Jim Alfredson

Wow. That took me awhile to figure out. Anyway, everything is transfered. For some reason when I transfered the site from the old server to the new via FTP, it added capital first letters to some directories / file names, which was causing problems with the board software. If you're having any problem, let me know, please!!! Thanks!

Chalupa, what a cutie!!! And Johnny E, the little E looks really happy!!! Such sweet kids! Zora started walking around 11 months as well. She had been scooting and taking steps while pushing a box around since 9 months. Crazy kid.

Here's the dates and times and locations that Randy emailed me: July 5th, Manistee Beach Park, Manistee MI - 7 pm - 9 pm July 6th, Gull Landing, Pentwater MI 7 pm - 11 pm July 7th, Cadillac Pavilion, Cadillac MI 7 pm - 9 pm July 8th, Rambadt Park, Reed City MI 7 pm - 9 pm July 9th, Wenger Pavilion, Baldwin MI 7 pm - 9pm July 10th, Gull Landing, Pentwater MI 7 pm -11pm July 11th, Grand Haven Waterfront, Grand Haven MI 7 pm - 9 pm The gigs at Gull Landing in Pentwater are nice because they're four hours and there's great food and drinks and a nice big open outdoor patio.

Man, you are in luck! We're doing a tour of northern Michigan from July 5th to the 11th. I will be posting the dates, locations, times, etc. on the website soon! We'll be playing with Arno Marsh, Randy's father, on tenor saxophone as well! It's going to be sweet!!!

No, they will not. The entire burnable DVD industry is so confusing. They've come out with so many formats, none of which are backwards or even sideways compatable with each other, that the consumer is really out in the cold.

I don't think text changes sizes with browsers when the webpage is using CSS. But I'm not sure.

Because I don't like the Heat. Duh!

I don't agree. The Pistons came out of the gate at the start of the game with energy and were hitting shots and defending well. The game was tied or back-and-forth up until the crap fouls started getting called. Getting no respect from the officials tends to take the wind out of the sails.

Zora is now 13 1/2 months old and it's just incredible the leaps and bounds she is taking. Her little brain is understanding concepts that amaze me and my wife. I've been sick with the flu all week but yesterday she gave me this look, while handing me a book to read to her, that just absolutely melted my heart and brought tears to my eyes. It was just a look, a happy expression, a little twinkle. I don't know what it was. Her she is today in her summer dress!

That's really the only reason I am sticking with these guys. Their tech support has been great. Yes, shutting down the forums sucks, but they actually turned it back on the other day (Wednesday) and got in trouble for it. They have gone above and beyond. When I first transfered the site over, the tech guy walked me through importing the database step by step even though they are supposed to charge me for that. He just wanted to help me out. So, the customer service aspect might not be so good, but tech support has been great.

Well, I'm sure somewhere in the contract for a shared server it talks about hogging resources or "abusing" the sql database or whatever. They already have my payment info, they've already charged my card, and they're setting up the new server as we speak, so I'll just wait it out. Basically, once I have my own server, I can do with it what I want. There are no real limitations and they can't shut me down for having a popular website. I do think it stinks, too... but... I have 30 days to back out. If the new server sucks and we're still having problems, I'll wave goodbye.

Alonzo is pretty annoying. I mean, I know he's excited and all, but after every shot blocked or rebound he acts like he just won the game. The Pistons will win the next two.

ESPN says he is questionable for game 6. I assume as long as the injury is minor and the pain isn't too bad, he'll play. But it's a lucky break for Detroit when they desperately need it. Guy ← Considering last night's game was about as poorly called as you could possibly do against Detroit, they deserve a lucky break.

BTW, I have no idea how long this is going to stay open. The only reason it is functioning again is because the hosting admins turned it back on to allow me to back everything up, which means my payment for the first few months of a dedicated server must've gone through. The actual new server itself, however, is not online yet (at least I have received no notification that it is online). So here's my options... I can wait and see how long this will stay up and not manually shut it down until the new server is up (it might just get shut down by the admins again, beyond my control) or I can shut it down now and start my back-up while waiting for the new server to come up. I think I might just play the waiting game and see what happens.

Such as? I'm not noticing any missing posts.

Five pages later, we come back around to my original thought! ← I should listen to you more.

What record is in on? I'm not recalling anything at the moment.

The Pistons have figured the Heat out. They will not win another game as long as the Pistons execute their game. LB can out-coach Van Gundy any day of the week.

