Shrdlu

It might sound a bit naive, but a few years back, I got a fairly basic black box Kenwood CD player with a 5 CD tray. I'm sure it wouldn't be acceptable to the magazine reviewers (you know, the people who rave about types of connecting wires etc.), but really, it's a very nice deck. It has a very good remote, with lots of buttons, and it will talk to my Kenwood amp through a connection (I forget the name of it). The sound, which is the main thing, is perfect, to my ears. I've used it a lot, and have not had a minute's trouble with it. It cost about $160, from a discount store.

If he couldn't practise, his playing could then be termed avant garde.

Dank u zeer, Hans! It seems that I have been forking out a bit too much. Still, I have not bought a huge number of these CDs, and Ray is very fast and courteous.

Didn't they do some live duo performances in the early 70s? A friend of mine saw Ron play in NYC back then, with a guitarist. I'm not sure, but I think it was Jim.

Does that mean that your friends are mint minus?

The older, jewel case, Japanese Impulse reissues were also K-2s. I have heard very few of these, but one, Milt Jackson's "The Jazz And Samba", is stunning - about the best CD (sonically) that I have ever heard. (Music's not all that bad, either! This is another one that Michael Cuscuna deliberately passed over, and it's very unfair. No train wreck here.)

Too bad that MA was not always as close to MC's home.

I can't remember, Hans, but is Mundo hier klicken cheaper as far as postage goes? I have bought all of my Japanese CDs from them (Ray Mizutani answers the emails) and their service is great. Like Hiroshi, they can get anything that's in print, and they carry some stock, too.

It's a bit similar to having Chuck Israels on Herbie's "My Point of View" album. Seemed like a strange choice, to me. But it worked.

"Bring a friend, if you have one!" - George Shaw, the playwright. That's quite a story, DTMX. I am very impressed with your friend! I have always had a shortage of friends who really like jazz. You can't force it upon anyone, and I wouldn't try. My Dad, who was 31 years older than me, always liked good jazz, and was quite open-minded about recent styles, even though swing was his thing. He liked Trane playing slow numbers, but drew the line at Eric Dolphy! My Dad, and my Mom, who is still alive and well, have been two of my best friends. I also have found that my best friends now are those that I have known since I was a student or grad student. Although I get along very easily with most people, including many with whom I disagree theologically, I have not found it as easy to make good friends in later life as I did when I was younger. I am very glad that I get along pretty well with my neighbors - in fact everything in my home is permanently borrowed from Flanders next-door!

Welcome to my board, ANSL! As Chuck says, the most recent JRVGs are sonically the same as the U.S. RVGs. How do you tell? Well, this has only been going on for about two years, but one sure sign is that if there are (non LP) extra tracks, you can be sure that both are the same. Knowledgeable board members like J.A.K. (Hans) would be able to post complete lists, I'm sure. At the risk of over-over-laboring a point, I recommend the TOCJ ("Blue Note Works") CDs over the JRVGs. They are OOP now, though some stores still have a few in stock. They also float up on eBay. Happy searching!

Yeah, Bruce! I was just playing it again last night. It's a wonderful album. Those really are superb musicians, no question. Another real gem is "Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein". I vividly remember seeing it in the stores when it was first released, but I didn't have the money to get it. There were other things to buy, with my limited funds, including "Time Out" (our first stereo LP, and how excited we were about that - those were the days of introductory LPs with literal ping-pong games on them). Just recently, I got a mint copy, from the proverbial collection of an old professor who "looked after his LPs with great care ...". Side 2, a set of quartet performances of Leonard's tunes, has been reissued on a CD with some unrelated tracks, but Side 1, "Dialogs For Jazz Combo and Orchestra", has not been reissued (unless the Japanese put out a CD for three weeks). This suite was composed by Dave's brother Howard, who also did "Brandenburg Gate Revisited" with the quartet. Leonard conducts the NY Phil on this. The thing really works, and has many special moments. It has become an instant favorite of mine. Howard is very talented, and there are times when it reminds me of Brahms. It was supposedly recorded at Carnegie Hall, but there is no audience noise, and I think it might have been made at 30th Street - that studio was big enough. But maybe they recorded it at Carnegie Hall without an audience. Here's a thought. I wonder how many of the NY Phil guys also recorded with Gil Evans. The quartet tracks (Side 2) are also outstanding, my favorite being "I Feel Pretty", which has their trademark simultaneous 3/4 and 4/4, and a very lyrical Desmond solo in the "Wonderful Copehagen" manner. The album is a delight throughout.

Does a person really need a vaccine? My family and I have just put up with the flu and regarded it as part of life, like gum on the sidewalk.

Re those cellphones: Agreed!

