Hot Ptah

I will donate the following prize to the first member to donate $1000:

Just try to attract two beautiful women at once with a pancake:

Waffles are more exciting:

At the risk of being treated somewhat abruptly by the heavy posters here, I will fearlessly introduce a competing idea:

Thanks, that looks like a good option.

I didn't know about the anti-Torme sentiment. I have never felt much of a desire to listen to him, myself, and was recently surprised that I liked some of his 1940s recordings. I have heard great jazzmen speak of him with respect, for what that is worth.

I have some, but not much, Mel Torme in my collection. I have recently listened to what I have, and want to hear more. I would appreciate recommendations on where to start with Mel Torme.

Jim, I want to comment about one of your concerns, that the board has become an insiders club, not friendly to new people. I have actually felt that way momentarily on occasion. I have noticed that a group of heavy posters will agree on an opinion about an album or artist, and then that becomes the orthodoxy. If a person who has not been a heavy poster for a long time weighs in with a different thought, some (but not all) of the heavy posters will be quick to condemn the new thought, in a rather competitive spirit of trying to "win" against the newer member. This can be momentarily disconcerting, but I have decided that it is part of the vitality of the board, and not really so bad. Compared to the way that people are treated on other music boards, this board is very fair, mild and reasonable. Most of us have much more disagreeable interactions in our work and family lives, I suspect. A bit of a thick skin is needed on the internet. So I think that your concerns are a bit overblown. They are based on a kernel of truth, but it's not that bad. Also, another leading jazz online board has recently become dominated by a few very young people who spout out very frequent unmitigated nonsense at all hours of the day (in my humble opinion). To me, this has damaged the experience at that other board. That would not happen here. The same group of regulars who are perhaps a wee bit quick to challenge a newcomer would also keep such a regrettable thing from happening here. I have raised two children, the youngest is now eleven. I know the stress and strain of an infant in the house. It can be overwhelming. I can certainly understand it if you would like others to take over your time commitment. But I hope that your decision is not finally determined by any notion of a lack of quality on this board. Despite a few blackheads, this board is still the most stunningly gorgeous jazz face on the internet.

I think that's unnecessary--is there anyone among us who doesn't want the Big O to live?????? True, but it's wise to say "I love you" to the person you love. They like to hear it, in my experience, even if they should reasonably assume that you feel that way. Hey wait, wasn't there a song in "Fiddler on the Roof" about this very point?

I find it interesting that many of those posting here assume that the decision is final. I think that those who would like Jim to continue the board should let him know. I know that when I quit a job once, a senior person told me that I would be besieged by people begging me to stay. I got ready for the onslaught. When no one said a word, I was taken aback, and any thought I had about reconsidering my decision was wiped out.

You wait. If the board does go, I'm going to drop some big ass confessions at the end of December. Stay tuned.... Does that mean......does that MEAN.......that you are Wynton Marsalis?

Jim, Is your decision final? I know that I have made huge decisions at a time when financial and family pressures combined with a burst of negativity from the outside world, to push me over the edge--a tipping point was reached. I hope that the recent threads about negativity on the board did not cause you to reach a tipping point. I thought that those threads were way overstated. I have never thought that there was any appreciable amount of hostility or negativity on this board--much to the contrary. I have thought that this board is a model of reasonable discussion. I hope that you reconsider.

Actually, I did not inherit $75 million. One of the nicest things that happened was that the three friends who lived next door to me, and across the hall from me, in the dorm at the University of Wisconsin in 1975-76 came to Kansas City to visit, with spouses, for the Green Bay Packers v. Kansas City Chiefs game at Arrowhead Stadium. It was the first time we had been together since 1980. These are the guys that I listened to music with and discovered jazz with, in college. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone is very nice, happy, mentally interested and interesting (not a given for people in their early 50s). Everyone loved the art museum and Arthur Bryant's barbecue. We had a truly fun and pleasant time.

Can we broaden the category to include pipes:

Inheriting $75 million was kind of nice.

This album has been reissued on CD only this year. It is a must-have, for the incredible song "Christmas Tree", one of the strangest songs ever recorded.

Why is John Hammond in the same paragraph with you?

John Atkinson of Stereophile magazine ran the same set of tests on a 4thGen iPod as he runs on CD players in the multi-kilobuck range. His conclusion? "The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source." Here is the complete article, without graphics: Sidebar 3: Measurements To measure the iPod's technical performance, I used Bias Peak 3.0 running on my Macintosh PowerBook to prepare uncompressed AIFF files of the 16-bit test signals I use to assess CD players, and prepared a playlist using Apple's iTunes program. Plugging the iPod into the laptop with its FireWire connection automatically updated the contents of its hard disk; from then on, I merely selected the appropriate track with the iPod's menu button. With a full-scale signal, the output clipped at the two highest levels of the volume control. The maximum distortion-free output level into 100k ohms was 911mV at 1kHz—more than enough to drive typical headphones to unbearably loud levels. The iPod didn't invert absolute polarity, and the source impedance was a suitably low 5.5 ohms over most of the audioband, rising slightly to 15 ohms at 20Hz. (All figures include the series resistance of a 5' interconnect.) The iPod should be able to drive all but the low-impedance Grados and the AKG K1000 with impunity. (I got great sound with it driving Sony MDR-7506 closed-back headphones.) The iPod's frequency response was flat (fig.1), but I couldn't get it to correctly play back pre-emphasized files. More correctly, I couldn't get any of the CD-ripping programs I have, PC or Mac, to preserve the emphasis flag when I prepared either AIFF or WAV files. Channel separation was fundamentally good in both directions (fig.2), but slightly if inconsequentially compromised at low frequencies by the battery power supply's rising impedance in this region. Fig.1 Apple iPod, frequency response at -12dBFS into 100k ohms (right channel dashed, 0.5dB/vertical div.). Fig.2 Apple iPod, channel separation (10dB/vertical div.). Fig.3 shows a 1/3-octave analysis of the iPod's output while it decoded uncompressed data representing a dithered 1kHz tone at -90dBFS. A very small amount of second-harmonic content can be seen, but the fundamental peaks at exactly -90dB, as it should. The noise floor below 1kHz is above that of the dither used to encode the signal, and is presumably analog noise emanating from the output circuitry. This can also be seen in fig.4, a similar but wider-band spectral analysis of the player's output while it decoded 16-bit "digital black" data. The rise in the noise floor above the audioband is presumably due to the noise-shaping used by the DAC. Fig.3 Apple iPod, 1/3-octave spectrum of dithered 1kHz tone at -90dBFS, with noise and spuriae, 16-bit AIF data (right channel dashed). Fig.4 Apple iPod, 1/3-octave spectrum of digital black, with noise and spuriae, 16-bit AIF data (right channel dashed). I tried repeating these measurements with 24-bit data files, but they wouldn't play on the iPod, which jumped to the next track. Neither would the iPod play files with sample rates greater than 48kHz. The noise floor also affects the two measurements I usually take to assess a digital component's DAC linearity error: the amplitude error as a dithered 500Hz tone fades to zero (fig.5), and the waveform of an undithered 1kHz tone at exactly -90.31dBFS (fig.6). But even with the noise overlaying the plots, the iPod's behavior suggested good DAC performance on these tests, with linearity error remaining below 2dB down to -110dBFS on the former, and the three voltage levels described by the latter clearly visible. Fig.5 Apple iPod, right-channel departure from linearity, 16-bit AIF data (2dB/vertical div.). Fig.6 Apple iPod, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at -90.31dBFS, 16-bit AIF data. At low frequencies and high levels, the iPod's distortion spectrum featured primarily second and third harmonics (fig.7), with other harmonics below -90dB (0.003%). The second was the highest in level, at 0.1% (-60dB). The overall distortion level was lower at higher frequencies, with the second harmonic—still the highest—at -73dB (0.022%) into a 100 ohm load (fig.8), though the upper harmonics are still visible. However, intermodulation distortion is low in level, even at high playback levels into 100 ohms (fig.9). Note the presence of a strong component at 24.1kHz in this graph; this suggests that the iPod's reconstruction filter is relatively "leaky." Fig.7 Apple iPod, spectrum of 50Hz sinewave, DC-1kHz, at -3dBFS into 150 ohms, 16-bit AIF data (linear frequency scale). Fig.8 Apple iPod, spectrum of 1kHz sinewave, DC-10kHz, at -3dBFS into 100 ohms, 16-bit AIF data (linear frequency scale). Fig.9 Apple iPod, HF intermodulation spectrum, DC-25kHz, 19+20kHz at 0dBFS into 8k ohms, 16-bit AIF data (linear frequency scale). Finally, I used the Miller Audio Research Jitter Analyzer to look for word-clock jitter-related spuriae in the iPod's analog output signal. The diagnostic signal, as usual, was a high-level sinewave tone at one quarter the sample rate, over which has been superimposed an LSB-amplitude squarewave at approximately 229Hz. Both signal frequencies are exact integer fractions of the sample rate, so the signal is free from quantizing artifacts. Any spuriae that appear in a player's output are therefore a result of something it is doing wrong. The Miller Analyzer performs a narrowband spectral analysis of a player's output signal, then searches for symmetrical sideband pairs around the 11.025kHz fundamental. The result for the iPod is shown graphically in fig.10: while the noise floor is around 6dB higher than is theoretically possible from a 16-bit system, only a few sidebands can be seen above the noise. Those circled in red and/or indicated with red numbers are spaced at multiples of 229Hz on either side of the central peak and are therefore data-related. Those indicated with purple circles and numbers are due to other, unknown sources of jitter. The overall result is superbly low, at 225 picoseconds peak-peak. Fig.10 Apple iPod, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal, 16-bit AIF data (11.025kHz at -6dBFS sampled at 44.1kHz with LSB toggled at 229Hz). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz. The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source.—John Atkinson

Now that is some photo! You won one of them for the Bessie Smith set, right? What was the other one for?

I recall a letter to down beat magazine years ago which called Cootie Williams "the Roberto Clemente of the trumpet."

Allen richly deserves a Grammy for this set.

It is an amazing collection. I had heard a good amount of post-1927 jazz before obtaining this set, but very little pre-1927 jazz. This collection really opened my ears and mind to what went down in the Wilson, Harding and Coolidge Administrations, jazz wise. I don't know how else one could get this knowledge so quickly. Listening to Volume One has been known to cure....THE HEARTBREAK OF PSORIASIS!