Big Wheel

I started out playing 7-stud and Omaha but eventually shifted to Hold 'em. I will occasionally play (mainly 7-stud) in the local Indian casino when I go home to Miami but have generally stuck to home games lately as the rake is just too freakin' high there. Also the regular players there expect you to tip the dealer on EVERY hand you win, no matter how low the pot, so it's nearly impossible to really come out ahead. Still need to work on being disciplined and playing tight early, just getting a feel for the other players in the beginning. My shorthanded play is often way better than my game when there is a full table for this reason--also, at this point I'm still much more of an intuitive player rather than a human odds calculator. Won a little home tournament last December and took home $90; that's the extent of my big winnings at this point. It was pretty hilarious--my friend told us that his neighbor hosts a game every Saturday night or so, so we went to check it out. Turned out his neighbor is Russian and invites his Russian buddies over; there were 3 college kids, the dad of one of the college kids, and 5 Russian guys (all speaking Russian with one another)...you can kind of see the "Rounders" angle developing here. Everyone I knew got knocked out very early so it was me on one side of the table and the 5 Russians on the other. Took me a little while to figure out that about 3 of them were complete fish...

This may be simply because AFAIK it was on the Blue Note Board that the term "JRVG" was coined, so the term is not in wide use outside the jazz bulletin board community. The Japanese, of course, just refer to them as the TOCJ 9000-series, right?

Yeah, that version of Meditations on Integration is a killer. It's often hard for me to focus on the rest of the album after I hear it, though. The Far East Suite take is also very nice. One that hasn't been mentioned yet is NEVER GIVE UP, which I picked up cheap at Tower one day. Some of the tracks don't do it for me (there is a spoken word poem against the WWII internment that I don't find very interesting) but the version of A Night In Tunisia is very cool with Fred Ho on bari.

The Atlantic New Orleans Box, discs 1 and 2 so far. I can see why some might be turned off by the intonation problems on the outdoor recordings on disc 1, but damn, they are playing with so much spirit that I don't care. And those rhythm sections...! Wow. This is such great, raw stuff, and while it's probably not quite the ame as hearing these bands doing it in the 1920s, I can hear the connection to those groups for sure.

Will you have a car? Miami is not a particularly easy city to get around if you do not. There is a Holiday Inn right across US 1 from the university. There is also a Marriott about 3 miles to the south; it is right next to the Dadeland South Metrorail station, and you can take the train to the University stop. There are others that may be preferable to these, but if you don't have a car it could prove hard to get around. As for live jazz...there ain't much. There is a bar called Titanic right near the university on Ponce de Leon just north of Red Rd., but it used to have more jazz than it does now (they had weekly jam sessions but AFAIK those are no more). The best place in Miami is the Van Dyke Cafe on Miami Beach--sometimes they have "name" people, but not frequently. It looks like Mike Orta, a very good piano player who I took a couple of lessons from, is holding down Monday and Tuesday nights (see here-- http://donwilner.bizland.com/experiment.htm ). There is another club on Miami Beach called Jazid, but it mostly features acid jazz/electro-pop these days. There is also a place in Liberty City whose name I forget but is supposed to feature good local players. You may be better off trying Ft. Lauderdale...

PM me if interested. Greg Osby: Man-Talk for Moderns, vol. X, used, in decent condition: $7 including postage Also for sale: Blue Note label t-shirt (not the recent Ropeadope shirts--this is the older white one with the blue LP label on the front). Size L, never worn, tag from Blue Note still attached. $6 including postage. I also have a number of the recent Mosaic brochures (#51--two copies, #52, and #54) as well as the two most recent True Blue brochures. These are free with purchase of either of the above items; otherwise, whatever the postal costs turn out to be--probably about a buck if you just want one. Check or money order is fine by me, or cash if you're feeling brave.

Getting there. I'm on a CD buying moratorium right now but will start to pick these up as soon as I have, um, a job...

