Hot Ptah

No.

There is a DVD of a 1981 performance by Goodman. He died in 1986.

I've been in that "real world" you're talking about. Believe me, it's overrated. You want to stay away from it.

Last month someone used our credit card to purchase a laptop computer. Oddly, they had the laptop sent to our house, with our name listed as the party ordering it. We did not order it. The credit card company cancelled our card immediately and gave us a different card. We mailed the laptop back to the company that sold it.

Spencer Dryden Joey Covington John Barbata

I am not a huge fan of Morrison or Costello, but I thought that the Costello/Chet Baker combination on the "Shipbuilding" track was very effective.

It is interesting to read Richard Davis' interview comments about Astral Weeks over the years. To sum them up, he never expresses much enthusiasm about it. He has commented that Van Morrison kept to himself throughout the session, sitting physically apart from the other musicians and not speaking to them. He has expressed surprise at how interviewers keep bringing the album up over the years, how it never seems to be forgotten.

I want to see an $87 bill with Sun Ra on it!

When was that recorded? How well does Don Preston fit in? I have a CD of a Don Preston acoustic piano trio date, which is not an unqualified triumph, to my ears. I wonder if this Bradford-Carter album is something like that.

What do musicians think of Curtis Fuller generally? I had never seen him live until about 10 years ago. Now I have seen him live three times in the past 10 years. He has been an underwhelming soloist each time, to my untrained ears. What am I missing?

I have been going to jazz concerts at the Folly Theater in Kansas City since it was restored in 1982. For several years, much of the audience was advanced in age. Unfortunately, not that many of them still attend. In the late 1980s, the Count Basie band led by Frank Foster played at the Folly. Foster commented from the stage, "it looks like most of you heard the original Basie band before it left Kansas City." That was probably true of the audience back then. The reason for this discussion--at the intermission the guy sitting behind me said to his friends, "I never thought much of Basie, when I would see him live here in the 1930s. Basie just wasn't that good. Fats Waller now, he was great. Fats Waller was THE man."

Gil Hodges Ed Kranepool Ed Bouchee

I have a 1970s pressing of the LP, and a CD reissue. I have never noticed anything "off" about the sound.

I have not heard all of his later recordings, but I have his 1987 album, "Baby You Can Get Your Gun", and his 1992 album, "Teasin' You", and both are energetic and excellent, in my opinion.

Not in her live performances, 1978-82.

His playing on Professor Longhair's "House Party in New Orleans, The Lost Sessions 1971-72" was particularly outstanding. He packed a ton of soulful feeling into a few notes, very often, on that album, which is a personal favorite of mine. He MADE that album.

Braxton--the discs with the live sessions with either Kenny Wheeler or George Lewis in the quartet.