Shrdlu

This one really happened. As a young alto player, always eager to blow, I used to go to a club in Adelaide, Australia, where I would sit in with a band for the last set. They had a female vocalist at one time who was pretty good, but didn't read or anything. She did "When I Fall In Love" with the quintet, and there were solos after her chorus at the start. She had no idea where to come in after the solos. The leader came up with "When I give my nod". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- And another Buddy Rich one. A salesman of the Simpsons zit-faced teenager type came up to Buddy and said "Mr Rich, this new bass drum pedal will make you play twice as fast." "Twice as fast as who, kid?"

Well, as Bob has 1066 less posts that I ...

Easy CD creator was our first burn software, and was a pain a lot of the time. Nero is great, and that's all we use anymore.

I second that, Johnny. No more explosions, choppers, "Sarah Conner", etc. I would recommend "Catch Me If You Can". We have our VCR hooked up to the surround hifi, and that movie was a treat with that setup. The orchestra sounds great, and there is a superb alto (sax) playing a difficult chart in the early 20th century French style. The story, mainly true, is intriguing, too.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to hear the greats, and so many broadcasts in recent years, in various countries, have disappointed. I listed a small sample of names that are great. There is no question. And the young 'uns, who may not have heard the greats (in any kind of music), need to hear them as part of their musical education - and also because it is a groove to hear the best. Once again, no disrespect to currently active musicians. Anyway, that's why we have LPs and CDs at home. Funnily enough, I was talking to a cousin who lives in London, England, on the phone last night. She has a lot of contacts and her daughter is a professional singer. "Do you want to be on the BBC?", she asked. So watch out, you may hear the Shrdlu Show! Then the greats will be heard, some Japanese reissues included.

Here is a link, with sound samples: Chamber Music of the New Jazz It seems that they found some nice tapes (but my computer speakers are not very good). The samples that I heard are way better than my scratchy old LP.

Real sorry to hear about all of you suffering with the hurricanes, Minew. Praying for you all. What's this about bike locks and pens?

I have purchased from this gentleman and recommend him. Great guy! How are things, Bob? I'd like this, but ...

I used to have the old Jepsens. Is he completely out of the picture now? There were some charming typos in those. His typewriter didn't have a number 0, so he used to write Roost 221o etc. And I loved "Arnold Fishkind". (I saw that last one resurface recently!)

This is perhaps not exactly the right place to post this, but I really like the McFarland "Today" album. There are some very tasty sounds, especially some very Spanish-sounding acoustic guitar from Sam Brown (who also recorded with Bill Evans the same year, 1969), backed up by a very smooth percussion section. There's also a lot of Hubert Laws, and that can't be bad, plus Ron Carter, very prominent in the mix. No, it's not a hard-core jazz album, but I sure like it. Gary was a very talented arranger and musician. As I mentioned elsewhere, the CD was taken from vinyl, and it wasn't VG+ at the louder points. But the problems are not too serious, and you can still enjoy it all.

I bow to your on-the-spot experience, Chris, but I think your remarks, and those of others, about Orrin and Leonard Feather have been clearly stated by now. All we have now is our personal memories of liner notes and albums, and I am quite happy with what is available to me. And, Orrin does not get to present his case, and, of course, Leonard is no longer with us. After reading such things as Orrin's recollections about the Monk sessions, I just cannot accept that the guy was a total loser. This is not to belittle the role of Bill Grauer Jr. I am not keen on Orrin's prose style, which is a little turgid and could do with a bit of re-phrasing here and there. I think the word "rant" was appropriate, in view of several posts by people on the old BN board about these gentlemen. Anyway, let's move on. Best wishes.

I'm not against them, or you, Ubu. But I am tired of jazz and classical stations that hardly ever play music by the ones that are regarded as the all-time greats. I expect to hear Trane, Miles, Pops, etc, and on a classical station, the people like David Oistrakh and Artur Rubinstein.

This kind of fare reminds me of classical stations where you tune in to hear great musicians and orchestras and you get Milton Fenwick on piano with the Sheboygan Symphony. It's why I don't use the radio much, and we have to fork out for our private collections. (A good exception is the NPR stations with jazz at night.) When I was a teenager, you could hear lots of the top players on the radio, and I learned a lot from that. Australia used to have some great guys on their non-commercial radio: Eric Child, Kym Bonython and Arch McKirdy played a lot of top stuff. Kim used to get all the new Blue Note LPs and "introduced" me to the likes of Horace Silver and Joe Henderson. By all means give relative unknowns a go, but what about the greats?

Let me guess. It's presented by old fogey Lyttleton and features three hours of Acker Bilk and Monty Sunshine's trad bands.

Nice one, Jim. That's worthy of Ronnie Scott at his best. I remember him saying "There's one of my waitresses, working!

I agree about the Riversides. For all the ranting against Orrin Keepnews, that was a great label and produced many a classic album, including the best work by Monk, Cannonball and Wes Montgomery, and a lot of Bill Evans's best work, if not the best.

Enough with the gripes already. We have already praised some good foods and restaurants, such as Southern breakfasts, Waffle House and Ralph's and Kakoo's. So let's have some more recommendations, avoiding places in Manhattan with imported French chefs and $1000 checks that we ordinary mortals could not afford.

I have a daughter, and, sadly, I do know about Mary Brat and Bratley. We even have some shampoo and conditioner with their name on it. My shampoo ran out the other day, so I reluctantly used the Mary Brat shampoo. Uggh! It reeked of something like distilled rancid coconut. Took about a week to get rid of the smell. At least it's not as bad as that Lynx body spray - that stuff would keep Australian mosquitoes away!

I remember the kids' reaction when a Sunday School teacher stated that John the Baptist ate bugs. The word "gross" was in its prime at that time. There was a joke about a posh lady in an English restaurant who was sending back a tongue sandwich. "Tongue!", she said. "I would never eat something that has been in an animal's mouth! Fetch me something else." So they brought her a boiled egg!

On Ren and Stimpy, Powdered Toast Man said that he marginally preferred Shemp over Curley for the Three Stooges postage stamp.

If you attempt to sneak any digital recordings in there, the Sergeant-at-arms will pounce on you and eject you from the chamber.

Maybe, as it is Capitol/McMaster stuff, Mosaic could put out a set of what Michael considers their jazzier output. Access to these recordings would obviously not be a problem. There was something in the notes to the 3 CD "Silent Way" set about Cannonball's group having recorded some of the lesser-known selections in that set. Live, maybe? It would be great if tapes of that could be found.

What a songlist! That must be a great show. That "Jive Samba" is a real groove. I'm glad that the original was reissued (on "Jazz Workshop Revisited", in case you haven't seen it around).

Sounds like I'm not alone in liking "Domination". Real nice sounds. I got it at the same time as "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs", which was also severely panned at the time (amazing, isn't it!). I'm kinda played out on the Mercy song. The leader of a quintet that I used to play in used to call it a lot. It's a bit tedious for me.

I always keep their catalogs for those huge Frank Wolff blowups.