Rooster_Ties

Appart from the obvious BN reissues, and Mosaic Select titles, here are a few I will probably seriously consider getting... Ralph Alessi - This Against That (RKM 03) May 27 — with Don Byron, David Gilmore, Drew Gress, Nasheet Waits Ralph Alessi - Vice & Virtue (RKM 02) May 27 — recorded in 1999 Greg Osby - St. Louis Shoes (Blue Note) June 10 The Classical Jazz Quartet - Plays Rachmaninoff (Vertical Records) June Charlie Haden - The Montreal Tapes (Verve) — with Joe Henderson and Al Foster Jason Moran Trio - The Bandwagon (Blue Note) Aug 19 — recorded live at the Village Vanguard, Nov. 2002 Miles Davis - Tribute To Jack Johnson Sessions - 5 CDs? (Columbia/Legacy) early Sept (2003) — 34 tracks; about 4.5 hours previously unreleased Miles Davis - Juan Le Pins Sessions (Columbia) - 2 CDs – 2003/04?? — July 1969 concerts with Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette. The second concert is unissued.

Go to jazzmatazz - upcoming releases, and tell everyone what you're looking forward to most!!!!

Perhaps I'm not the only one who doesn't own any of these. Which one or ones is/are the best?? And why?? Here's a link to a review of all of them from www.52ndstreet.com.

Hey, could we hold off on doing "Conflict" as the AOTW until I get back from my trip to the Pacific Northwest?? I won't have any Internet access for a couple weeks in mid-June, so sometime after that would be good (after June 23rd, to be exact). ( Not my turn to pick anyway, so I gotta hope somebody else chooses it. )

Thanks A.B.!!! - and actually, I downloaded that Kirk show (from Darkfunk) just last night!!! Haven't had the chance to listen to it yet, but plan to in the next few days.

Excellent news!!! Between "Conflict" being available in Europe, and also on emusic - we should definitely do this as our album-of-the-week sometime soon. Maybe we could pick this well in advance of the week we're doing it, so people have time to get it and spin it a few times.

Half to say I'd never been to emusic before, at least not until 30 seconds ago. I saw OmniTone, and wondered if Tom Varner's albums were there, and they are.... Anyone who is a fan of Don Cherry's "Complete Communion" really needs to hear Tom Varner's "Second Communion", which is on emusic. Here's the skinny from AGM... Review of Second Communion, and here's the bio of Tom Varner, who plays French Horn(!!). You gotta hear this one...