Who needs a book when you got THAT? Hell, I'm almost 50, so my life is probably more than half over. I know that Chuck's life is extremely likely to be more than half over. So the future belongs to you kids, as does how you choose to interpret the recent past. Enjoy! ← Is that what Chuck means by living in "two different worlds"? But seriously, I have a great respect for those records Chuck listed that have no edits on them. That's amazing. You know what? If we were playing 6 nights a week, doing our thang, we could do that, too. I guarantee. But as you know, Jim, the environment is no longer there. When Chuck saw us the last time, this past Thursday the 26th of May, it had been a full month since our last gig. And I thought we were pretty rusty. Luckily it was kind of a warm-up to Bakers, where I thought we kicked ass. But the point is, the infrastructure to support this music has been gone a long time. So we make due with what we have. I'm reminded of a conversation with Joe about a tune Metheny recorded which Joe later found out was completely improvised, on the spot, in the studio. It blew Joe away because it sounded like something that had been composed or at least worked through once or twice. But no, it was off the top of Metheny's head. I remember Joe wishing he could do that. You know what? He could. If he could dedicate all his time to playing and practicing like Metheny does, he could improvise something just as beautiful. I have no doubt. But he doesn't have that luxury right now. He's got to work his day gig, bring home the bread, take care of business. Same for me. I'd love to practice the organ 8 hours a day. I have new tunes running in my head almost 24 hours a day, but I don't have time to go figure them out. I've got a kid to raise, bills to pay, gigs to hustle, a house to fix, etc. Is it anyone's fault? No. But them's the breaks. Again, we work with what we have.

There was a review I read once about some record (I don't even remember which one) where the reviewer claimed that since every track had a fade-out at the end, it meant that the musicians didn't know where they were going and thus the album was bunk. Seriously. Jazz reviewer, too. Go figure.

Otoh, I fully understand where Chuck is coming from. Once upon a time, the "essence" of jazz was being spontaneous and having consummate craftsmanship at your disposal simultaneously. Any "mistakes" that happened were in the heat the moment and were due to "human error", not a lack of skill going into the venture. Such mistakes were tolerated only if the power of the surrounding lack of mistakes were strong enough to create a preponderance of the evidence. This is a world that didn't tolerate flaws as much as it did recognize them as fundamentally human parts of the growth process, and, as such, nothing to hide so long as the greater goal of being spontaneously creative and technically adept wasn't lost. ← Trust me, there are still plenty of mistakes on both organissimo records. Again, for me it came down to what was just blatantly unforgiveable needed to be fixed.

It was not my intent to be defensive. Everybody has different views. I feel no shame that there are edits on this record or the last. It is amazing that those records Chuck listed have very few or no edits. That's great. For the most part, most of our tunes don't have any either. But every now and again we have to fix something. I see nothing wrong with that. As I've said before, records are not reality. They never will be. Music is a completely transient experience. Records attempt to capture that fleeting experience and preserve it. Since a musician knows that his performance is going to be preserved indefinitely and reviewed over and over again, who can blame him/her for wanting it to be right? If a painter only painted on sand, to have each of his creations washed away with the tides, I'm sure no painter would ever edit his material. But since it's on canvas that will last through centuries, you better believe he's going to make it as close to perfect as it can be. That means painting over, re-drawing, changing the palette, etc. etc. Again, recordings are not reality. How many times at a concert are you able to have one ear 6 inches away from the bell of a tenor, the other ear a couple feet above the drumset, another ear a few inches from the strings of the piano and yet another right next to the acoustic bass, all at the same time? You can't. It's physically impossible. Yet this is the image that recordings present to us. My Leslie had 5 different mics on it (plus another mic on the PR-40 cabinet) in the studio. Randy's drums probably had 10 or 11. Plus room mics. Joe's amps had two or three. Is this reality? Is this capturing sound as it is in real life? Not even close! But it sounds great! All these mics are then mixed by the engineer into a cohesive whole. If something doesn't fit quite right, some EQ frequency might be added or subtracted. If the guitar was a little too loud during the organ solo, he gets turned down a bit with the faders. If the bass drum isn't quite punchy enough, it gets a little compression here and there. Is this reality?! No! But every record made in the last 50+ years has used similair techniques, because it sounds good! I've had plans to do a live record with organissimo for years. We almost put one out with Arno last year. But is it honest to release a "live" record that pulls the best tunes from multiple shows and venues and puts them together on one disc? Is that reality? Not really. Does it matter?

wicky wicky!!!

Hey dude, they're still the 2nd best team in the NBA. Neither Miami nor Detroit could beat them in a 7 game series. Guy ← I do not agree. Either the Pistons or the Heat would kill the Suns. They do not play defense and they have no solution for teams that play defense against them. They would be lucky to win one game against either team.

Then the Pistons will win the next two. But I don't think the Heat will win tomorrow. We're betting on who wins the series, right? Not who wins how many games...