Christiern

Allan: "I also have issues with length of performances, and the inability of many musicians to self edit." I have seen that as a major problem over the past 40 years.

He is a one-trick pony, but it's working for him. I still say that Crouch and Early were miscast, especially when there are so many people around who have deeper knowledge of the subject.

Interesting footage (again, too much train footage), but I think we could have done without Stanley's nonsense, ditto Early, who added nothing. It's a film about boxing, why couldn't Burns have stuck to people who are well-versed on that subject? I was expecting that Margo woman from the NY Times to pop in at any moment--well, he spared us that one. The music, I agree, it was insignificant and, often, intrusive. It could have been done far more effectively with existing recordings, IMO. After "Jazz," I cannot help but view any Burns film with caution--he uses film clips in a very deceptive manner, dictated more by the clip itself than by any relevance to the story.

Thanks to both of you. It does not sound like a splice, Wess comes out of nowhere and starts noodling before picking up the riff. It actually sounds as if someone had superimposed Wess in the wrong place. I know that's not what happened, but I wonder why this became an acceptable take. Gues I'll discuss this with Scott W. tomorrow. I'll report back. In the meantime, if anyone has a different explanation/theory/thought, please post it. Chris

Since we periodically get into the discussion of new gadgets, I thought that a dedicated thread might work.--CA Macworld Notebook By Rob Pegoraro Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, January 12, 2005; 1:18 PM Here's more details on the four products -- shipping already or about to -- that Apple Inc. showed off at Macworld in San Francisco yesterday (and which, for once, the rumor sites were almost all correct about). Mac Mini Seen up close, this looks impossibly small. Apple says it measures 6.5 inches square by 2 inches tall, compact enough to be mistaken for an external disc drive that plugs into another machine. There's a slot-loading CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive on front and a small array of ports on the back: power, security cable, modem, Ethernet, video out (it's a DVI connector, with a VGA adapter in the box), headphone/line-out, two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire port. That doesn't seem like enough USB ports to me —- a keyboard and mouse will leave nothing open. (Even if your old PC, unlike most, came with USB input devices, it's a pretty safe bet that your old keyboard —- unlike the ones Apple sells —- doesn't include an extra USB port for a digital camera or handheld organizer.) A small grille above those connectors vents the fan, which Apple says will only generate 22 decibels of noise in normal operation. The bottom is covered in grippy rubber to keep it anchored to a desk. The $499 model will include a 1.25-gigahertz G4 processor, a 40-gigabyte hard drive, the CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive and 256 megabytes of memory. A $599 model ups the processor to a 1.4-gigahertz model and doubles the disk space. If you thought you'd be able to tinker at will with a Mac Mini, forget it; Apple says it will recommend that users leave that job up to stores and service centers. There is room inside for an AirPort Extreme card and a Bluetooth module. Unfortunately, only one memory slot is available, so if you want more than a paltry 256 megs, order that when you buy a mini. Thinking about this, I suspect the Mac Mini's strongest appeal may be to corporate and educational buyers. They can get USB keyboards, mice and displays at volume discounts; they don't want their users plugging in other peripherals; and if anybody needs more storage space, it's available on the office server. I'll have more on this when Apple can ship one to my office. Whenever it shows up, I don't anticipate any trouble taking it home on the subway. iPod Shuffle This tiny device's controls are beyond minimal -- a play/pause button in the center and four buttons arranged around that (volume up/down above and below, previous/next buttons to the left and right) in a pattern that echoes the controls of the first iPod. The 512-megabyte version can store about 120 songs (assuming each is a 4-minute piece saved as a 128-kbps AAC file), while the 1-gig version stores twice as many. An "Autofill" option in iTunes will fill that space with a selection of songs automatically picked according to preset criteria. You can also set an iPod Shuffle to double as an external USB keychain drive by adjusting an option in iTunes. Apple says the battery is good for 12 hours of use, but Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president for hardware marketing, suggested I'd see a longer time in actual use. (If so, that would be consistent with what I've experienced with other iPods.) There's no display at all. You can't tell what song is playing now or next. The only readouts are two LEDs, one to confirm button presses and another to indicate battery life. "It was a very conscious decision to not put a display in," Joswiak said. Rather than cramming in some interface that would make finding your music a pain, the shuffle's limited controls "allow the music to find you." Marketing blather? Maybe. Either way, the Apple Store on Market Street here sold out its Shuffles by around 5:30, an employee told me. (In my hotel, I met a teenage guy who said he'd bought the first one after sprinting the few blocks from the Moscone Center to the store. He must have gotten there in a hurry; he said the staff initially didn't know what gadget he was talking about.) iLife '05 Apple's multimedia suite got a reasonably large update ($79 but free on new Macs, shipping Jan. 22) at this year's show. Like last year, iPhoto needed and got the bulk of the updates. It now offers a calendar-view option like what you get in Adobe's excellent Photoshop Album and Elements programs, the ability to group albums inside folders, and a massively upgraded set of editing options. An "adjust" button pops out a set of controls that lets you tweak a picture's color levels, saturation, sharpness and other criteria, then straighten it so the horizon in a sunset shot is level. iPhoto slideshows offer extra transitions and can be saved for further refinement, and the photo books you can order through the program can now be custom-designed through a new interface. But the most appealing change may be the one that I didn't hear about until a mid-afternoon briefing on Tuesday: 4-by-6 prints ordered online will go for only 19 cents each starting Jan. 22, down from 39 cents a pop now. With iMovie, the big improvement may be a "Magic iMovie" option that grabs all the footage off a digital camcorder, detects the scene breaks, inserts transitions and asks you to add a title and credits before burning it to disc. If you happen to own a high-definition camcorder, it will also allow you to edit that footage in its full resolution -- but until high-def DVD recorders show up in Apple's computers, you can only send it back to the camcorder's tape. (Note: The Sony camcorder that Apple chief Steve Jobs showed off at the keynote lists for $3,500.) The improvements in iDVD and GarageBand seem smaller in comparison. iDVD gains new menu-screen themes (you can put a preview clip in a frame that will itself move on the screen) and supports both DVD-RW and DVD+RW formats, an overdue recognition by Apple industry trends. What it hasn't gained is support for non-Apple DVD drives. If you buy a new Mac Mini, feel inspired to start editing movies and plug a DVD burner into that desktop's FireWire port; iDVD won't help. (Apple's suggestion was to buy its DVD Studio Pro program, which costs as much as the Mac Mini.) As for GarageBand, Apple says it can record up to eight tracks at once, fix pitch and timing for any track, and allow real-time music notation. Singer-songwriter John Mayer demoed that by playing a few notes on a keyboard; as he hit each key, the GarageBand screen marked that note out on a scale. iWork This $79 bundle, shipping Jan. 22, consists of an upgraded version of the Keynote presentation program and a new application called Pages. Keynote 2 doesn't strike me as big news, but I also don't crank out presentations for a living or a hobby. It has new themes, support for animated text and a presenter mode that helps you talk your way through a slide show. Pages, on the other hand, is the first word processor or page-layout app Apple has cooked up in years. It aims to bridge the gap between the stilted design tools bolted onto word processors and the difficult, unwieldy desktop-publishing features of programs like Quark Xpress or PageMaker. You can drag in a picture (or select one from your iPhoto library, which is accessible through a click or two) onto a page and have text automatically flow around it, instead of tinkering with text-wrap options or graphics frames. Pages can read Microsoft Word files, using a translator Apple developed in-house, but if you were thinking of using it to replace Word, Apple's answer is "no." In any case, iWork won't be bundled on any Macs -- meaning that, for many home users, the choice will be between shelling out $79 for iWork or $150 for the Student and Teacher Edition of Microsoft Office, a bundle that also includes a spreadsheet program.

