Patrick

Perfect game in Chicago (on the South Side). Pitcher appeared to get bailed out a bit on the last pitch of the game.

...and Don Cornelius

And Omar Vizquel made the Blue Jays roster at age 44.

Caught the first set of the Cookers at the Kennedy Center last night, and spoke to David for a few minutes afterward. Victor Lewis subbed for Billy Hart who had other commitments. They played Capra Black, Sweet Rita Suite Part 2, Croquet Ballet, Temptations (new composition by Cecil McBee), perhaps another tune, and closed with The Core. Great ensemble playing by a bunch of all-stars. They are headed to Europe (details at David's website) for a few weeks before hitting the studio.

Fun set. Good crowd there. Gotta ask, are beards de rigueur for Richmond jazzers (...at least among men)?

Chucho Valdes and the Afro-Cuban Messengers last night at George Mason University. Fun set that included a nice version of "Birdland" (...which I do not recall hearing played live since I played it in high school marching band in the early 80's).

Heading over momentarily. Which musician is Impossible's brother?

Yes, these have been a great addition to the holiday mix for awhile. Anyone got suggestions for artwork to attach to the "album" of organissimo holiday tunes?

I'm looking to purchase a few Criterion blu-rays for Christmas gifts (perhaps Kurosawa or Kubrick). Any tips on where they can be purchased most affordably? I've looked a bit at the big e-tailers and am wondering if there are any smaller specialty shops that offer better pricing. Thanks for any tips.

Thanks for posting that. He's an excellent writer; I admire his big ears and and his analyses. I enjoy his writing more than his playing. I just told my wife that this afternoon. Another thank-you for the link. The story about Iverson's confusion when playing "Blue in Green" with Haden and Motian is priceless. I happened to catch Ethan's "Do the Math" trio with Corcoran Holt (b) and Steve Williams (d) on the day before Thanksgiving. I had not heard the news of Paul's passing until Ethan mentioned it just before a moving solo performance of "Byablue" to close out his last set.

Is this Ascension tribute any worse than the Miles Davis Experience?

artwork for the trombonist on your gift list: bonerama

Nice to see Sandy Alomar Jr getting a few more manager interviews. Bet he is in Cleveland another year (...and Carlos Santana would continue to benefit). Class guy who could be an excellent manager.

This year I went with Andrew Hill's Dance with Death, a little creepy at times but not too scary.

Thanks again. This year weather was fairly lousy in NoVA--rain/snow. Saw some friends at a Halloween party. Signed up to run a half marathon next March (...will be my first), and received a Garmin GPS/heart rate monitor as a gift. All good things.

Brewers and Padres have existed about as long as the Texas version of Senators/Rangers, and they are also in the no titles category.

Glad to hear that it was a great night. Had hoped to make it Friday but other things intervened. I recall that George Cables had health issues awhile ago (maybe a couple of years ago by now). Glad that he's back in it with a great ensemble. I did manage to get to Bohemian Caverns the following night (Sunday) for Jason Moran and Bandwagon. Jason was in town early for Thelonious Monk Institute competition I guess. They were great, playing a lot of material from Ten, which is an album that I greatly enjoy. It was my first visit to the BC and I learned some things, mainly don't order food there. Despite persistent reminders, wife's entree arrived about 1 hour after mine did. Not good when you'd like to convince the beloved to stay for a second set on a worknight. Fortunately they took it off our bill. [...next time Ben's Chili Bowl or something else nearby!] There also was lack of clarity on paying for the second set. Our server said to some other patrons that the second set would largely be the same music as the first. WTF!?! Guess she wanted new blood in those seats ordering lots of food/drinks. She also said that the emcee would make an announcement about this (depending, obviously, on how many new folks showed up for the 9pm set). That didn't happen, but we did stay for the second set (which, as one might expect, included no overlapping material). As we left the club, Jason was standing by the doorway. I asked him if it was just happenstance that he was performing in DC on 9/11 two years in a row. [Last year he performed at the Rosslyn Jazz Fest on a bill that included Bad Plus and Tierney Sutton.] He had not realized this, smiled, and indicated that it was coincidence.