Here's that same list (from the source above), FYI... ===== All in mini LP carton sleeve with bonus tracks where available: June 25, 2003 4001 Newk's Time / Sonny Rollins 4183 Talkin' About / Grant Green 4252 Sweet Honey Bee / Duke Pearson 4229 Got A Good Thing Goin' / John Patton 4060 At The Half Note Café Vol.1 / Donald Byrd 4061 At The Half Note Café Vol.2 / Donald Byrd 4227 Mode For Joe / Joe Henderson 4159 Judgement! / Andrew Hill 4085 Ready For Freddie / Freddie Hubbard 4129 Never Let Me Go / Stanley Turrentine July 23, 2003 1575 City Lights / Lee Morgan 1547 A Date With Jimmy Smith Vol.1 1548 A Date With Jimmy Smith Vol.2 4033 Soundin' Off / Dizzy Reece 4220 The Cape Verdean Blues / Horace Silver 4145 Shoutin' / Don Wilkerson 4174 The Way I Feel / Big John Patton 4277 Serenade To A Soul Sister / Horace Silver 4280 Midnight Creeper / Lou Donaldson 4260 Conquistador / Cecil Taylor Aug. 27, 2003 1561 Palo Congo / Sabu 4415 The Final Come Down / Grant Green 4141 Rockin' The Boat / Jimmy Smith 4200 Softly As A Summer Breeze / Jimmy Smith 4121 Elder Don / Don Wilkerson 4158 Good Move / Freddie Roach 4120 It Just Got To Be / The Three Sounds 4197 Out Of This World / The Three Sounds 4188 I'm Tryin' To Get Home / Donald Byrd 4118 Free Form / Donald Byrd Sept. 2003 4230 A Caddy For Daddy / Hank Mobley 4310 Goin' West / Grant Green 4106 Let Freedom Ring / Jackie McLean 4131 Silver's Serenade / Horace Silver 4238 Mustang / Donald Byrd 4172 Breaking Point / Freddie Hubbard 4326 Move Your Hand / Lonnie Smith 4136 African High Life / Solomon Ilori 1525 The Incredible Jimmy Smith At The Organ Vol.3 4164 Prayer Meetin' / Jimmy Smith Oct. 2003 4083 Dexter Calling / Dexter Gordon 4050 Home Cookin' / Jimmy Smith 4100 Jimmy Smith Plays Fats Waller 4092 The Golden Eight / Kenny Clarke 4342 Green Is Beautiful / Grant Green 4087 Let Me Tell You 'Bout It / Leo Parker 4189 Inner Urge / Joe Henderson 4177 Some Other Stuff / Grachan Moncur III 4214 Down With It / Blue Mitchell 4273 Hi Voltage / Hank Mobley Nov. 2003 4335 The Sixth Sense / Lee Morgan 4079 Gravy Train / Lou Donaldson 4144 Little Johnny C / Johnny Coles 4096 That's Where It's At / Stanley Turrentine 4165 Destination Out / Jackie McLean 1587 Back On The Scene / Bennie Green 4104 Buhaina's Delight / Art Blakey & The Jazz Mssengers 4170 Free For All / Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers 4323 Merry Ole Soul / Duke Pearson 1556 The Sounds Of Jimmy Smith Dec. 2003 1572 Bone & Bari / Curtis Fuller Vol.2 4257 Boss Horn / Blue Mitchell 4297 Schizophrenia / Wayne Shorter 4153 Evolution / Grachan Moncur III 4307 Time For Tyner / McCoy Tyner 4196 Blue Spirits / Freddie Hubbard 4239 Let 'Em Roll / "Big" John Patton 4334 Moon Rappin' / Brother Jack McDuff 1599 Soul Stirrin' / Bennie Green 4191 Wahoo / Duke Pearson Jan. 2004 4010 Walkin' & Talkin' / Bennie Green 4353 The Song Of Singing / Chick Corea 4178 The Thing To Do / Blue Mitchell 4128 Mo' Greens Please / Freddie Roach 4207 The Night Of The Cookers Vol.1 / Freddie Hubbard 4208 The Night Of The Cookers Vol.2 / Freddie Hubbard 4322 Down Home Style / Brother Jack McDuff 4259 Blackjack / Donald Byrd 4253 Street Of Dreams / Grant Green 4193 Indestructible / Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Feb. 2003 1517 Patterns In Jazz / Gil Melle 4125 Good Gracious / Lou Donaldson 4218 Action / Jackie McLean 4290 Think / Ronnie Smith 4151 Black Fire / Andrew Hill 4160 Smoke Stack / Andrew Hill 4077 Doin' Allright / Dexter Gordon 4148 Two Souls In One / George Braith 4171 Extention / George Braith 4344 How Insensitive / Duke Pearson Mar. 2003 4176 One Flight Up / Dexter Gordon 4288 Reach Out! / Hank Mobley 4072 Feelin' Good / The Three Sounds 4313 Turning Point / Ronnie Smith 4113 Down To Earth / Freddie Roach 4245 Like Someone In Love / Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers 4161 Soul Stream / George Braith 4166 In 'N Out / Joe Henderson 1563 Jimmy Smith Plays Pretty Just For You 4275 Tender Moments / McCoy Tyner

