vibes

Not an entire album, but I believe Jimmy Smith did a few solo organ tracks in the material that is in the Mosaic set.

For those of you who are collecting the Verve Elite series, there's a copy of the Billy Bauer release for sale in the store currently. I would say the buy-it-now of $14 or so is a bargain. This is a very nice, very mellow CD.

Shrdlu, maybe you'll be able to see it this way:

Great find, Tony! You'll have a great time with this box. If you haven't listened to it yet, look for the session with Gary McFarland. You're in for a real treat.

Conn, if you haven't checked out "Moon Rappin'," you're really missing out! I picked it up when it was the AOTW and have listened to it more times than I can count. It's definitely one of my top 5 CD purchases for this year. I just wish I could find more music like it.

I don't think you'll see anything too enticing on those for a while. If Best Buy is any indication of how things are going, these camcorders aren't being manufactured fast enough. We're having a very difficult time keeping them in stock.

I just got through playing that for my wife, so it's funny that you should mention it. It is very fun to listen to. I wish he would have recorded some other Christmas tunes. I have four different versions of him playing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," but have never heard of him doing any other Christmas-related material. I've often wondered why he liked this particular song so much...

I just picked up this one: This is the first time I've ever heard a Stan Kenton album. First impressions? This is some of the liveliest Christmas music I've ever heard. Both my wife and I thought it sounded like a marching band. Are all Kenton albums like this? Anyway, the sound is pretty good, but I think it'll take a little while for this one to grow on me.

I'm looking for a few Verve Elite Edition CD's to complete my collection: Louie Bellson - Skin Deep Meade Lux Lewis - Cat House Piano Dinah Washington - The Best in Blues Jack Teagarden - Think Well of Me If you have one you'd be willing to sell, please PM me and name your price. Thanks!

Most of the jazz I listen to is small group stuff that was recorded in the 60's, but I've been trying to branch out recently, with purchases ranging from Jack Teagarden to Duke Ellington to Hugh Masakela. There's still a lot out there that's missing from my collection, to be sure, but I'm glad there's still a lot that I haven't discovered. Having listened to jazz for only 7-8 years means that there are still many discoveries left for me to make.

Never had that either. Hmmm...

Apple pie should have been on here. I've never had sweet potato pie, but I don't like sweet potatoes so I probably wouldn't like the pie. Apple pie is far superior to pumpkin pie, whatever the case.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, regardless of where they are.

Tony, let me know how you like them. $700 is the MSRP on these, and I've always thought that was a bit steep. I can tell you that based on the manufacturer's cost, the place you bought them from isn't making very much off of them. Nice find - hope you like them! I tried to get my Sony rep to give me some, but MDRV700DJ's were the best he could do.

Tony, were the MDRCD3000's $700? I just ordered some for bestbuy.com...I don't plan on selling many of them. Pretty steep price for the typical Best Buy customer. We'll see...

Jim, thank you for those comments. I too hope that people won't take WINGY too seriously. His posts crack me up, and I seriously don't understand how anyone can take him seriously. I'll just sit back and laugh a bit more, now that WINGY's around.

That "fook" is the Cantonese word for "blessing." More often than not, it's written "fuk." You see it all over the place in business names. Anyway, I wish I had a picture of my favorite usage of that word in Hong Kong - Chik Fuk Street.

I completely agree, and have found the "dumbing down" of English very frustrating at times. In high school and college, I would frequently have fellow students ask me what I was talking about because they couldn't understand a few slightly more complex words here and there. It's appalling.

This is the case for all languages I've come across. Compare Latin to its descendants, and you'll find that they're all much simpler than the mother language. The same can also be said in other parts of the world, such as China. Mandarin is the youngest of the Chinese dialects, and (generally speaking) has the fewest tones and fewest distinct sounds out of all of them too. Is simplification a form of improvement? Possibly...

"zhege" would be the correct spelling. It means "this" or "this one."

I think some of these things that we find annoying, such as "nu-cu-lar" are actually regional variants in English. I've always found this topic truly fascinating, and took as many classes on dialectology and linguistics (Chinese, not English) as were available in my major in college. Here's an interesting site I found last year regarding American dialects: Dialect Survey I found going through all the questions very interesting. I discovered that I frequently pronounce or use words differently than people around me, simply because I am conscious of the fact that they say/use them incorrectly. Ah, the joys of being uptight...

Pretty much the same for me, except that I've never even tried coffee. To this day, the smell makes me sick. I do enjoy hot cocoa, but only have it a few times a year. Watching my colleagues and people at my company in general (the Caribou Coffee in my office building has to be the busiest one in the country), I'm glad I don't have this need/habit. I see many people I know easily spending $75-100/mo or more on coffee. Me, I'm just on a natural high...

I can't imagine it being Christmas without wanting a Mosaic set. On my list this year: Roy Eldridge Joe Pass John Patton Paul Chambers Bennie Green Randy Weston Curtis Amy My wife claims I won't be getting any music for Christmas this year, but she said the same thing for my birthday and I ended up getting the Johnny Hodges Mosaic and the Bill Evans "Turn Out The Stars" box.

Many thanks, Chuck!

I got this box a couple months ago and just opened it today, and I'm very impressed. This is actually my first time hearing Duke Ellington in a big band setting . I decided to buy something I was totally unfamiliar with for my last Mosaic purchase, and I'm glad this was it. I just finished listening to "Afro Bossa" and am now listening to "Mary Poppins," and all the music has been great so far, and the sound is excellent too. I also found the booklet very interesting too. Since most of the music in this box was recorded more than a decade before I was born, I found the information about the musical landscape in the early-to-mid-60's very interesting. Anyway, if anyone's thinking about getting this box, please do before it's gone, and you'll be glad you did.