JSngry

I think we've got enough copies in hand now for discussions to begin w/o guilt!

Yeah, PLEASE don't throw yourself into the briar patch.

Far be it from me to offer advice, but redoctopus certainly did me right, so some of y'all might want to carpe diem on this bad boy, just in case DG snafus...

Richie Cole?

Richie Cole?

Richie Cole?

Richie Cole?

Gary Smulyan? Why?

Well, yeah, but there was a sort of "gentlemen's agreement" not to get really rolling until the sets that the distributors had sent out had been received.

His book on arranging (The Professional Arranger Composer) was "standard" for many years, and is still a good primer all these years later. I know I worked through it back in the day.

Threre were 37 targeted recipients, so if 19 have received the sets and are ready to begin discussion, then that's over 50%. Barring any strenuous objections, I think that's a good point to begin general discussion. I've already received several interesting comments through e-mail, and would like the discussion to be public as much as possible. So howzabout a quick check-in? Who's ready to begin discussion?

How about Unsquare Dancer?

Oh, RCA/Novus. Yeah, I suppose I am.

What Sextet albums were on Arista/Novus?

Brookmeyer himself, apparently (see the opening note...).

Some of my best friends are jerks. Hell, most of my best friends are jerks!

Brookmeyer's "crustiness" is well-known. Some might say that he's "earned it", or, at least, that it's not something he displays just for his own sadistic glee. Life does funny things to people, ya'know?

I've had Dells exclusively for about 10 years now, and have been well-pleased. I've heard a few horror stories, but in proportion to the number of "satisfied" customers, the percentage seems really low. The outsourcing of Tech Support is troubling, though. My first experience with it was extremely frustrating, my second much less so. So the jury's still out afaic. But I will say this - as far as being ready out of the box, no tricks, no gimmicks, no surprises, no screwups, and staying ready to run, I've not seen or heard of any better PC. If your mother-in-law's not going to be engaging in any "risky" behavior computer-wise, I think she'll be well-served by a Dell. Still, buy the extended service plan anyway. One accident and it pays for istself. And they WILL come to your house for free if you play super-dumb and/or scared shitless when they try to walk you through attempting to fix it over the phone first. Of course, if you like to learn on the fly, like I do, the fixing it by phone is pretty cool, But I know soem folks who aren't, who said "NO WAY", and they got in-house service w/no questions asked. GOOD service, too! No such thing as perfect, to be sure, but I've still got no reason not to buy a Dell the next time out.

I find these statements to be of more interest than the simple matter of a specific reissue: Agree or not, it's definitely something to think about...

Who's Gil Noble?

Not sure that it's Bley's nature to have been "helped along" like that. The guy seems to be as slippery and elusive a person as he is a player. And I mean that in a totally non-pejorative way. It's what "makes him him", if you know what I mean.

Does he appear healthy, all things considered?

That is, I believe, exactly the point that Mr. Belden was making.

Is he playing?

It seems that decisions are made in part by advance retail order, and that 800 wasn't sufficient. I think that Blakey, Silver, Woody Shaw and Mulligan all have bigger names than Brookmeyer, and would generate larger retail order numbers. Mulligan, remember, was a gen-yew-ine STAR once upon a time! And Blakey & Silver are also pretty big names outside the cognoscenti. If anybody's got questionable profile from that list, I think it'd be Woody. What I'm wondering now is if this "strategy" explains the endless postponements of certain sets, notably all the Miles boxes. Are they holding out on actual release until they get satisfactory retail order numbers? Just a thought.