T.D.

Thanks, John.

Damn. Rivers Orchestra and Tolliver Big Band are Selects I really want...but no way I could have made the trip.

I live in the hinterlands so can't speak to trends, but the two semi-local German restaurants I know of (Mid-Hudson Valley area NY) are doing very well. Granted, they rely heavily on craft beer sales and have made some menu updates (e.g. veg/vegan options). I agree that the traditional "stodgy" German restaurant is fading.

Thinking of picking this up, several years behind the curve as usual. Looking at the track listing, I see a lot of pieces with vocals. All other aspects look fantastic, but to date I've been less fond of Parker's work with vocals (admittedly small sample size, though). Should I go for it anyway?

I'm out in the hinterlands so can't speak to trends, but over the past 2-3 years the local (mid-Hudson Valley, NY) shops that deal in used CDs have greatly expanded the book side of their business and significantly shrunk the CD side. [Added] Same shops also sell vinyl, which seems to be faring much better than CDs.

Thanks for the info on Daedalus. I placed many internet orders with them, but none in the past 2-3 years. Thanks also for the tip on the Strozier. I ordered that plus 4 others (Thad Jones/Sonny Rollins, Oliver Lake, David Newman, Pettiford). Several other titles were interesting, but limited budget so I stopped at a few low-priced ones.

Daedalus/salebooks/salemusic seems to still be in business, but on a greatly reduced scale. As noted, jazz down to 6 titles. Classical down to 42, and the book selection is way down from when I used to shop there. Website was inoperative for an extended period recently. Future does not look promising.

Barry Harris Trio, "Bean and the Boys" from Magnificent!

Ahmed Abdullah - trumpet, flugelhorn Marion Brown - alto saxophone Billy Bang - violin Sirone - bass Fred Hopkins - bass Andrew Cyrille - drums

8/10, but with several guesses.

R.I.P. I'll say no more because many eloquent eulogies will appear in scientific and popular media.

I had to look it up upon reading this thread...

I always use the term "not to my taste." A bit reluctantly, since the phrase sounds prissy and pretentious. However, I'm not a trained musician and can't make accurate technical criticisms, so all my opinions ultimately wind up equivalent to "well, I like/dislike it".

I've gone both ways on the comfort zone issue. In classical music, I was for a long time a "new music enthusiast" and constantly listened to highly avant-garde/exploratory works. But I listen to much less of that now (for instance, I more or less concluded that orthodox Darmstadt-style serialism is not to my taste). I still look for new (to me) areas, though: Renaissance polyphony is a big recent interest. Relative newcomer to jazz (only in the past 15 years did I listen to much outside of Miles). Started out very much straight-ahead bop/hard-bop, but branched out quite a bit over time (Sun Ra is a recent interest) and have begun to find some hard-bop a little stale. I enjoy stuff that stretches boundaries with awareness of bop/hard-bop roots (e.g. the new Braxton Parker box is interesting, but too pricey so I will stick with the old 2 disc set). I'm still a little leery about far-"out" jazz, because some of the sound worlds explored (Bill Dixon for instance; no disrespect intended, just a matter of taste) remind me of the modern classical that I tired of. The way I became a jazz enthusiast early this millennium was funny...Bought my father a Proper box ("Bebop Spoken Here" iirc), listened and was intrigued by the Tadd Dameron tunes. Bought the Coltrane/Dameron "Mating Call" and kept going. I found almost infinite amounts of jazz that was new to me (didn't even know of Horace Silver or what "hard bop" meant at the time), and I overall enjoyed it much more than the avant classical I'd been listening to. I still explore enough so that current tastes are not carved in stone.

Damn. I enjoyed spending lots of time and money in the 2 big NYC Towers (Village and Lincoln Center). The Village location had an annex that sold books and cutout CDs, as I remember; Lincoln Center had incredible classical/opera inventory, and also a bookstore. (My memories of the bookstores are foggy because there were many preferable booksellers in Manhattan). I even blew a lot of money at the (Yonkers? southern part of NYS 100 shopping strip) Westchester branch. It was clear that the chain overexpanded, and the sea changes in music preferences/distribution ensured there'd be no recovery.

It's glib and negative to be a doomsayer, but everything I've heard of / from Mosaic over the past few months clearly spells "liquidation" (I worked in the financial business and have been perusing financial news for decades). Would love to be proven wrong...