patricia

I don't mean that the talk-show host would have to be combative, but I don't think any of the ones on your side of the line have ever done anything other than buss celebraties' butts. Witness the appearance of Mr. G. on the "Oprah" show, some years ago. Of course he came in from the back of the venue, through the crowd of mostly Oprah fanatics, holding that one note. I would suggest our own Vicki Gabereau, who, while not combative, has a way of cutting through the crap and showing the guest as a real person. Mr G would doubtless get to do his held-note thing, but at least she wouldn't gush all over him. Just asking him if he thinks that what he does is Jazz might be a start.

Well, maybe it's a tossup.

Yeah, the Wash. Post ran some piece a few days ago that had some Santas pulling in $30K for a one month tour of mall duty (10-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week). That's alota TOCJs. And in some malls, thirty grand is cheap at twice the price. Imagine yourself stuck for ten hours per day, seven days a week, in a hot, synthetic Santa oufit, including fake beard and mustache, sweating like crazy, listening to a bunch of mostly snot-nosed spoiled, rude brats demanding stuff. So, seventy hours a week, times four weeks at thirty grand works out to two hundred and eighty hours. So, they get paid just over a hundred bucks an hour. [my math is laughable, but I think I'm close] But, it's only for a month and even so, I wouldn't do it.

So, HAH. Up here, in the wilds of Calgary, whether we are Santa, or not,we don't put up with no crap from our young 'uns. heh heh........

I have a feeling that I have already met the twenty-two jazz fiends in Calgary. This is a pointy-boot, big hat town, with a tiny, tiny jazz community, except for in July, when we have a really good Jazz Festival. So, that's why I mentioned Calgary as a good place in July for Jazz. Other times of the year, not so much.

Considering that Larry King is as sharp as a bag of wet mice, if you sent your suggested question directly to him, in the event that Kenny G is appearing, it just may get asked. It would certainly be a lot more direct than the butt-kissing questions he usually asks on his show. If you tried to ask it of him yourself, you would have to get past the "screeners", who are slightly smarter. May the Almighty JazzForce be with you on your noble quest to bring the truth to the masses.

One thing that I've found helps, sometimes. You know how some people eat in the evening, well, stop that. Have a satisfying dinner and then don't eat anything before you go to bed. I used to think that it was my then husband's snoring which kept me awake, but I was off-base. That woke me up, if I was already asleep. So there is, I think, a difference between interrupted sleep and insomnia. As for exercise being a sleep-inducer, my routine is to run in the morning. I don't feel comfortable running late at night, due to perceived n'er do wells abounding on the streets of the city. The most annoying thing is if I stay up really late, which I tend to do, and then, having gone to bed at 2AM, wake up at 4:30 or so and, though tired, can't sleep. When I wake up, I'm not tired, so I start doing stuff, knowing full well that I have to go to work and that I will be a zombie by 3PM. But, there seems little point in staying in bed if I'm not sleeping. And, so it goes......

Chicken. Egg. My head hurts. Maybe the Phillips' star-shape would have been too difficult, the the Robertson square would have been, IMO, more stable and not that hard to teach people to use.

After reading the news of Kenny G's attempt at destroying the small amount of Christmas Spirit I had managed to muster, I felt that strong measures were required, to stop the inexplicable ringing in my ears. So, I poured myself a glass of good red wine [cork, not screw-top], quickly perused my meagre Christmas library of music and selected these as an antidote: In The Christmas Mood - The Glenn Miller Orchestra Christmas Cookin' - Jimmy Smith The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole [old, hackneyed, but I was desparate, OK?] Christmas With Mahalia - Mahalia Jackson and In The Nutcracker Mood - Glenn Miller Orchestra Please, I beg of you. Mention not the name of Kenny G, ever again, especially when my grip on Christmassy joyousness is tenuous. Thank you and Merry Christmas All!!

