kenny weir

golden raisins? Yeah - I think that's about it. In fact, I think sultana is an actual grape variety. In an case, raisins or sultanas work here and I've also used dates.

Burrows and Bob are for sure still going around, very much as elder statesmen these days. What I'd love for the greater world to be experiencing are any or all of the following (and heaps more): Joe Chindamo Ishish Kynan Robinson's En Rusk Paul Williamson (trumpet) Paul Williamson (saxophone) Gai Bryant Sandy Evans Andrea Keller Jamie Oehlers Scott Tinkler Peter Knight Frank Di Sario Alister Spence James Sherlock Fiona Burnett James Muller Adam Simmons Theak-tet Michelle Nicolle Frock Sam Keevers Clarion Fracture Zone Tim Wilson The Java Quartet Willow Neilson And many, many more - so many approaches, so much talent, so little heard! Arghhhhhh!!!

Thanks for that Bev. We don't get that rag down (?) here, and I couldn't see that piece on their website. Could anyone post it? Nicholson spent a few days in Melbourne in his role as judge/chairman of the first ever Australian jazz Awards, having heard hundreds of artists before he arrived and was duly (and rightfully) impressed. I interviewed him on my radio show while he was here. He had very set ideas about which he was determined to tell me and my listeners no matter what questions I lobbed his way. Stll, if he's talking up contemporary Aust jazz it's a good thing, as there's no doubt it's the equal or better of any "jazz" music being made anywhere. I'm sure it's pretty difficult to get ahold of the stuff I mean in the northern hemisphere, but I reckong Bev (having some familiarity by now with your approach and tastes) would dig much of it very, very muchly.

I love baking but get a bit of grief from within the household about the amount of butter, eggs, sugar etc needed to do it right. So I tend to look out for recipes that have some semblance of "healthiness" about them - and this one, ripped from a community cookbook my mum sent me, is a beaut. It only has about a tablespoon of butter and no eggs. 115 sugar 15g butter 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 1/2 cups sultanas 1 tablespoon syrup 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 225g flour Put all ingredients into bowl except flour and baking powder. Add boiling water and stir well. When mixture is cool, add flour and baking powder. Pour into greased loaf tin and bake for 1 hour at 180C. Of course, given that this quite an austere baking trip, the end result definitely tastes better after being smeared with (you guessed it) butter. But at least you have the choice of if and how much ... (Cooked most recently this evening to the strains of the Horace Silver Trio).

Ahhh, my first Mosaic Select. Well, actually it's only my second Mosaic. I got this on the back of a big order by a buddy. These things are cool - I can slip it into the house and my wife will never know. Whereas if I got another Mosaic deluxe job to join the Chico Hamilton - well, they kind of stick out like ... well, even she'd pick up on it. Anyways ... I've long been familiar with Big John's talents , but mainly as a sideman except for Let 'Em Roll, so this is my first real exposure to his stuff. And I'm gobsmacked. For all the greasing and grooving, I'm thrilled with the great LISTENING there is here. Patton's much more than a one-dimensional talent he's sometimes portrayed as. The Green/Dixon stuff is dynamite, but what has really blown me away are the That Certain Feeling and Understanding sessions. Understanding, in particular, with just drums and sax/flute is incredible - it epitomises what someone termed on a a recent thread (somewhere) of hard grooving with outside tendencies. Yippeee!!

Ahhh, my first Mosaic Select. Well, actually it's only my second Mosaic. I got this on the back of a big order by a buddy. These things are cool - I can slip it into the house and my wife will never know. Whereas if I got another Mosaic deluxe job to join the Chico Hamilton - well, they kind of stick out like ... well, even she'd pick up on it. Anyways ... I've long been familiar with Big John's talents , but mainly as a sideman except for Let 'Em Roll, so this is my first real exposure to his stuff. And I'm gobsmacked. For all the greasing and grooving, I'm thrilled with the great LISTENING there is here. Patton's much more than a one-dimensional talent he's sometimes portrayed as. The Green/Dixon stuff is dynamite, but what has really blown me away are the That Certain Feeling and Understanding sessions. Understanding, in particular, with just drums and sax/flute is incredible - it epitomises what someone termed on a a recent thread (somewhere) of hard grooving with outside tendencies. Yippeee!!

At the start of a long day on the sports desk, me and my buddies got a laugh from the following line from a wire report about John Daly's latest woes (hic!). Stating that Daly had been undergoing a stressful time because his wife was facing charges related to a drug ring, it stated: "Daly has said he will stand by his wife unless she is convicted." Ahhh, pragmatism!

Each and every time I want to love a new Van release, but - as I have admittedly pointed out on another thread - this time he has perhaps lost me forver. Geez - four songs out of 13 about the depressing fact that he's a celeb. Whinin' Boy groaning on and on and on and on.... Leave you alone, Van? Done.

Kynan Robinson's En Rusk - 1000 Wide Gene Clark - American Dreamer 1964-1974 John Patton - Mosaic Donald Byrd - Byrd In Hand Miles Davis Blue Note Vol 2 RVG Lester Flatulance and The Silent Killers - Let 'Er Rip! Ray Brown trio - Live From NY to Tokyo Either/Orchestra - Afro-Cubism Jack McDuff - The Best Of The Concord Years Jann Rutherford - The Scented Garden Way Out West - Footscray Station Sonny Rollins - Prestige box Hank Crwaford/Jimmy Mcgriff - Road Tested

Springboks Carlton Collingwood

I have Road Tested, which is just great. And I have another, Crunch Time, froma year or so later. OK but not as hot.

