Jim Alfredson

Actually, everybody does business like this. If the cost of producing your product goes up, but there is still high demand for your product, do you say, "Oh well, I guess I'll only make 1% profit per unit instead of 8.5%"? HELL NO! You raise the price of your product so that your profit margins stay the same. That's called capitalism. As Aggie has pointed out about a million times, the cost of gas is as high as it is because the cost of a barrell of crude oil has risen from $10 in the late 90s to over $140 today. Why oil has risen that high is another thing altogether and quite possibly is partly because of the oil companies themselves, but there is no proof of that (right now). If the cost of a barrell of crude oil was still $10 and they were charging $4.00 per gallon of gas, then you'd have an argument that the profits of the oil companies are outrageous.

So when you coming up to Michigan with Lil' Smoker for the 1st Annual Organissimo BBQ?

Not too surprising. Jazz organists like having a guitarist because a) the instruments are so complimentary to each other and b) guitarists can play chords behind the organ solo.

Well, that root canal I got in 2006 didn't work so well. I lost the back half of the tooth on Friday afternoon, right before heading to the gig by eating a piece of chocolate. Chocolate. Not very hard stuff. Kinda makes me mad. Now I'm probably going to have to get a crown and I no longer have dental insurance. Boo.

Whoa. Never heard of this one. Gonna have to track it down. Thanks!

When all is said and done, he did give us Chitlins Con Carne.

My mother-in-law just got a Prius.

He's been doing the organ thing for a long time; it's always nice to change it up and with someone like Michael Weiss on piano, the sky's the limit!

Yes, I saw one driving back to my grandmother's house after lunch. She lives way out in the boondocks and I saw this small blue bird in the field as we drove by. He stuck out like a sore thumb! Very neat!

What's life without a bit of a challenge? I seriously doubt that people are missing out on organissimo because of this recording. That's a self-defeating attitude. The same can be said for all genres of music, not just jazz. The amount of "records" being released every week is staggering. Anybody and everybody can make a CD now. That is why boards such as these serve a purpose, though frankly I don't think we, as a community, have fully taken advantage of that yet. There is still too much talk about the old stuff and not enough about the new, imo. Contrary to the contrarians, there is good jazz, yes even great jazz being made. It's just buried under all the other stuff. Does that mean Al Green shouldn't make CDs? What Al Green does has no bearing on the rest of it; he has a name, of course he's going to get covered. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else. I agree that there a hundreds of musicians more deserving of press, but that will never change. And the record is still fun! Tell that to the predominately black audience who came to see him back in 1995 at an outdoor music festival on the campus of Michigan State University. That was a great show and the audience was at least 90% black. Again, that's what this forum should be about; finding new music, specifically jazz, worthy of listening and discussing. The jazz press mainly fails at that. So does NPR. We have the independent DJs like Lazaro and ghost of miles, and then we have forums such as this.

Perhaps the reason this album exists is because those involved in making it had fun. And that's a completely worthy justification. Growth? Sometimes it's nice to work within a theme and stay there for awhile. Or return to it. I probably have 40 Jimmy Smith albums. Why? Because I love Jimmy Smith. After you've heard 5, is there really any reason to have the other 35? Is he breaking ground with each release? No. But they are fun to listen to. So there.

16/20, although the Butterfinger one was bunk. A Clark bar is basically the same exact thing, so to have both those answers as choices is unfair. Also, that Kit Kat picture did not look like a Kit Kat to me. Where were the layers? I eat too much candy.

I am glad I never started smoking. My dad was a smoker since the age of 12 and it's the one vice he could not quit. He was a strong, stubborn man. He quit smoking pot cold turkey. He quit drinking last year, after being a full-fledged alcoholic for a long time, cold turkey. But he could not quit smoking. Nicotine is an extremely powerful drug. I'm sure it shortened his life, but at least he never had to suffer from the worst side effects. I am thankful that I don't smoke and my kids don't have to grow up in a smoker's house, like I did. Good luck with quitting. If you get a craving, post here first and get some backup!!!

Cost me $125 to fill up my van for one gig (up in Alpena, MI, a four hour drive from Lansing) and I had to put more in on the way back. I'm going to have to switch instruments. It costs too much to haul a Hammond and Leslie around. Nose flute, here I come!

Except that almost every gas station now is pre-pay only. So basically we're screwed.

We raised about half of what we wanted to. Not bad. The CDs are due to be delivered here around July 12th!

How about organissimo playing a rally for him in Michigan?

I think I've read enough on here, thank you.

Just picked this up via Amazon mp3 (better bitrates than iTunes). I like it; it's very retro, but I dig the production. ?uestlove's drums sound bad-ass. Al Green sounds better than I've heard him in a long time. Nice!

You know what's rude? Spamming a forum with stupid stuff like this.

Are we both referring to the Arista sides? They just come off as overtly commercial to me; as in "This is what everybody's doing, so I might as well do it, too." I could be totally wrong. And by no means do I think any less of Young for doing it (gotta feed the kids). A lot of jazzers did it. But the music, to my ears, doesn't stand up on its own, outside of that context. McGriff's does. Just my two cents.

Sweet, Michael! Did you record it?

This was one of a handful of organ records in my dad's collection that blew my mind and made me lust after the Hammond B3 when I was a teenager. I fucking love this record. Yes, it's sloppy. Yes, it's rough. But dammit, those guys were doing it. My dad used to get a kick out of listening to it and commenting on how the guitarists were having a helluva time keeping up with McGriff and Holmes! He would laugh and laugh about that. This is on CD now? How is the sound quality? I wore out my dad's vinyl copy and had to replace it with another (which I found sealed on eBay for hardly any "Brown Bread" awhile back, you dig?)

I haven't listened too closely, but I liked the record. I will give it another spin tonight. I'll still probably buy the actual CD, since the 128kbps download from iTunes is kinda lame.