vibes

Last year, another board member was kind enough to provide me with burns of two of Walt Dickerson's 60's albums: "Unity" and "Jazz Impressions of Lawrence of Arabia." To my knowledge, these are the only two Dickerson albums to have never made it to CD. They're both excellent albums, and I would love to have them in a remastered, legitimate release.

My wife and I wanted our refund ASAP, so I did our taxes in late January, if I remember correctly. We got our state and federal refunds by mid-February. I do our taxes online at H&R Block's website every year because we don't have anything complicated to worry about - we don't own a home, have no investments outside of my 401k, and have minimal charitable contributions. Doing our taxes online doesn't even take me 30 minutes.

I just wanted to say "thank you" again to all of the suggestions and information everyone provided me. My wife and I just returned from Chicago, and had a great time. Here's some of what we did/saw: Art Institute of Chicago Hancock Tower Dinner at Gino's East Pizza Dinner at Portillo's Shedd Aquarium Field Museum Bulls/Hawks game Adler Planetarium Museum of Science and Industry Jazz Record Mart The Jazz Record Mart was definitely a highlight for me. I had never seen so many jazz CD's/records under one roof, and there was a lot of OOP stuff, too (if anyone's interested, they have sealed copies of Walt Dickerson's "Impressions of a Patch of Blue," Jack Wilson's "Something Personal" and John Patton's "Understanding," among other things). I picked up a few CD's, including a sealed Conn of Ike Quebec's "Heavy Soul." Anyway, thanks for all the recommendations.

I saw Herbie play the following night, at Purdue University. I was also very underwhelmed. The "Dolphin Dance" suite felt like it went on forever, and it didn't sound anything like the original. The group interaction felt very sloppy, as if the members of the group weren't used to the tunes or each other. It's funny that you mentioned the word "noodling," because that's exactly what I was thinking while watching the show. Wayne Shorter wasn't at this show, but Gary Thomas was and I didn't enjoy his playing at all. His introverted style didn't seem to fit in at all with the music. In a little over an hour and a half, they didn't play three numbers. Now, this was because somebody pulled the fire alarm and the concert hall had to be evacuated, ending the show early. The whole night felt like a disaster.

It would have to be "Lift Every Voice" or "Hey Hey" for me. Love this album...

Grant Green/Larry Young/Elvin Jones (I suppose that's a collaboration, no?)

Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land

I could probably spend $200/mo or so on music if I wanted to, but after buying about 125 CD's since Christmas, I'm starting to feel really burned out on music. The feeling is strange - I feel this unusual pressure to listen to my new music before doing anything else, and it's starting to make me feel unhappy. When I was younger and didn't have as much money, I really got to know my CD's. I knew the names of all the songs, who played them, and often knew all the lyrics (this was before I started listening to jazz). Now, I often don't even know the name of even one song on a disc, and don't know who's on the disc, other than the leader. This is not a good feeling. I'm plan on cutting way back - maybe just 1-2 CD's a month, or maybe just buy a Mosaic every once in a while. Whatever the case, I've finally realized I need to change. Having my collection scare me is not a good feeling.

I just cleared my cache and my history in Navigator, and now they look normal.

This is very strange. It was fine until the last day or so. I'm using Netscape Navigator. I just opened up IE and the smiley is just fine. In Navigator, the eyes aren't animated - they're just straight lines.

Here's a good currency convertor: Currency Convertor

Has anyone else noticed this? The eye-rolling smiley now looks like he's asleep. What happened?

I picked up the JRVG of this last year and have always enjoyed it, and I think a lot of that has to do with the unusual (for a jazz date) selection of tunes. I think it would be a pretty decent CD to use to introduce a friend to jazz or to Grant Green, because many people will know or be able to relate to the songs on the CD. I put this on for a while last night and my wife seemed to really enjoy it for this reason, and she's anything but a jazz lover.

OP is definitely worth checking out. The guy could swing, and was a great accompanist too. My main experience with his work is from the VME series, and there is a lot of excellent CD's worth checking out in that series. Some of my favorites: Very Tall (with Milt Jackson) Night Train The Trio (live date) We Get Requests I'm much more of a fan of this trio than of his previous, drummer-less trio, but I know many people are fans of that trio (with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar) too.

Did your computer say anything about going into "safe mode?" That's what it sounds like. Several versions of Windows do this when there are bad software or hardware errors. It will usually go away after rebooting your computer. If I remember correctly, doesn't ME have a system restore feature, similar to what XP has? If so, perhaps you could run that program and restore your system to an earlier date?

These are two of my favorites, and here's another favorite: Dizzy Gillespie - Con Alma ("Duets" album, with Sonny Stitt on this track) The alternate has a much looser, more natural feel to it than the master take. I don't even listen to the master take any more. Sonny and Dizzy are excellent on this one.

Hasn't worked for me all morning.

I'm listening to Sam Rivers' "Crystals" using headphones right now, and there is a lot more happening on this date than I previously realized. This really is a fantastic date, one of the more interesting avant releases I've heard. Is Sam's other early 70's work at all similar to this? Regardless, this date is highly recommended.

I really appreciate hard-working people. I've always been impressed by people who make up for a lack of brains, looks or natural talent with hard work, effort and dedication to their work or studies.

I wonder how much those things weigh...Mid-range Sony headphones, like the MDRV600 and MDRV700DJ ($100 and $150, respectively) feel like lead bricks on your head, when compared with similarly priced Sennheisers or Philips headphones. Sony gave me and the girl that works for me the V600 and V700DJ, and we both quit using them at work because they gave us headaches. The most comfortable headphones we've found in the $100-200 range are actually Philips headphones (the models we've tried in this price range sound excellent, too), but I don't know that anyone sells them. Philips told me they hired somebody away from Sennheiser to design their headphones, so it's not surprising that they would feel and sound great.

I'm particularly fond of Joe's playing on "Life Wish." Listened to the entire album several times last week, and this track really stands out to me. Great album all around.

I hate people who ask the same question over and over again, but never bother to listen to the response. This quality is frequently found with colleagues and business associates - they feel the need to ask you 9827348756235 times where you're from, if you're married, if you have kids, etc., but never bother to remember the response. It would be more polite to just not even bother asking. I hate self-righteous people, too. Since I was very religious growing up and went to a religious university, I've met my fair share of them. Of course, self-righteousness isn't limited to the religious, but it seems that's where that quality is most prevalent.

I've never listened to them, but DrJ owns them and seems to like them. I tried to get Sony to give me a sample, but no dice. They're not too liberal with free product. Fortunately, the guys at Sennheiser have been much kinder to me. B) Anyway, we had these at list price for a while and never sold even one pair, so that's the reason for the price drop. People just don't associate Best Buy with really high-end audio.

This CD came in the mail at work today. I put it my computer and put on my headphones, and started to feel ill about 10 minutes into the disc. I took it out and put in the new Stanley Turrentine RVG instead, and felt much better. Cecil Taylor and work apparently do not mix.

Slightly off topic, but how is "Beirach" pronounced?