JSngry

How's the sound on this one? Is it serviceable? I remember seeing a disclaimer on the packaging. Serviceable, yes. Bit of missing high-end, but you can still hear everything.

I played a week in Gillette back in 1981. It was then an oil "boom town" and the male/female ratio was (seriously) 7/1. I gotta wonder if this ain't an example of Darwinism at work...

I know that much, but what the hell is technoduffery?

And oh yeah - I don't have them, and it's been years since I've heard them, but from what I remember, the post-Columbia MPS sides, especially Haiku were much better than most of the Columbias.

Picked this one up a few weeks ago: A live date from 1967, it's a fascinating "in-between" type thing that goes back and forth between Ellis the intrepid explorer and Ellis the freakshow. If you're looking for clues as to, as Joe Milazzo likes to say about Don Ellis, "what happened?", you may or may not get some insight from this one. Either way, when it's good, it's damn good.

Here's the really funny thing - Monday is American by birth, and has lived (as I understand it) most of her life here. She lived in Japan from 1987 to 1999, and that's where and when she got into recording, DJ-ing and such. Her stardom & other ties in/to Japan are very real, but she sings all of her songs in English. You'd think that some American label would have gotten hip to her by now. But no... Here's an interesting tale she tells about that ( http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews...ay-021226.shtml ):

Hank Sauer Bob Lemon Arthur Lyman

I suspect they'd take it as a high compliment.

For BeBop per se, the two Gitlers that GOM recommended are darn fine.

...before she breaks out in America. 4 Seasons is one of the greatest, most musically interesting (and alive) pop albums I've ever heard. The "jazz sensibility" is high, as is the Brazillian quotient. It's still "just pop music", but this is the kind of pop music that accomplishes the rare feat of providing both Ear Candy & Mind Food of equally high order. When it's this good, it become "just music" afaic, no other adjectives needed. What's really cool about this album and Routes (a distincly more "club" type album, but certainly not a less interesting one) is that her husband (trumpeter Alex Sipiagin) often contributes arrangements that are chock full of full-bodied modern harmonies, dissonances, weird-ass melodic intervals, and all that hip shit. So you got this "sunshiny" voice (and a beautiful voice it is) singing these songs with chord changes that often go places where you'd not expect them to go mixed with melodies that follow the surprising chords yet remain emminently singable/hummable mixed with these arrangements that would not be out of place on a Maria Schnieder album played over grooves that you'd have to be damn near dead not to want to dance to. And then every so often, she throws in extended solos by cats like Dave Kikowski & Donny McCaslin (a.o.) that ain't just "pop record filler". The players get to play. I've carped earlier about her lyrics, but hell, after a few weeks of near total-immersion in this stuff, I don't care anymore. It's pop music at root, and pop music is supposed to have kinda goofy lyrics anyway. So forget I ever said anything bad. It all sounds like some kind of "fusion", and I guess maybe it is, but unlike earlier such attempts at such fusions, Monday's shit is built from the ground up, with the dance impulse driving everything else. You might not gotta love that, but I damn sure do. See? When she sings a ballad, it's usally with very sparse accompaniment, and the results are beautiful. On 4 Seasons, she does a version of Ivan Lins' "The Island" that sent me into fantasy land for...uh...what time is it now? Did I mention that she's also one of the most beautiful women alive today? Does that get your attention? It got mine, but not nearly as much as her music has. But I will say this - If I could die right now and be reincarnated instantly as Alex Sipiagin, I would seriously consider the offer... Don't believe me? Check it out: http://www.smartalecmusic.com/inner-viewsMICHIRU.htm I'm not talking "sexy" or "babe" or any of that hornyboy shit, I'm talking beautiful, dig? Not recommended for "jazz purists" or for cynical souls who don't never, ever, Believe In Magic, but everybody else, do what you gotta do to get some kind of copy of 4 Seasons and then take it from there. You are living a deprived life if you don't. Monday Michiru is a the real deal, and more. It's just a matter of time...

Steve Trout Sid Bream Ralph Bass

DeVeaux is highly recommended here. Don't be scared away, just don't take it as the whole picture, because it ain't. But what it does deal with (which is indeed relevant to your stated interest), it deals with quite well.

Allen's introductions have to be heard to be believed...

Dude, they fucked up when they stopped selling the original Pepsi Light back in the early 80s. RIP:

Time for a Joanie Sommers/Pepsi reunion! The world needs to know where Stacey Kent stole all her shit from!

I feel your pain, but as a fellow knucklehead, you know as well as I do that sometimes the truth is best expressed in summary form. Larry's comment was a brilliant summary, I think, and I took no offense at all. And I will rise to the challenge when I hear glib dismissals w/o any underlying validity, trust me. And either way, you gotta admit that that was a helluva line. That it rang true was just icing on the cake. Larry can "play" with words the way that some play with notes and instrument. I give him major props for that. AFAIC, he's a "word musician", and he can definitely play!

Caroline! and she did love playing it! Do you remember Larry Roark who did alternate nights with her? Caroline, yeah! What a sweetheart she was. Wonder what happened to her? Vaguely remember Larry. Sorry to hear of his unfortunate demise.

Jack Webb Julie London Babe Ruth

Douglas MacArthur Richard Harris Jimmy Webb

That was you? Yeah. And that was you? Who was the chick DJ, what was her name? Cathy? She used to act like she loved to play it. Whether she really did or not, I don't know. But she'd play it.

Do we have to? No. Whew! Thank god. You don't have to.

To show you how times have changed, I used to call in a request for "The Creator Has A Master Plan" at least twice a week to KNTU in my freshman year. I had just dicovered the piece, and was awestruck by it. Back then, they only played jazz from 7 PM to midnight. The request was always played, and always almost immediately! Today, the thing seems kinda "hippy-dippy", but you still can't fault the basic sentiment (at least I can't). And Pharoah's tone was (and remains) one of the treasures of this music. He's made other albums that I listen to a lot more often and enthusiastically than Karma, but I can't find it in me to say anything bad about this, my first introduction to non-Trane Sanders. The appeal to me today of Karma might be primarily nostalgic and/or "sentimental", but I'm ok with that. Whether or not "The Creator" exists, much less has a "Master Plan" is a notion that time can't help but give some bumps and bruises to. But if there's a better ultimate goal for this life than "peace and happiness throughout the land", I've yet to hear it.

Do we have to? No.

Life is not this complicated.

Will Lee Willie Dixon Dixon Crumpler