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A US official said that there is no reason to believe terrorism was involved. Hope everyone is OK!

That was definitely a roller coaster.

I'm sick to death of the melody of Tenor Madness. I love a good blues, but that head just drives me nuts.

This statement makes me want to check it out, as I am growing somewhat bored with the genere.

You know it!!!

Just saw "The Departed". Absolutely loved it. The most entertaining, and probably the best American movie I've seen this year so far.

I was about to start a thread on this one. Sounds very interesting. Looking forward to hearing opinions.

The odd thing to me about Nicholson is that the crappier the movie, the better he is. The complete lack of subtlety just doesn't work in a "real" movie. I'd say Five Easy Pieces and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were his peak, unfortunately. His best appearances since then have been on the Laker's sidelines... He was really good in About Schmidt.

I'm seeing the film opening night. Advance word is that its his best since "Goodfellas". I'm a huge fan of Scorsese, and I haven't been this excited to see a film in quite some time. Ubu, I've always respected your knowledge and opinions about film, but I disagree with your comments about Scorsese being crappy. While his most recent work isn't quite on the same level as his earlier stuff, Scorsese isn't the same man either. While these films have their flaws, I've found much to love in "Kundun", "Bringing Out the Dead", "Gangs of NY", and particularly "The Aviator" which I thought was an excellent film, though not a masterpiece. With "Gangs" and "The Aviator", I got the sense that Scorsese was just having fun working in the Hollywood realm of big budgeted epics....sort of "getting it out of his system", if you will. They don't match the innovativeness of the young and hungry Scorsese of the 1970s, but when placed up against other films of that type, I think they far exceed those. His more recent films still exhibit the excellent storytelling ability that he's always had, and stand as strong films, particularly when viewed in that context. As for DiCaprio, unlike most of young Hollywood I think his looks are actually working against him, as he's trying to do important work when he could easily be doing the Ben Afflek / Keanu Reeves thing. However, I think he will eventually turn into a very good, possibly great, actor. He definitely has the potential, and is probably rapidly developing his craft under Scorsese (see the dramatic improvement in his performances between "Gangs of NY" and "The Aviator").

Looking forward to getting this one. I enjoyed "Still Evolved".

Thanks for the coupon! I think I'm gonna spring for one of the Simpsons DVD box sets. I've fallen behind on those.

His Shakti projects are by far my favorites of his work. He's a fantastic guitar player, indeed.

Click on "Community Bulletin Board" towards the bottom.

Thanks for the heads up. I also picked up the Apocalypse Now Complete Dossier, as well as Hustle & Flow.

for the Yoshi's discs!

This clearly shows you have no idea what the African heritage of percussion and ryhthm is all about, matters of taste notwithstanding. Elvin had a real deep connection to this. Besides that, I wonder what "corny congas" might be, except for the alliteration .... I'm thinking that perhaps you misunderstood my post. I have absolutely nothing against congas or any other types of percussion. I'm a drummer myself, and am a big fan of Samba, Indian classical music, and many other forms of percussion heavy musics. What I was saying is that on alot of these tracks, the addition of two and three other percussionists sounds very cluttered, muddy and messy to these ears. I think that its primarily because Elvin's style of drumming, with his tendency to so frequently accent in the most unconventional spots in the beat, along with his exceptional chops, fills so much space already, that the percusisonists just start to pile on top of each other, making it difficult to get any types of conversations going. Additional percussionists worked better with drummers like Max Roach and Art Blakey, as their styles of drumming allowed for more "space" to be filled. And then to top it off, you have the fact that the percussionists on these sessions don't really sound like they were exceptional players to begin with, hence my choice of adjective to describe the playing. So, on the contrary to what you said regarding my understanding of music, I think that it really does come down to a matter of taste. On this set, I much prefer the tracks with Elvin alone.

Everybody should just go out and get all the Andrew Hill albums. They are all good.

I'm not sure why so much of what I've read regarding "Here To Stay" has been verging on the so-so/negative side of things. This is a top notch Freddie Hubbard session. Aside from "Breaking Point" and "Ready for Freddie", I haven't been much of a fan of Freddie's Blue Note sessions as a leader, but this one has joined the ranks of his finest work IMO. Excellent batches of RVGs these past couple of months!

I can't even imagine the amount of shitty PM's or e-mails members of this board receive, but do we go posting them all for the world to see? The fact that Yanow is a jazz critic does not change anything. It shouldn't have been posted, and this thread shouldn't exist.

Finally got this disc and got through my first listen, which probably wasn't as focused as it could be, as I'm packing for a vacation. But initial impressions are that this is a fine disc. There was a track with a repeated Eastern chant that didn't work too well, and one of the tracks with the vocalist(s) seemed a bit muddy also. But these were really the only two songs that I can remember off hand that I didn't enjoy. One thing that really caught my attention is the excellent musicianship from everyone involved. Kenny G and Brian Blade were in typical excellent form, but Mulgrew Miller, Pharoah Sanders and Bob Hurst turn in some really excellent performances. Being that this album is a tribute to McCoy Tyner, I think Mulgrew really captured the mood of Tyner's music without succumbing to plain old imitation. In many ways, he's really the glue that hold this music together. And Pharoah sounds truly awesome here. Definitely one of his better recorded performances in a while.

He performed with Jason Moran at the Chicago Jazz Fest a few weeks back. An excellent performance. Am curious to hear more about the new CD.

Splendid news to start the day on ! Amen.

Best new release of 2006 in my opinion.

As a kid when we used to drive from Chicago up to Muskegon to visit my aunt's family, the big yellow wooden shoe in Holland was always my indicator that we weren't far away from our destination. Good memories. Love the New Holland Brewery!

Da motherf*%#@!n Bears are the s#!t !!!