David

I was there also, with my wife. We were sitting in one of those boxes to the side on the lower level. Wife was a little put off with his intense opener, Sonny, Please, but REALLY enjoyed the remainder of the show, especially the calypsos, Global Warming and one other I can't think of right now. It was my first time seeing him live and he certainly did not disappoint, still brimming with ideas. His cadenza at the end of In a Sentimental Mood was a highlight for me -- especially how he seamlessly morphed it into Things Ain't What They Used to Be and then back. I was a little bored by the percussion solo but otherwise felt everyone in his band played fine, though Sonny was CLEARLY the star of the show. Also agree about Cranshaw -- he is looking and still playing great! Another note is my wife kept commenting about how 'cute' Rollins looked prancing about the stage. While that is not exactly how I would describe it, he certainly has a distinct way of shuffling about at his stage in life. I'm just glad I got to see him live...

I think the decline in music purchases can also be traced to the fact that young people have more forms of entertainment competing for their money. I am a child of the 80's, and when I was growing up, we pretty much had cassettes, Nintendo, cheap movies ($5) and VHS tapes to purchase. Now, kids and young adults have multiple expensive game systems with ever more engrossing (and expensive) games, an explosion of DVDs and cable television (HBO/Showtime/ESPN), and the Internet. The world is much different now than it was even 10 years ago with an almost dizzying new array of products vying for our time and money. I think it is possible that part of the decline of music sales could simply be increased competition between other forms of entertainment. Perhaps the amount of money spent by consumer on entertainment has stayed relatively constant, but other new forms of it (video games and DVDs primarily) have succeeded in shifting money away from music purchases.

I have had good experiences with these: http://ssl.adhost.com/jazzloft/baskets/sleeves.cfm http://www.bagsunlimited.com/cart/detail.a...oduct_id=scdgf4 No damage to CDs after a few years and definitely space saving. I like slappa (www.slappa.com) sleeves for my DVDs. Again no damage after a few years and definitely space saving.

I never said one had to study three months to get a good score on the LSAT. Nowadays, unfortunately, due to the pervasiveness of the US News rankings the LSAT is probably the most important indicator of what kind of law school to which you will be admitted. For those aspiring to a top-15 or especially a top-10 school, even a five point difference, say between a 168 and a 173, will greatly affect the chances of admission. That said, even for someone who can score well without much preparation, the extra work can certainly help and certainly improve your prospects at a top-15 school.

I took the LSAT this year. Yes, it is probably not the best indicator of someone's eventual ability to become a successful practicing lawyer, but it is a necessity if one wants to be admitted to law school. As someone who scored very highly on previous standardized tests (SATs, etc) I highly recommend either a course or hardcore studying of materials, such as the powerscore logic reasoning and logic games books. For the vast majority of folks, this test requires at least three months of daily studying if you want to get a good score (165+).

By the way, I was IN the UVa jazz band when Bruce was invited to on stage to play with us and Pat Metheny (it was a Jazz Ensemble concert featuring Pat Metheny). I don't remember Bruce's intro being all that memorable -- at least compared to Pat's playing, which was just mind-blowing. I can still hear his killer solo on Minuano despite our mediocre backing. I do, however, very much enjoy Bruce's pop stuff, have seen and thoroughly enjoy him live, and will definitely be looking forward to this album.

I really like his duo album with Gary Burton (orange-ish cover). Amazing version of No Mystery on that one.

I recently found Cat House Piano and the Jack Teagarden at a used CD store in Georgetown (DC) for $7.99 each. The Teagarden is absolutely wonderful.

I had the opportunity to meet Pat when he was the guest artist at one of our Jazz Ensemble concerts while I was in college. He came across as humble, approachable, and very likable. Of course he was in a completely different league than any of us were in terms of playing and we immediately recognized that. I guess it is his policy to not eat before concerts and he didn't have dinner before ours. After the concert he stayed an extra hour helping a saxophonist in our band learn how to improvise over Minuano, starting one note at a time per chord. Arrogant is the last word I would use to describe him from my encounters. Count me in as someone who is impressed.

YertleTheTurtle, my middle name.

I know I am probably in the ultra minority, but if you're willing to accept (in my opinion) a marginal loss of quality, a digital music server can be a great and cheap solution. I've ripped my 1,000 CDs to *gasp* mp3s encoded at a variable bit-rate between 192 and 224 kbps using a free program called freerip. Ripping takes about 5-6 minutes for a 60 minute CD. Using this method, you can easily fit about 1,000 albums per 100 GBs, which is quite budget-friendly and simple to backup. I am using an old P4 computer as my server with a cheap (but well-reviewed) soundcard with an Envy audio chip and SPDIF output as my music server. The SPDIF goes to a Harman Kardon AVR520 (all audio output processing is done here), powering both Athena floorstanding speakers and subwoofer in one room and Aperion bookshelf speakers in another room. I use Winamp as the interface. Ever since I did I have been enjoying my music collection MUCH better, especially the box sets, which are much more accessible in this format. With my system, I cannot detect a loss in sound quality, and even if I could, the convenience (for me) more than makes up for it. The cost -- $150 for two 300GB Seagate HDs (one for daily usage, one for backup) $30 for soundcard. Of course, it is always a cost-benefit tradeoff, but my point is even at the low end of the cost spectrum, I think there are fairly high benefits, and for the me the marginal increase in benefits from this point would not be commensurate with the added cost.

Kevin is correct. All my mini-LPs fit fine, even contained in the plastic outer sleeves, and without adjusting anything from the standard CD width.

New lower (and final) price.