If any of my esteemed fellow posters happen to have the June 25, 1956 Clef recording (or a reissue) of Ella/Joe Williams/Basie doing "Every Day I Have the Blues," I would be very grateful if you would give it a listen and tell me what happens just before Ella starts the vocal. What I hear is the premature, surrealistic entry of a tenor. I don't have any releases of this recording (they were stolen), but I don't recall hearing this peculiar passage before. I am working from CD-Rs and I have a feeling that something went wrong when they burned this one--either that or it is an alternate no one knew about (not likely). BTW I'd call Mosaic, but it's a long weekend and I have to get these notes finished. Thanks

Let's do our part to keep this superb series alive. http://www.savethewire.com/

His lover? The very though is revolting--like something one sees on the culinary segments of Fear Factor.

Michel Petrucciani and Sugar Chile Robinson were easily overlooked, while Randy Weston is not.

Joe Roland Quintet Ray Turner, ts; Joe Roland, Vbs; Red Mitchell, pno; Joe Puma, gtr; Paul Saiglay, bs; Paula Castle, vcl. New York City, July 21, 1949 Leaving Town Tonight Henry the Eighth Free of Charge A Fool and His Love Rainbow LP708 erroneously lists Henry the Eighth and Free of Charge as by Chubby Jackson's All-Stars. The other 2 tracks were scheduled for release on the Debut label, but that apparently did not materialize. Dee Dee's Dance is from Roland's next session: Joe Roland Symphonette (Bopping Strings) Gus Oberstein, Jules Modlin, Sidney Kasmit, strings; Joe Roland, vbs; Joe Puma, gtr; Ish Ugarte, bs; Harold Granowsky, dr; Paula Castle, vcl. New York City, January 17, 1950 1118 Love is Just a Plaything Roland 1700; Savoy XP8126, MG15034,MG12039; Cupol 9009 1119 Sally is Gone Roland 1701; Mercer 1964, LP1002; Savoy XP8126, MG15034, MG12039; Vogue (French) LD012; Cupol 9009 1120 Dee Dee's Dance Roland 1700; Mercer LP1002; Savoy XP8126, MG15034, MG12039; Vogue (French) LD012 Half Nelson Roland 1701; Mercer LP1002; Savoy XP8126, MG15034, MG12039; Vogue (French) LD012 Booker, I hope this helps. Chris