Thanks, Moose, well said. I agree that on a national scale, not much is likely to change anytime soon, no matter what anyone does. (Sad, but probably true.) BUT, if you accept (even just a tiny bit) the mantra to "think globally, act locally" --- then I can't help but think that individuals can somhow make a real difference on a very localized level -- meaning even if they just create a tiny bit of synergy that starts to take on a tiny life of it's own - enough so that maybe a few people, or a few dozen people, or even (over time) a few hundred people start to change their perspective, even just a tiny bit. I'm not saying that this is gonna solve all kinds of problems on a grand scale. But, perhaps I'd just like to do something, if for no other reason that the pure selfishness of wanting to improve things a tiny bit in some tiny bubble in which I have some tiny influence. This reminds me of a similar, but different example (which will explain some of my motivation for starting this topic, and why I'm asking the questions I'm asking)... Shortly after I moved to Kansas City in 1994, I joined a weekly round-table discussion group, a "Men's Group". We did a little bit of the typical "Men's Movement" stuff, like drumming and such, but what I really liked was just having a bunch of guys to get together with and talk about stuff. Serious stuff, stupid stuff, pop-culture stuff, pretty much anything (reminds me of a jazz bulletin board, no?? ). Then, after about a year of that, I found the group to be a little bit lacking. Everyone in the group was male (obviously), and there were many times that I found myself longing for a similar round-table discussion group that had both men and women. Later, I found something kinda like that, in the church my wife and I started going to a few years ago. The '30-somethings' group at the church was men and women, and I found that having women in the group changed a lot of the discussion, as they often brought in different points of view that an all-male group might not think of. And so, I just realized that I feel the same thing about, well, about practically all my current social circles. That they somehow are lacking some perspectives and opinions, because everyone is White. It's just like my Men's Group, as great as it was. It was still lacking some valid perspectives and opinions, and having women around too might have diversified the pool of ideas. ( Also, the Men's Group that I was in was made up of all straight men, and as a result, I found that there were often quite a number of generalizations made about women, which were widely accepted and rarely challenged (or I was the only one challenging them). Whereas now, in the "male/female & straight/gay/lesbian" discussion group that I'm in now, it means these generalizations are rarely left unchallenged. ) So, then, the trick is, how to bring a few people of different races together?? Maybe to work together on some common 'community-action' or 'volunteer' project?? Maybe under the guise of some common interest, like a music appreciation group??? Just brainstorming some more...

I'm on the fence about Marvin Cabell as well, but occasionally I don't mind his severe intonation problems, or at least not as much as other times. (How's that for faint praise!!!!) But seriously... Do I wish almost any other sax player was on those dates?? Probably yes. Do the dates still have some merit?? Absolutely!!! They're great in other ways!!! And, truth be told, Marvin Cabell doesn't do any less for me than Don Wilkerson, although I do admit Wilkerson is a better player, technically. So I'm not saying Cabell is as good as Wilkerson, but rather that Cabell is at least as interesting (to me) as Wilkerson. Sometimes If I have my 'Ornette' ears screwed on tight, I can find few things in Cabell's playing.

LOL!!!

Or, rather, see this thread (link provided below) for where this question is asked and hopefully discussed.... Conversations with Jim Anderson, Ask the engineer!!! (page 6) Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page, and look for this question... But don't discuss it here, go to the other thread. Thanks!!

For those looking for Boogaloo, here's a link that'll do a generic search for "john patton boogaloo" on eBay. This link should work, now, or a month from now, or a year from now. eBay search for "john patton boogaloo" And, here's a similar search on half.com, that should also work anytime in the near future... half.com search for "john patton boogaloo" I'm doing this as a public service to those unfortunate souls who don't have Patton's "Boogaloo", which I voted for as my all-time-favorite Patton release. I love the others too (I've heard nearly all of them, expect a couple on the forthcoming Mosaic Select), but I always seem to come back to "Boogaloo" as my favorite. It maybe isn't the greasiest of his output, but (for me anyway), it's the deepest.