At the risk of sounding like a small, curious child [which isn't a bad idea], it seems to me that the design of the Robertson [square] or Phillips [star-shaped] would have more firmly connected the CD to the turney-thing on which it plays. However, unless you have a square or star-shaped finger, the fumbling would have been made more complicated, on the CD's trip from the jewelcase to the player. So, you would be solving a problem that really isn't a problem with one which would cause annoyance as CD's careened across rooms for lack of a convenient finger-hole. Speaking of nose-navigation, I'm reminded of an incident of just that. My daughter wasn't walking yet and was just about to perform some probing with her finger. I was sitting right beside her and frowned, telling her, "Don't put your finger in your nose!!" In a split second, she grabbed MY pinkie, with the intent of using it for the operation. Who says kids don't listen?

Thanks Scott. Annoying problem though. I do need to sleep and it is most frustrating not to be able to stay asleep. I suspect that it is the baggage on my mind. If I can get my head on straight, I'll probably sleep again. YAWN

Just saw this thread and have been up since 3:45AM, having gone to bed at just shortly after midnight. I think that my sleeplessness is a result of a combination of stress, seasonal depression and uncertainty about the future. Would therapy help?? I don't think so. The down side, aside from not feeling comfortable with starting my day that early with my usual two-mile run, is that I WILL get tired by mid-afternoon and won't be able to go to sleep, the day's activities not having suddenly disappeared. It's a dilemma. One thing though about sleep patterns. When I was going to college, I used to work in the summer at a job that was midnight to 7AM. I found that if I re-configured my day so that when I came home from work, I ate a light meal, then stayed up for about four hours, went to bed for about six hours, ate a light meal, carried on my daily business and socialized after that, then went to work again it seemed to regulate my life. A couple of years later I had varying shifts and my body never did accustom itself to the different times I ate, slept etc. So I think that a routine is more important than what the routine is. At least, seems to be.

Who were those people?? How sad.

Really! I was born on Jan. 10th. Just like Rod Stewart, Frank Sanatra, Jr., Mike Stern, Pat Benatar, Sal Mineo, George Foreman, Rasputin, Max Roach, William Parker, Houston Person and Andrew Cyrille. And me.

And each one more handsome than the one before.

Good for them. Many happy years to them.

OK, Revised: Ann Arbour Chicago [if Organissimo gets the gig] Lansing [hey, I've never been to Lansing and we could liven up the burg for a couple of days. St Louis

Happy Birthday Phil!! Watch the cake consumption and only judicious quantities of the champagne.

Now Ann Arbour looks good and all that needs to be determined is when. As I mentioned, anytime after the end of June would be good for me. I'd really like a couple of months lead time to make plans, but, as has been mentioned, by everyone, the thing is to get together and a gig in Ann Arbour would be a great place to do that. It seems a little livelier than Lansing, no offence to Lansing, of course.

Looks like a new poll is in order Actually its a well argued point, Ed, the one thing that would concern me is that the event would need to coincide with a gig, and I wonder how far in advance that notice could be given? Ed made several good points. My vote, this time, was still for Lansing, for the reasons I stated before, but of course, the majority rules. Chicago and St Louis were the next in line for me. I don't want to end up in Lansing, if everyone else is somewhere else. The whole idea is to get together in a location that is fairly easy to get to, and if we hear the band too, well that would be icing on the cake. The first consideration is getting together and meeting our fellow board members. If it's too far, or too expensive, that may discourage some from attending, so maybe put that into the equasion. That's not an issue for people who live in the area, but it is for people like me who have to come a fair distance and aren't millionaires.

I'm late, as usual, to the discussion, and I'm too lazy to review the thread. So, forgive me if this suggestion has already been made. I'd like to hear the band's take of "Walk On The Wild Side". Although I first heard it, too many years ago, by Elmer Bernstein on the soundtrack of the mediocre movie of the same name, it was my reintroduction to jazz. So, it's kind of a sentimental choice for me. I know that it's been done by Jimmy Smith and also, as a vocal, by Brook Benton. But it is kick-ass. If there's still room, "Walk On The Wild Side", please.

OK, Here are a couple of nicknames by which jazzers were widely known. It isn't just the name's origins which would be enlightening, but a discussion of the person's contribution to jazz, as an expansion of the topic. I guess what I mean is that bringing the various artists to the fore, by talking about their interesting nicknames, we could learn more about them. So, Let's start with Gene "Jug" Ammons. It would seem too simple to assume that the "Jug" moniker could have been because he was a heavy juicer. That wouldn't have set him apart from the many other jazzers who also were. Gene was with the Billy Eckstine band from 1944-47 and then he worked with his father, the fabulous Albert Ammons, under his own name. He was also featured in the Woody Herman band in 1949, before going with Sonny Stitt in 1952, co-leading a two tenor septet. There were a couple of speed-bumps in his career road in 1958-60 and again in 1964-69 due to drug offences. Ammons made one European trip in 1973, but died, at forty-nine from pneumonia, just after a successful appearance at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Ammons' tenor style has often been compared to that of Lester Young as well as Ben Webster. However, his was unique to him and not a imitation of either one. It was a tone similar to Webster's with lines that bring to mind Young's lines. I particularly like his ballad-playing, but I like ballads. His style in turn influenced many later players, such as Johnny Griffin and Clifford Jordan. The interesting thing to me is that any innovations that Ammons brought to jazz were soon absorbed into the total language of jazz and are not generally credited to Ammons' as original. Ammons' 1950 tune, "Gravy" was the basis for the standard, "Walkin' " which was copyrighted by Ammons' manager, Richard Carpenter. So, the nickname thing is just a jumping off point for more information about the possesser of the name and I think could help us know more about the artists. By starting with the nickname, it would, I think, be an interesting direction to bring the standard bios of familiar and not so familiar ones into the light and find out more about them. For example, Mildred Bailey signed her early photographs "Face Bailey". Does anyone know why? She had another nickname, "The Rockin' Chair Lady", which stemmed from her hit, with Whiteman's orchestra, "Rockin' Chair", odd one for a young woman, which she was at the time. So, start with the nickname, and if you know where it came from, good, but tell us about them and their career.

Carrying over a joke from another thread. I don't own a gun, Patty, and wouldn't know how to shoot one. Well, I guess i could figure it out, but my aim wouldn't be very good and I'd be afraid of the loud bang. Whew. That's a relief. We Canadians are actually a peaceful people and ownership of my firearms was hereditory, and both are registered. They were my father's. Yes, I can use both, but don't and haven't for decades. So, fear not. As for the apparant shift toward Chicago, the majority is still to be heard from. I am still in the Lansing camp and would rather go to a specific one or two day deal, to see the band and meet the Organissimo board members. So, no surprise, I'm still for Lansing. And B-3, with all of us there, Lansing will become much more lively, at least for a couple of days. Hide your booze and women and take the kids off the streets!! Going to Chicago or to St Louis for the events there is another thing, I would think.

Aye.

Well we'd have to have a private concert for y'all because we do not get any gigs in Lansing. We play in Grand Radpis (1 hr. west of Lansing), Ann Arbor (1 hr. east of Lansing), Holland (1 1/2 hrs. from Lansing) etc. But no gigs in Lansing. Lansing is dull. Great place to raise kids (nothing happens)... not a good place for artists. A private concert would be terrific in Lansing, Jim. At Joe's place of course (with guns! ) Hey conn, what's with the "with guns"? I am at a disadvantage, since nobody else has to cross the Northernmost border, from the wilds of Canada, where oddlly enough, everyone doesn't have guns. I, on the other hand do, as I mentioned earlier, so, if you are a moose, or a target, watch out. I like the idea of Organissimo playing, just for us though. I'd be willing to go to Lansing, or wherever that could be arranged, if it could be arranged. It's not uncommon for like-minded folks to congregate somewhere for a specific purpose, as part of a larger travel plan, including the gathering in that larger plan. Like Ed, I have no knowledge of the area at all, so I agree that the spirit of the hang was to hear the band and get together as a group and meet each other.