connoisseur series500

Xmas day of course.

It's a frickin 26 degrees right now in Ohio. I say there hasn't been enough global warming. What else can we do to speed up the process?

I like Harper's, New Yorker (parts of it), Natl Geographic, various science magazines, news magazines-- Foreign Policy is probably my favorite magazine that isn't a variety mag... I saw in another thread that you are getting back to chess studies. I used to have a serious chess addiction. I've largely given up the game though I have numerous sets and a few shelves of the best books (sold/gave away the rest) and I try to follow chess news (as strange as that sounds to non-chess folks) off and on. I finally decided I would never be as good as I wanted to be and I wanted to spend more time listening to music and obsessing over jazz CDs, poetry, and books-- something had to give Occasionally-- as a change of pace-- I still curl up with a book of Edward Winters chess lore, or CJS Purdy columns, or just some good middlegame positions to ponder. Or play lop-sided blitz chess with my kids (I get two minutes, they get 20 or 30, that kind of thing). There's a chess thread hidden somewhere, Chris in the Misc-non politics forum, I think. I started it and had a few bites from others. Basically, I returned to tournament play after decades of inactivity. I managed to move my rating up 100 points, but I'm still nowhere near my goal of master yet. The American rating system is different from the British one. We're modelled after the elo system. 2200-2399 is master, etc. My rating right now is 1999. As a 17 year old, my rating was 1836 so I haven't really moved it that much. 2000-2199 is expert, and I'm only a point away. I've got a tournament this Saturday; been inactive for three months now, which is not good. I will be rusty. Anyway, back to the normal discussion...

Thanks maren! I appreciate the comments as well Maren. C'mon everyone: post some more!! We want more!!

No, no, no, no, no -- not 'surfing'....crowd 'straffing'! * either Juan's sporting some serious chrome dome and needs that hat for sun protection.......or he's deathly afraid of Ashcroft? B) Way to go Weizy! Crowd must have loved you as well if you silenced that propaganda-masked-as-music he was blasting out.

I read a lot of nonfiction (history, biography, natural science). I read poetry. I used to read a lot of literature but have departed from that norm over the last decade or so. Will have go to back to that. My favorite magazines are Smithsonian and Economist. I will have to splurge and resubscribe to the latter. It costs $70/year.

Another late one: Happy Birthday!!

I'm bowing out this next one owing to my need to focus on some other things. I've got too many interests, and I'm trying to get back to both chess studies and reading books.

Even though I started this thread because I loved the idea of a gettogether, it is Patty and Dan who have taken it over. I APPROVE!! We need organizers and people who have the motivation to make this a reality. I will take either place, but in order of preference: 1. Lansing (Home of Organissimo) 2. St. Louis Why can't we do both? St. Louis in July when the festival hits and Lansing early next year during some holidays. What are the holidays January through March? Lansing is the home of Organissimo and is close to Chicago, where we have some members. Patty is willing to make the trip from her glacier home. Chuck is nearby in Grand Rapids. I'm nearby. Jim Dye. Bol is in Ann Arbor along with another board member. Soulstream is in Ohio? Ghost is in Indiana which is nearby. On the other hand, Rooster and Free For All and Eric are from KC which isn't far from St. Louis. They could hopefully make it over to Lansing as well. I am willing to house an Organissimo boardmember here in Toledo for the weekend and I can drive him up to Lansing for the meeting. No problem. First come; first served! I could possibly put up with two people if they don't mind staying together. Don't forget: the whole idea is to show up at Joe G's place with guns!

I cannot say it any better than this. Of course, the idea for me is to hear tunes with no names attached. Everything I put on the stereo has a label and a name; so its fun to be the explorer once more. Regarding Jim S' comments: Jim put on these discs anything you damned well want (you did anyway!) There is no need to promise one mainstream song. That's ridiculous. I'm open to just about anything, though I'd prefer it have some bearing on jazz. I'm not keen on the concept discs. Everyone should just compile stuff that they like from all periods or whatever. I'd be very bored if it was all pre-bop or big band. That would be boring, I think.

Great photo, Eric! It also has the virtue of being clear (unlike mine.) Let's hope we can all meet someday in St. Louis or Lansing.

If it's on a weekend I can make it, even if my kid is in school.

I'm biased towards Lansing, because it's close for me, but I'd be fine with St. Louis as well.

Haven't looked at anyone else's comments yet (as if that would do any good.) Here are my comments... Disc 1 1. Bandleader must be the pianist. Good musicians; good track. 2. Doesn't appeal to me. 3. Lots of brass; good solos. 4. Lots of horns; don't care for this one. Is that Pepper Adams on bari? 5. Bluesy singer. I don't like this one at all. 6. Sounds like Hollywood music! So-so stuff. 7. Interesting piano playing. 8. My type of music!! How did that guy with the bass slip into this organ group? The song is familiar, but I'm terrible with song names. I rate this "A" all the way. 9. What language is he singing in? 10. Lots of hand slapping & spoon clacking going on. My kid gave this one a thumbs up! 11. Before my time. 12. Aliens trying out musical instruments from Earth with the TV on in the background and an alien blowing a car horn. 13. Sounds like music of the spheres compared to the previous track. The aliens figured out how to use those instruments. 14. Sounds like Lester Young? Or maybe Stan Getz. 15. Great vibes/piano collaboration. Disc 2 1. Don't care for this at all; though I kinda like the electric piano. 2. Henry Threadgill would be my guess. The rhythm is monotonous. 3. Not my thing. Had to abort this one. 4. Dreamy stuff. It's okay. 5. I'll guess Bix. Certainly Bix-era. 6. Not bad. 7. Okay 8. Not bad at all, though I don't listen to stuff prior to 1865! 9. In the style of Sonny Rollins. Could it be him? 10. Kick ass tune! I wanna know who this man is. I would buy the cd if it's available. 11. Sounds like Sonny Rollins again, though I don't think it's him. He liked those Calypso jazz sounds. Overall: weird stuff! Some of it fits my tastes; some not. Great mix overall and I appreciate the opportunity to expand my horizons. Can't wait to learn about these musicians. Thanks!

