kinuta

Great but all real fans of Ray will already have all this material.

Nefertititi is great. His solo cd ' Homage' ( East West) is also excellent and well worth searching for.

Trifling stuff. If you want to find real ignorance come to Tokyo. I asked a couple of 2nd year high school students to find The Philippines and Indonesia on a map and they had no idea. They also didn't know that Brazil was in south america, and naturally had never heard of Lenin, Marx, Roosevelt, Mao, Apollo moon landings or Einstein. God only knows what they are taught at ' school'. I wish I were joking but I'm not. I'm 59.

Off topic but I once lost a book, not cd , that I have been unable to replace. An odd story, Donald Spoto's 'The Dark Side Of Genius' was one of my toilet reading books. One day an earthquake shook the place quite badly and Hitch fell off the shelf and ended up down the dumper, literally.

That's sad, I loved Little Milton and had the great pleasure of seeing him a few years ago here in Tokyo in a small club. Man he really burned, in fact it was maybe the best single R&B set I've ever seen. Thanks for the wonderful music .

Given the fact that most of her big band cds are either unavailable or very expensive outside Japan ( lucky me ) I would definitely suggest 'Desert Lady' and 'Live At Carnegie Hall '. Both are on Sony and are probably easier to get than all the BMG big band stuff. For solo get ' Remembering Bud' (Evidence) and 'At Maybeck' ( Concord) , both of which should be obtainable in America.

Typhoon. The humidity is unreal. The drainage from the airconditioner filled a king size bucket in about eight hours.

Very simple meal of odds and ends from the fridge. Cha han- chinese fried rice , beef and green bean stir fried, fresh tomato salad, peaches.

Sad news. I saw him countless times with The Hoochie Coochie Men and their show was always great. Although he never reached the fame of band member Rod 'The Mod' Stewart, he was an important figure in the 60's British R&B scene.

Great to see Teddy Charles getting some well deserved attention. I'm a big fan and am always puzzled over why he is ignored.

33C and very humid.

Adam Zamoyski- 1812 Napoleon's Fatal March On Moscow.

I'd get- 1 'Live At The Harlem Square Club' 2 'The SAR Records Story'... absolutely knockout. 3 Any greatest hits compilation.

Rene Marie

That's a shame, poor guy. I really like the work with the Kenny Barron Quintet, all the cds they did are great.

Although I don't drink anymore I recommend this beer as the best of all the Japanese beers.

Why not read the complete trilogy, 'Tinker, Tailor , Soldier, Spy', 'The Honourable Schoolboy' and finally ' Smiley's People'. For dessert, ' Perfect Spy'. I don't have to recommend them, they are the very essence espionage fiction.

Last year a friend gave my wife some booties that her husband had bought in HK. They were hilarious, Terminator 3 had sleeve notes for Charlie's Angels and the English subtitles for some film that was most decidedly not Terminator 3. Hulk had subtitles from what seemed to be a Jackie Chan film and a cover with notes to what seemed to be Matrix 3. I threw them all in the bin.

So anyway what's the word on 'War Of The Worlds' ? Is it any good or what ?

' American Pastoral' is a great book, his best in my opinion. ' I Married A Communist ' is also excellent. I thought they were both superior to ' Human Stain'.

'JC On The Set ' is still his best cd imho.

Hot and very sticky. High of 37C and 29C in the middle of the night. Humidity around 60%. It's just a rehearsal for July and August.

On WW2 Martin Gilbert Second World War, a day by day chronological account is very powerful. Max Hastings Armageddon Antony Beevor- Stalingrad and The Fall Of Berlin John Dowes- War Without Mercy on the Pacific theatre. On Vietnam - two masterly books that Bush obviously hasn't read. Neil Sheehan -A Bright Shining Lie David Halberstam -The Best And The Brightest Max Hastings -Korean war and Battle For The Falklands.

Thanks for the link. I've been wanting to read this for ages.

I bought Volume one ( the black box) when it was first released and it has had a lot of play. I never got round to buying Volume 2 ( the blue box) which I sometimes regret. If ever you see a copy of the Sue Records Story box set it makes a great companion to the Stax.