Big Wheel

This one was taken about two years ago:

Awww...I think's Dan's just bitter that he's gonna have to see his Seminoles get trounced again in the OB by the 'Canes. I was actually hoping for both USC and LSU to lose, causing utter chaos in the BCS. Oh well. Personally, I think the BCS should be reformed (if we have to have it), making the poll average component tied to poll *points* instead of the end poll result. Under the current system a team could finish say, second in the AP polls with 1,455 points and another team would end up third with 1,454 points. That paltry one point ends up making a huge difference in the way the BCS turns out, because schedule strengths often contribute less than a full point to a team's BCS total. That makes it hard for teams to make up the full BCS point they lost as a result of the poll average.

Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/ Ad-aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Most probably. I would download Ad-Aware and Spybot and let 'em do their thang. Even so, they might not wipe out everything--I've had some nagging problems with spyware these last couple of months.

Make that two. Signing off, Funky Beaver

I don't know the details of Mehldau's college career (if there was one), but he did go to Hall High School in Connecticut, which is a pretty well-off public school. It's possible his interests in 19th century German philosophy were nurtured there.

It's ok, I guess. Only listened to it once. What I remember of it was that it was more crooner-type stuff with string accompaniment than "jazz." Neville's voice is pretty good, though.

I was going to check out Lou Donaldson at the Vanguard, but the 9:00 Friday set was sold out so I looked elsewhere. Turned out it was a very good weekend to see alto players in New York: Lee Konitz at Iridium, Frank Morgan at Jazz Standard. I decided to head to the Morgan show, and was not disappointed. Band was George Cables, Curtis Lundy, Billy Hart. Tunes were all standards, and the set went something like this: Confirmation In A Sentimental Mood Impressions Equinox Georgia on My Mind A Night in Tunisia Bessie's Blues I feel like there was one more in there, but can't remember at this hour. The Hart/Lundy rhythm section is unsung, having appeared on Lundy's PURPOSE, one of the greatest straight-ahead records of the last 5 years. It was interesting to hear Morgan, who I wasn't that familiar with. Lots of Stitt in there, at least with regard to his phrasing and the way he spaces his eighth notes. Cables, of course, was a badass. The Jazz Standard is now my favorite NYC club (still haven't made it to the Vanguard yet). Student discounts, comfortable seating, AND no minimum! Next time maybe I'll actually try the barbecue...

On the one hand, these are good prices when you compare them to list prices, but they still aren't that spectacular if you consider that most Blue Note and OJC albums are in this midprice range all of the time. I wonder if Universal has some kind of deal with EBay so they don't have to pay crazy listing fees--as far as I can tell, 95% of their jazz auctions close without anyone bidding!

Only about 100 CDs were covered, most of them either crap or stuff I already had (Kind of Blue, Mingus ah Um), but I did pick up Joni Mitchell's "Blue" and Heavy Weather for $6 each. Nice deal!

Stefan and I agree that the disc is a little bit uneven--the second half is noticeably better than the first.

I got an email about a sale at Tower this Thursday night and Friday morning. They are advertising $5.99 CDs and DVDs. Does anyone know if anything decent will be priced at this level?

AFAIK Petrone is still gigging with the Joyce DiCamillo Trio, along with drummer Joe Corsello. They tour fairly often, if I'm not mistaken.

John, if you want to hear Sunna Gunnlaugs I'm going to play her Live in Europe disc sometime before noon on WHRB today.

kdd's right--this is an older recording. Recording dates are June and August 1991. Sounds pretty good to me...much better than Prescription for the Blues, which I didn't care for at all.

You don't have to qualify for the Boston Marathon to run in it--thousands of people run without qualifying every year. The only advantage of qualifying is that you get a number and that your time is "official."

The ironic thing is that as I understand it, linguists don't do much hand-wringing over the "improper" use of language. My girlfriend is a linguistics major and she's mentioned to me that certain forms that are considered technically "incorrect" by teachers are actually considered OK by linguists, because that's what's entered popular usage. Language inexorably evolves, and that's what linguists are really interested in--the ways in which it mutates over time. I suspect, but am by no means sure, that John McWhorter is in the minority. That said, I still get a kick out of listening to Strong Bad crack on people for their spelling and grammar. (when it's all over, click the beefy arm and then the CD for more songs.)

I just popped in James Carter's new one, "Gardenias," which is a hybrid SACD, into my computer CD drive. This is a CD/DVD-ROM combo player that I think is an NEC DV-5700A model, if I'm reading the Windows Device Manager correctly. Anyway, the CD won't play. When I click on "play CD" in Winamp, only 1 track comes up, it's exactly a minute long, and...it won't play. Searching for the tracks in My Computer brings up nothing, except that the CD apparently contains 1.99 GB of data. Anyone know what the problem is here?

I just tried to access Alan Lankin's page and it looks like it's down. Anyone know what's up?

Eric Reed has a new Christmas album on MaxJazz out. Haven't listened to it yet but will post a quick review as soon as I do.

Yeah, but still, it seems like it would be a little cumbersome. I haven't sat down at an organ in a long time but I would think it would be awkward to set the two keyboards at right angles in this case, what with the pedals and all getting in the way. (Or can you remove the pedalboard?) Then again, I've seen Medeski do some crazy shit with Wurlitzer, B3, and an acoustic piano behind him to boot, so I guess anything's possible.

Listening to this right now. Boulware sounds good on "Live Bait"--is he comping behind his own B3 solo on Rhodes here? I like this track and "Dissertation on the Blues" a lot. "Light My Fire" on acoustic guitar seems a little out of place. Overall, pretty good stuff. Kenwood Dennard is a master of the funk.

It's a hell of a lot of fun. Too bad I have exams in January...

Wow, it looks like none of those items have a reserve. Someone could get real, real lucky...

I've picked up some deals when the local HMV went out of business but nothing even close to that. Why wouldn't they just send the leftover stock to other Sam Goody stores?