Yeah, I guess I'm open to just about anything as well. Afterall, I'm not the one making the cds.

Last one (promise!!) My wife and I when we were younger in Phangha Bay, Thailand. I think I'm sliding off that tree branch...

One more for now. Here I am in My Tho, Vietnam in 1985. I was a skinny 25-26 years old, and entered the country as a British citizen. We Americans weren't allowed into Vietnam at that time-a mere 10 years after the last helicopter took off from the roof of the US embassy. My Tho lies in the Mekhong river delta and is very muddy. This was some old temple--Buddhist/Taoist--something else? I can't remember.

I went to Meijers and had a few photos scanned. Here's one of me in 1974 when I was 14-15 years old. The volcano is in the Caribbean island of Montserrat and in 1974 we had no idea that it was active. Well, it is definitely active as we can see in the picture, but it hadn't spewed anything in 400 years. Then a few years ago, it basically buried the entire island and the population had to be evacuated. And it all started from this point. Here I gingerly lean back from the jaws of the volcano which covered Montserrat in pyroclastic flow around 25 years later. My grandparent's graves on that island now lie deeply under ash. I doubt if even the tombstone markers are now visible.

My bad for misinterpreting, Chris. Didn't Dorn publish other live performances at the Left Bank? I'vd got the Freddie Hubbard one and there's one with Stan Getz. Anyone heard that one? Is it good?

I agree. This is the weakest of Tina's sessions as a leader, in my opinion. I'll spin it again and comment.

You mean you just grab people by the handles without looking at their faces?? I'm sorry, Patty. Bad joke. Check out the thread in Misc. non political for pictures of people. Put one of your on there too. Make sure you're wearing that Kriegskorset or whatever it's called.

None of this interests me. I would prefer that my old comments on BNBB be lost to posterity. I write enough junk here; don't want to see old junk.

Not sure, but I believe he was fulfilling his Blue Note contract while recording with Verve at the same time. The guy was prolific for sure. I love many of Jimmy's Verve recordings like "The Cat" and "Organ Grinder's Blues" and "Hoochie Koochie Man," etc., and I feel that they are just as essential as his Blue Note stuff. (Well maybe not quite as essential.) How about those wonderful sessions he did later in life: "Master" and "Master II." Can't remember if they were Blue Note or Verve, but he was in terrific form along with Kenny Burrell.

So true. I mentioned Lowell's name within that context only to highlight that he is a must-read. Here is a sonnet about his daughter: Harriet Spring moved to summer--the rude cold rain hurries the ambitious, flowers and youth; our flash-tones crackle for an hour, and then we too follow nature, imperceptibly change our mouse-brown to white lion's mane, thin white fading to a freckled, knuckled skull, bronzed by decay, by many, many suns... Child of ten, three quarters animal, three years from Juliet, half Juliet, already ripened for the night on stage-- beautiful petals, what shall we hope for, knowing one choice not two is all you're given, health beyond the measure, dangerous to yourself, more dangerous to others? Also from "For Lizzie and Harriet" is this powerful opening sonnet from the Mexico sequence which relates his affair with a young woman: The difficulties, the impossibilities... I, fifty, humbled with the years' gold garbage, dead laurel grizzling my back like spines of hay; you, some sweet, uncertain age, say twenty-seven, untempted, unseared by honors or deception. What help then? Not the sun, the scarlet blossom, and the high fever of this seventh day, the predestined diarrhea of the pilgrim, the multiple mosquito spots, round as pesos. Hope not for God here, or even for the gods; the Aztecs knew the sun, the source of life, will die, unless we feed it human blood-- we two are clocks, and only count in time... the hand a knife-edge pressed against the future. Another one from the Mexico sequence. The opening line influenced the opening line of my own poem: "Noonday siesta in Hua Hin." Midwinter in Cuernavaca, tall red flowers stand up on many trees; the rock is in leaf. Large wall-bricks like loaves of risen bread-- somewhere I must have met this feverish pink and knew its message; or is it that I've walked you past them twenty times, and now walk back? The stream will not flow back to hand, not twice, not once. I've waited, I think, a lifetime for this walk. The white powder slides out beneath our feet, the sterile white salt of purity and blinding: your puffed laced blouse is salt. the red brick glides; bread for a dinner never to be served... When you left, I thought of you each hour of the day, each minute of the hour, each second of the minute.

Happy Birthday to one well-educated and bright Hoosier! For my pal, Ghostie: