vibes

More good recommendations from Tony. Stan Getz is especially good for newcomers. "Jazz Samba" and the "Cool Velvet + Voices" comp are very good choices that I've successfully used. I've also found "Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane" to be good for newcomers to jazz. Another laid-back date that really swings is Milt Jackson/Wes Montgomery on "Bags and Wes." Grant Green's "Street of Dreams" might be good too, although I've found that for many people, warming up to the organ takes a while.

BILL EVANS

I try to make sure that I have as much available to me as possible at any given time. This means having mp3's and mp3-playing devices everywhere I go. I use a 20GB player for work and traveling. I have an mp3 CD player in the car. My computer has about 140GB of storage, and a third of this storage is currently being used to store mp3's. I also bought a DVD/SACD/mp3 player combo for my living room, so that I can listen to any format I have whenever I want. About 60% of my music collection is in mp3 format now, so I have lots to choose from wherever I am. Everything is encoded at 128k, so I am sacrificing some quality in order to have the quantity around, but since I'm not an audiophile and don't have audiophile equipment, the small sacrifice in sound quality isn't as noticeable to me. Oh, and I also have a standard CD player/clock radio for the shower, which is a nice way to squeeze in some extra listening time when I might not otherwise do so. I get "cravings" for a particular artist or instrument, so I just scroll through the list of albums, create a playlist and go with it. The only downside I can think of is that sometimes having mp3's is "too easy" - I get impatient for certain songs or albums, and thus kind of skip around rather than sit through whole albums or whatever. I listen to music 12-15 hours a day, so you'd think I'd be a little more patient. Oh well.

And what would you have done if you did catch it? From my original post: What I didn't mention is what we did to kill it. We didn't actually catch it. We saw it on top of a box outside our front door, so I grabbed some glass cleaner and sprayed it a few times. Then we got some matches and some other flammable stuff and then...Well, you get the idea.

As I have sometimes mentioned before, I was a Mormon missionary in Hong Kong for a couple years. For about 4 months, I lived on Lantau Island, which is the largest island in the Hong Kong region and the location of the new airport. Most of the time that I lived there, I had insomnia - I'd sleep a few hours, then wake up around 1-2am, stay up a few hours more, then go back to bed. I always read during these waking periods, and since I lived in a small village, it was always dead silent. Anyway, I was reading one night and I saw something jump off the counter and run towards a corner of the room. I had never seen any animal or insect move so fast. The thing totally freaked me out. It became a regular occurrence - at least a few times a week, this thing would run up the wall, or across the floor, or jump off the counter and run to a corner of the room. I finally saw it well enough to know it was a spider, 6-8 inches in diameter. And it moved so fast, I could never catch it. Towards the end of my stay, we finally caught one and killed it, and I also figured out that there wasn't just one in the apartment, because I kept seeing them. The one we killed was probably a little bit bigger than your average tarantula. Biggest damn spider I had ever seen, until... ...I was walking through a street market on Peng Chau, another of Hong Kong's outlying islands. The other missionaries and I stopped to buy some vegetables, and on the wall behind the lady at the stand was a spider that had legs that were 8-10 inches long each. It probably moved pretty slowly, because when we walked through the market about half an hour later, it was still there on the wall...and it didn't even phase the old lady at the stand. I hope I never see one of those again.

Got my first package today from Zweitausendeins: The Complete Thelonious Monk on Riverside and The Complete Art Pepper on Galaxy. I've never heard any of the music contained in either of these sets (and never heard Art Pepper before at all, to be honest), but the prices were hard to beat. 31 CD's plus shipping for $90. Thanks to everyone for alerting me to these bargains.

I never saw the first "Charlie's Angels" movie, but my wife did and seemed to like it. So, when I was offered free tickets to a sneak preview last night, I thought I'd be a nice husband and take her to it... This is the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Even my wife didn't like it, and she has remarkably low standards when it comes to movies. DO NOT SEE IT. DO NOT LET YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, LOVED ONES OR ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS MOVIE. No plot, horrible acting...not even the slutty clothes and quasi-lesbian innuendo (and there was a lot of it) could save this one. Trust me, you'd rather have rectal cancer than sit this 1 hour and 45 minutes of excruciating pain.

