JSngry

My uncle would have us over for squirrel stew every so often, after one of his hunting trips. Good stuff, squirrel, tasty, if bony, not unlike rabbit. But my mom had dibs on the skull. she loved cracking it open and sucking the brains out. I'd say that was a southern/country thing, but my dad, from Sterling, Illinois, loved chicken hearts and bone marrow. People just eat weird stuff, period. And venison is considered a delicacy these days, and not without some cause!

Let's eat, squirrel, fear that.

I can't dis on Karrin Allyson, not even a little, but I can't really like her either. Oh well. She's kinda like Dianne Reeves that way for, such a good singer, but I don't as a rule feel it, not so much. And no matter, name a song off of this album, any song, and I'll recommend another vocal version, not for "that's SO much better" as much as "well, see, maybe not a necessary listen for me personally, this one".

I'm ok with leaving well enough alone on that one.

I'll give them bastardmotherfukkers the tip of a shiv and then the rest of it. Maliscous shits, they are.

The Eldridge....I love that one.

Up?

You ever know anybody to have peanut eyes? And if so, wouldn't your natural inclination be to poke them out so you didn't have to look at them any more?

I actually liked the album with the extra material better than the original release, which I filed away for years as one of those that remained unreleased for so long for a good (enough) reason. Decades later a lot more has been let out of the can and now Blue John sounds like a somewhat above average session, which of course it is, but I don't know if that's because the bar for "average" now has dropped due to a greater exposure into what "average" really is, or what, exactly. Maybe it's not any better than I first thought it was but a lot of other stuff is not as good as it. Whatever. But I very much enjoyed the album (as an album) with the extra material added, fwiw.

Don Ellis used every damn thing.

No bow down. RIP, and all the love and respect in the world.

Smoked almonds, yes. Smoked peanuts, do they exist?

Really really digging this one, the playing and the ambiance of the recording both. Resonant-timely, all of that.

Mission Impossible, Season 7, Episode 10: Ultimatum. Score composed and conducted by Duane Tatro. Nothing stands out, lots of standard cues and long-standing themes, and some "easy listening jazz" to be played ont he radio, except an opening sequence where are bad guy is planting his radioactive explosive device. That's got some pretty interesting writing while it's going on, and it kind of recaps itself at the end when the bed guy is disarming the same device, but, conclusion is seldom as interesting as exposition with this type of thing. But for those few minutes, Tatro's writing stands out, did for me anyway, as a cut above what was usually heard on MI at this point of its fading away. I noticed, I cared, and I enjoyed. From a jazz-interest angle, though, the bad guy in this episode is named Jerome Cooper. Who knew? It's on Netflix, and it's not over 2-3 minutes, this example isn't. Worth a checkout, imo.

It not just the players, it's the equipment (or as they like to call it today, "gear"). The shit's not designed to be played naked, it's made to sound good when miked or otherwise amped. I mean everything, horns even, especially saxophones and mouthpieces. I have played clubs where they insist that the band be miked. Not that there's a need, but the people deciding that think that a band doesn't sound "real" unless it's coming out of speakers. True story - one gig, I warned the guy not to mike me, because I could tell he was going to have an acoustic band miked out the ass (and really, this was just a small-ish bar, held like, 50-60 people max)and I would blow his speakers out and not give a damn, so I told him, look, just put a mike a way back and just pick up enough to reinforce.. He went ahead anyway and after one note on the sound check he came up screaming GODDAMIT WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, BLOW MY SHIT OUT? The only thing i can figure is that he was already half-deaf from listening to his own mixes and didn't hear me when I told him that he didn't want/need to do what he seemed to be hell-bent on doing. So, you know, fuck you dumbass, set the mike level wherever the fuck you want it, you can't make me stand there during the gig, I got legs, right? Sure enough, he kept moving the mike during the set, and I kept moving away until finally he gave up. I never bothered asking if we could get another night, because, you know, at some point, have some dignity about it, ok? People too often can no longer tell the difference between volume and presence, loudness vs projection. It is what it is. World gone wrong, perhaps, but hey, there it be anyway. Everybody I choose to play with these days can balance their own damn self and fill the sound in a normal room likewise, including me. And I'm no badass or anything, just somebody who learned how that shit works. You get a TRUE badass, they can play ppp and you'll hear them at the back of the room like they were standing right next to you, whispering in your ear, hell, you might even feel a little tongue, if you know what I mean. That's how that shit works. This other thing, the "make your sound with the mike in mind at all times" thing, that's some other thing that I never really learned. Too late now!

