robviti

looking forward to spending time with you in chicago.

if you kids don't knock it off right now, i'm turning this board around and we're heading straight home!

i don't think it was the quality of his voice that hindered the band's success so much as it was their inability to tour. partridge has suffered from severe panic disorder with agoraphobia for many years and finds live performance unbearable. it's a real shame. one of my favorite bands of all time. btw, i don't think my xtc cds sound terrible at all, especially my mfsl copy of skylarking. if the sound isn't perfect, it certainly shouldn't keep anyone from enjoying this exceptional music imo.

i think you're mistaken. miles doesn't play on the booker ervin recording. sorry, i couldn't resist.

guys, your suggestions are totally inappropriate. -_- i love it!

if your friend gave you the proper box for nothing, why cancel the mosaic order? it's not like you're losing any money. as far as michael going after these guys, it's not illegal for proper to manufacture and sell this box in parts of the world where the copyright has expired. what is wrong, and possibly illegal, is for proper to wholesale them to vendors who sell in the u.s., and for the vendors to sell them to people like your friend, if he's in the u.s. i agree with jim. buy the mosaic. great music, great sound, great company.

i checked some international sites in japan and germany. both list the u.s. grp release as the only release currently available. that's a shame considering the reissue of lesser titles by universal in japan.

sorry you lost your "jazz sanctuary," tony. despite the fact that i live near boston and the berklee college of music, there are relatively few places to hear jazz where the music is most important thing on the menu. of the two premier jazz clubs, one books predominantly smooth jazz and adult contemporary r&b acts. the other, my favorite club for the last 15 years, has changed drastically over the past year. it's now booked by the people who run the blue note clubs. there are far fewer bookings now, and the kind of acts they frequently feature aren't exactly my cup of tea. these sad conditions make my jazz weekends in nyc even more special to me. now there's a place to hear live jazz! p.s. one of the last times i went to a jazz supper club, i found myself repeatedly annoyed by a guy at the next table who wouldn't stop talking to his date. the thing that enraged me the most about this guy was the fact that before the show i spoke with him briefly. he introduced himself as a classical pianist. all i could think of was how could a musician disrespect another artist in this manner?! my revenge fantasy: find out when his next recital would be and return the favor!

My vote goes to the insufferably boring slide guitar solo featured in the power ballad reinterpretation of the Everly Brothers classic "Love Hurts," which was a megahit for Nazareth in 1975. oh boy, does it suck!

i don't think you were being a pain, but perhaps your expectations exceeded what the venue was offering. the clubs i frequent on a regular basis have a strict policy of "limit your conversation to a whisper in respect for the artist" that's stated at the beginning of the show and consistently enforced. i go to these places expecting to hear the music, and so do most others in attendance. there are a few other nearby establishments, however, that have no such policy. once, when i complained about the fact that several tables were holding loud conversations, i was told by the manager: "it's unfortunate, but if i told the people who come in here for food, a drink, and conversation to quiet down, i'd go out of business." obviously, i rarely go back to these kinds of places. yes, it's annoying, but what do you expect? if the people where you live choose to run this type of club, i suggest going elsewhere for your music.

for the most part, the only threads i've deleted were auction listings and perhaps a live performance notice or two. both are time limited, and i don't want to clog up board with non-discussion threads that have outlived their usefulness.

i'm not sure this is true. i could have sworn i had a copy of the shaw reissue in my hands over the weekend and it did have "the box."

gee, i wonder why he wants to remain anonymous?

actually, there's two tributes, four celebrations, two birthdays, one salute, and even one homage!

i thought i'd bump this up since the dates are coming up very soon. anyone else going besides mark and me? could there be a mini o-hang in the making?

as long as i still have my billie holiday recordings, i really don't care where maddy is.

i own this two-disc set. it's a digital 20bit k2 remaster from japan in a fold-out cardboard sleeve. it's great!

after seeing this thread, i thought to myself: "better late then never. maybe i should join now." after reviewing my want list and browsing through the jazz section, i remembered why i never joined in the first place - their selection sucks! of course, this is a totally subjective view based solely on my particular wants/needs. i'm sure others have found some great discs. but there's no vincent herring, frank rosolino, roland hanna, leroy vinnegar, or jeremy pelt. and only one title each for giants like sonny stitt and art pepper, and only two or three for the likes of jackie mclean, andrew hill, and clifford brown. like bmg, it looks like this just ain't the place for me.

to be fair, the festival's website proclaims: "Five full days of open air music featuring rock, funk, blues, world, soul, R&B, reggae & more daily." makes you wonder why they include the word "jazz" in their title. it sure ain't for sales purposes!

i don't know if i'd call a predicted high of 88 "brutally hot," but it could be uncomfortable. fort adams is on the water, so hopefully you'll feel the benefit of an ocean breeze. enjoy the music!

i'll be there on sunday. so will steve schwartz and a lot of nice people from the boston area, thanks to wgbh, our local public radio station. they've arranged to take a bus load of jazz fans from boston and rhode island to the festival. heck, they even feed them! as long as the weather holds up, it should be a great time!

actually, i like some of the songs in their original form, for what they are. "well-executed"? probably. but for me, anka is the executioner who completely kills these tunes. and yeah, he is an arrogant sob.

i don't know, guys. aren't you all being a bit disrespectful? i mean, we are talking about a guy who gave us this classic piece of liberal feminism that was a #1 hit in 1974:

The other day I was listening to an interview with Paul Anka on NPR's Fresh Air. He's in the limelight again because of a new release called Rock Swings. It was a case of "truth is stranger than fiction" for me as I listened to samples of his Vegas-style swing arrangements of several pop chestnuts from the 80s and 90s. I'm not kidding. They include songs like Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun, and Van Halen's Jump. Now some people are raving about this disc, but to my ears it brought back memories of Ella's "creaming" of Sunshine of Your Love and Sinatra's "better left 'til tomorrow" cover of Yesterday. You gotta hear it to believe it, if you dare! Rock Swings