Rooster_Ties

That had a VERY specific purpose. Van Halen had a very technically complicated set-up, in terms of the power logistics/requirements, and all kinds of other stuff. The "brown M&M's" bit in their 50-page contract was SPECIFICALLY to they could quickly tell if a venue had actually read the contract, and therefore (hopefully) provided the necessary tech-setup for their show. (It didn't "prove" everything was right, but it was a very quick indication at least. "No Brown M&M's" could mean the difference between a fairly smooth load-in and set-up, or HOURS of last minute work, making sure every last requirement was accounted for, that potentially hadn't been). And googling just now, it was more than just that. Pretty serious stuff, actually. http://www.compliancebuilding.com/2009/08/03/compliance-van-halen-and-brown-mms/ >> Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say “Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . .” This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: “There will be no brown M&M’s in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” >> So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening. The brown M&M's thing wasn't just some stupid joke, though the story of it on the surface sure sounded like it.

Also, Neil Young!

My dad has always loved trains, his entire life -- the big ones, and model railroads too. He had a layout in his basement, and also some track up in the attic that literally ran around the outer perimeter of the footprint of the house, under the eaves (on the inside of the house/attic, of course). He was playing with it, still running trains up there right until the last week he moved out of the house in September. I've inherited a bit of his interest in trains too, but more so train station architecture, which I love -- so that's where our interests overlap greatly. My dad (age 92) always has said that he was born 50 years too late, since he only got to experience the last decade of Steam Engines being an active thing when he was a kid and teen (in the mid-to-late 30's, he being born in 1927). I "like" trains, sure. But my Dad is still pretty fanatical about them, by and large. Whenever we go anywhere that there's an active Amtrak station, he always wants to see the trains arriving or departing. It's an annual thing at Thanksgiving, when we go up to small town Galesburg IL (where we visit my cousins), and we plan our whole day (the day after Thanksgiving), making sure we're at the station when the 2 or sometimes 3 passenger trains are passing through town.

Every time I've seen him, it's been with The Cookers (4 times?) -- except one other time... There was a local tribute to Lee Morgan here in DC earlier this year, that Billy came down from New York for, and played material from Lee's entire career (including tunes from Lee's book from when Billy played with him in Lee's last band) -- two 75-minute sets, iirc -- which was just stunning. Can't think of an artist more deserving of an award. The consistent quality of playing from throughout his career is as good as any player I can think of (with his longevity). The man seems like the very definition of gravitas as well, from all my brief interactions with him (from talking about touring Japan with Gil Evans, to his more recent work with Mark Masters (particularly the Grachan Moncur songbook album Harper is on).

I cannot think of a more deserving artist alive today, for a Mosaic big box of some sort. How Billy has never broken through (more), is beyond me, and he's still playing as well as ever today. He's been on my "top-5" list of greatest tenor players for going on 25 years now -- right up there with just about anyone. His music is both stratospheric and (I think) approachable too. I can't think of a tenor-player who played and still plays more intensely, yet in a way that's not off-putting to those "put off' by really intense players. Or maybe his 'language' just speaks to me super-strongly. In any case, I think there's a strong case to be made for him being one of the top-10 tenor-players of the last 50 years. I've never heard a record of his that was in any way substandard - or certainly none that I can think of. Thank goodness I've had so many chances to hear him since I moved out to DC back in 2011 -- at least 5 or maybe 6 times. Top of his game now, far as I'm concerned, and a true gentleman.

Me too. Take my money.

Sure looks good on paper. I’d probably buy one for a few fins myself.

Another obscure Carter Jefferson appearance. Never been on CD, iirc.

Is that any different than this? https://www.discogs.com/Bob-Belden-When-Doves-Cry-The-Music-Of-Prince/release/294806 Don’t have time to compare, but on a quick glance, they do seem different. https://www.discogs.com/Bob-Beldens-Manhattan-Rhythm-Club-Princejazz/release/5183681

As am I. Woody Shaw is one of those artists I’ll buy just about anything by, especially when his name is on the spine. I’ll have to look, but I think I’ve got close to a dozen live hours of Woody on various legit releases, maybe closer to 15 hours, come to think of it. And most of it is close to stunning.