You're right Conn500, that this is a difficult topic to talk about. Maybe that's why I sat around thinking about talking about it for so long, before finally starting this thread. I was about to discuss my own background, which isn't even half as interesting as yours, Conn500. I think you certainly bring a unique perspective to matters of race. I grew up in a nearly lily-White suburb of St. Louis (Missouri), in what must be one of the most segregated counties in the whole country, St. Clair County, on the Illinois side of the river, right across the river from St. Louis. Yup, I grew up in the county where East St. Louis is, where Miles was born and grew up. But I grew up in and around Belleville, Illinois - which is probably 70% White now, and back then (in the 70's and 80's) was probably 85% White. But my parents, who were born in the late 20's (and are old enough to be my grandparents), both grew up in East St. Louis when it was nearly all-White, as it was all the way through the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Lot's of reasons for the big changes in East St. Louis, which I won't go into here, except to say that now it is nearly 90% Black, and one of the most economically depressed areas in the whole country, and is quite similar to the south side of Chicago, or the Watts area of Los Angeles. I grew up in a number of different schools, which each had about 5%-10% minority enrolment. And when I went to college, I got to interact with lots of international students, from all over the world. But, for many reasons, I don’t remember having too much interaction with the Black students who I was in college with at the time. I went to a small liberal-arts college in up-state Illinois, with about 15% minority enrolment, about half of which was Black. I do remember going to hear some lectures, now and then, that particularly appealed to the Black student community, and being at a few sort of “Black”-centric student events. But, I don’t really remember ever really getting to know any Black students during my time in college. I saw every movie Spike Lee put out, but never did figure out how to cross that divide. I wasn’t into jazz back then, though I suspect few of the Black students were either. I’m rambling here, and have no idea where this is going. I guess I don’t have any answers either. But I think talking about race is still a good thing, and a good place to start. Back to rambling... It wasn’t until my first year out of college, when I began working on my 2nd college degree (in music), that I got to develop a really good friendship with someone who was Black. Actually, he was a part-time professor at the college (and a full-time professor at the local community college), and he was going to be on my Honors-Project committee when I thought about doing a year-long project on Sun Ra. He had the biggest jazz collection within 300 miles in any direction, and the area he taught in was Sociology. We hit it off fast, first as mentor and student, but later just as friends. He’s 20-25 years older than I am, but we’ve really gotten to be good friends despite the age difference. He and his wife are two of the nicest people I’ve ever known in my whole life. He has kids that are only a few years younger than I am, and they’re also really nice as well - though I always feel I have way more in common with their father (who is easily old enough to be my own father), than I do any of them (he has three sons). Conn500, you’re absolutely right about race being a taboo subject. There have been nearly 100 views of this thread, but only two people have responded to it. Difficult to talk about, but perhaps important to talk about too.

Thanks b3, appreciate your feedback. Nice to hear stories like the one you described about the gay man, and the black woman her friends. I would just post links to these, but articles in the Kansas City Star are only available on-line for one week; after that you gotta buy the articles for a tiny fee. So, here are two articles, the first one ran before the 'Race Relations' forum I attended last Saturday, and the second one ran right after the forum. and

What's "...Freap" sound like??? I've never heard it... (And actually, I'm not sure if I've ever heard any Ronnie Foster, come to think of it.)

I have far fewer of the Rare Groove titles, so I'll have to bow out from the Rare Groove poll, at least as far as knowing what to add, and what not to.

( Never mind the bit about "Select your favorite Grant Green from the list", I think that's a left-over from another poll Conn500 created earlier... )

