite modern crime writer. What's the deal with Crumley, John J? Haven't caught up with him, but I like a good crime novel. I found The Thought Gang quite funny, too, by the way. But there was something a bit labored about it. Still superior to 90% of what's out there. Anyone read his new one?

I work in a wine store, have an employee discount, run wine tastings, and drink lots of wine. I'm also a Coffee fiend, and drink tons of the stuff. So it all evens out? SWEET! Plus I swill San Pellegrino water, which an Italian friend told me is good for the liver...

You can say that again! Love the Coleman/Wells sides myself.

Please elaborate, ghost. This thread turned me on to the Jazz in Paris series, and I've found it to be very rewarding on the whole. I must own about 25 or more of these by now (afraid to actually count). My latest obsession is the Jazz in Paris Willie "the Lion" Smith disc Music on My Mind. Highly recommended for the stride-minded. I can't stop playing it.

It really is kind of "Geezer-issimo" here isn't it? You mean "near death"? Probably. Oops! I forgot to have kids! Geezz, just realized that I forgot to have kids too. I'm only a year behind 'Free For All' and I hang out on this board to make myself feel "young."

I dig your take on Moran, md655321! You're a damn sight further along in your jazz appreciation than I was at your age, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to delving back into Black Stars.

Just finished Tibor Fisher's The Thought Gang. Sort of annoying and kind of enjoyable at the same time. Pulp Fiction meets Philosophy 101. Just before that I read Geoff Nicholson's Everything and More. It's the fifth book I've read by him. He's an enjoyably dark British comic novelist, yet not without substance either. He's learned a lot from my favorite living (American) novelist, Thomas Berger. If that sounds intriguing, start with Bleeding London and proceed from there.

Lots of great Criterions lately. Three all-time favorites of mine: Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table, Mike Leigh's Naked, Jean Pierre Melville's Le Samourai. Not sure how I'll afford them, or any of the other 50 or so Criterions I covet.

The definitive assessment. And it rhymes, too. I'm still pissed about the alternate take of "Up and Down, Up and Down (I Will Lead Them Up and Down)" that he somehow substituted for the master on the Columbia/Legacy CD of Such Sweet Thunder.

Saw him in Boston last year appearing with locally-based Dutch saxophonist Joritt Dijkstra. I'd reccommend checking him out as long as you keep in mind that he's a dada sound-poet and not a jazz guy as such. I love the way that his name sounds just like what he does! Gutteral utterances galore.

In my teens and twenties I loved Woody. And I must have seen Sleeper at least 10, if not 20 times. I still consider it one of the best Science Fiction films of all time. But as the years have passed and the "early, funny films" (as he put it himself) have been far outpaced by the later unfunny or trying-but-not-succeeding-at-being-funny films, I've come to the conclusion that he's the George Lewis of cinema and the Ingmar Bergman of the clarinet despite all of his strenuous attempts at being the reverse. I predict that he'll be remembered for those few "early, funny films."

Good excuse to pull this one out again.

I'll never forget the headline of the Village Voice review dissing that project. It read, "Sting With Negroes." (Dissing Sting's attempt to buy credibility, rather than the band itself.) Between a rock and a hard place: Branford between Sting and Wynton. Ouch!

Ask Abbey Lincoln about that. I've always loved the Roach/Taylor Historic Concerts on Soul Note. Over the years I've found it to be literally inspirational. Whenever I was struggling with a particularly difficult writing assignment, I'd put this on and find myself inspired, perhaps because this music externalized the tension I was feeling and allowed me to go beyond it. I love it on its own, too. I haven't listened to it in years; time to spin it again (mine's on vinyl). I see Max as "THE other guy" on this recording. I see Mingus as the"outfoxed" guy on this recording. I see Dukie as the MF. Nice take on this, Chuck. Whatever else anyone else thinks about this, and I love it, it really captures an intensely present dialogue (argument?) between the principals. And I agree that Duke is the MF! And not just on this. It just struck me that Money Jungle (great title!) is so timeless in its way, that it would not have sounded at all out of place as a Black Saint/Soul Note date 20 or 30 years after the fact. (Just to tie this recent digression back into the main thread.)