Already a whole topic devoted to this release. *Or* is this new "November 1, 2019" issue really volume 2?? I think(?) I've got Volume 1 already (iirc), and I'm pretty sure(?) that it's just *one CD* (but I could easily be misremembering). So what's going on here, with a new(?) 2 CD issue that's somehow the same, or related, or vol 2? - or it's vol 1 (but only it's 2 CDs?), and it's it really 2CDs? Anyway, the thread about vol 1 is here, fwiw... OH WAIT, THIS NEW RELEASE IS FROM 1979. And the earlier one is from 1982. THAT'S what's going on here.

It's pretty easy. Just log into eBay, do the search you want, and further restrict it to the media you want (CD), and then further restrict it to country/countries of origin (I think you can click more than one). Then there's "save this search" button near the top of the search results (above the top item). And I think(?) the default is to email you positive search results once a day matching that search. You can go into "My eBay" and look at your saved searches, and see the settings for each search (and whether it's to email you, or sent you push-msgs via your smart-phone, etc.) It helps to set your search carefully so you don't get any/many false hits -- but you also don't want to set it too tightly, so that it doesn't pick up any hits at all (if someone only lists the bare minimum of info). I just set up an auto-search on "Charles Tolliver Mosaic Select" a couple moments ago, and I set it for US sellers only, with a maximum opening bid of $55 or less (so it doesn't pick up any of the $75-$100 or higher priced ones). I don't actually need either of those Charles Tolliver selects myself, but if I ever ran across either of them cheap, I'd snap them up quickly, to give to someone (like if I found one for $50 or less - highly unlikely, I realize). The way I have it set, I'll bet I don't get more than 10 emails a year, tops. Took about 2 minutes to do, including confirming the settings. Now that I know hiting that "save this search" button automatically emails me, I could set up another similar search on something else in 30 seconds probably. EDIT: One other thing. eBay only emails you ONCE, the day that any new search hits are matched. So you do NOT get daily emails about items out there over the course of the entire auction. So like I said, you might only get 5 emails a year, once for each separate item that meets your search criteria (depending on how narrow you set the search).

You might set up an auto-search on eBay, limited specially to search hits within the CD's category, and you can even limit the country(ies) of origin. They'll automatically send you an email whenever one comes up for sale based on your specifications. I've found a number of things that way, much more cheaply, long as I was patient enough -- i.e. 6 months or even a year.

I that regard, Kind of Blue wasn't all that bad a choice to listen to (despite all the MRI banging) -- since I knew KOB inside and out, and my brain filled in all the details I couldn't really hear.

Had to get an MRI on my shoulder yesterday (which takes about 30 min in the tube). You get headphones, and your choice of music (to a degree). I said “jazz”, and fortunately the guy asked if I wanted smooth jazz, or traditional. Traditional got me Kind of Blue!

I've got 2-3 Mosaic sets I've been meaning to list (sell) here, with all the proceeds going directly to the upkeep of the board (don't pay me, pay Jim directly - and I'll even pick up the postage costs). I need to get on that one of these days.

There's a Jack Walrath tune from his 1988 album Neohippus -- either "Village Of The Darned" or maybe "Fright Night" (I've forgotten which one) -- that is just about THE single spookiest sounding jazz tune I've ever heard. Can't seem to find any on-line samples to narrow it down, but I'm almost positive it's one of those two tunes.

Go Nats!! Gonna be crazy here in DC tonight if they can pull this off.

I’ve always “liked” this album, but I’ve long vacillated between liking it a LOT, and at other times thinking that while it’s certainly good, I was still kind of hoping/expecting it to be better. Which is to say that every couple years I spin this one, and I seem to alternate between wanting to give it a solid B, and other times more like a A- (in terms of letter grades).

Fantastic album! - one of the very best of any label in that entire half-decade. An absolute stunner. The Stanley Cowell is pretty phenomenal too, and I don’t even regret the Japanese import price I paid for mine to get it on CD.

