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I think the Pats are gonna be freakin' awesome this season. They really have a dynamic group of receives that can literally do it all, and if last year was any indication, Maroney will end up being one of the most effective backs in the league if he stays healthy. Their defense, while not great, should be solid enough to hold opponents below the ridiculous amounts of points the Pats should be putting up. Assuming everyone stays healthy, I'm guessing they'll be the top team in the league.

If you don't have this music already, get this set!!

His "Live" albums on High Note are excellent and all worth acquiring.

He's the man.

To my ears, Golson is a great classic jazz composer, where Shorter was a great progressive jazz composer. Hard to say which is better...guess it depends on what type of jazz you prefer. I reach for Shorter's stuff more often, but I love Golson as well.

The end was strange to me for a few minutes, but a little bit of reflection reveals that this is very much in line with the rest of the show...always throwing the audience a curve ball. Everyone was expecting an "ending", so what does Chase do? He doesn't end it. Kind of brilliant in a way.

JJ Johnson - disc 1

I think he's doing just fine wherever he is (I don't know what label he's on). As you said before, he's somewhat uncatagorizable, so why try to catagorize him?

Iyer and Mahanthrappa are two of the most exciting figures in modern jazz, me thinks. GA Russell, I'm curious, why do you think the music sounds ECM-ish?

Nice to see them rightfully adding the jazz acts from the Blue Note tent into the flyer next to the big name rock bands.

Just watched this film for the first time and loved it. I think I'm gonna watch it again sometime in the next week; a second viewing will be well served.

I'm gonna be at a work outing on Tuesday, so unfortuantely I won't be able to catch the free show. Will definitely try to make it Wed.....still haven't been to the new Velvet.

I was quite thrilled with these as well. Benny plays his ass off!

That's a good one!!

I'm finishing up the second disc right now, but believe me, Coventry and Birmingham are getting added to my list tonight!

I dig Stanley T, but I don't spin this one very much. It does have a nice vibe and some very nice playing, but its not one of my favorites. I much prefer the sessions from the Mosaic.

Nice article! Thanks for posting. No matter how much I bitched about last year's episodes to whoever would listen, this has still been the greatest television drama I've ever seen, and I'm sad to see it go.

I just got my copy of Quartet (London) 1985. This is GOOD stuff.

Is it me or is this batch kind of a bummer? Aside from the Hill, from what I've heard in sound clips they just seem unremarkable, which is odd for this series, which normally puts out really good stuff for the most part.

You can't be serious about this.

I've been to Bonnaroo, and had to take someone to one of those "recovery" tents, and she got nothing but some water and a bed to lay down on. No Jesus talk, no lectures, no nothing. So your paranoia is unfounded. The reason they get all that money to get those huge acts is because its been an extremely well put together festival since its inception, and year after year it turns out to be a positive experience for everyone involved. Like I've stated before in other threads, its a fantastic festival, especially for its size, because practically everyone there is there for the music first. Yeah, people party and some get crazy, but given a festival that size where there's tens of thousands of people, and you have as few incidents as they do, that's saying something. I think that this jazz tent that Blue Note is putting together is a good idea, and if its put together as well as everything else at the festival, it should serve a good purpose at this mostly-rock festival.

It would be something if Ornette showed up to sit in during one of these sets. Doubt that would happen though.

Wayne Shorter definitely did the best Jazz Messenger saxophone work that I've heard, and "Free For All" and "Indestructible" are my two picks.

Did anyone find it strange that New York went after Bobby rather than Paulie? Could this have been intentional? It would be crazy if Paulie led NY to Tony's hideout.

I don't think there's a problem with having a backlog per se. There are bargains to be found in all sorts of interesting places. But I think that if one continuously has a backlog of new items, and at the same time has shelves full of items that have only been listened to once, then that individual might want to contemplate what they love more, collecting the music, or the music.