Ken Dryden

Sounds like fun. A lot of people may not realize how wide ranging Ken Peplowski’s interests are.

I agree with you Allen.

I know the feeling, at times I have downloaded blindfold tests and if I didn't care for the first few tracks, or if it started to stray outside of jazz entirely, I usually abandoned it without posting comment. We all have different tastes and in any case, not everything is going to be a five star track or it might make identification too easy. Track 5 is correctly identified. I meant to load a different track from the album, but there was a glitch on my part. The renumbering plays havoc with things at times trying to save them before sending the files to Them. Track 10 is indeed from the CD you mentioned: David Friesen with Clark Terry & Bud Shank: “I Hear A Rhapsody,” by George Fragos, Dick Gasparre & Jack Baker from …Three to Get Ready ITM Pacific 970084 David Friesen: Hemage bass, Clark Terry: trumpet, Bud Shank: alto saxophone The Hemage bass isn't everyone's cup of tea. I happen to like it, though I prefer double bass. I particularly enjoy Friesen's work with Denny Zeitlin, a collaboration that the bassist initiated. Track 12 is not from a Farmer / Golson reunion album. Track 14 is obviously not Stephane Grappelli, who is always instantly recognizable in any setting. One time I heard his distinctive violin in the closing music to a Burt Reynolds film. Sure enough, the credits roled and there was his name. Of course, your song title identification is correct. Grappelli is well represented in my library and I even caught him in concert once in circa 1981-2. Ernie Henry with Wynton Kelly. I figured that this track would be solved quickly, after JSngry started a thread on the alto saxophonist just after I submitted this BFT. I am surprised that there have been no attempts to identify some of the other performances.

It must be great to live a city where the symphony is amply funded so they can take a chance and perform modern works. One of our issues here is that the symphony & opera combined decades ago and just renting backdrops for one opera can run into tens of thousands of dollars. It seems like opera lovers are dying off and not being replaced, so perhaps this albatross will no longer burden programming expenses in the near future. I haven't attended a symphony performance in a decade or more, the programming just hasn't interested me.

How is a potential symphony audience introduced to modern 20th century repertoire? If they aren't hearing it on local public radio stations that air classical music, are recordings of such music getting widely reviewed and are people reading the reviews? No wonder concert programmers are unwiling to go to the extra expense of paying for performance rights and risk presenting music that may not draw an audience. I am not doing that much reading about classical music these days and available CDs have dwindled in numbers in the few stores that carry any at all. I'm not saying that the music of Schoenberg, Elliot Carter or Pierre Boulez shouldn't be played. I sporadically listed to the the local classical station when taking short drives with my wife, but they seem very conservative in their programming.

One thing you may have overlooked: if the 20th century music is not yet in the public domain, it is more expensive to program, due to performance rights which the symphony or ensemble must pay. I learned this a few years ago when I asked our then local symphony conductor a similar question.

Rite Notes is amazing, a great follow up to Harold Danko's early tribute to Stravinsky.

My time is too valuable to waste it on Wikipedia edits.

NIck Brignola was in the process of being booked to play in Chattanooga when his health failed and he died not long afterward. It's a shame that I never got to hear him in person.

A brief obit about this Chattanooga native. A section of I-24 honors The Impressions. https://www.chattanoogan.com/2022/8/5/453657/Sam-Gooden-Of-The-Impressions-Dies-At.aspx

Our oldest cat has terminal cancer and I don't want to board him just to take an overdue vacation. My wife and I are taking separate trips so one of us will be home. I'm not much for long bus tours, I like getting to where I'm going and spending more time doing fun stuff.

I wrote a fair number of negative reviews for the local paper in my early years, but when you only get to write 2 of 3 reviews in a monthly print publication, do you really want to waste one on a negative review? Likewise, I wrote some negative reviews for allmusic.com, but the percentage was very low among the 1000-2000 or so I contributed over 14 years. Once I wrote a negative review, I generally avoided reviewing the artist’s future releases. Allmusic editors would manipulate star ratings sometimes without explanation. I trashed the flushable Classics In The Key Of G, but some editor subbed a glowing review, even though I was paid. That was likely a case of not wanting to offend an advertiser. It is always fair game to mention poor sound, an out of tune piano, hard to read graphics due to tiny fonts and poor color contrast, mislabeled songs, misspelled credits, etc., even in a positive review. But I can’t imagine that many writers enjoy writing negative reviews, given how many great releases are available. One of my favorite goofs was by Raymond Horricks in his book Jazz Profiles. He threw in some trivia about Creed Taylor in the chapter on Clef/Verve: “...born in Lynchburg, Virginia, otherwise famous as the home of Jack Daniels bourbon.” The less obvious error is in his description of the liquor, which is properly classified as Tennessee Whiskey, not bourbon, as the additional step of seeping the distilled liquor through sour mash makes it distinctive different from bourbon.

That was my introduction to Emily Remler, too bad her heroin habit contributed to her death at 31 not too longer after this CD was released.

Frankly, I haven't been all that impressed with the high end vinyl that I've heard, in spite of the promises. You still get pressing defects and you pay a premium price, often for music that you've already owned for years. I've long since sold off most, if not all of the original Mobile Fidelity LPs that I acquired and never have invested in any of the relaunch LPs.

I thought it might be a fun track that was a little outside of typical listening.

Matt Olson has had a great season as well. While he doesn't hit for average as well as Freddie Freeman did, he's been an extra base hitting machine. Glad to see them DFA Robinson Canó, who no longer seems to be able to hit or field. The Mike Ford experiment has ended with his return to the minors. It is puzzling what the Braves saw in him to promote him, let alone sign him, with his lack of success at the major league level over the past several years. It was odd the other night with 3 guys hitting under .200 in the starting lineup.

The current website is www.cadnor.com. They no longer seem to be wholesalers, just selling their own products, occasional used LPs and CDs, along with occasional specials.

I guess that is one of the surprises… It was a late addition, as I had overlooked it when I submitted the BFT to Tom.

BFT 221 is now available for download: http://thomkeith.net/index.php/blindfold-tests/ Hopefully there will be some surprises, though some artists or songs will be familiar.

Maybe a better thing to do would be to taste, spit and rinse to clear the pallet. Muck like the Jack Daniel’s tasters at the distillery. That’s a lot of candy to swallow in a day.

A number of state universities have two radio stations. Typically there is a professionally run station with adults that brings in listeners and underwriting/gift donations, then there is a "student-run" station, funded by activity fees and other money (if anyone can find any), which is typically the streaming station. Some people seem to think a station can be successful drawing a significant audience while raising significant funding, yet relying primarily on volunteers. The problem is how do you retain volunteers long term and have them keep an audience? Audience rating systems (Nielsen, since acquired by Arbitron) for radio leave a lot to be desired, as they rely on rather small sample sizes of listeners who are asked to keep a week long diary of their listening. There was a competitor for Nielsen but it folded some time in the early 1990s. I remember seeing one ratings period for my weekday evening show and it said I had a 2000 AQH audience, though 80% of it was outside of the metro area (very unlikely, given the demographics of the population here several decades ago). If you've ever done it, did you really remember to keep exact track of how long you listened each day to every station and where you heard it? It's a crapshoot at best. One thing I hate to see is the merger of a public radio station with a public television station. The TV typically treats the radio like a cash cow, milking their fundraising for their overpriced tv programming, then killing off quality shows on radio to be replaced with repeats of audio from the TV programming, much like WGBH did and also in the merger of the Cleveland stations awhile back. Radio always seems to lose in such mergers, as do jazz listeners.

Larry: As my late mother used to say, "Surgery takes it out of you..." Best wishes for great health in the near future.