John L

Version 11 has advantages and disadvantages. For large collections, the scrolling function is MUCH improved. I can now scroll through my entire collections very quickly, as opposed to the limited speed and constant freezing that I experienced with Version 10. On the other hand, the search function is now terrible for large collections. The new search pop-up feature is useless, takes up time, and causes freezing. Even worse, when you type in something to search for, it does a complete search for each successive letter that you type. That is OK for small collections. But if I type something that starts with "R," for example, iTunes will freeze for at least 30 seconds while it brings in everything in my collection that starts with "R." The same for the next letter and so on...

Yes, "Underground" seems to be the last album that contained original compositions, including Green Chimneys, Boo Boo's Birthday, and Ugly Beauty.

This is indeed an interesting and complicated legal question. Some of those Thicke tracks above are definitely blatant rip-offs of Gaye, not just a borrowing of grooves, but use of the same melodies, harmonies, intros, and even vocal inflections. They just changed the words and dumbed them down a bit. The rip-off was deliberate and conscious.

Wow. One of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer's very best, which is saying something. Certainly, a well-crafted and catchy tune, but it also has a very corny feel to it that I can't get passed. ?!?!? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F4wutgqYLQ There have been some great performances of this tune, but I still don't like the song itself. In particular, the lyrics bug me. "A house is not a home" is an OK hook, but "a chair is still a chair even when there is no one sitting there, but a chair is not a house and a house is not a home...." gets to be a bit too much for me.

Blues in the Night Hotel Califuckinfornia (absolutely sick to death of it after living abroad in various places for 9 years) A House is Not a Home The Greatest Love of All

The other possibility is to copy the image and paste it into the artwork window on iTunes. That works for me on the new iTunes. I have another problem regarding artwork. Is there any way to get iTunes to store the artwork in the same place as the music files? Recently, my hard drive crashed. I had my iTunes library backed up. I assumed that backing up the music files also backs up the artwork. But no. So now the artwork for all my albums has disappeared. I wouldn't even know how to back up the artwork so that iTunes would start to recognize it again as the artwork that goes with specific music files.

RIP. I also agree that many of Albert Murray's writings were insightful and important.

It is not really clear to me what qualifies someone to be a "Blue Note composer." But if we are talking about people who recorded some of their greatest compositions and works first for Blue Note, then I agree with Steve R. that Monk and Nichols should qualify.

What a shock! RIP

That's interesting. This session has long been a source of discographical confusion. Losin still lists the October 23, 1950 session at the Perishing with the same band as the February 11, 1951 session, except with Von Freeman on tenor sax instead of Claude McLin. I am not sure how much confidence we should have in this. As far as I know, the rest of the October 23rd Perishing session (other than the part in question that might not be from that session) is only heads and Bird solos. So establishing Von Freeman on tenor would seem to be a nontrivial task.

I also agree completely with Chuck. The problem is not with the taste of people who might prefer rock to blues, or prefer blues that sounds closer to rock. The problem is the plethora of blues documentaries and articles that could lead you to believe that the blues is important only because it is part of the roots of Rock. I am thinking in particular of a recent documentary (I can't remember its name) that was narrated by Morgan Freeman. It was relentless in that respect. There was some very nice footage of BB King, Buddy Guy, and a few other blues giants. But the theme of the movie was almost like a defense of the Blues as being important because a number of major Rock artists think so, and have actually covered a number of blues songs. They selected specific songs for which they could highlight each and every one of the rock covers. As Chuck writes, it all gets very very tiring. The blues stands on its own just fine without rock.

9:10

Discogs is a very good site. I now try to store images of front and back LP covers in the database of my music collection. The three sites that give the most success are Discogs, Google Images, and Ebay. Discogs is indeed valuable in also providing discographical information

I do not believe that this concert was on any of the JATP boxes. Since I started this thread 3.5 years ago, the concert actually appeared on iTunes as part of a strangely titled JATP package. I made a post about it at the time on the Lester Young Corner thread. The MP3 of the track Norgran blues was defective, however. I informed iTunes about that, which might be why it appears to no longer be available there.

