Dave James

Chris - Hope you had a great BD. Hope there are many more to come. Your insights, stories, the occasional photographs and perspective are always welcome. Up over and out.

This is gonna sound weird, but The Eagles at the old Paramount Theater here in Portland, We were sitting on the main floor maybe 3/4 of the way back and I literally had to put my fingers in my ears for almost the entire concert. I never heard anything that loud. Needless to say, there was a group of crispy critters sitting down towards the front who kept yelling "louder" in between every song. Up over and out.

I broke into the piggy bank a few months ago and bought the Shure e530's. I can't imagine there's anything out there that could hold a candle to these. Up over and out.

Sorry to hear of this. Tresh was one of those lunch bucket guys who just showed up at the ballpark and did his job. Wasn't he involved in something that came to be known as the "harmonica incident" or am I mixing him up with Phil Linz? Up over and out.

On the upside, it spared us the possibility of Greenspan/Giberto. Up over and out.

I know Clementine could be pretty abrasive, but he seemed to have a pretty good sense of what he was talking about and he expressed himself in an absolutely unique manner. I enjoyed reading his posts whether I agreed with him or not. He was (is) the kind of person who adds texture to the kind of discussion group we have here. Up over and out.

Clifford, I have this CD, but I really want to hang onto it. The good news is I got it from Dusty Groove, so it's not like it's impossible to find. I have one other CD of his called Pendulum that features Taylor with a quartet. Of the two, I prefer Trio, but they are both extraordinarily good. Anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of hearing Mike Taylor is missing out on a unique talent with his own singular voice. The fact that he passed accidently at such an early age is a real tragedy and a genuine loss to the music. Up over and out.

My twin brother and I used to get home from high school just in time to catch The Lloyd Thaxton show. Here in Portland, he was on at 4:00 in the afternoon, right before Dick Clark's "Where The Action Is". He was a funny guy...the first person I ever saw do the "Dorf on Golf" schtick with his knees on top of a pair of shoes. I remember seeing Sonny & Cher when they were first starting out and my favorites, The New Beats, a trio of falsetto singers who did a song called "Bread & Butter" as in: "I like bread and butter, I like toast and jam. That's what my baby feeds me, I'm her lovin' man." Sheer lyrical genius. I liked Thaxton a whole lot more than Clark. He never took himself too seriously. RIP, my man. Up over and out.

Hold on Chris. If they cashier O.J. for life, how is he going to continue his relentless hunt for the killer(s) of Ron and Nicole on every golf course in the country? Seriously though, lock this card carrying MF up and throw away the key. His acquittal 13 years ago is one of the very lowest points in the entire history of American justice. Up over and out.

I was listening to PBS on the way home last night and heard the Whitehead review. I'm going to get ithis from eMusic in a few days when my DL's reload so I can check it out more closely. There are only four tunes on the disc and it runs just over 30 minutes so eMusic is definitely the way to go. Was it just me or did some of the clips I heard on PBS sound a little "New Orleans-y"? Certainly the tailgate trombone contributed to that sense, but there as fairly strong marching cadence to what I heard. I'll tell you one thing, Pedro Costa plays a weird sounding guitar. When I first heard it, I thought it was some kind of contrabass clarinet. Interesting music to be sure. Who'd have thought these guys hail from Richmond, Virginia. Up over and out.

My bad. I got it from iTunes. I just deleted the post to keep anyone else from being misled. It's still a pretty good buy even if it is $9.99. Up over and out.

Lots of great movies here, but I've got to go with Notorious. I've always thought this was the movie where Hitchcock really hit his stride. The fact that it involves Nazis is also appealing to me as I'm something of an era centric history buff. But the real attraction of this film is the chemistry between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. It just doesn't get any better than this. Bergman was always gorgeous in the '40's, but there's just something about her role in Notorious that sets it apart for me. Maybe she was more real and more vulnerable in this film than in any other I can think of. I have this from the Criterion collection so there's lots of interesting extras included. Second and third choice for me would be North By Northwest and Rebecca. Up over and out.

Hold it. How about: LOU DONALDSON? Up over and out.

I haven't seen Myers' KOB article yet, but I read his blog religiously. You really have to respect what he's doing in a general sense even if you disagree with the specifics of one or two columns. I think he's a very bright, articulate guy with a gift for asking the right questions and getting the most our of his interviews. Read his multi-part Creed Taylor, Hal McKusick, Russ Garcia or Benny Golson pieces and tell me you don't come away impressed. Sure, I disagree with anyone who sees KOB differently than I do, but that certainly doesn't mean he's not entitled to his opinion. The last thing I would say is that he's just being contrary to attract attention. I don't know the guy, but no way do I see him in that light. Up over and out.

With regard to the sleeves available from Jazz Loft, I watched the video that Robert was kind enough to share. A question. Do those who are using these sleeves have any trouble seeing the spine and identifying a particular CD when they are "stacked" next to one another on a shelf? With the exception of the two Betty Carter CD's the guy on the video pulls out, it looks to me like the rest of the discs sort of get compressed. I'm as interested as anyone else in reducing the space my collection occupies, but if you can't identify the title without picking though your CD's one by one, then I'm not sure they make much sense. Up over and out.

Like this? Actually, as of a few weeks ago, that would be a 12 inch Ocho Cinco. Not sure that has quite the same impact. Seriously though, I think there is a way to ask the "why don't jazz fans like you" in a less inflammatory manner. For example; "Why are you so dogmatic in your attachment to the music made prior to the 70's? What is it about fusion and the avant guard, and be specific here, that you find objectionable? Follow up: Who among fusion and outside artists do you find least and most objectionable? Why? UO2.