Signifyin' Monkey Shine Petey Wheatstraw, The Devil's Son-In-Law

I grew up with a mom who made it on the stovetop up until the very last time she ever made popcorn. My lovely wife who is quite often very particular about what she feeds us made it on the stovetop too until she tried some good microwave, upon which reflected on the old-school effort involved and gave her lady-like equivalent of "pshaw, fuck THAT nonsense!" She doesn't do that much (or often), but when she does, she don't be no walking it back, ever. Me, I really don't see enough of a difference to make it matter, at least as far as making up a batch to mindless y chomp on, which, if I'm to be honest, is the only reason I'll eat regular popcorn. I do like this kettle korn thing, though, but damn if I'm going to do whatever it is you have to do to make that, what is it, a kettle and all sorts of, what are they called, ingredients, is that it? I'll let the Boy Scouts sell me that.

I believe it should at best be Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, if we are to recognize Mr. Lee's service to the military of the United States of America. The sign, however, is not what gave Rev. King the title of Doctor. That was Boston University.

They make it look so easy, getting those vocals live...guess for them it was, except when it wasn't!

Since I work "for" a bank, I get stuff off that many other private sector people don't. That includes MLK Day, President's Day, & Columbus Day. I don't know if most people get Memorial Day & Veteran's Day, but I get both. What I don't get off that most people do is the Friday after Thanksgiving. My wife works for an insurance company, and she just lost Christmas Eve as a holiday, but got an additional "diversity day" added. Frankly, I don't get why she got it in the first place. Christmas Eve is not a holiday, really, it's the day before a holiday. I get off a few hours early every year on that day, but it's not scheduled, it's just a traditional managerial "courtesy", and I'm fine with that. I don't know what it's like in every environment, but in my wife's company "diversity day" originally just meant the same thing as the old "floating holiday" only it allows for black folks to take off on MLK day and white folks don't have to, they can show up for work and complain instead of having the imagination and gumption to get it declared a company holiday. Or better yet, take a Diversity Day on the holiday yourself. Civil rights is not just a "black" thing, it's a human thing, or at least an American thing, what it takes to get July 4 to have the same meaning for everybody, dig?. Oh, hey white people, I guess you LIKE having to come to work on a national holiday, I guess you really are that ignunt after all, to be tricked into thinking that none of this is relevant to you. Sure looks it. Hate to be that cynical about it, but that's really what it is. Company don't give a shit about right, just in keeping all the workers comfortably dissatisfied. Y'all know the drill, I'm sure. As for the addition of another Diversity Day to take the place of Christmas Eve, well, I get that in a workplace that is becoming more religiously diverse. That one makes sense to me. Why they ever had it off in the first place does not. But Columbus Day, really, what's that one all about? I see no need for it at all, although hey, day off, I'll take it. Still, ok, no banking and no mail on MLK day, I get that, time to reflect, all that. Same on July 4, Labor Day. Profound experiences essential to the national character regardless of their name, built-in contradictions included, especially the built-in contradictions. America has been at its best when confronting and resolving those contradictions in the relentlessness pursuit of a ONE nation under a groove. Even Presidents Day for people who need that, I get it. Definitely Memorial/Veterans Days (although if you need to combine them both, just keep the sentiment alive). And Thanksgiving, anybody who's opposed to the idea of Thanksgiving Day, hey fuck them, right, let's all focus instead on being ungrateful entitled gluttonous self-absorbed backstabbing punkass bitch toxic gaping assholes, centers of our own universe and determined to be the center of everybody else's as well, not (and yet the irony). Keep Thanksgiving if you keep nothing else. These are all days upon which it is proper to contemplate all that goes into the creation, maintenance, and sustainment of a Living & Breathing Always And Forever Still New World. Take those days and use them well. But you gonna tell me that I can't get mail or do banking because I'm supposed to be honoring/reflecting upon/whatever some freakin' Christopher Columbus? Sorry man, just not feeling that one. At all. Not some guy who all he did was chop down the indians to prove that the world was round, and then he said Isabella, I cannot tell a lie, let me free all the slaves to make up for the error of my ways. Flip Wilson done covered all that, thank you. On second thought, let's have Flip Wilson Day! But hey, paid holiday. As long as it's there, there it is. Day off.

President's Day is still a bank/federal holiday, as is Columbus Day.

I've known about it since the mid-70s, read a "real time" review of it in DB, iirc. If not DB, somewhere else, in something that the NT library had. Interesting review actually, talking about how the fundamental differences between Cage & Kirk ultimately weighed heavier than their "superficial" similarities, Cage being about worshiping the silence so that the sound would only be made when absolutely necessary and Rahsaan being more about embracing the sound in all of its manifestations because to do otherwise is to be less than fully realized as a spirit. Or something like that. Different pieces of the same puzzle, if you ask me. Weights balance each other out, right? I've known about it since then. Actually seeing it took a lot longer...not sure if it made it to the Rhapsody VHS thing or not, I never found it if it did.

My goal upon waking every day/afternoon is to outlive myself. Long as I can do that, hey, good day. Ain't gonna be so for everybody.