JSngry

I believe that was Sonny's recording debut!

So they don't erode after 50 years of constant jukebox play?

don't wear a watch, don't wear a wedding ring either. But I have no interest in extramarital relations. If I'm ever someplace where the time cannot be discerned in 60 seconds or less, it'll be with my wife and we'll not be looking to know what time it is.

The Singles Collection presents 46 tracks on 23 180-gram seven-inch vinyl singles... wow, just like the originals!

Lookin' good!

I'll probably never be sensitive enough to really grab on to this guy's interpretational skill, but I pray that I never get so hard of hearing as to not marvel at what a miraculous instrument he had.

We stopped having the need to itemize a few years ago. as jacked as the latest tax reforms are (and I'll start on that damn POS "form" before even looking at the numbers), that issue precedes them, at least for us. Still, if somebody wants a receipt for tax purposes, that's an option. As for Goodwill, yeah, true enough. But still, if you want to get rid of your stuff someplace besides the trashcan, there they are. Your library won't take it, your universities won't take it, your kids won't take it, damn near nobody will take it. But Goodwill (and Salvation Army) will take it. Your choice is between your conscience and your trashcan (and all the environmental impact that follows from that). Besides - the shit that most of us have is going to sit there a couple of days past forever. However their managers get "rich", it ain't gonna be by selling donated jazz records that even a jazz fan don't really want.

I know, right?!?!?! Sometimes I wonder what Lee Morgan (or Blue Mitchell, for that matter) would have sounded like working with Willie Mitchell. And sometimes I don't. But jeez, between the Monk Higgins halfass nonsense and the Mizell Brothers market-friendly but jazz-clueless projects, why not some realass groove?

If worse comes to worse, Goodwill or Salvation Army will take them, no questions asked. AND give you a donation receipt for tax purposes. They generally leave the itemization fields blank or near blank, so you get to determine the value of your donation. There's nothing easier, really. If you can't find a personally-preferable recipient, there you go. Musical thrifters and grifters across the globe will thank you for your service. Some people are put off by Goodwill's current "corporate structure", and others by the fact that Salvation Army is a "church". Oh well, yeah, that's all true. But they still do some good work anyway AND they'll take your shit off your hands for you about as effortlessly as possible. Life is not perfect, right? The day these outfits stop accepting donations such as this will be final proof that Earth just has too much shit for anybody to deal with.

When I get a stack of unliked LPs of no "collectable" value, I just take them to Goodwill. It's deductible, if you want it to be. CDs too, although I still like to find real homes for those, if possible. But a $2 LP that I bought just to hear it once because I might like it, or just to hear what it was (because there are still a lot of things that I really can't tell what the might actually be, apart from a broad-est stereotype of "genre"), those things I have do problem returning to the wild for some other hunter-gatherer to encounter. Catch-and-release record collecting!

Hell, I watched a Perry Mason the other night where there was a record store that had listening rooms with turntables AND reel-to-reel decks! I vaguely remember that some stores would let you listen to an entire record in those rooms. That was before LPs were sealed, surely.

I'm buying shit blind all the time these days, but it's classical records (99% used, LPs and CDs). I've acquired a basic-enough awareness of names, places, and labels to gladly drop a couple of bucks per platter and having no idea if I'm actually going to like it or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, sometimes I'm not sure. It feels a lot like I felt as a teenager/young adult buying any and all jazz records that were there (and that I could afford), learning along the way, and, especially, the thrill of hearing great, unfamiliar music that I don't yet have a real backstory to/for. Love it when that happens.

Remember the Expos? Should we? or Bryce Haroer, for that matter?

And see, a gentleman of my age remembers when the list price for a new LP bumped up to $8.99 and there was almost a consumer revolt! I distinctly recall building the bulk of my "classic" ECM collection (music which I liked well enough, but not enough to buy at regular price) at $2.99 per LP when WB(?) dropped their distribution deal. Excess inventory abounded, and into the cutout bins they went, priced to move. And at those prices, there were some titles I was less than familiar with, that, oh well, sure, why not, carpe dies, right?

The Meyerson also has such seats. Sat close to them once for Beethoven's 9th, because that was all that was left. There were moments when I could close my eyes and hear the orchestra like it was a cloud of music surrounding me, like right THERE, on all sides. Ecstatically surreal experience. Except - the Meyerson knows what those seats are, those exact seats, and they are priced higher than the regular balcony seats. They know what they got, and they know that the audience knows. But that's only one way to hear a concert. For cost purposes, when we started subscribing to seasons, we got 3rd row, dead center. No more cloud effect, but what we lost with that, we gained in immediacy, more akin to sitting in the band. And we do like to watch the people playing, and the conductor conducting, there's music in that too. Plus, the Meyerson is claimed to be one of those places where "there are no bad seats" sonically. I haven't sat everywhere, but in terms of acoustics, I might well agree with that, stipulating that "no bad seats" does not equate to hearing the exact same thing in all seats. It doesn't. But I've yet to hear the music in a distorted or unbalanced manner.

Fewer record stores + tighter control of inventory contributes to a near-extinction of the "cutout bin", which was often where you could do a lot of exploring for very little money. I'm fully aware of the impact that budget has on ability/willingness to explore more or less blindly. But even with that in mind, sometimes I think you just gotta go there to see if you can get there. If you hear enough about something and it sounds like you might like it, hey, use your chips, take a few dips, see if that snack leads to a meal. If not, walk around the block a few times. I don't usually buy a record because I know I'm going to like it. I usually buy a record because I want to hear it and live with it for an hour/day/week/month/year/lifetime or two. THEN I decide if I like it or not.

The Cardinals play Devil Ball, and sometimes the Devil collects for services rendered. THIS Sentence Is Death, perhaps?

PM on Jimmy Smith -- The Complete February 1957 Blue Note Sessions $70

Not the biggest fan of either player, but this is a nice listen.

Cake for breakfast!

Music for the 5/4 dancefloor peoples. Sweet!

Ursula yet again finding a way to sing without really singing

Gourmet ear candy made with virtuosic nostalgia. 1975...