Rosco

Don's taste looks good to me....

What? No Peter Brotzmann?

Why, thank you, chaps. At the moment I'm enjoying a cup of tea and the first disc of the Art Farmer/ Benny Golson Jazztet Mosaic box my folks bought me.

The latest version of Firefox came out yesterday. Anyone using it yet? Thoughts and impressions? I'm just about to install....

Woke up to this news on the BBC website. Shocking.

He's clearly talking about the Christmas season which begins on December 25th and ends on January 6th (the feast of the Epiphany, also known as Old Christmas). Duh! Even allowing for this possibility it still doesn't work for half of it. And who's still listening to Christmas songs on January 6th? I stand by my original assertion that it's a crock. This, at least, is indisputable.

I've always been bothered by the lyrics of John & Yoko's 'Happy Christmas, War is Over'. Apart from the general sappiness of the lyric, it starts out with: So this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun Uh... no. If it's Christmas then there's another week left until the new one begins. Bugs the hell out of me every year.

http://www.sleeveface.com/?p=64

I'm up for the download

A fine player and a sad loss. Apparently, his final recordings were with Simon Spillett. I look forward to hearing them.

People who wear top hats while looking through a monocle.

It was after 9pm? Get the fuck over it.

Deepest sympathies and condolences to you and your family, Jim. No one is ever really gone as long as they are remembered and loved.

Very enjoyable collection, Berigan. I'm going to preface this by saying that this stuff is way out of my field- 95% of my collection is post 1945. I drew a resounding blank on pretty much most of the disc, but here are a few jottings I made listening to it the first time through: #1: First thought is Lionel Hampton, second thought is Charlie Christian. Electric violin? Very compact arrangement, full of incident. Late 30s/ early 40s? (I thought that was electric violin, too!) #2: My only sure-fire slam dunk on this disc! It's track 14 on this CD(edit: dang! I can't make this link work! It's Rex Stewart, 'Menelik (The Lion of Judah)'. How could you forget that intro? Avant garde or what? #3: Familiar sounding tenor saxophone. May kick myself for not identifying it. #5: The piano is interesting... seems to be pushing the envelope a little... Familiar sounding tenor. Illinois Jacquet? Quirky trombonist. Bill Harris? Slightly later vintage, probably mid-late 40s? Not doing too well here... will listen again and come back with further thoughts, if any.... Edited for several attempts at posting a link and to add some guesses at dates.

Major Holley and Milt Hinton

Ok, thing is, this is ONE file, split up automatically into three each. So you can't unpack the second or third, usually, but you have to grab ALL THREE files, then open the first, hit extract, and ALL the tracks from all three files will unpack! It worked perfectly well for me, with these same links/files - I don't think anything could have happened to these files after you'd put them up to RS, Berigan! Duh! I'm an idiot. Thanks, Ubu Yep, all three parts downloaded and unpacked together, no problem. BTW, track 20 still seems to have its artist tag. Not that it's helped.

First part of disc one unpacked with an error message, although it all seemed to be fine (7 tracks?) Part two is refusing to unpack at all. Not tried the others yet.

Plenty of props for Carla, although I find Escalator impenetrable at best. It's intermittently intriguing but I'm not convinced it rewards the effort. The opening overture makes it a keeper, though. I just got European Tour 1977 on which she is credited with tenor saxophone. I didn't know she played.

I haven't participated in a BFT in so long I didn't know people were uploading them these days (how hi-tech!) I'm up for the download.

I use EAC, have ripped hundred of discs for use on my mp3 player, etc without a single significant problem. (Twice EAC has told me that there were errors, but they weren't even audible). 'Copy control'? Pshaw.

The sextet half of Jazz Track later turned up on a compilation called '58 Miles along with a Love For Sale from the same session and (irritatingly) three of the four tracks from Jazz at the Plaza. A not very satisfactory solution to that 'packaging dilemma', particularly when the omitted track would have fitted on the CD just fine.

Touchin' is great and Consecration is another good one. I will probably get one or two others at some point but I don't really feel compelled to own too much of his stuff, especially when he's playing piano or viola.

As good as jazz-with-strings gets. Make of that what you will.

This echoes my point earlier on about 'pop' music culture in a wider sense. Jazz and 'pop' have both reached a point where the fragmentation of styles and the changing ways we disseminate new variations has made it near impossible for a 'new thing' to come sweeping through. If jazz really does have to keep moving forward or die how does it deal with pop culture's increasing tendancy to postmodernism?

Hodges and Wild Bill Davis cut a couple of albums for Verve that had Grant Green on them. Sounds like it could be a repackage of these. Lonehill do love to re-attribute things, possibly hoping Green is a more marketable name than Davis.