I've wanted to bring up this topic for a long time, both here and even back on the BNBB, so here goes... Maybe I should also mention, right up front, that I'm a white male, married, age 34, with no kids, who lives in the city in a mostly all-white neighborhood, although about 15% of our immediate neighbors (within 1 or 2 miles) are Hispanic. But, if you go just 2 or 3 miles due east of where I live, you start to get into the mostly all-Black neighborhood. (Kansas City, like I suspect most (but maybe not all?) bigger cities in America, borders on being 'hyper-segregated' in our living/neighborhood patterns.) I'm currently unemployed (since January), but my last work environment ('white collar', in Information Systems at the corporate headquarters of a Fortune 1000 company) was probably 90% White, with the remaining 10% mostly being made of up of various Asian, Indian, and Middle-Eastern minorities, with few Blacks. Anyway, last Saturday I went to an interesting forum/round-table discussion, about the state of "Race Relations" in Kansas City and in the greater K.C. metropolitan area. At this forum, there was a period of Q&A with the panel - and one of my questions was selected and discussed by the whole group. My question was this: "Kansas City is not very integrated, especially in our neighborhoods, our churches, and (although maybe to a lesser degree) in many of our work environments. What can White people do to get involved in improving race relations?? And, perhaps even more importantly, what can White people do to find ways to interact and socialize in more racially integrated circles??" Various members of the panel had a few good suggestions, but the overall response (and struggle to respond) left me thinking that this really is a difficult question to answer, or at least here , and it probably is also in many communities. So, then, I pose the same question here... For those interested, what can we all do (Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, etc...) to have more face-to-face interaction, in a positive and comfortable/casual setting, on a periodic regular basis, with people of different racial backgrounds?? For instance, I belong to a very dogmatically-liberal Unitarian Church in midtown Kansas City - where the social-circle I run in there (made up of mostly "30-somethings") has every kind of diversity you can think of, except racial diversity. And by other kinds of diversity, I mean things like gender, class (or at least income-level), gender-preference, single/married, kids/no-kids, city-dwellers/suburbanites, professionals, artists, students, you-name-it, and so on.... But as much as I like all that, I would love to find some regular social outlets that were more racially mixed. A while back I played in a pool-league for a couple years, and our 'all-White' team sometimes played 'all-Black' teams - sometimes at our bar, sometimes at theirs, and I really enjoyed that. And I had some cool conversations once with a couple slightly-younger-than-me Black guys when we were all in a jury pool together all day long, a few years ago. And one or two of the jazz clubs in Kansas City draw a mixed crowd, somewhat. But you see my point - (at least in this town) one has to really look for opportunities to mix with others who are different. And even then, there often isn’t that much interaction. Any thoughts on my questions above, or about this topic in general??? Thanks!! -- Rooster T. PS: Yes, I'll admit it, based on my personal interests in Jazz, (perhaps obviously) I'm looking for more opportunities for Black/White interaction. But, that doesn't mean I'm any less open to other more diverse social-circles as well.

