chris

There were points at which I bogged down in the Hamilton books too-- but I REALLY wanted to see what the outcome would be. They were uneven, but definitely interesting. I didn't realize Vinge started that long ago-- loved Fire Upon the Deep and Deepness in the Sky but am anxious for something new! Hey, I just became a groover! Where's the icon for that

OH yeah, I really should have mentioned Jonathan Lethem. I've read everything of his, though I was disappointed in Fortress of Solitude-- Motherless Brooklyn was amazing and his more sci-fi kind of books are a trip. I wrote a review of David Long's book Blue Spruce and ended up having an email conversation with him (years ago now) about when his next book would be out-- and when it finally did I bought it but never got around to reading it. I think it's called The Dangling Boy? I better get on that...

Discussion about reissues and desires that items stay in print forever has brought to mind a question I've thought about often-- am I a collector (fledgeling) or a dedicated listener? Or both. I wouldn't want all CDs to be in print all of the time because then some of the fun of searching for that rare title-- the "joy of the chase"-- would be gone. And on the collector's side, I do catalog all my collection in a database and I rarely get rid of anything except an exact duplicate. I even keep a few titles that are also represented by, say, a Mosaic collection. I like the collector aspect, making it kind of a hobby rather than a contest about who has the most money. But at the same time, I am not a completist by any means. I don't purchase CDs that I don't plan to listen to or just because they are by a certain artist or complete some kid of theme. I don't feel like I am in competition with anyone else. I love the music. And when I want something that is OOP, I am ok with procuring a CD burn, because it is still about the music (however, if I can find the real thing later, I will take it!). And while I think I have a collector's impulses, Jazz (and books) are the only areas that have really stuck with me, whereas other obsessions (fountain pens, chess sets and memorabilia) have come and largely gone.

I didn't see it mentioned, but I like Steam -- a cpuple of great cuts there...

We always open one present on Christmas Eve and then the rest the next morning, though this year we wont be celebrating until we get done travelling, so Jan. 5 -- why wasn't that day on the poll?

The music is ultimately the most important, and given the choice of something or nothing, I would take the "something." But I am also a collector, so I want the "right" cover art, professionally printed, a pressed and lacquered CD, not a CD-R, etc... In a way, the fact that things can go OOP supports the collectors and makes things more fun. Otherwise it's just a matter of money and more money...

I don't think the tkxx is the take number for an individual track because some of the tracks say alt take in the description (like tk6)-- and 17 takes for one song? Maybe... I guess it could be the track number within a session-- so "The Lights Are Low" was track #17 on the tapes from the session-- except that there is duplication WITHIN a session, since the listing I gave is all from the same session according to the notes. Daniel's explanation makes some sense too, though if the Mosaic is the "complete" sessions, what happened to all those in between-- if "The Lights Are Low" is #17? Since 12-16 (at least) appears to be missing

I was listening to the Curtis Fuller Mosaic tonight and realized that the notation for the discography in the booklet for each disc doesn't make sense. Specifically, on the insert for disc 3, I see a listing like this (in part) tk5 - Down Home - UAS 5041 tk6 - Down Home alt tk - Unissued tk7 - CTA - UAS 5041 tk17 - When Lights Are Low - - tk4 - I wonder Where Our Love has Gone - - tk5 - Bongo Bop - - My question is, what does the first tkxx refer to? It can't be the track number on the original recording where the song was issued because there would have to be two Track 5 cuts on UAS 5041 (Down Home and Bongo Bop). It isn't the track on the Mosaic disk (wrong song, and there are only 10 tracks). Neither of them is unissued because it would say so, as it does for one song, whereas the second tk5 just as a dash indicating, as far as I can tell, "same as above"

I was actually thinking of Twilight Zone, which I thought was a 60's show, but I guess it started in 1959-- oh well, it's all way before this youngster's time

Don't feel bad-- I haven't heard these discs yet, but I remember being extremely chagrined to find out that the female singer I identified while listening to the radio (in a sad attempt to impress my non-jazz friends at my sincerity) turned out to be Chet Baker And then there is the Chris Isaak/Sade vocally separated at birth thing...

Conn, you are stronger than me by a good 150 points-- I wish you luck making your master norm. Will this be your first? Does your system use norms? Hey, I'm hijacking my own thread!

Wel, to bring two threads together, Isaac Asimov's annotated Shakespeare is really underrated... not as scholarly as some (one of my college instructors was a Shakescholar and a senior editor for Riverside editions-- Asimov's notes are different from those) but great for enjoyment...

Well, the main problem I see is that one of the shows wasn't from the 50's at all, I don't believe. I am humming the eery theme melody as I speak...

I still turn to sci-fi now and again. Most recently the Peter F Hamilton Reality Dysfunction/Neutronium Alchemist/Naked God set of books. I love golden age sci-fi and space opera. And the "classics" such as Clarke, Heinlein... Asimov has been a favorite since I was a kid. Not too long ago I read through most of the Prelude and Foundation books again. More recently I like Neal Stephenson, Sean McMullen, Vernor Vinge-- if it isn't old and cheesy I like it grand and sweeping...

I like Harper's, New Yorker (parts of it), Natl Geographic, various science magazines, news magazines-- Foreign Policy is probably my favorite magazine that isn't a variety mag... I saw in another thread that you are getting back to chess studies. I used to have a serious chess addiction. I've largely given up the game though I have numerous sets and a few shelves of the best books (sold/gave away the rest) and I try to follow chess news (as strange as that sounds to non-chess folks) off and on. I finally decided I would never be as good as I wanted to be and I wanted to spend more time listening to music and obsessing over jazz CDs, poetry, and books-- something had to give Occasionally-- as a change of pace-- I still curl up with a book of Edward Winters chess lore, or CJS Purdy columns, or just some good middlegame positions to ponder. Or play lop-sided blitz chess with my kids (I get two minutes, they get 20 or 30, that kind of thing).

