Brad

From your lips to God's ear, as the saying goes

Well, I hope you're right about next year team's because it always seems the Yankees always find a way to get what they want. It's nice to have $185 million to spend. I don't their rotation, however, will be as bad as you make it out to be. They'll have Mussina, Petite (presumably), Wells (I believe he'll be around), Contreras (possibly) and he'll go out and get a pitcher; I'm sure Millwood would fit in nicely for them as a number 3 starter. Regarding '86, let's not forget that Mitchell was not the only guy to get a hit off Schiraldi and company. There was a reason Schiraldi was traded; the guy was just not that good. And it wasn't just because we had Roger and Jesse.

I heard that security kept him in a separate room and didn't let him leave Wrigley until everybody else had left. In all fairness, he wasn't the only one going for the ball and it was a natural reaction. I'll bet I would have done the same thing. His situation kind of reminds me that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry injures Shaquille while sitting at courtside and everybody yells at him wherever he goes. Trouble is, this is real, not fiction. For his sake, I hope the Cubs win tonight.

It's not solely fate but in essence I agree with you. What people call the curse is not only superior talent but the knowledge by the Yankees players that the Yankees could beat the Red Sox. And even the Red Sox players knew or know that. What is the reason to explain repeated failures by this team at the hands of New York teams. It's certainly not fate but it's talent and it's also history weighing down on them. Even after they lost in '86, Dewey Evans thought there might be something to the gods conspiring against them. Although it's often cited, Game 6 of '86 is a good example. They let their guard down and the Mets who were a superior team but had not played like that did them in. They had no business winning but I think the Red Sox were starting to drink that champagne before the 27th out had been recorded. It's primarily talent but don't believe for a second that history doesn't weigh on some of these players' minds.

Trust me, if these two teams have the opportunity to screw up, they will. Instead of blaming it on the curse of this or that, these teams should look at themselves and say why is it that we can't win the big one when the Yankees can? They don't have the killer instinct. What else to explain what has happened to the Cubs now and 1984 or the Red Sox in 46, 75, 78, 86 and 03. When they had to get it, they couldn't it. We'll see tonight if we should lump the this year's version with those teams.

It's a good pickup, from my point of view. I really dug Rainy Night and Sweet Honey Bee. I really like Lee's stuff from this era. I'm probably one of the few that liked his Standards recording. As to the three horn front line, sounds good to me. It's not this particular grouping but whether any grouping works. Not sure how usual it is though. One that comes to mind and it worked pretty darn well was Bird, J.J. and Miles.

I just picked this one up and frankly I don't know whose idea it was to record the title track and Going Out of My Head because they're played so straight, I'm not sure you could call it jazz. I don't want to say it's background music but they stick out like a sore thumb compared to the other four tunes on the disc, which are in the hard bop style. Obviously, each of the pop tunes were the covers for each side of the LP. Not a bad cd, if you skip the two pop tunes, which in my view waste the enormous talent on this recordd.

What a bunch of assholes. You know, there's a reason why the Cubs and the Red Sox suck and that's because they can't win the big one. You can blame it on fate, the black cat that crossed their path or whatever, but good teams put this behind them and move on and win. These two can't. Thanks you idiots, now I have to f**in watch the Yanks and the Fish. Guess I'm resigned to seeing that god damned parade down Broadway again.

This was discussed a few weeks ago in Dan's Blindfold Test Number 2. This is slated for release today on the Quicksilver label, according to Alan's site, although the link to CD Universe leads you to a Collectables release. Anyway, it's already backordered. Damn!

Had trouble connecting this morning from home.

Johnny, Thanks very much. About to put in an order.

Based on what we've seen of Pedro's last two starts, he's going to need his full rest. If you start him on three days rest, you're not going to get the best of what's he's got to give. I believe the strategy is to win the next 2 at home and go back to the Death Star (aka Yankee Stadium), with the ability to lose a game and watch one for the ages. If they're down 2-3, then they might have to go with Pedro in game 6.