RIP. She was a very good actress.

It's nice that Concord hasn't shut its vaults yet.

RIP I had no idea that he was still alive.

What about the opposite of compression? During the early days of CDs, I am sure that the dynamic range was often exaggerated on a number of releases, evidently to highlight one of the "advantages" of digital technology. I have some classical symphonies that are almost unlistenable for that reason. Either the soft parts are inaudible or the loud passages blow out the speakers. In other words, the dynamic range of the CD went far beyond what would have been the case live in a concert hall or studio.

Often the information is not embedded in the discs and iTunes gets it instead from the CDDB database. The CDDB database relies on users to send in the data. So the likely story is as follows: One of the first people who loaded the set into iTunes got the message that CDDB database does not yet have the information. So he or she entered it manually based on what is (incorrectly) listed on the disc package. CDDB took that information and has distributed it for all subsequent inquiries.

I have a lot of Keith Jarrett records, but I hardly ever listen to them. It is all very impressive, but somehow too cute and sweet to swallow for long. I also find the so-called gospel and blues elements in his playing that everyone cites to be weak. He does have enormous technical skills, improvisional skills, and sense of melody. That is probably why I own all those records that I almost never play.

Oh - can you point me in the right direction please? MG Sorry. It would seem that I was misplacing some of the Guinean music in my head to Guineau Bissau. I do have one record that I like quite quite a bit from Guineau Bissau: Super Mama Djombo. Other than that, I am not very familiar with the music of that country. But if that album is any measure of the quality of music coming out of Guineau Bissau in the 70s, it would seem to be quite high.

Roy Hargrove is certainly someone who can move me deeply sometimes. Terrence Blanchard too. I enjoy hearing Peter Evans as well. Who is actually most extending the grand tradition from Pops to Woody? It is hard to say. I look forward to others' responses.

That's very interesting, MG. It is interesting that the classic styles are still in demand in those countries. Cameroon and Ivory Coast are also similar to Ghana and Nigeria in that regard. It is too bad what you say about Guineau Bissau. The music from the 1970s coming out of there was dynamite.

Right now, I am based in Abuja, but travel to Lagos quite often, as well as to a number of other Southern States. Unfortunately, the security situation at present restricts my travel to the North. The Bush Bars in Abuja are usually owned by Igbos ,and managed either by Igbos or people from the Niger Delta, which may be one reason why Igbo and Niger Delta music are more common there than Yoruba music, which I hear a lot more of in Lagos. The clientele at the "classic" music Bush Bars is mostly middle age Nigerians who miss the golden age of Nigerian pop music. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that younger Nigerians are increasingly turning away from the classic music in favor of current pop. Some of it is pretty good, but often sounds like it comes out of the very same studio with the very same drum machines that are putting some of the greatest drummers and drum traditions in the world out of work. Young Nigerians typically go clubbing at venues with DJs and no live music. There is still a great street music scene in Lagos with the greatest break dancing that I have ever seen. The musicians themselves are often quite young however. The Bush Bar that I usually go to on Friday nights (and play a set of American blues/R&B) has one young Port Harcourt musician in his 20s who can sound almost exactly like Rex Lawson both on vocals and the trumpet.

I really like all of those guys (but then, I love both Ghanian and Nigerian highlife). does fuji get much airplay these days? (Barrister, Kollington, etc.) My impression is that Fuji is now played much more than Juju, but the popularity of both has fallen. It is especially rare to hear it outside of the South West. On the other hand, traditional Yoruba music with multiple drums/ percussion is still played quite a bit. Sometimes, a bass player and /or guitarist will join, producing something close in spirit to Fuji. In fact, maybe it is Fuji. I am not quite sure where the boundaries lie. As far as airplay (on the radio), I don't listen to radio that often, but it tends to be dominated by modern Nigerian pop that no longer has enough diversity to be categorized into clear regional or stylistic subcategories.