JSngry

Does this mean DJs? Serious question, as I've learned about how GB had a whole culture of club DJs going back to post-WWII from reading this informative book: Not sure if we ever had anything quite like this in the US until maybe the 1960s.

There's STILL a groove.

I'll just not watch and wait for February. Satan can play it out between himself and himself. And do you take out Gio in the 5th when he's obviously losing it, not getting it back together, but is still a potential CY winner? Johnson knows his bullpen far better than me, but nobody even warming up? I decline that option and I still maintain that in an elimiantion game, you never count on a fire to burn itself out, nor do you allow smoke to turn into a fire. Nats DID lose it by not handling their business once given a 6 run lead. Cards won it by capitalizing on every opportunity, but Nats should have never given them that many opportunities. You go 2-0 on too many hitters, yeah,m you're not carpe-dieming in those circumstances. A team like the Cardinals, you can't give them shots to get back in the game, because they will (at least they will once it's time to get in the playoffs through whatever back door they see open to them at the time...). You have to throw Strike One, you have to induce DPs, you have to turn them when you get the chance. If you don't they will sure as hell utter their secret chant and get those Weird Baseball Demons a flutterin'. Look out Giants, be prepared. I've seen this movie before...

Dude, for real, this might be your cheapest solution: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/11580543653005552985?q=USB%20wireless-g%20adapter&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=ZN6&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=rcs&prmd=imvnsa&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=2c50514654581f59&bpcl=35277026&biw=1540&bih=782&tch=1&ech=1&psi=dJ55UJCBFeKL2AXy4YGwBA.1350147690774.3&sa=X&ei=iZ55UNzkLKXW2AX824HgCQ&ved=0CJoBEOUNMAE Instead of plugging it directly into your USB port, get a USB cable of whatever length you need, and position it where you can get good signal. The adapter should come with installation software to configure your PC to override whatever network card you might already have in there. Then you can treat it like one of the old-school FM Antennas and position everything for optimum results. And it's the basement!

They had the game early on, the Nats did, but Gio let the Cards move too many parts in the 5th - leadoff double, single, walk (that's where I get the pen up, this is a freakin' elimination game after all!)), WP w/bases full (that's where I tell the pen to pick it up, let's get ready NOW)l, walk to re-load the bases (that's where I'd pull him, right there), FC force out at the plate, bases still full (DP would have been better, what pitch did he throw on that one?), walks in another run (DOH!), and then finally gets the 3rd out. "Only" two runs, but eight batters to the plate in the 5th, greatly increasing the odds that they'll be available one more time than they would be otherwise if you put out that fire ASAP. None of these were especially low pitch-count ABs,as I remember it, either. Too many piches, too many ABs, you're just guaranteeing their hitters see more pitches in the immediate ABs and get more ABs later in the game by not shutting down that outbreak of uncontrolled pitching once it becomes obvious that it's not just a mini-streak that would right itself with a visit from the catcher and/or pitching coach. If you don't bring him back in the 6th, hell, get him out of there before the 5th gets out of hand. Johnson didn't even have anybody warming up. I....don't understand that. I was also struck by the inability of Nats pitchers to induce any DPs (or to take too many pitches to get to Strike One, but that's another story...). They had a chance in the 6th, but didn't turn it. Yeah, it was a tough one, but not impossible, and I've seen it turned more often than not. No damage done that inning, as the next batter made the third out, but still, that just moves the Cards order one more batter. You gave them one more out that inning, and yeah, you got it there, but that just guarantees one more slot in the lineup gets to bat later in the game. Double plays do more than make that one inning easier, they make the whole game easier, or at least they can. They should. The less times the opposition gets to come to the plate, the less they're able to hurt you. Simple enough, but it's a basic tenet of bullpen management, and....Davey Johnson, wtf? Plus, there were two low-but-in-the-zone Strike Ones NOT called on Cardinal batters in the 7th & 8th (iirc) that Bob Brimly blamed on Susuki's framing, and ok, but still, umps gotta handle that. They weren't THAT low in the zone. At least one of those led to a Strike 3 being Strike 2, and the batter ended up getting on. I forget who/when, but again, that's just letting the batting order move one more slot, giving an out away (or not having an out given to you for whatever reason), and w/o a DP, you're bringing one more guy to the plate later on than you should be. An effective call to the bullpen in the 5th, a double play in the 6th, better umpiring and/or catching technique in the 7th & 8th (I think it was those two innings) and you're not facing the same sequence of batters in the 9th that you ended up facing. You have a better chance of winning the game when Satan comes to call. Sinners beware, and Giants, take heed!

A Mosaic, then!

A Mosaic, perhaps?

Ok JK/LOL re:the Oaklands. That was actually kind of fun to see happen, albeit personally painful. But that's ok, I'm a guy, I can compartmentalize. It's what guys do to not destroy everything they touch. But seriously - Davey Johnson, hey, WTF? Especially since you didn't send him back out for the 6th. WTF?