Congrats to the Tigers for taking the AL Central. They had a stacked lineup from the start and underachieved in the mediocre AL Central for much of the season. In late April, after getting swept by the highflying upstart Tribe, Jim Leyland and company just looked plain tired. But with about 135 games left in the season, they managed to straighten things out. [...Just as plenty of other slow starting teams have.] Tigers will be a tough out for whomever they face, and it is more than just Justin Verlander in the rotation and Mig Cabrera in the lineup. Nice to see Victor Martinez having a great year, and even Jhonny Peralta is hitting .300 (which I will confess is a bit frustrating since Tribe fans hoped for such for several seasons--I guess we'll see how well his second season in Detroit is...). For the Tribe, obviously quite frustrating given the heady start. Hopefully the early season success will be something to build on, but I have a feeling this will be like 2007 where they seriously scared Boston in the ALCS but crashed and burned the following season. A reason to not be optimistic is looking at how completely overmatched the current lineup is. Would they even do well as a AAA lineup? Too many guys batting about .230 with little to mediocre power. Injuries have played a part--for awhile they had only two regulars still in the lineup (Asdrubal Cabrera and Carlos Santana). For a team that was not at all deep, injuries to Choo, Sizemore, Brantley, Hafner, and upstart Kipnis have made scoring tough. Hopefully, the successes of Justin Masterson and Josh Tomlin in the rotation (and to a much lesser extent Carlos Carraso who is now having Tommy John surgery), and Jason Kipnis will lead to progress next year. Lonnie Chisenhall has also recently shown promise. [Another high prospect, Cord Phelps, has not.] The plan was to contend next year. Given the inability to develop any of their own outfielders (Brian Giles may have been the last one) and trading away their two best starting pitcher prospects (White and Pomeranz) for the potentially mediocre Ubaldo Jimenez, I'm not so optimistic. But this may just be from August/September fatigue. Everyone will be in first place come next April. That said, I did have a great time at an Indians game this season. To celebrate her birthday, I took my mother out to a Friday night game in late August at the Jake (still what I call it) against another Titan of April, the Kansas City Royals. Friday night home games include an impressive fireworks display shortly after the game ends (...especially useful when the lineup is not providing much of their own fireworks), and my mother enjoys these. Needed to arrange for handicap accessible seats, so we sat in the last row of the lower deck, very close to home plate. Perhaps the best seats that I have sat in at the Jake. We could look right into the Tribe dugout. Turns out this was Jim Thome's first game back as an Indian. Jim Thome is my mother's all time favorite player. We ate dinner downtown beforehand and my mother wore a "Team Thome" ballcap that I had gotten for her (from a Ohio turnpike reststop) as a gag gift a decade earlier. Downtown was swarming with fans, and several of them smiled at my mother and complimented her attire. Thome started as DH in the #4 slot in the lineup. He led off the second inning. When he first stepped out to the on deck circle, the whole place (41K+ attendance, which is huge for Cleveland) rose chanting his name, waving "Welcome (T)Home" signs. Hero from days past returns. No one expects him to hit .300 with 10 HRs in September these days (...at least I don't). Still quite a thrill to welcome him back. Felt like I was 12 again (similar feeling when Lofton hit a HR against Boston in 2007 ALCS). Before he stepped into the batter's box, he briefly tipped his helmet to the fans behind home plate. Understated and classy. So much love. Hope he is a first ballot HOFer. Jim then proceeded to ground out to pitcher as part of an 0/4 night with 2 K's. I imagine Vizquel and perhaps Sabathia are the only ones out there that would be similarly warmly received. Ubaldo Jimenez had a great outing, and the Indians managed to scratch out a 2-1 win (scoring the winning run on a bases loaded walk). A great time at the ballpark.

placed a pre-order. amazon price has ticked up slightly to $30.17

And are the magic numbers for NYY and BOS making the post-season (via division or WC) essentially zero?

The Cookers will also perform at the Kennedy Center on February 11.

Yes there was a measurable earthquake on the east coast. This is at least noteworthy, if not newsworthy, because it happens infrequently over here. No one is comparing it to the big deals that have occurred in the past on the west coast or recently in Japan. I'm sure there would be volumes of breathless chatter if SF got a foot and a half of snow some weekend. The west coast snark grows tiresome quickly. Hopefully it is aimed primarily at the media coverage (like with all things frequently enters overkill mode). Many of us on the east coast reacted with a smile at the noteworthy/newsworthy event but were not in panic mode like some of the snark suggests. For me, I was in my office on the 9th floor of a downtown DC building. Felt the windows/walls vibrate, got to walk down 9 stories and stand on the street corner for about 20 minutes chatting with coworkers before returning to my desk and my job. On the commute home, Metro ran at 15 mph all the way out to NoVA, because they were not sure about the condition of train stations. No big deal. I find it kind of surprising that an area with so many old buildings did not suffer greater damage. Time will tell how long the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral remain out of commission. At home, my beloved wife (...born and raised in California) was concerned that the shelving units that house the jazz CD collection may have tipped over. God bless her. Turns out the shelving remained upright--only a few CDs at the end of each row tipped over slightly. That and a few file cabinet drawers that swung open were the extent of the effects we experienced.

Congrats to the Tribe for having an interesting season, which is now essentially over. Can they hold off the ChiSox? Congrats to the Rockies for completely fleecing the Tribe out of their two best pitching prospects in exchange for the highly overrated Ubaldo Jimenez. Why did the Tribe get less for Cliff Lee or CC Sabathia than they turned over for this fraud. [Yes, Ubaldo is more than a half season rental, but so was Clifford.] (...maybe more rant later)

Jim Thome hit a homie, actually 600 of them!!! Hopefully he and Omar are HOF-bound, though I suspect it make take awhile for each.

Yep. I waited for awhile and then purchased the Russell from amazon.uk. May do something similar for Braxton. Lots of BN/SN to listen to in the mean time.