JSngry

?

What about Welch's/Minute Maid sodas? Those are Coke products too. Do you have those? Why we have both in these parts is beyond me. Maybe it's because Plano is the home of the world headquarters for the Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Corporation, and Coca-Cola takes no prisoners.

Listen closer: http://www2.bitstream.net/~tgg/rafiles/kindacute.ra

Blather, rinse, repeat. Everything I needed to know, I learned on a shampoo bottle.

What, you think he actually PRACTICED?

Well DUH! Any male with half a brain would have gone for the exhaust pipe...

A Renault? If he'd have played his cards right, he could have gotten a Hummer...

You gotta consider the possibility that some artists use their art to create the kind of reality for themselves that they'd LIKE to have for themselves but can't/don't/won't.

It sure is! THAT'S my MOST favorite Beatles song. Period. But I love the Bonzos, and that's a very Bonzo-esque cut. And Brian Jones on tenor. Sucking! PERFECT!

SORRY!!!! or , whichever one works for you.

How long CAN we have you?

Having finally gotten this one, I can't say it's my "favorite", but I agree 1000% about how " the new material really gives insight into its construction." 1000%! My favorite disc has to be #4, with all the rehearsal takes and such. You get to hear snippetts of Gil conducting a rehearsal, and what a revelation THAT is! I'd have thought him to be kind of a quiet guy in front of a band, but no - he's animated, funny but no-nonsense ("Alright, alright, you can play it in your head!" the kind of thing that can REALLY piss somebody off if delivered even SLIGHTLY wrong), and obviously in TOTAL charge (he may well have been the oldest man in the room, too). Maybe in his later years he got to be a kind of "just let it happen" bandleader, but here he sounds like the kind of guy who could whip a band into top shape as quickly as possible. which, given the difficulty of the music, is exactly what he did. If all bandleaders/conductors could "cut to the chase" as well as Gil does here (the tiniest, subtlest detail explained matter of factly -and perfectly - in 15 seconds or less!), the world would be a much safer, happier place, at least for musicians who play parts. Gil shows that although he was notorious for being a procrastinator and a kind of "lazy" guy, that not for nothing did he spend all those years in the pressure cooker of being a staff arranger for Thornhill and Skinnay Ennis and the Bob Hope show. You got to have some SERIOUS professionalism chops to hang in that kind of world, and Gil is FLAUNTING those chops here! Truly revelatory. I love hearing all the ensemble flubs, the laughing at them (but always the kind of laughter that means "I'll get it right NEXT time, dammit"), Ernie Royal flubbing that high note, Miles REALLY fucking up, all of it. For years, I've admired MILES AHEAD more than loved it, because although it is incredibly beautiful, there's an austerity to it that too often told me to look but not touch. My problem, I know, but hearing the "work in progress" adds a VERY real "human" dimension to the album, and has forever changed how I hear the final result. Quite a feat for a piece of "product", I'd say.... MOST favorite moment - the end of the one session where George Avakian thanks everybody, and its time to pack up and go home. You can feel the good vibes in the air. Imagine what it was like to have played on those sessions - at the end of the day, you'd have busted your ass playing some insanely difficult music AND YOU MADE IT WORK. You'd almost HAVE to know that you were participating in history, and you'd almost have to be thoroughly pumped about it. That's the vibe I get all throughout this Disc 4, but especially when the boss comes on and sends everybody home. And Miles' little comment, "Hey George...." If you can't hear a larger-than-life smile in THAT.... I know that some people find this Disc 4 "too much", and I can see their point. But for me, it's an incredible document, and worth the cost of the whole set alone. Well, that and "Falling Water".

I've seen the original Lp, and his name does not appear anywhere on it either. But that sound is unmistakable!

...and Dallas continues to raise the bar for cultural suckage...

As far as BEATLES FOR SALE (and a lot of HELP) goes, the "problem" for me isn't so much the songs as it is the playing on a lot of them. It's just strumstrumstrum, w/o the energy that made their earlier stuff so infectious or the adventurousness that made what came afterwards so intoxicating. By and large, the stuff just sits there. It's not really "bad", it's just not in that Beatlezone.

I don't know that HE did anything in particular, but what George Martin might have done (either on his own or at Lennon/McCartney's instigation) is a whole 'nother thing...

Yes! Jim, I apologize for my part in what happened to your thread , but then again....., what the hell did you expect with this crew? Tell me 'bout it....

Fascinating info you dug up there Eric! Who've thunk that there would be a Desmond-organ connection?

I bit the bullet and spent money that I had but shouldn't have spent if I was a REALLY responsible individual buying up all the metal-spine edition sets over the last few weeks (I only had the Miles/Trane set previously), because I'm a geek. The music is really that special to me and I wanted to have it as "deluxely" as possible while it was available in such a manner . I just think that the metal spine is cool, if expensive. Interestingly enough, finding the older sets at local retailers was not a particularly easy task. It seems that the "sendback" operation has begun in some places, which either means that you get them now if you want them, or that they will soon be clearance items at ridiculously low prices. Some things I'll gamble on, but this was not one of them. Either way, they's some hellaciously good packages.

Perhaps it was written for the Berkeley concert? But not performed because of it's length and/or difficulty? "Falling Water" seems to have been a "challenge in and of itself, and w/not unlimited studio/rehearsal time... Just a conjecture.

Ok, specifically the days of BEATLES FOR SALE, that would be fair.

Yes!

Yeah, colors. Such an important element in the way some people hear and write. It's funny, but as much as I love ALEGRIA, there were moments in the scored ensemble passages when I found myself thinking how much "better" it would have sounded with synthesizers at least added to the traditional instrumentation. Heresy in some quarters, I know, but the colors that the electronic instruments in the right hands have become such a natural part of my "hearing" that I instinctively hear certain things with them in mind. Gil, Wayne, & Zawinul have gone a long way towards enabling me to hear electronic textures as being as potentially "natural" as accoustic ones, and I thank them profusely for that!

I like "Wild Honey Pie" better than the regular "Honey Pie". It's more drugged out. But I like The Beach Boys WILD HONEY" (song AND album) better than either of'em!