Yeah, well there you go, the evolution of the Swing Era Big Band culture from the dance floor to the studio to the "rehearsal band", to "concert" organizations, (which basically means no steady daily gig w/o some kind of subsidy) with generations being added and subtracted along the way. New York and LA. At some point, the whole thing devolves, but with Jones/Lewis, you get the last period of continuity as the evolution ended and the devolution began. As much as everybody wanted it to be so, Jon Faddis never could be Snooky Young, Mel Lewis and Pepper Adams and Thad Jones could never again play with Kenton & Basie, Bob Brookmeyer (who was a really gifted guy, but apparently kind of dark and "high standards" - either one is fine, but combined it gets kind of...exponential - he hired the players apparently, so there's your Sweaty Studiolarity right there, between him and Phil Woods,can you say UH-oh....) would have ended up doing god knows what, maybe...the mind reels...it was what it was because it pretty much had no other choice, so for me, I'm ok with all of it because...greatness comes with a price, ya' know? Especially Last Gasp Greatness. Jimmy Maxwell, we hardly knew ye.

I don't know what Davey Johnson saw in Gio Gonzalez in the 5th that screamed LEAVED ME IN TO FINISH THE INNING, but I'll be damned if I saw it. I never minded the Giants beating the Rangers in '010, that was natural baseball. What the Cardinals have been doing is Satanic. Wild Card, last day last year, and second Wild Card this year, again with the one strike away, twice...no, this cannot stand. If the Giants don't have that stake handy, all goodwill is gone and an earthquake will devour both them and the Oaklands, devour them into the fiery hell of a pit of flaming redbirds cackling in fecal mockery of all that is good about life. And if it gets to a Cards/Yankees World Series, well...to Hell with that! Home field advantage no matter how you look at it!

Iris DeMent Vonetta McGee Ana Maria Alvarado

People be dancing to that shit? See, this is why I just stay home and watch baseball these days. Or something. Peoples' nature done got all fucked up and I'd just as soon not watch.

You use a Mac. You'll never know. Because Macs got it like that.

Sure - if you use smoke and mirrors

It might be called an root cellar in Texas Jim. Nah, it's called nobody has an basement here because the soil is so unstable. Plus, in my specific are (and for miles, literally miles!) around, you dig about 6-8 ft down and you hit a solid bed of limestone that goes deeper than the eye can hear, or more fathoms than you'd mind. Foundation repair is a can't miss business in these parts because the soil is so shifty (a-HA) that there will always be a market. We try to water our grass, but we definitely water our foundation. What? No smoke? If there is smoke coming out of your router, that's a more likely explanation for the weak signal than is the mirror!

I'd have like to have been in the studio when he laid down his tracks for Tattoo You.

I've seen these numbers quoted, can't vouch for their accuracy though. 2013: $28M (age 37) 2014: $25M (38) 2015: $21M (39) 2016: $20M (40) 2017: $20M (41)

I'm told to look out for mirrors in the path of the signal. The signoal don't go through mirrors so well. Or so I've been told. I just use a USB wireless-g adapter hooked up to a longish cord and position it where I can get great signal off the router. But I don't have a basement.

Now I have no idea if this was NY or LA, but listen o this band, live, no doubt, totally tight and bristling with SOME kind of energy, at least at the beginning of the show, listen to those lead players, especially the lead trumpeter, just NAILING it. And who the hell is that bass player? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFJ1x_NAjgQ This is in no way jazz ("jazz" at best) and no doubt to get into this circle of gigs, any more...hardcore notions of jazz you had would have to be checked at the door (and no doubt left there unclaimed by some), but OTOH, you know that this gig and others like it paid like a mofo, and yeah, make a good living not NOT swining and definitely NOT sucking at your instrument because you don't keep your chops up, go ahead on with that. I can't find fault.

Oh, you're talking about their jazz studio work. I'm not. I'm talking about all that other studio work, the kind nobody talks about because nobody wants to talk about it, kinda like how Al Cohn made a great living writing for, who was it..Ice Capades? Miss America? Something(s) like that. Think of all the jingles, non-jazz pop songs, TV work, all that work work there was, and how many of those guys were in it. Anyway, point being doing stuff like that changes your wiring. Has to. But - you get to keep playing and you make a good living (or did, not much, if any, of that type of work left any more). It's a trade-off that might not be the right "artistic" choice, but geez, there are far worse things to be done with a life than to be able to keep playing and make a good living and still be able to play Credible Consumer Jazz, far worse things.

Well sure it did. America did, and these guys were getting paid to Sound Like America, or at least some peoples' versions of it. And no, that "whole scene" was not "one scene musically, but that's what made it a jungle - lots of scenes to maneuver in and around, any # of them containing more money/gigs/stability, and possibly even a little bit of power in terms of referring subs and maybe even doing a little contracting. Making a living, a good living, playing music, actually playing it and not talking/thinking about it, is not a career path for anybody who wants to "stay pure". That's a luxury that cannot be afforded, literally! All I'm saying is that it's one thing to not like that "thing". I can dig that, because it reflects how sometimes Survival dictates Truth instead of the other way around. But...that's the way shit often is, and not just occasionally, so I'm not gonna be the one who decides that Survival maybe isn't a Truth Unto Itself, much less wonder if those who have made their peace with that in an overall benign manner made the wrong call. After all, Mulligan was correct. Definitely. But Elliot Lawrence got the record made, not Mulligan, so he was correct as well. So - who between them was actually wrong?

