Big Wheel

Hmmm, oddly enough, this problem isn't occurring on Internet Explorer 6.

I seem to be having a problem with post width...even when there aren't any big images in a thread, the posts end up being so wide I have to use the horizontal scroll bar to read them. I'm using Opera 7.0, anyone else experiencing this?

It's the Chinatown bus, the best-kept secret in New York and Boston. I think it was started as a service to the Chinese communities, but the buses are usually much more well-maintained than you would expect. Used to cost 20 bucks one way but Peter Pan or Greyhound started dropping their fares to compete, so they lowered their own fare to 10. Leaves every hour on the hour from one Chinatown and drops you in the other.

I ended up getting into the city late and caught the last 30-45 minutes of the Palmieri gig. Pretty good if you don't mind your jazz leaning heavily to the salsa side. Should have gone to the Vanguard last night but ended up skipping it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll make it again some weekend now that fares from Boston are down to $10!

Thanks John, I'd be deeply in your debt! It's still kind of a pipe dream but who knows, if I can get a few decent gigs next year, maybe I'll be able to sock enough away to afford it.

Actually, he still does this for us, and I hope he continues to be so generous. He's a wonderful guy and I enjoy dropping by on Sunday afternoons and chatting with him about the music. Charlie Kohlhase, the local saxophonist, also works at the store some days.

Thanks Ron and David. Unfortunately my girlfriend left Japan a couple of weeks ago, picking me up one JRVG whose title will remain a secret to me until she gets back in the States. If I make it to Japan in a year or two, as is my plan, I'll definitely check out some of those places!

You sure Evans is at Smoke tonight? The schedule at www.smokejazz.com sez that he was only there last night, and tonight is some kind of TBA vocal thing...

Thanks Dmitry. I was thinking of going to see Ahmad Jamal at Iridium but the price is right on this one!

I play piano, which adds an interesting wrinkle to the discussion. This thread was another reminder to me that you don't have to comp EVERY chord as you're soloing (or comping behind a horn player, for that matter). This opens things up and lets you focus more on playing lyrically. It's amazing how underused the left hand is in straight-ahead piano playing, and sometimes I feel like my feel gets thrown off just because I'm trying to give my left hand something to DO, when it doesn't "need" to be doing anything at all. It's one reason I dislike playing lots of tunes that have a quick harmonic motion, especially ones like rhythm changes where the key center isn't changing much...I feel like I have to make EVERY change instead of thinking about what simply sounds good. Right now I'm listening to Ray Bryant comp behind Diz on "The Eternal Triangle" and it's just so simple harmonically speaking, but it works perfectly. Lots of I, V, I, V, not worrying about wedging every VI and ii chord in there. The soloist can imply that by themselves. Less really is more in cases like this. Playing in all keys is one thing I've been really lazy about, but I guess simple tunes like St. Thomas are the best place to start, right?

I'm heading to NYC tomorrow and I checked out the page for this club in Queens: http://www.cwj.net/CookingHomeFS.html . Scroll to the bottom of the page...that does look like other photos I've seen of Ridley, but I'm not certain. Anyone know if Ridley is known to double?

Interesting. St. Thomas is a tune that I've always hated soloing over. For me the rhythm tends to trip me up--having a drummer play that West Indian thing every chorus can get old quick. Also, the last four bars were a bitch to run through lyrically rather than sounding like I was just mechanically trying to make every change. Will have to revisit this one again.

The best of the ones I've got: 1. Vertigo (I haven't a clue why Alfred Lion didn't release this one, unless he felt there was just too much Jackie on the market already.) 2. Basra 3. The Complete Blue Hour 4. Solid 5. Cliff Craft (Honorable mentions: Destination Out, Byrd In Flight, Shades of Redd) The less good: 1. Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims. I'm sorry, but the trumpeter sucks, and I feel like Zoot is the only one in the band who was really "on" that day. 2. Ummm...I can't think of any others in my collection that I have real problems with. McGhee's volume 1 is a bit lackluster, but for me the session is more than redeemed by the presence of JJ and the super Kenny Drew trio session paired with it on the Conn version. I can see how the Wilkerson is not some people's cup of tea, but I enjoy it for what it is (though admittedly I do have trouble listening to both discs together, all the way through). Initially I was nonplussed by the Melle set, but I haven't really given it enough listens to let it sink in. I do tend to pass on the Connoisseur titles of "previously unreleased" material, so that could explain why I don't have too many problems with most of the series. I seem to remember that Man With a Horn and Redd's Blues in particular have been panned.

I think there might be some regional variation on what's overplayed. For instance, in my hometown, I've NEVER heard All of Me or How High the Moon called at jam sessions, and only very rarely at gigs (maybe at the ones that are led by some of the hokier old guys who think they're catering to an older audience when they play that stuff). Usually people will at least call a bebop contrafact of common changes (Oleo instead of I Got Rhythm/Lester Leaps In, Ornithology instead of How High the Moon).

No, the REAL real question is: Does one's "rank" get promoted beyond "Groove Merchant" when one passes 2000? And if so, what is that rank called? "Groove Kingpin"? "Czar of Groove"? "His Majesty King Funk"?

Goddamn, I just heard this record for the first time after picking it up in the recent Best Buy sale, and that must be the FUNKIEST version of Blue Pepper I have ever heard. Even funkier than the MMW version! It's funny--I picked up Anthony Brown's version of the suite on Asian Improv a couple of years back after (I think) hearing Bob Parlocha play it on the radio, and I never got around to getting the original. Makes for a fascinating comparison between the two, and IMO the Brown version does hold its own.

D'oh. My bad. April 1 is my girlfriend's birthday so I must have missed out on some of the April Fools' Day festivities here.

To give credit where credit is due, that site was mentioned a long time ago in a thread on the old board. I think back then it was mainly used to check out older color schemes/forum layouts of that board.

the Way-Back Machine So I've got nothing better to do while this board's down last night, and I happen upon this. Now, not everything is there by any stretch, but still, quite a resource for those who really want to find deleted threads. Also provides an interesting snapshot of the world B.S. (before Sangrey). P.S.: you can see anyone's email address on there...kinda scary but might be useful in getting in touch with long-lost posters.

Hmmm...Lester Leaps In, maybe? I'm having trouble thinking of simple rhythm changes.

The Rhythm Changes was probably Oleo. Everybody plays that shit and it's old (although I do like the Pat Martino version where they strrreeetcch the phrasing out).

Jim, how easy is it to use Frodo? I tried a Commodore 64 emulator that I think was called "CC64" and it was a nightmare to use...I had no idea how to emulate the joysticks. HardBall was one of my favorites... (Al: my apologies for derailing this thread further. That is one terrible story. Really helps put my own relationship problems at 21 in perspective.)

Coincidentally, I brought this one home from the radio station today. Will be having a listen in a bit.

Claude, I can see how some courts might say that it's improper for a site to merely appear to be stealing another's intellectual property in a case like this, when in fact the data is not stolen at all--it can look like one is passing another's intellectual property off as one's own. If the organissimo.org home page contained a bunch of linked Frank Wolff photos of Jimmy Smith, it makes sense that Blue Note or Mosaic Images would have problems with Jim appearing to "own" the photos he's displaying on his web page. But isn't context an important factor? This is a bulletin board, not Jim's personal home page. It's obvious from the context in which the picture was posted that nobody is claiming that they created or own the image that's being displayed. They're only referring others to it--basically, giving information about it so others can view the content more easily.

Interesting then that an anagram of Late's first name is NOT AL.