List of Pulitzer Prize Winners in Music, 1943-2002 1943: William Schuman (b. 1910). Secular Cantata No. 2: A Free Song for full chorus of mixed voices, with accompaniment of orchestra. 1944: Howard Hanson (1896-1981). Symphony no. 4, op. 34. 1945: Aaron Copland (1900-1990). Appalachian Spring. 1946: Leo Sowerby (1895-1968). The Canticle of the Sun. 1947: Charles Ives (1874-1954). Symphony no. 3. 1948: Walter Piston (1894-1976). Symphony no. 3 1949: Virgil Thomson (1896-1989). Louisiana Story. (Score for a documentary film.) 1950: Gian-Carlo Menotti (b. 1911). The Consul. (Opera.) 1951: Douglas Moore (1893-1969). Giants in the Earth. (Opera.) 1952: Gail Kubik (1914-1984). Symphony Concertante. 1953: Not awarded. 1954: Quincy Porter (1897-1966). Concerto Concertante for Two Pianos and Orchestra. 1955: Gian-Carlo Menotti (b. 1911). The Saint of Bleecker Street. (Opera in three acts.) 1956: Ernst Toch (1887-1964). Symphony no. 3. 1957: Norman Dello Joio (b. 1913). Meditations on Ecclesiastes. 1958: Samuel Barber (1910-1981). Vanessa. (Opera.) 1959: John La Montaine (b. 1920). Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, op. 9. 1960: Elliott Carter (b. 1908). Second String Quartet. 1961: Walter Piston (1894-1976). Symphony no. 7. 1962: Robert Ward (b. 1917). The Crucible. (Opera.) 1963: Samuel Barber (1910-1981). Piano Concerto no. 1, op. 38. 1964: Not awarded. 1965: Not awarded. 1966: Leslie Bassett (b. 1923). Variations for Orchestra. 1967: Leon Kirchner (b. 1919). Quartet no. 3 for strings and electronic tape. 1968: George Crumb (b. 1929). Echoes of Time and the River. 1969: Karel Husa (b. 1921). String Quartet no. 3. 1970: Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938). Time's Encomium. 1971: Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934). Synchronisms no. 6. 1972: Jacob Druckman (1928-1996). Windows. 1973: Elliott Carter (b. 1908). String quartet no. 3. 1974: Donald Martino (b. 1931). Notturno. 1975: Dominick Argento (b. 1927). From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. 1976: Ned Rorem (b. 1923). Air Music. 1977: Richard Wernick (b. 1934). Visions of Terror and Wonder. 1978: Michael Colgrass (b. 1932). Deja Vu for Percussion and Orchestra. 1979: Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943). Aftertones of Infinity. 1980: David Del Tredici (b. 1937). In Memory of a Summer Day. 1981: Not awarded. 1982: Roger Sessions (1896-1985). Concerto for Orchestra. 1983: Ellen Zwilich (b. 1939). Three Movements for Orchestra. (Symphony no. 1.) 1984: Bernard Rands (b. 1934). Canti del Sole. 1985: Stephen Albert (1941-1992). Symphony RiverRun. 1986: George Perle (b. 1915). Wind Quintet no. 4, for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. 1987: John Harbison (b. 1938). The Flight into Egypt. 1988: William Bolcom (b. 1938). 12 New Etudes for Piano. 1989: Roger Reynolds (b. 1934). Whispers Out of Time. 1990: Mel D. Powell (1923-1998). Duplicates: A Concerto. 1991: Shulamit Ran (b. 1947). Symphony. 1992: Wayne Peterson (b. 1927). The Face of the Night. 1993: Christopher Rouse (b. 1949). Trombone Concerto. 1994: Gunther Schuller (b. 1925). Of Reminiscences and Reflections. 1995: Morton Gould (1931-1996). Stringmusic. 1996: George Walker (b. 1922). Lilacs for soprano and orchestra. 1997: Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961). Blood on the Fields. Oratorio. 1998: Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960). String Quartet No. 2, Musica Instrumentalis 1999: Melinda Wagner. Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion. 2000: Lewis Spratlan. Life is a Dream, opera in three acts: ACT II, Concert Version. 2001: John Corigliano. Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra. 2002: Henry Brant. "Ice Field"

