gmonahan

Thank you all! I am SO tempted to use my birthday to spring for the huge Tony Bennett set due next month? Am I the only one ready to lose my mind on that one? gregmo

Thanks for the heads-up on these! gregmo

I'll add my wishes too. Continue to celebrate all weekend. 80 is a milestone! gregmo

The price on a bunch of these seems to have come down to around $7 each from sellers on Amazon. 'Course, that doesn't include shipping. gregmo

gregmo

170 large?!?! Whoa. gregmo

Ella, Twelve Nights in Hollywood, disc four. Great Ella. gregmo

I also loved the photos! I've written Mosaic a few times begging them to finish out the Hodges Verve sessions through the 60s. He did some great stuff during that decade. Yet *another* Mosaic box to wish for! gregmo

That's a fine record. gregmo

The Steelers sure pulled one out of their asses tonight. They better get it together if they want to get back into the playoffs this year! gregmo

I solve this problem by getting rid of clothes, furniture, food, and any stray people or other animals that get in the way of my cds. gregmo

Krakow is very pretty, with a historic university where Copernicus worked. Far less happy but important and deeply moving and nearby that city is Auschwitz. gregmo

Nice story. I don't think I've ever heard a discouraging word said about Tony Bennett. That's pretty rare. gregmo

My father gets it for the crossword puzzle. gregmo

Benny Goodman, The Birth of Swing (1935-1936), disc 2. Surprisingly good sound considering it was remastered in 1990. gregmo

The Andorrans released the Terry/Brookmeyer stuff, and for some odd reason, Jazz Heritage got access to this material years ago. They did a pretty good 2-cd set of Sarah Vaughan's Japanese concert stuff. Never quite figured that one out. gregmo

Good choices. For me it would be: New Orleans Suite Newport '56 70th Birthday Concert First Time: Meets Count Basie Such Sweet Thunder. I also like Jazz Party. Jimmy Rushing is having SUCH a good time! gregmo

Ellington Brunswick Big Band set, disc 11. It's been a great ride listening to these! gregmo

Watch the fly-by footage. It's exquisite. gregmo

It's an old theme on this board, really. To what extent do the personal lives of musicians bear on the music, and to what extent are they anyone else's business? Those uncomfortable with the thread see it as voyeuristic--oh really, HE was *GAY*?? Wow!--and find that distasteful and--perhaps to coin a new word, "tabloidesque." Others feel that the discussion is itself important to supporting those who have suffered appalling discrimination and may also argue as some have on past threads, that the personal lives and experiences of the musicians help to deepen our understanding of their music. I'm thinking here of past, often heated and controversial, discussions on people like Stan Getz. It's an interesting conundrum. I find myself caught hopelessly in the middle. I understand the discomfort, but I also can see Chris's point of view as well. I wonder whether it isn't at least somewhat similar to the whole issue of race and much older arguments about how racial discrimination informed the music and how much it mattered that a given musician was or was not African-American. Or not?! gregmo

LP sequencing can be important if the artist and the producers meant the LP to be sequenced that way, if, in other words, they were consciously creating a concept. I'm thinking here of Sinatra's concept albums, but there have been others. If that's the case, reshuffling the music into precise recording order reeks havoc with the original intention, and I do have problems with that. I'm not arguing that's the case here. The Half Note stuff has always been problematic. gregmo

I just got hold of the Retrieval NORK set, and it sounds pretty good to these ears. Roppolo was something of a revelation for me as I listened to this set. gregmo

Lunceford, disc 2. What a great band this was. gregmo

I'm blowing hot and cold on this one. Verve did a fine 2-cd compilation years ago ("The Jazz Sides on Verve"), and I have several of the individual cds, but I don't have the Jimmy Smith stuff. And it's spendy. Hmmmmmm. gregmo