What can I say about ASE? It just didn't move me and I found it virtually unlistenable. I'm still grabbed the AMG description: "not your basic bop and blues." My favorite Shorter? JuJu. That one I loved. BTW, the Clarke Boland is not technically a Blue Note reissue. I remember reading that Alfred Lion bought the rights to the recording.

Harold alludes to this but jazz being so young then, people were constantly innovating trying out different things, especially the younger musicians, like Dizzy, usually after hours in famed places like Minton's. But I'm sure this was happening in many of the big cities. Another factor was that for the younger players, swing had become formulaic; a lot of bands were copying other bands and in some views it was probably getting boring and musicians wanted to extend the music to try certain things. In Bird's case, after hearing Cherokee, he said that he kept hearing things in his head that he couldn't get out; you can hear it coming out in certain of his solos with Jay McShann (look for the cd, Blues from Kansas City, originally on Decca, re-issued on GRD; Spotlite also did one called Early Bird, equally amazing). The culmination was Koko, set to Cherokee changes. When Bird and Diz got together, the rest is history.

I hated the All Seeing Eye. It just did nothing for me. I got rid of that one as fast as I could. However, Adam's Apple pleasantly surprised me, and I was expecting the worst. As far as the best, how about Blakey's Bohemia or Night at Birdland? Even though I had them in Japanese, those are the best in my opinion. Obviously, opinions differ but I like those stabs at latin jazz, especially the Latin Bit. I held off for awhile on getting that but liked it quite a bit after I did. Claude, are you interested in Redd's Blues. I've seen it in JRVG locally. If you want me to pick it up for you, please let me know.

If anybody has an idea where to get Seattle Jazz Repertory Live that Tony posted above, can you let us know. I'd love to hear a copy.

Well, I guess I stand to be corrected, especially regarding the TOCJs. Now, regarding the JRVGs, doesn't Rudy probably have access to the master tapes and he remasters them in the U.S. (in his studio, I'd presume) and then Toshiba just brings them back to Japan for making them into pressings? Or could he be remastering them from second generation sources? Somehow, the latter suggestion doesn't seem logical to me.

I'd have to disagree with Tony in certain respects about domestic cd sounding better than a Japanese remaster. Although I find the US RVGs to be comparable, if I have the JRVG, I only buy the US one because it usually has more songs. That advantage seems to be disappearing because some of the recent JRVGs have songs that weren't on the original lp configuration. In addtion, for the JRVG series, I find it hard to believe that Rudy wouldn't be remastering from the source tape. Considering the quality control that the Japanese pride themselves, I find it hard to believe that the Japanese are using a secondary source. If everything is equal, songs, quality, etc., I'd probably pick the JRVGs over the RVGs. Trouble is I don't think everything always is and that's why they have the preferred reputation.

Regarding Matthew's "rant", we should not bite the hand that figuratively feeds us and secondly we should give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure that many of us have listened to something at some point and called it garbage and when relistening to it later, said "hey's that pretty good stuff. What was I thinking?" I'm sure Michael's no different.

F***ing Yankees is all I have to say. Sox better come back to Yankee Stadium up 3-2 or there's just no way they'll win. To live in the NY metro area and not to be a Yankee fan is no fun. The arrogance of the Yankee fan. They're all typical bullies. The really arrogant ones are nowhere to be found after a Yankee loss. They are the Evil Empire.

This sounds like that theory years ago that you could get high by taking two aspirins with a coke (never actually tried it myself; that's the whole truth, dudes) .

I don't have a lot of his stuff, but check him out on one of those Prestige First Sessions. Not too many original beboppers left around. Very sorry to hear this.

I only have the Great Fontana and have, unfortunately, never checked out his other recordings. However, if that were the only thing he ever recorded, his reputation would have been cemented with just that one disc. The whole band is great on this date, especially Al Cohn and Richard Wyands. The first time I listened to this I couldn't believe how good this was. I believe this is hard to find but if you have the opportunity to get it, don't pass it up.

Read it this morning. Very funny, especially about some of the incidents revealed on the tapes (he apparently made tapes of everything). Wonder what Chris thought about it. Didn't he know Mrs. Armstrong very well?

I thought Moose was talking about me when he called me a pedophile. Or was that ax murderer? Or both