Two I forgot that may qualify as essential: Sabu Martinez: "Palo Congo" Art Blakey: "The African Beat"

Does Sonny Clark's "Leapin' and Lopin" count as obscure? Also a vote for the 1963 session with Tony Williams on Jackie's "Vertigo."

On the one hand, Kaufman's cause of death is pretty strange. Kaufman was a nonsmoker, yet he supposedly died of rare "large cell carcinoma," which seems to be caused primarily by smoking. But why are there no photos? You'd think if Kaufman was really back he'd make a huge splash instead of setting up a random blog without any pictures...

A quick "up," since I see our resident Thailand expert is on.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/nogas.asp

Curious, I did a quick search about Kiedis's experience and found this page. It sounds like Kiedis got a bad case of dengue along with the usual diarrhea and leeches, but that wasn't necessarily related to the roach or whatever it was crawling in his ear. They were in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, which is much further from civilization than we're gonna be. And they weren't using mosquito netting for some reason. Dengue is no picnic, though, and I'm more concerned about that than I am about malaria.

Fun! We actually will be on Borneo, with 3 days in Kota Kinabalu. With that kind of timetable, however, we won't be able to stray too far into the interior, so I'm not too terribly worried about tropical diseases. (Isn't the only malaria-carrying bug the mosquito?)

Ok, just about everything is booked now. We are flying into Bangkok June 21 and spending 4-5 days there, 2 in Chiang Mai, followed by about 10 days in Malaysia, 3 in Singapore, and 8-9 days on Java and maybe Bali. (We ended up scrapping the "special ticket" idea as it turned out to be ridiculously expensive). I figure it would take about a month to even begin to explore just Bangkok, but I'd welcome any suggestions anyone might have. Also, if anyone here has flown Air Asia before I'd be interested in hearing your opinions. We've already booked all our tickets (except the flight between the States and Thailand) with them but I wouldn't mind knowing what we're in for. With no ticket over $40 one way, they were kind of hard to turn down.

Up next I'm gonna buy that piece of $#@% Sharon Jones album mentioned over in Recommendations along with Diz's #$%#$%@ "AFRO" and maybe some of those @#%$ Connoisseur Larry Young titles. AAAAUGH! (Can you tell I'm on a self-imposed moratorium right now?)

I guess Mosaic changed their mind. Maybe they noticed they have too much inventory. So I can buy it cheaper $37.50 from CDUniverse, than Mosaic ($39.00). Oh, yeahhhhhhhhhhh. You save a big $1.50! Considering that CD Universe's shipping tops out at $7, you may save a bit more than that if you order other items along with the Select.

Sadly, I do not think we managed to get the East Wind LPs. The rest of those '70s albums are great though. I think I do remember seeing "From California with Love" in the bin. My guess is that it will be played right when the program starts again on Friday at midnight ET.

I've forgot to mention this earlier, but my radio station is playing most of Andrew Hill's recordings (as a leader and a sideman) this week. The show will be on mostly in the mornings (5am--1pm ET). You can listen at http://www.whrb.org and check out the program guide at http://www.whrb.org/pg/MayJun2004.html . Also on tap this month is a big Mingus program, among others. On Now: Divine Revelation

Dan beat me to the punch on the Blue Note recommendation. One correction: I believe the "Tower Records" he is talking about is actually the Virgin Megastore in the Sunset Place mall.

Marcus, Sent you a PM.

It's all over...almost 7 million hits at this point. Winning bid: $3850!

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but a-MEN to that. Strangely enough, the first time I really "got" Ray Charles was when I saw him doing some weird NBC weekend special that featured figure skating to the music Ray and the band played live on the side of the rink. I had to run to the piano to figure out what he was doing posthaste!

Crazy. I had no idea Gordon Parks was also the director of the original version of SHAFT.

Marty, did you pick these up at a FYE? I was in their Coconut Grove store when I was home a few weeks ago and picked up a bunch of remaindered Bethlehems, only then the deal was 2 for $5, not 3 for $5.