BruceH

I, for one, love Duke Pearson.

See you keep over-egging the pudding. I can easily imagine nearly all Beatles albums without Ringo's vocal contributions, and I vastly prefer them that way. If I am close enough to the player, I skip over Ringo's features with only a couple of exceptions. To each his own. I couldn't imagine skipping a single track on ANY Beatles album (or on any album at all, for that matter. But then again, I read all of the comics in the paper every day, including the ones I hate like "Mark Trail," "Ziggy," and "Family Circus"). I must admit to skipping over "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" on any number of occasions.

Al Haig is an "oldie"??

Count me in as a fan. An amazing talent. I don't think it's going too far to call him a genius.

I think they were comparing more the style of harmony used rather than the vocal timbre or technical aplomb.

Pretty creepy. And then there's the attempted extortion. That's creepy too. (Sorry.)

Yeah, I really like that song a lot.

I've been noticing them again lately, as they had a song on that Merseybeat comp. I bought recently. Didn't they use a song of theirs in The Limey, "King Midas In Reverse" or some such, or was that someone else?

Nice!

Well, I think the "missing link" hypothesis has long been suspect, since we've found that evolution tends more to branch out in a bush-like pattern rather than move in a clear, direct chain of types.

"You will be shocked at how fast you can forget this..."

I hear you can't use the word "Beaver" now, either. Sad.

Hope you like it! I bought it recently after hearing it for the first time on a free music site, last.fm IIRC. I think it may have been your recommendation that inspired me to buy it. And I do like it a lot! Thanks.

Ellington, Monk, Herbie Nichols, Nat King Cole, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Basie, John Lewis, Sonny Clark... ...Wynton Kelly, Cyrus Chestnut, Bud Powell, Tristano, Hawes, Solal, Tatum... you know, the usual suspects. Also Victor Feldman, Carl Perkins, Duke Jordan, Evans, Wallington...many more. I loves me some piano.

I long ago stopped trying to "identify" with the fictional characters in movies, TV, novels, or short stories. I mean, sure, sometimes I do just that, sort of automatically, but it's not something I require. What I do require is good storytelling, and characterization that's consistent or convincing or just interesting on some level. And in movies and TV, good direction and good acting. I don't need fictional characters who I'd pal around with in real life, or want to "be" myself. For instance, take "Breaking Bad"---not as good a show as "Mad Men" but I catch it once in a while. I don't really identify much with the main character, Walter, played by Bryan Cranston. And his young partner I have zero identification with. None. But the show is well-crafted on a number of levels, so I find it pretty watchable. Something of the sort goes for "Mad Men." Just my take.

All this would be fine if cars could drive themselves. But they can't, yet.

As I'm not much of a science fiction buff, he would have been my first guess. Make no mistake, sometimes expertise can cause one to miss the forest for the trees.

Where have you been, Victor? When Chris left there was so much hubbub, I thought everyone had heard.

Got "Dedication!" by Duke Pearson in the mail yesterday.

Thanks for posting this, Tom. Nice to read some good news for a change.

Well, I personally see nothing wrong with "Space Opera" as long as it's well done. (Most of the "Star Wars" movies are examples of crappy Space Opera.)

Actually, somebody told me that back in (undergrad) college, that Paul played the solo on "Taxman, " not George. I didn't want to believe it. OTOH, maybe that's one reason that "Taxman" is such a very good Harrison song, that the other Beatles really gave it some attention and helped out (supposedly John added some bite to the lyrics as well,) rather than just letting George sink or swim on his own. One thing that MacDonald points out in his book is that some of the weaker Harrison songs during the Beatles' career suffered from scant effort from John and Paul, whereas if they had helped with arranging and so on they could perhaps have improved some of them.

"Lazy Scranton..."

Wow. Isaac Asimov. I'm a little surprised. Seems a trifle mordant for him.

77 is only HALF of Stitt's albums? I thought he put out around a hundred, not over 150. And to think, Television only put out two albums.