Chris - I'm just embarking on this as we speak. I'm up to page 130 or thereabouts. The way I'm going these days, this hefty, er, tome will take me six months to get through. I'm sure I'll slip in a couple of trashy mysteries/thrillers along the way. I had never heard of this author before, so in the absence of a book equivalent of AMG, I turned to the reviews at amazon.com. They're a riot. I've discovered that what a certain kind of American reader means when they say there is "no plot", what they actually mean is there "NO ACTION". And for characters to be acceptable, they must never be losers or geeks or otherwise unattractive - no matter how well or convincingly or movingly they are depicted. Stephenson has written some fairly innovative science fiction-- if you like sci-fi, he's worth reading. His last book (before Quicksilver) is called Cryptonomicon-- and it is kind of a geeky semi-historical thriller involving spies, code breaking, etc. before/during/after WW II. Quicksilver is actually the first of three prequels to Cryptonomicon-- so some of the families and perhaps characters (Waterhouse, Enoch Root) from the former show up in the latter-- I don't want to say more than that and be a spoiler. Quicksilver is very different from Stephenson's other book (though like the previous work it is large and not tritely plot driven, as you've already noticed) because it is set so much further back in time and it is MUCH funnier. And depressing. And disgusting. And exhilarating. I envy that you are reading it for the first time Hard to believe there are two equal-sized volumes to come and I guess they are done or mostly done as they are coming out fairly soon (rather than the 5 year wait or so for this volume)...

Salvadoran tamales? Sounds excellent. My aunt, born in Mexico, makes tamales to die for-- pork, chorizo/peppers/pork, and some sweet cinnamon and cinnamon/banana (!)-- I can make an OK tamale, but like my pie crusts, it is far from my most competent dish. Now I'm hungry...

Jazzbo: I get a lot of books from Daedalus too-- an affordable way to get good books I know and allow for some serendipity when I don't. My taste is all over the map. As a sample, some recent reads include: Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (highly recommended) Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity - David Foster Wallace (likewise) A history of cult movies whose title escapes me at the moment Ten Little Indians - Sherman Alexie (always good) The Neutronium Alchemist/Reality Dysfunction - Peter F Hamilton (6 book sci-fi series-- uneven but worthwhile) Straight Life - Art Pepper A collection of Nabokov's letters to Edmund Wilson (a lot of fun-- highbrow literary one-upsmanship run wild) Monkey by Ch'Eng En Wu (a mid-length version translated by Waley)

Ah, a Joyce fan! I have to admit that I prefer the understandable Ulysses to the more opaque and musical Finnegans Wake -- but if Joyce ever wrote anything bad, I haven't read it. Dubliners practically changed my life when I first started writing!

I keep all mine (I only have around 750) in two discsox chests... all alphabetical by artist and alphabetical by title within each artist. I just use whatever artist strikes me as being top-billed or more important if they are both listed in the title-- so Mulligan Meets Monk goes under Monk, everything with Coltrane in the title goes to Coltrane, etc... My only categories are Jazz/Blues, Soundtracks, Miscellany (things like Jazz Improv and other magazine discs, burned compilations, etc). Oh, and I have a bootleg section for live recordings and other somewhat "legitimate" bootlegs, as oxymoronic as that might sound.

Count me in-- whoever matches names might want to set up some of the obvious veterans with others of like mind-- I can just imagine me, who a year ago was vexing Chuck Nessa with questions like "what is that irritating clicking sound in the bass of Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard-- is that supposed to be there?" trying to figure out something to burn/copy/buy/etc for him

I didn't know it was possible to see to many vaginas I'll try to find a used copy-- I found a few conflicting reviews, though the major dissenter appeared to be convinced that comparing music and visual arts was a complete nonsensical proposition in the first place, thus invalidating most of the book. But in the abstract, I don't agree with this...

1. There's not enough of the dat-dat-do-dah there 2. These white cats just can't swing, you know what I mean? They're all da-da-do when they should be dat-dat-dah-du 3. Whoever this is, they remind me that jass is not about the music, it's about what's *inside* man, but you can't be *inside* and *outside* at the same time unless you are playing *outside* and *in* 4. Sorry, I wasn't listening, but I'm sure that you can see how that track goes back to the rhythmic squeaking and wailing-- yeeoowww-mama-- of the chains and ropes that enslaved our people when we were making the real pure music... More after I figure out why I lost my gig at the Lincoln Center... wynton

While looking for information on the book Jazz Modernism, I came across this snippet of an interview with the author, which got me to thinking-- what kind of books do you jazz fans like to read? What about the musicians among us? *** (from http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/linernote..._modernism.html) JJM Is there any evidence to suggest that jazz musicians were readers of any particular writer, let alone readers of James Joyce? AA Not much. There was an interview in the Wall Street Journal recently on Artie Shaw, who has always been self consciously quite literary, who lamented the fact that there weren't more literary jazz musicians. He mentioned Bud Freeman and Paul Desmond as being the exceptions. I don't know how to explain that. It may have to do with education, but can't be sure. ***

Has anyone read Jazz Modernism by Alfred Appel? Your thoughts? I know of Appel through his incredibly good annotations for Lolita, but know nothing of his writing on jazz. I'm not afraid of things getting a little academic, as long as that's not all there is to it...