John L

Interesting. You certainly know a lot better than me, Larry. When I read Williams, I get the feeling that he is always working to fit everything together into a rather simple story line, and doing a great job of it.

Happy birthday, Woody Shaw. That picture looks like its from around the time that Wynton told the press that no jazz musicians did anything of any consequence throughout the entire 1970s. What could he have been thinking of?

Art Pepper. I had so many chances to see him with great bands in the 70s and early 80s, but I never did. I would look at who is playing at the Keystone Korner. Art Pepper? Well, I guess that I will go to some other club tonight or just stay home... What an idiot I was!!!!

The world possesses different sorts of talented analytical minds. Among these, there exist "Big picture" minds with the talent to fit everything together in a compelling and not forbiddingly complex way. I think that Martin Williams had such a mind. The details were not particularly important to him. He came up with a rather simple but compelling way of viewing the entire history of the music. Like Karl Marx, Martin Williams offered us a pair of spectacles that were relatively easy to put on and could bring everything into a certain focus very quickly. Of course, jazz is many times more complex than the picture that Williams gave us. The importance is sometimes in the details. For that, we need to go to other sources. Nevertheless, I admire Martin Williams very much for what he contributed, despite the limitations.

Thanks, Tony. As I understand what you are saying, it is the following. a) After deleting the source files from your hard drive, they will remain in the iTunes list untless you choose to remove them yourself. b) When you update your iPod under these circumstances in the automatic mode when iTunes and the iPod are synchronized, iTunes will not remove files from the iPod that are in iTunes but not stored on an accessible hard drive. That I understand. But I also understand that once ithe music stored in Tunes gets bigger than that on the iPod itself, this option disappears and tracks that are not stored either on the iPod or a hard drive are gone for good. (Of course, you can always rip the CDs again.) Right?

Explain this, please.

Do you mean that the constant burning will or could eventually wear out the burner? As far as memory goes, once you've transferred it to the ipod, why not get rid it of it from itunes since we already have the cds. Keeping the music in iTunes has some advantages. That doesn't cause anything to wear out. Ripping 100os of CDs can put some wear on your CDRom drive. But that is the process of putting music in iTunes, not from storing it there or transferring it to the iPod a) If you have less music on iTunes than fits on the iPod, then you can just sychronize the two. Every time you connect your iPod to iTunes, the program automatically makes your iPod identical to iTunes. Very simple. b) If you have more music on iTunes than fits on the iPod, then you can move whatever music you want to and from the iPod manually. Keeping a full library in iTunes allows you to adjust what you want to have on your iPod at any given moment.

Brad: The only advantage of an external hard drive is space. You can store iTunes music on the hard drive of your computer. But music tends to take up a lot of space. An external hard drive will both hold much more music and prevent the absence of memory space (capacity) from interfering with the operation of your computer. The good news is that you can start storing music on your hard drive. After it starts to accumulate, you can pick up an external hard drive, give a simple command, and shift everything there. I now have over 100 GB of iTunes music on my external hard drive, which gives me the option to listen to just about anything that I want to hear when I am away from my CD collection (most of the time right now). The search feature is also great. For example, you can immediately find all performances of a given composition in your collection. The breakdowns into genre, artist, and album are also quite useful. For example, I downloaded the complete Stax singles onto my iPod. I can listen to them in chronological order like they are programmed on the albums, or I can choose a single artist and listen to all of that artist's Stax singles in a row. With the Playlists, you can create albums that should have been but never materialized: all of the tracks from a certain session that appeared on various discs, all of the tracks on various discs with Freddie Webster solos, a straight set of Lester Young ballad performances, etc. etc. Firewire: With a PC, the interface between the iPod and iTunes uses either Firewire or USB2. You need one or the other. If you have an older computer, you might need to buy a suplemental device that creates a firewire or USB2 connection to a USB1 portal. The device costs about $50, I believe. Have fun. Given my love for music and all of the time that I am away from home, it sure has boosted the quality of my life. John

Allen: Certainly there are aspects of Armstrong's stage show that were rooted in minstrely. But so what? What is the point in stating that it is "ignored or de-emphasized by friendly critics like Morgenstern?" Should we be less accepting of Armstong's contributions for that reason?

Don't know John... maybe I'm too obsessed with Pres music... but what can I do... the only person ever touched my mind in that particular music way... hard to explain You know that I very much share your obsession.

Milan: I'm afraid that you need to spend less time at Organissimo right before going to sleep.

"Crucial" for what? For an evaluation of the importance or quality of Armstrong's music?

I wonder if there is any DNA left on the horn that we could clone?

RIP That is a major loss for the blues. Son Seals was one of the last of the blues masters who could sum up the history of the music in a highly distinctive approach to the guitar. After a few notes, you knew who was talking to you and from where he was coming.

That will happen when Bird and Diz and Town Hall finally sees the light of day.

Mal really loved Japan. And they loved him too. I don't know anything else about it.

Daniels apparently did a lot of interviews of former Blue Devils over the years. There should therefore be at least some information from primary sources.

I don't know, people. Roy Eldridge and Chu Berry pack one hell of a one-two punch on the original.

Just sitting here and wondering again what it really sounded like at Town Hall in 1945...

I'll give another plug for Henderson just because he hasn't been mentioned much. His string a Blue Notes is just beautiful. So were his contributions to other Blue Note dates. Joe Henderson was a study in consistency.

Sorry about that. I have still not rid myself of the stupid American trait of actually believing things that I read in newspaper articles printed on the Internet.

Oh, crap. I never thought about that before. Now what am I going to do??????

...and while you're at it, you might pick up Soul Trane as well! That one probably won't go out of print. But so what?

Yes, I didn't stop to think. 1924 makes much more sense. There is a similarity to Bessie Smith's version, although the voice is not as blue or as powerful.