This was a session made in Stockholm for Cupol, a Swedish label. Chubby Jackson and His Fifth Dimension Jazz Group Conte Candoli, tp. and vcl; Frank Socolow, ts; Terry Gibbs, vbs and vcl); Lou Levy, pno; Chubby Jackson, bs and vcl); Denzil Best, dms. December 20, 1947 936 Crown Pilots 937 Lemon Drop (Candoli, Jackson and Gibbs only) 938 Begin the Beguine 939 Cryin; Sands January 20, 1948 958 Boomsie 959 Dee Dee's Dance All of the above appeared as follows: Cupol 4047/4048; Rainbow 111,10093, EP1606, LP708; Esquire 10-062, 10-401. Henry the Eighth and Free of Charge are sometimes listed as belonging with the above, but those recordings are by Joe Roland

Yes, channeling through Wynton. No wonder "Big Train" and Blood on the Fields" tuned out to be such masterpieces.

I used to be of that opinion, but how intelligent is it to do/write/behave in such a manner that few have a good word to say about him or his work? If there is intelligence behind the bad prose, why is it so well hidden?

Wherein does his talent lie? Other than in the field of flimflam, I mean.

Now, now, Chuck, let's not start that!

Chuck said the key word: collectors. Most of the label owners were record collectors. They had meeting, they swapped discs, discussed personnel, etc. That jncludes Bill Grauer, Bob Weinstock, Orrin, Alfted Lion, et al. On a recent thread, I believe I posted some scans of The Record Changer magazine that showed Lion trading. No, they were trading records.

Allen, Irving Mills was my favorite composer--well, next to Milt Gabler and the Lomaxes.

These are numbers derived at by people who guess because they can't be bothered doing their homework. Stanley has always been sloppy. The only thing he really has going for him is the association with Wynton and, thus, LC. If you think about it, he has not contributed anything original to the jazz field. All he is is Stanley Crouch, and that is proving not to be much.

I believe Allen recorded some, but it may be that he just read them over the air--anyway, I have heard them read by him and I have always found them exceedingly unfunny. It was a very strained effort to be "hip," but it never made it, IMO. And if the material sounded trite back then, I can imagine what it sounds like today.

Stanley, of course, was deeply involved in creating the "hopeless noise and confusion" he speaks of. I seriously have to wonder if there is any intellect at work in that head--it seems to me that Stanley either repeats the Wynton-promoted J@LC party line or latches on to some commonly accepted thought and strenuously spews the opposite viewpoint. I wonder why Slate accepts his stuff--so far, everything I've seen there by him has been of no substance. Just looked at JC. They also have a thread on this and it is generating scorn and ridicule. Poor Lois, she wanted so to see Stanley become a regular poster--perhaps she will also send him the new thread.

I think it is obviously a PhotoShop deal. The exaggeration is blatant and there is no indication of anyone running for cover. Besides, it is so spectacular that it would surely have found its way to the media. My verdict: Hoax

Great! Thanks for sharing them, Lon.

Schaap is a running joke in professional jazz circles. Fortunately for all of us, he is now running in the opposite direction. I don't listen to his shows, but the last time I did, the found little time for the actual music and an abundance of time for palaverous pap and revisionist history. He will always have his supporters, people who point to the rarity of so much air time devoted to Bird. I wish they would pause to think about it--imagine what such a show would be like if it focused on the music rather than the presenter's endless conjectures and desperate need for attention. Think about how much of that precious air time is wasted on the man's rants. BTW, I agree with Claude, the noise on the Goodman reissue is inexcusable, because it is avoidable.

There is good reason why Schaap is no longer allowed to apply his twisted approach to reissues. His idiocy--much of which has its basis in ongoing efforts to assert his self-imagined authority image--is also reflected in his liner notes to this and other albums. BTW, I have seen some of his notes before they were translated into readable English--you would not believe... He also fancied himself as being an audio engineer, which is another good reason to celebrate his relative obscurity. There were reissues where he seemed to reintroduce surface noise!