BruceH

Good choice!! About time we had an Ellington AOW.

Just heard this today. Soul Stream, if you get it, you won't be sorry. It's got me thinking that a complete Giuffre Verve set would be nice.

Just got The Easy Way last night---no insert in mine. Damn good album, though.

Chris! I heard your Fresh Air interview today in the early afternoon---very good interview. Congrats on the new edition of your book. I taped the interview off the air, so I will no doubt be listening to it in my car over and over again in the coming weeks. (Perhaps it's the American in me, but many things sound better in a car.)

My Mulligan-Hodges had no insert. (Don't think it really needed one though.) Sounds like they're slapping those inserts in at random on the new batch.

And here I am without a color printer! Damn! I'm with you, JSngry. A coffee-table book of Julie London covers would be the ideal gift. Of course, I wouldn't ask my wife to get it for me...

I call this the "button" spindle and have just noticed it on some of the new Verve digipaks. I much prefer the semi-flexible tines on the traditional spindle because you can always press in on them to get the thing to let go of a tightly-held CD. You can't do a thing with the "button." Of course, the tines sometimes crack and fall out, but nothing's perfect. I personally haven't had any trouble with the button spindles on the digipaks so far, but with my luck...

Favorite performance: Holiday, with Cary Grant. R.I.P.

That's funny....I was expecting something on the level of Ozu, Renoir, or Tati at their best.

I once saw Max Roach perform live, in Cambridge MA. He was superb, but now that I think about it, this was about 1990 or maybe even '89. Time eventually catches up with us all. But being arguably the top drummer in jazz for roughly 45 years or more, well, there are worse things to look back on.

YES! I do the same thing, though at medium or low volume (neighbors). This is just a fantastic album, one that almost restores your faith in contemporary jazz. Many good artists are coming out with new releases lately, it seems: Solal, Cyrus Chestnut, Crenshaw, Fountains of Wayne, Steely Dan... A nice coincidence, if a bit tough on the wallet.

This album, despite its brevity, is very good music, well worth the money. In fact, if it weren't a digipak and had a decent cover, I'd call it a no-brainer. At least Verver stopped using those stupid cardboard slipcases that the CD's get stuck in! This has great sound, too. (Gatefolds, mini-albums, digipaks.....sometime Verve is going to come full circle back to regular jewel cases.)

I've found that if a CD is in too tight, one thing you can do is reach over with your thumb and (gently) depress the inner spindle (the tines that hold the CD in by its center hole) while simultaneously pulling the CD up by its edges with your other hand. Once in a while the tines might crack or fall out (which means you're in trouble) but only if they were already damaged in the first place. Generally this works like a charm for me.

My thoughts exactly! Love that picture!

Truth to tell, I bought this album yesterday without listening to it yet. I'm a little behind in the listening lately. But this was a re-issue I'd been waiting for. And White Lightning's rewiew has kicked it to the top of the line-up!

By the way, doesn't anyone here like Don Byas?

Lists like this were just made to piss people off.

Yeah, I hope everything's all right with him.

My rule of thumb is, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is just that. There's got to be a catch here somewhere.

That's one terrific wife you've got Chuck! I recently found a near-mint (looks like it's never been played) copy of "The Guitarists," about the only issue of the Time/Life Masters of Jazz series that I didn't have, for only $5.95. I almost bought a more beat-up copy of the same thing at a different store a few months ago for $35!! All I can say is, once in a while things work out.

This would be a very nice one! Never heard any of these records! And how about a complete set of the Hardman/McLean/Griffin Messengers. They recorded for Bethlehem, RCA, Savoy and some other labels. I think they generally were a little bit better than usually thought. Griffin does some bad solos on the Bethlehem album, for instance. ubu Both of these are good ideas. They get my vote.

Thanks for the news, King. I'd heard similar things about Reece and Jordan when the Selects were brand new, but lately haven't heard anything. A Complete Eddie Costa Mosaic (old style) would, I agree, be very nice indeed. And I like Roger's idea of a Select of jazz soundtracks. Many of these are hard or impossible to get now, or expensive imports.

10 and 8. Too late, we already saw it. They didn't seem scared by it so much as bored. It was too long and talky for them. It was kind of art-film-meets-comic-book-actioner so it was too adult for kids but still sort of stupid. And why did they have to make the Hulk ten feet tall? As I recall, in the comics he was barely seven feet tall. In some scenes he looks 12 feet tall. That's just silly.

My kids want to see this, so we may be going. It's got Jennifer Connolly doesn't it? Can't be all bad.

Another vote for that. Also, how about a Pepper Adams Select, bringing together good stuff he did for various labels?