In spite of all the negative comments posted here, I just picked up the "Blue Train" SACD over lunch and am listening to it now. While it is bright (as most of RVG's remasters seem to be), I like it. The extra detail, especially with the bass and cymbals, is very welcome. RVG has done a lot worse than this one. My opinion of this SACD might be different if I had a high-end or even mid-range system, but all I have is a Sony 755 DVD/SACD combo player hooked up to a Cambridge Soundworks Dolby Digital 5.1 system (made for computers). In a word, it's shitty, but it gets the job done. In any case, I think I'll stick with this version over the previous versions I have, just for the extra detail in the sound.

Definitely going to get the Vince Guaraldi. I listen to this album all the time, no matter what time of year it is. Great music, very laid back.

YUMMY

Horace Silver - Song For My Father Lionel Hampton/Oscar Peterson - The Complete Quartets/Quintets on Verve Stone Temple Pilots - Shangri-La Dee Da, No.4, Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop Alice in Chains - Sap, Jar of Flies, Alice in Chains McCoy Tyner - Expansions Paul Desmond/Jim Hall - Easy Living, Glad To Be Unhappy

Welcome to the board, Greg.

Alice in Chains and Soundgarden were both great bands that I miss. The fairly recent death of AIC vocalist Layne Staley came as a major blow to me (but not a surprise). I would love to see Soundgarden get back together. I much prefer them to Chris Cornell's current band, Audioslave. Also really like Tool, A Perfect Circle, 311, Godsmack, etc.

Up - any help would be appreciated. :rsmile:

Man, if that doesn't turn out to be enough to drive someone insane, nothing will I was waiting for this. I once made a similar comment at the BNBB at it caused quite a stir.

I had to think about it for a while, but here are some of my "old slippers": Bobby Hutcherson - Oblique Antonio Carlos Jobim - Wave Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Oz, Tribute Lionel Hampton/Oscar Peterson - Quartets/Quintets on Verve Grant Green - Idle Moments

I've been doing the Atkins diet since January, so almost all of the new recipes that I or my wife have tried since then have come from the Atkins website (www.atkinscenter.com). It's a good thing there's lots of recipes on there, because the diet is rather restrictive and the foods that one can eat on the diet (if you follow it strictly) are rather limited. I've had a lot of success with it, so I don't mind. When I get off the diet, my wife bought me the Famous Dave's cookbook (BBQ food, for those of you who haven't heard of the restaurant) and I'm excited to try a lot of the recipes in there.

"Two Bones" is in the box. Good album.

I'd like to see "Battlestar Galactica," "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Melrose Place" on DVD. Please don't laugh.

As far as I can tell, Walt Dickerson's "Jazz Impressions of Lawrence of Arabia" has never been out on CD. I don't have a turntable, and would really like to hear this album. Could anyone provide me a burned CD of this album? I'm willing to pay for the materials, shipping, whatever. Thanks in advance!

GoM, sorry to hear you got hurt, but am glad to hear that you're doing OK. I hope you recover quickly from your injuries.

This morning: Alan Shorter - Orgasm Tina Brooks - The Waiting Game, Minor Move Freddie Hubbard - Open Sesame Alice in Chains - Sap Woody Shaw - Rosewood

Saint Vitus, that's a cool picture you posted. Thanks for that.

I use a Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 system for my computer. Well, I did and then moved it to my living room - it works well enough for that. You can find these online, but I'm not sure about retailers, if you're interested in going and listening in. You can get one of these systems for $200 or thereabouts. I use a Sharp minidisc shelf system on my computer now. Sharp shelf systems sound nice, for the price. I've had two of them and have always been very happy with them. Best Buy carries a number of shelf systems and boomboxes for under $200. Listening is always best before buying something. They have lots of different computer speaker systems as well, and you can try all of them out.

I mentioned this in the other "confessional" thread, but I've always had a bit of trouble getting into Hank Mobley. I think it's partially because of his tone - it's just not heavy enough for me. People have mentioned that his tone is in the Lester Young vein, and maybe that's it - I don't care for Lester Young at all, like his music even less than Hank Mobley's. I have a few Hank Mobley sessions, including those on the Mosaic set, but I don't listen to them often. "Soul Station," "Roll Call," and "No Room For Squares" are probably my favorite Mobley sessions. After reading this thread last night, I went and listened to "Roll Call" again, and I think it's the sidemen that stand out more on the albums than Hank himself. I found myself listening more for Freddie Hubbard.