Title says it all: 2 x MC3D20 cabinets 2 x DIVBS18 dividers (36 total) Color: chocolate brown, excellent condition (these things are built like tanks!), extremely classy look. Recently moved from a large house to a 2 bedroom condo so I could walk to the Metro, and no room for these anymore. Too heavy to ship, so you would need to come pick them up yourself (I could help load). I live in the Northern VA / DC Metro area. Willing to sacrifice: $350 for both. http://www.can-am.ca

A friend of mine seems to be open to jazz, and I told him I would make a mix CD for him with some songs he might like. Background: What I know about his tastes are that he bought one of those late 60s/early 70's Grant Green compilations that were recently released by BN and enjoyed. He has listened to and likes Soulive and St. Germain (I have never heard of St. Germain). My general impression of his music tastes are that he is into the jam band / groove stuff and could be looking to branch out, especially with some organ-based soul jazz. My ideas: I have always been awful at making mixes since my own preference is to listen to albums in their entirety, but here's what I plan to include thus far: Weather Report - Birdland Medeski Martin & Wood - Where's Sly? (or anything, really off of the It's a Jungle in Here album) Herbie Hancock - Wiggle-Waggle (from the Fat Albert Rotunda) Stanley Turrentine - Sugar Cannonball Adderley - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Grant Green - A Wee Bit of Green (off Grant's First Stand w/ Baby Face Willette) Jimmy Smith - The Sermon (I know it's long) Wayne Shorter - Adam's Apple (I had to include at least one thing slightly subversive ) What I'm soliciting: This will probably end up at about two CDs (especially with the Sermon on there). Is there anything else you guys can suggest? I am looking for maybe five or six mainly soul-jazz or VERY accessible jazz (especially organ-based) that could hook him in. Another JOS song would probably be in order as well... Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the advice, guys. I think I'll take my chances with the ZYX reissues, especially at that price.

Is there any surefire way to distinguish the Fantasy ZYX remasters from the non-ZYX remasters for the single CDs? I assume anytime I see 'digitally remastered' it is one of those ZYX remasters. Are they really THAT bad?

Wanted to revive this thread -- I downloaded 'Smile' from the Rhapsody music download service now will soon purchase the disc. I had not heard much Jacky before, only on the session he did with Stefon Harris (who I really like as well), and was definitely NOT impressed with his work on that session. I am glad I capriciously downloaded 'Smile', as it is wonderful, especially Jacky's compositions, which are are both melodic and memorable. I have been humming the title track and '59' non-stop for the past few days. I guess what I like most about it IS the melodic content of his playing. To me, he is not the most original stylist out there nowadays, but on this CD he does not seem overly fascinated with being too complex, too cute, too original, too steeped with faux-gravitas, etc., and instead focuses his technique on conveying emotion -- I don't think you can listen to this CD without a smile, as the CD title suggests. Again, nothing earth-shattering, simply a VERY enjoyable and reccomended outing.

No you do not -- you are provided with a Word template where you simply type what you want inside the provided lines. It does take some minor adjustments with your printer to make sure it prints right on the perforations, however. And like Tom said, you don't actually need the perforated inserts -- you can simply print out on plain paper and use scissors if you like. For me, I find that the time savings of not having to cut out each insert are definitely worth the cost.

As another suggestion, I have had good results with these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000063WO...glance&n=172282 You'll need to spend some time properly calibrating them to work with your printer, but after doing so, I have been able to get good results very quickly.

I agree with Kevin that for really important things, you should have them backed up on optical media as well as another harddrive and possibly even another source. One of the most reliable back-up medias is still tape, believe it or not, and though expensive, they are invaluable for very important data. That said, with good compression, you could make multiple copies of things using inexpensive DVD-Rs. As for your question, if C went down, F would still be perfectly readable since it is physically a different drive. If the two "drives" were nothing more than partitions (ie, divisions) of the same physical drive, things could get hairy. But if you're sure there is physically two drives in there, you'd be fine. However, there's nothing stopping F from going down one of these days and leaving C up and running as well. For the record, I purchased a Seagate to replace the WD in that Acomdata case and much to my delight and surprise, Seagate drives carry a 5 year warranty. I'm buying Seagate from here on out. Jim, I believe Seagates are the only drive manufacturer that still offers 5-year warranties on their products. Compared to some Maxtor drives which only offer a 90-day(!) warranty, this should give you an idea that they are more willing to stand behind the quality of their products. Save for one 'bad' batch (the 7200.8 series), Seagates generally receive rave reviews for their quality. I have had no problems with Seagates in my experiences. I believe Seagate is buying out Maxtor, so hopefully their quality will transfer to Maxtor drives in the future, and not vice versa.

Hooray! New at YourMusic this morning: Erik Truffaz - Solova Bill Frisell - East / West AND... Bobby Hutcherson - Oblique McCoy Tyner - Time for Tyner Blue Mitchell - Boss Horn Andrew Hill - Judgment! Lonnie Smith - Think!

I'd suggest Ashburn (where I live) -- it is pricey, but not nearly as much as Arlington, however. A small one-story rambler in North Arlington will set you back at least upper 600s, if not more. A decent size 4 bed, 2 bath home will be over a million dollars. In Ashburn, you can find a newer 3,500+ square foot house for about 650-700K. The Loudoun County area is family-friendly, and has easy access to the Dulles Airport. North Reston and North Herndon (close to Route 7) are also good alternatives. Taxes are also much less than in Maryland.

Up one last time, revised, with new offers. Thanks for all the replies. I am also open to trades.

Updated and up.