I get that, but that whole scene also produced an unimaginably large portion of Music America Heard for the better part of at least two decades, and yes, there was an "athletic" mentality to the whole process of getting into it, thriving in it, and surviving in it. It was How America Did Business, ya' know? The Jungle, as it were, and you know how the jungle go. Miles lived in his own jungle, and it only sometimes intersected with that other one. Like I said, Snooky Young & Richard Davis on the same team, in the same locker room. Two different guys from two different worlds, and they be making it work just dandily by not doing anything other than what they do. Worlds were not colliding, they were cooperating, Biceps, sweat, and pride? You bet. Had to be. Law Of The Jungle. And truthfully, I see nothing automatically wrong with that, just as I see nothing automatically wrong with the lack of it. You do what you got to do to keep your space yours, whatever that is. "Big Bands" can go real wrong real quick (and the Jones/Lewis band as it evolved and lost the first-gen "studio stalwarts" didn't necessarily go wrong, but it sure as hell changed the lens), but muscular locker-room sweat by itself is not one of the ways they do. If anything, it's one of their primal attractions. Show me somebody who doesn't enjoy a good sweat from doing something, and I'll show you somebody who just ain't all the way right. Where it goes wrong is when all that muscular locker room sweat becomes an end unto itself. Sweat becomes its own reward, and people end up sweating from trying to sweat, not from getting the work done. Can't say that even in their later, lesser state the the Jones/Lewis band went there, although at times it came close. But the original band? Hell, that's Jungle Music, baby! (Even if it was a jungle in its death throes...go with what you know, right?) I get that too, but...apples and oranges, really, Gerald's writing never had any "cleverness" in it at all. It was all about unambiguity, move the air in a straight line, and keep it moving. I very much dig Wilson's writing, but other than him & Thad both used non-standard voicings (each of a widely different nature than the other, btw), and utilized flutes in the reed section,,,,yeah, apples and oranges. A closer comparison in terms of actual technique might be Oliver Nelson, another Man Of The Jungle, and one who went all the way in (and didn't get out alive...). Oliver and Thad both liked, generally, to cluster things up right in the middle and keep the tops and bottoms more open. But Oliver was not a melodic madman like Thad was. He was about as sober with that stuff as you could be in that regard, which is where the intensity comes from in his best writing - sounds so normal on top, sounds so...seething on the inside. Thad had no such dichotomy. He wrote the way he played (and Thad Jones as an "advanced" soloist going back to his very first recordings is something still awaiting a more full recognition), which is to say..."quixotic". "Too clever for its own good", yeah, okay, but I don't see how that doesn't happen as a "nature of the beast" thing except for when it does, as in Thad's later writing which seems to fall empty of inspiration and becomes entirely self-referential. And that's not "too clever", that's....no clever. Geez, I've not played in a real big bad for 15-20 years now. And haven't really missed it. But this talking about it like this is getting me to wonder when will the next time be,and if so, why? And all you young folk and/or provincials who've never had a chance to hear a REAL full-throttle big band (as in non "lab", "rehearsal", etc.) going full-throttle, well, you don't know. You just don't know. It's one thing to feel air being moved by sound coming out of a few amps of a few instruments, quite another thing altogether for 15 or so people to all move wir individually and collectively at times in rhythmic unison, at times not. Just a whole 'nother way of musical life. Snooky Young had one of the more remarkable musical careers that could be had doing what it was that he did. I don't know that full recognition/attention has been given to him or his career or what it took for him to do it. Amazing man, Snooky Young.

Verlander single-handedly made the Oaklands look down and not look back up. They didn't want to, but Verlander took away all other options. This was no minor feat on Verlander's part, btw. The Oaklands have been refusing to not look down without evenutually forcing a look back up, and a look back up of never-going-to-die on their face more strongly each time. Every time you thought you had them down, that's get back up with a look of fortified invincible insanity drooling out of their pores. Werth's walk-off and 15 innings of Skinny Girl ball in the Bronx were all post-season drama-packed post-season instant post-season memories of the post-season, but if you wanted sheer Day Of Reckoning baseball, where a beast had been unleashed that was threatening to take over the world and it had come to the point where the fate of said world rested in one man's hands alone, that came was last night in Oakland, and that man was Justin Verlander and he did stop the insanity once and for all. Not often does a 6-0 final reflect an Epic Battle Final Showdown, but this one was exactly that. There's a "based on a true story" fantasy/sci-fi movie to be made out of this and all that led up to it...or maybe that's what all this has been all along...

Yeah, people do what they can do when they can do it where they are. The only way you get a "different" Jones/Lewis band is to have different people in a different time and a different place, and that just didn't happen. If it could have, it would have. You get Snooky Young and Richard Davis on the same page, in an ongoing musical endeavor. Think about how much else had to be in the mix for that to have happened, as well as why it could never happen now, or possibly before or again.