His role as Reggie Dunlop in Slap Shot was reportedly his favorite. Being the hockey guy I am, it's my favorite Newman role as well. You can go on and on about the terrific movies he graced with his presence. One that was shot here in Oregon that I don't believe has been mentioned is the film adaption of Ken Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion or, as it was ridiculously retitled on a post release basis, Never Give An Inch. As I read someplace, the key to Newman's success was his ability to appeal to women at a physical level and to men, on a "manly" basis. I still consider it one of the shames of modern movie making that no one could develop a third property that could have brought Newman and Redford together one more time. Their on screen chemistry is unmatched IMO. Absolutely one of a kind in many ways. Farewell. UO2.

I wish Dave James had never thought to add "up over and out" on each of his postings... You know, I wish he hadn't either, but I know him quite well and he's a HUGE Hank Mobley fan. As he tells it, and I would take this with a grain of salt, ending each of his posts with the phrase "Up over and out", is his way of acknowledging Mobley by employing the title of one of Hank's songs as his out chorus. I'll talk to him about this. Up over and out.

Remember when the announcers on ABC's Monday Night Football were Al Michaels and Dan Deadorff? Deardorff's head had to have been two or three times the size of Al's. Not to mention his hands. They could easily have passed for smoked hams. It was like having Jack (as in beanstalk) and the giant in the same booth. Used to freak me out big time. Another guy in the wide wide world of sports with a major dome was Johnny Bench, the HOF catcher with the Reds. His nickname was Keghead. When he started losing his hair late in his career, they used to say he didn't have a forehead, he had a fivehead. Up over and out.

There is no reference to Laura in the actual lyrics of the tune, so it must've been something she improvised. Here are some interesting song facts and other emphemera including a reference to Miles Davis and Sketches of Spain as the genesis of White Rabbit. Slick got the idea for this after taking LSD and spending hours listening to the Miles Davis album Sketches Of Spain. The Spanish beat she came up with was also influenced by Ravel's "Bolero." Slick wrote and performed this when she was in a band called The Great Society. She brought it with her, along with "Somebody To Love," when she joined Jefferson Airplane in 1966. The UK version of the album didn't have this on it. This was one of the defining songs of the 1967 "Summer Of Love." As young Americans protested the Vietnam war and took a lot of drugs, this played in the background. On an original recording by The Great Society, the song is barely recognizable due to Grace's higher voice before several throat operations that lowered her range after each one. The Airplane was often found giving free concerts around the Haight-Asbury area of San Francisco. They shared a large house with several musicians during the psychedelic '60s, often applying for and receiving parade permits to walk the streets. Grace was always a radical thinker, rejecting "Daddy's money." She once appeared on The Merv Griffin talk show made up in black face, causing a big controversy. This capped off Jefferson Airplane's set at Woodstock in 1969. They took the stage at 8am on the third day, following a performance by The Who that started at 3am. According to Grace Slick's autobiography, the album name came when bandmate Marty Balin played the finished studio tapes to Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, whose first reaction was "Sounds like a surrealistic pillow." Slick says that she loves the fact that the phrase Surrealistic Pillow "leaves the interpretation up to the beholder. Asleep or awake on the pillow? Dreaming? Making love? The adjective 'Surrealistic' leaves the picture wide open." Up over and out.

Back in the day, it used to be pretty easy to open a container of milk. Sometime in the last 15 years or so, it became almost impossible to open one of these without ripping the shit out of the spout. I would imagine that this change, like so many others, may have been precipitated by the Tylenol poisoning, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. Up over and out.

Well that's the problem isn't it. There wasn't enough government "interference" to make a difference. Now that the whole system is collapsing like a house of cards, the government that was formerly uninterested in overseeing the financial sector steps in to save the day. Why it's OK to privatize profits and socialize losses is beyond me, especially when it's you and I who are paying the freight in the form of taxes and/or interest payments to the Chinese. I guess that makes me a Libertarian. The really scary part of all this is that when the various and sundry financial institutions are forced to place a real value on their debt, this whole thing could blow up in ways even the government will not be able to do anything about. Why do you think two weeks ago Lehman Brothers said they had 20 billion in assets and a week later it was only two? Up over and out.

That's still not including shipping. I was sent 32 GBP which included shipping, and the cost of the bank draft brought the total to $61 CDN. Add on a $1.60 stamp to mail it, and Canadians are still better off than Dusty Groove. I'm a slave to Da Bastids and their ability to get my order into my hands in just a couple of days. To me, that's worth the extra cost. Up over and out.

I've just been reading up on the Glass Steagall Act of 1933. This is the law that was repealed by the actions of our friend Phil "Bunch of Whiners" Gramm when he co-sponsored the the Gramm Leach Bliley act of 1999. GLB was the culmination of intense lobbying on the part of what's now known as the financial services industry that began as far back as the 1980's. More than a few economists believe that this laid the groundwork for the sub-prime crisis and all the attendant fall out. Interesting stuff. Up over and out.

According to CNN: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The pressure on American International Group reached fevered pitch on Monday night as the troubled insurer was hit by a series of credit rating downgrades. The cuts could prove deadly to AIG, the nation's largest insurance company, which is scrambling to raise much-needed capital. Late Monday night, Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services each said they had lowered their ratings. A few hours earlier, Fitch Rating had also downgraded AIG, saying the company's ability to raise cash is "extremely limited" because of its plummeting stock price, widening yields on its debt, and difficult capital market conditions. The downgrades will make it more expensive for AIG to issue debt and harder for it to regain the confidence of investors. Up over and out.