Canadian is just one of my citizenships, ha, ha! Those old 1960s 122s were the models that really put Volvo on the map. They look very dated now, but the B18 and B20 engines were very good, and were carried over to the great 144 models in the 70s. You can still get parts for those 122s! One of them did over a million miles! My '86 model looks a little different! It would have cost a fortune when new, but they last long enough to be affordable second-hand, and that's how I could afford one. It had actually been written off by the previous owner's insurance company, after suffering a small fire under the hood. You would never know that there had been a fire. All it destroyed was the wiring loom, and the guy that fixes Volvos near me simply put in a new loom from a wreck. After a few of the usual minor replacements, it has been a superb car. When I phoned the previous owner, to see if he had any more keys for it, he was ticked off to hear that it was running again. "I loved that car", he wailed.

My son showed me some. I'd rather watch paint dry, or, almost, watch soccer!

Rudy's best ever were those early Monks and Buds, taken directly from the 78 acetates/metal parts. They have to be the best CD reissues ever of those sessions. I also like Rudy's CDs of the rest of the Bud BNs. He seems to have given those special care. I like some of the old late 80s CDs of the BN sessions from the late 50s and very early 60s. For me, Rudy had an especially good studio sound on the original tapes, and the music comes through very clearly on the pre-historic CDs.

Woof, woof, woof! Why not use padded envelopes - the kind with a bubble wrap lining? These work fine and can be bought from places like Costco. It's Bacon!!

Do you mean Shane Warne? He's playing in India right now. The Third Test starts in a few days. Pity the Second Test was washed out on the last day; it was nicely poised.

Berigan, you haven't been in my Volvo! It's an '86 760 GLE, and it goes like a scalded hen. Corners well for such a staid-looking car, too. The guy who repairs it was sitting in the passenger seat recently when I drove him back to his shop, and he said "What do you have in the tank, rocket fuel?" Last night, I left an intersection onto a fast road after a more narrow, slow section, and I saw a fairly large bike in the rear view mirror. He obviously thought he would weave around me and pull away, but he couldn't get near! It must have really surprised him. The same engine is used in one of the Peugeot models, but with an added turbo. That must nearly make it airborne! (I liked the crack on "Car Talk" when the brothers lamented the fact that Peugeots were disappearing from America - they said that they had enjoyed ridiculing them.)

This isn't news to me. A 14-year-old friend of my son's has had a similar one - part of his watch - for a long time. He used it in the classroom at the Catholic School that he attends. The story goes that the nun who was teaching was trying to show a video, and he either stopped the VCR or turned the TV off (repeatedly). She had no idea what was happening! I didn't put him up to it, and told him that he shouldn't have done it, But .

Hey folks! Back off with Chris! All he wanted to do was to post the info. I'm sure you don't really think that Chris isn't aware of the reality of Altzheimer's, and the decisions that families have to make when it shows up. This kind of thing, where a sincere post is dragged into a miry rabbit trail, sometimes makes me very close to staying away. (Now, wouldn't that make some people's day! )

As with jazzypaul's previous example, I've heard that somewhere before. Where did you get that from? I know that Desmond (unfortunately) never got around to writing his memoirs. Has Brubeck done much writing about his years with P.D.? I was afraid someone would ask that, Jim! I saw it very recently on a website about Dave - I was browsing a discography when I came across it. But I don't recall where it was. Paul was working on a biography entitled "How Many Of You Are There In The Quartet?". Having lived at the time of the Quartet's peak years in Australia, and having frequently seen how dumb their TV interviewers were back then, I can well understand how a wit like Paul would use such a title.

This has already been explained, but what he did was to play recognizable snatches of tunes about jails, police, etc. You know, "Workin' On The Chaingang" kinda stuff, I guess. I wasn't there, so I don't know the actual titles. Bird played a bit of "Charmaine" when one guy was late coming in - that's on one of the airshots.

I always felt that there was an "ECM sound". This is not a very scientific study, but I thought that their LPs tended to be rather arty and cold. As an example, Return To Forever's LP was not as funky as their "Light As A Feather" album, I felt back then. (The two LPs were pretty much contemporaneous, as I recall.) I did like the Keith Jarrett 3 LP solo piano set, and the two Chick Corea solo piano LPs, and now have them on CD. Tony, for what my opinion is worth, avoid Lloyd's hippy-era Atlantic albums. I got at least one of them when it/they first came out, and I felt very frustrated by his general refusal to land on any solid chords or melodies. I recall, especially, a blues where I just wished that he would dig in, but he was like a fly that won't land anywhere. Now, Sammy Rivers is a bit like that - for example, on the Larry Young session - but he manages to leave you with a good feeling, which Charles did not. I am not averse to avant garde stuff, and enjoy the late Trane stuff, and Pharoah, when in the mood, so that is not the problem.