I (finally) found Ric's first solo album, Beatitude (1982) on CD about a year or two ago (for about $25 on ebay) -- after having been on the lookout for one for nearly 10 years. $25 wasn't a bargain, but I'd often (only) ever seen it going for $45 or more, usually. I only knew the album from spinning it off YouTube now and then, but it was really a joy to finally hear on a real stereo system (I don't have my computer hooked up to my main stereo, so I'd never heard it on anything other than laptop speakers). Anyway, Beatitude comes off sounding like a really weird Cars album -- even quirkier than The Cars, and tons of 'fun' in the sense that 'fun' in music for me often includes lots of left turns. Don't know that it'll ever see a reissue on CD, but if it does, it's well worth seeking out. Little of it would have ever gotten any traction on the radio, and it seems just be dripping with Ric's personality, less filtered through the need to be as commercial (while still being a fairly slick production). It's certainly no less modern, production-wise, than any Cars album -- but it sure goes places The Cars mostly didn't.

While I would agree that for any given 5 year period, 80% of my listening does probably come from 20% of my collection. But looking back over the last 25 years, my interests have always been shifting, and so which 20% of my collection I was listening to the most has always been a moving target. I'll get on a big late 60's and 1970's Japanese kick and HALF my listening will come from that corner of my collection for a 2-3 years. Or I'll get on a big mid-to-late 60's German and middle-European kick, with a little eastern (former-)Soviet block thrown in for good measure) -- and that'll be HALF of everything I listen to for a couple years. I used to listen to tons of Miles 15-25 years ago, but nowhere near as much any more. Some here would surely accuse me of having blinders on to some areas of jazz (guilty as charged - for instance, my Monk and Mingus exploration has been practically nil, and my Coltrane collection is kind of shockingly thin, and always has). But I often find one "new" (weird) old title that sends me down a rabbit hole trying to find more similar stuff, and then within a year or two I've got 20-25 albums that fit into some very small subgenre that I barely even knew existed 5 years before -- all the while, my Ellington exposure is still limited to about 15 titles (most from after 1960), which I do get around to spinning about once every 5-10 years. So, yeah, the basic premise of 80/20 does apply to me, but my interests do move around over time.

Phenomenal concept. The 1970's in jazz were and are way underrated, and in many ways, it might almost be my favorite decade in jazz (if I can only tamp down my enthusiasm for the late 60's). I can't wait to see what all you'll be covering. I suspect there's a treasure-trove of amazing music from the 70's that really is well deserving of being reissued, and there's certainly a lot of incredible and incredibly-obscure jazz from the 1970's that I'd rank right up there with any decade you can name. Will you be posting the entire list at some point? - prior to the posts come out in their regularly scheduled sequence? In any case, I can't wait to see what all you cover.

I remember a few times sitting in the nose-bleed section of Powell Hall in St. Louis, when my wife and I used to go hear the St. Louis Symphony 4-5 times a year back around 1998-2003 (when we'd go home to visit my folks). They would often have a pre-concert talk, or short chamber-music program, and after which we'd climb up to the very top and back of the hall (in one of the very last 10 rows of the top-top balcony). And several times I was literally able to make out conversations between musicians WAY down on the stage, who were just setting up (before everyone started warming up). Like I could literally hear a fair bit of what was being said in a regular conversational tone between two people who weren't more than 10 feet away from each other on stage, a metaphorical mile away from where I was actually sitting. The acoustics of Powell Hall were amazing, and if you didn't care about the musicians looking like ants from so darn far away, the sound way the hell up in the stratosphere was really quite amazing too.

Half my issue with buying blindly, is space. I could easily stand to get rid of 400 CD's, if I really wanted everything to fit in the shelves I've got, plus a couple modest size boxes under the bed. I'd wildly guess that I have about 4,000 CD's at the moment, when I really have space for about 3,500. I still buy stuff, now and then, but I'm a lot more selective than I was 20 years ago (which is how my collection got up around 7,500 CD's before I moved to DC, and had to really thin the herd). I don't have to listen to an entire album to make a purchasing decision, but it's sure nice to have a good 5 minutes of an album, with maybe a minute each of 5 tracks, to really be sure before I pull the trigger. Not asking for full-length uploads as a must-have, but many an album have I been sold on VERY quickly, after spending less than 10 minutes skipping around 2-3 full-length tracks on YouTube.