From http://www.villagevoice.com by Gary Giddins The Academy's Pulitzer Why Jazz and Pop Don't Make the Cut April 30 - May 6, 2003 John Adams takes a stand. (photo: Hiroyuki Ito) On April 9, the Times ran a surprising story by Anne Midgette, "Dissonant Thoughts on the Music Pulitzers," in which John Adams, who had received the award for On the Transmigration of Souls, expressed astonishment at winning, and ambivalence bordering on contempt. The prize, he said, has "lost much of the prestige it still carries in other fields," because "most of the country's greatest musical minds" are ignored, "often in favor of academy composers." He singled out the Pulitzer's neglect of mavericks, composer-performers, and "especially" the "great jazz composers." His point was not surprising; that a recipient made it was. He had said aloud what countless American composers grumble privately every year, most of them shy of going public and courting accusations of sour grapes. In 1967, when Edward Albee won a makeup Pulitzer for A Delicate Balance, he said that friends urged him to refuse it; in 1963, the drama jury had chosen to present no award rather than acknowledge Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In effect, Albee argued that his dissent would have more meaning as a winner. As he went on to win more Pulitzers, if he contested them at all, he kept it quiet. Adams took a nervy stand, opening himself to allegations of biting the hand that massaged him. Not many winners have publicly questioned the process since Sinclair Lewis spurned the prize in 1926 (as well he should, Arrowsmith having beaten The Great Gatsby, though that wasn't his reason). And Adams loosened other lips. John Corigliano, the 2001 winner, told Midgette, "The Pulitzer was originally intended to be for a work that is going to last, to mean something to the world. It changed into another kind of award completely: by composers for composers"—mired, he added, in a pool of rotating jurors. The Pulitzer Prizes, launched with a fourth of Joseph Pulitzer's $2 million bequest to create the Columbia University School of Journalism, began presenting laurels in journalism and literature in 1917. The music prize was instituted in 1943, the year of Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige; the prize, however, went to William Schuman's A Free Song, a respectable choice by an important composer who was already a magnet for prizes. In the jazz world, the Pulitzer is shrugged off as just another establishment club (from the Grammys to the Kennedy Center Honors) that routinely ignores composers working in the idiom that most consistently and articulately proclaims "America" to the rest of the world. Yet many civilians are amazed to learn that in its 60 years, the Pulitzer has never acknowledged a single figure in popular music and only once gave the nod to a jazz work—Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Fields, in 1997. Gunther Schuller and Mel Powell have also won, but for pieces entirely unconnected to their jazz work. The most celebrated pas de deux between the Pulitzers and jazz occurred in 1965, when the jury unanimously voted to override the standard rule of honoring a single work premiered the previous year, in order to hail Duke Ellington for his lifetime achievement. The jury, to its dismay, was overruled by the advisory board, which chose to present no award that year. A Pulitzer spokesman later argued that the single-work rule could not be broken; but if they had wanted to make things right at the time, they could have given it to Ellington the next year for the premiere of his masterpiece, Far East Suite—or for several subsequent suites debuted before his death in 1974. Yet had the advisory board acknowledged any of those works, it would have done little more than apply a Band-Aid to a triple bypass. The real problem went to the heart of Pulitzer politics: It was the rule itself. The jury that desired to honor Ellington understood something about indigenous American music—it is different; it plays a different game. The board would look foolish giving it to one new song by Bob Dylan or one typical concert by Sonny Rollins. The congregate achievement is almost always what counts. Lester Young was a great composer not because of his riff tunes, but because he created a new and inspired canvas in American music; as instantly recognizable as an Aaron Copland ballet, Young's canvas was as amorphous as Leaves of Grass, his every improvisation another leaf, some greener than others, all part of one visionary achievement. It is easy to retrospectively find jazz compositions that ought to have been recognized within the constraints of the Pulitzer rulebook, but to say that A Love Supreme is eligible, and not the composer's lifework, is to force jazz to conform to the very 19th-century Eurocentric model it supplanted. Similarly, Irving Berlin or Woody Guthrie's songbooks are not only more popular than Pulitzer compositions, they also come far closer to answering Corigliano's call for "work that is going to last, to mean something to the world." The Pulitzer is not averse to Band-Aids. It has a separate category called Special Awards and Citations, which has, in 73 years of occasional prize-giving, acknowledged three pop or jazz figures: Scott Joplin in 1976 (59 years after his death), George Gershwin in 1998 (61 years after his death), and Duke Ellington in 1999 (25 years after his death). The Ellington presentation was made "in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an indelible contribution to art and culture." In short, it was a lifetime achievement award. And that's the right idea. The trick is to present the award while the recipient is breathing, and in the Music category proper, not in a remedial "duh" division. Ironically, on the one occasion when the board approved a jazz award, the jury played a shell game with its chief edict, recognizing a 1997 "premiere" at Yale University, although the work had been recorded in 1995. Adams, in listing a few non-winners for the Times, mentioned John Cage, Morton Feldman, Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, Thelonious Monk, and Laurie Anderson, as well as the general category of "great jazz composers." He would like to impose a more radical sensibility on a historically conservative institution. (Consider fiction: Laughing Boy beat The Sound and the Fury and A Farewell to Arms; Years of Grace beat As I Lay Dying, The Maltese Falcon, and Flowering Judas; Now in November beat Tender Is the Night and Appointment in Samarra; and the board could find no worthy fiction at all in the years For Whom the Bell Tolls, Native Son, The Hamlet, The Adventures of Augie March, V, Idiots First, Losing Battles, and Gravity's Rainbow were eligible.) But the issue as it regards jazz is no longer about radical or conservative views of culture; the influence, constancy, and genius of American music is denied nowhere—and none of it is represented in the Pulitzer rolls. Does it matter? Of course it does. Owing to its long history and the press's psychic investment in the journalistic (and primary) wing of its prize-giving, the Pulitzer has a visibility and cachet beyond other cultural awards. The Times doesn't phone recipients of National Book Awards or American Music Center Letters of Distinction for human-interest reports on how they felt when they heard their names called. The Pulitzer, like it or not, is America's big award, a kind of sanctioning. Only rank stubbornness can rationalize prolonging a slight that should have been rectified decades ago. A couple of weeks after the Pulitzers were handed out, the AMC awarded its Letters of Distinction to George Crumb, the Voice's Kyle Gann (a distinguished composer as well as a critic), Steve Reich, Wayne Shorter, and the late music publisher Ronald Freed. Shorter is the ringer in this group, but not among previous AMC recipients, who include—in addition to most of Adams's mavericks and many who've won Pulitzers—Randy Weston, Max Roach, Modern Jazz Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie (posthumously), Muhal Richard Abrams, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman. All but Gillespie and most of the MJQ are living, and it's hard to imagine anyone questioning the appropriateness of awarding any of them Pulitzers. There are others deserving of consideration, including Rollins, Dylan, Benny Carter, George Russell, B.B. King, Lee Konitz, Henry Threadgill, Abbey Lincoln, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Andrew Hill, Jim Hall, Chuck Berry, Roy Haynes, Pete Seeger, James Brown, and David Murray. Should the Pulitzer board decide to rejigger its rule book or expand its grasp, it would have to overcome the embarrassment of an awfully interesting mea culpa, something on the order of "The Pulitzer Prize in Music has decided to accept the reality of American music and will no longer dismiss out of hand all composers who swing or sanction improvisation." But the real difficulty would be administrative. The divides among jazz and pop and the academy remain so vast that in selecting its jurors in any given year, the committee will have virtually decided which area to favor; word would have to be leaked that the barriers have come down, because few non-academics submit nominations. Put a couple of jazz people on the jury and the dice are loaded for jazz. Still, better to switch loaded dice from one year to the next than to use—as is now the case—the same pair every year.

I drive a 1992 Honda Accord wagon, and love it!! Wish they hadn't discontinued the the wagon here in the U.S. - although perhaps this might mean that they would bring it back in a couple years??? I think wagons sell better in Europe than in the U.S., where those damn SUV's are all the rage. Here's a pic of the new Accord wagon (only in Europe)

Same here rooster. My wife and I saw him play during his Midnight Vultures tour. Phenomenal. The showmanship, the music, electric and acoustic was great! We had so much fun. The show ended with an encore followed by about ten minutes of noise, robots bending each other over, bandmembers destroying the set, comedic chaos. We loved it! If anyone buys this Lonnie Smith, please post a review. I'm curious! Yup, it was the same tour we saw, the Midnight Vultures tour. Your description matches our experience. Most fun I've ever had at a rock concert, and the band was incredible.

I went to a Beck show a couple years ago, on a whim. I knew what I knew of his music from the radio and MTV/VH1, but didn't own any of his albums. To this day, that concert was one of the best rock concerts I've ever been to in my whole life. More fun than I could possibly describe. I didn't know but a half-a-dozen of his tunes, but really had a great time, and the band was tight, tight, tight!!!! Beck's the real deal, from what I can tell.

You gotta see this.... http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html