I'm surprised - the reviewers for the three main Melbourne papers (The Age, Herald Sun, Sunday Herald Sun) have all given Kill Bill 4 or 4 1/2 stars. Amazing - usually they're a contrast in styles and tastes and judgments. I'll see it sometime but I'm not feverishly keen. I'm with an earlier poster - my fave QT is Jackie Brown.

In different ways I like all the folks mentioned so far playing with Monk, but I'd put Gerry Mulligan right up there them. Their session is no real masterpiece but I dig the hell out of it anyway. B)

OK. I've had a promo ciopy of this for about a week. I've played it a few times on the 'phones at work. And truth to tell, I'm not sure I'll ever get 'round to any sort in-depth listening at home. *The coolest thing about the album is the goovy BN-style cover. *But, no, the fact he's BN has had no effect on Van. Not that anybody would expect it to. *There's the same mix of ballads, blues, shuffles, rock etc that has constituted his albums of recent years. *Instrumentally, the Acker Bilk cameo is one of the loveliest things on the album. *Here's the rub, though: On no less than four of the 13 tunes - Too Many Myths, Goldfish Bowl, Fame and Get On With The Show - he overtly addresses his enormous, passionate dislike of being a celeb and a star, and the hangers on that go with it and all rest of it, and how he hates it all. On and on and on ... Fair enough, I guess, it's his record. But even as a long-time Van Fan, there's no way this kind of whining is going to win a place in my heart. Van's become a bore.

Nope, but I reckon it's only a matter of time 'till they're buggered. I play this set relatively regularly, but just infrequently enough so that I forget to hold the damn box FROM THE BOTTOM. Hold it from the top, and the discs cascade on to to the floor.

Belated congrats from me, Jim. Just one tip: Get hold of a book by Australian author Kaz Cooke - called Up The Duff here, it has apparently undergone a name-change for the US market: Amazon link to pregnancy/baby book. You'll be deluged with advice and reading suggestions, but this one is a thoroughly enjoyable, irreverant blast.

David, I may have missed it somewhere along the line, but ... what's your book about? Fiction, jazz, biography?

Well, this is pretty cool I guess. Two points though: He is a bit snide about the online jazz community, yet it seems to me to be hipper and full of more and better information than the jazz press for which he writes. As for the bit: "There's also a thread (I think it was here, and I'm paraphrasing) by a “middle-aged L.A jazz fan” seeking similar" ... well, as a journalist, I think that's just inexcusable. Paraphrasing? Bullshit! Get it right! That thread wasn't even on this board. Shame.

I'm off to the gig of the year on Sunday - Sesame Street Live!

I'm afraid I've hit the wall - temporarily, I hope - with two-going-on-three Bennie. Well before he was born and almost daily afterwards he has been exposed to fabulous music, although I've been careful not to overdo it in terms of quantity and volume. I think music could become a negative if overdone. Anyway, Bennie has reacted positively on occasion, especially if it's something like Mongo Santamaria's El Pussycat that we can boogie to. In the past week, though, in face of Monk, the Dead and other hip goodies, he's realised that he can (try to) have some say in what gets played. So the instant some jazz goes on, he's clamouring for "Buzz" (as in Buzz Lightyear) or "Thomas" (as in Thomas the Tank Engine).

Some Kiwi humour ... I have no idea if the following story is true, but it's become part of the Weir family lore. Many, many years ago, my now deceased dad and some of his buddies were out in the wop wops (that's boonies to you) on a shooting trip. I hesitate to use the word hunting, as all they were probably after were rabbits and/or wild goats. Anyways ... one member of the party decided he needed a good, long private crap, so retired to some nearby bushes to do his thing in peace. No sooner had he departed, than my dad crept up behind him - with a shovel. When the poor guy followed that fundamental human instinct, and turned 'round to examine his doings - THERE WAS NOTHING THERE!

Don't all dogs smell like a bloody mary?

I'm surprised to find that I have nine of hthese. Without doubt my favourite of those is the Art Blakey/Joe Gordon. Outstanding!

Just wanted to see what happens ...

Proper has a new box set that may have what you are looking for - The Big Horn: The History Of The Honkin & Screamin Saxophone. From their site: Not for the faint-hearted, this 4-CD set of 106 tracks bursts at the seams with the sound of 50 hard-blowing saxophonists who, between 1942-1952, formed the nucleus of what became known as the Honkers and Screamers. Jumping from the jazz stage they walked the bars and aisles, played their horns on their backs, shattered microphones, drove their audiences to a frenzy and along the way pioneered the sounds of R&B and rock 'n' roll. From Illinois Jacquet ("Flying Home") via such lung-busters as Arnett Cobb ("Go, Red, Go"), Wild Bill Moore ("We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll"), Paul Williams ("The Hucklebuck"), Hal Singer ("Blow Your Brains Out"), Earl Bostic ("Earl Blows A Fuse"), Big Jay McNeely ("Jay's Frantic") and Willis Jackson ("Later For The Gator") to Jimmy Forrest ("Night Train"), it's a solid blast all the way. A fatter than usual 68-page illustrated booklet describes the music's development with full discographical details. Prper site link