medjuck

Saw Dylan last night at the final stop of the latest leg of his Never-Ending Tour. Great show. I usually warn people that if they go to see Dylan they won't be able to make out any of the words, recognize any melodies or even know which musician is Dylan since he hides off to the side behind a keyboard ( usually inaudible and when you can hear it, he doesn't seem to play it very well.) I keep going back anyway, since very so often there's a show like last night's at the Santa Barbara Bowl. I was in the ninth row but off to the right side. Since Dylan placed the keyboard on that side I was often looking at his back. However his vocal mike was on the side so he turned his profile to us when he was singing and lo and behold: you could make out almost every word, and even recognize the songs from the the instrumental intros. He even took some great keyboard solos! He did manage to change his phrasing so that it was impossible to sing along but I think he approaches his songs like a jazz musician: he sticks to the original words but improvises his phrasing. Sang a lot of old favorites from the 60's interspersed with songs from Clem's favorite, Modern Times. My theory on the old sings is that the 67 year old Dylan has a cover band-- the guy they cover is the young Bob Dylan.

I used to be a medium grade one but now my ears are shot from old age and too many rock concerts. So I still try to buy fairly good equipment but nothing too expensive- it would be wasted on me.

I do like to see a bit of the article or a precis of it: often there is just an enigmatic subject and a link. I'd like to be told enough about an article to know whether I want to link to it. (is "link" the correct verb here).

Hey the system works!

I've tried to attach the info I got from iTunes but I'm not used to adding attachments here so let's see if it works.

Woops, it just appeared. I've got to lay off the Scotch.

I don't see it there. Doesn't mean it's not there, just that I don't see it. I see "edit", "+ quote" (what is that?) and "quote".

I've used it a couple of times but just now when I thought I had posted something twice and went to delete one post I couldn't find it.

Just got the e-mail from Artists Direct and have downloaded what's available now. (They've added a quartet cd which will be available later gratis!). And talk about service: I e-mailed about 3 extra Jim Hall trio tracks that they included as a lagniappe I guess and got a response immediately. I asked who the other players were. Turned out to be 2 of my favorites: Don Thompson and Terry Clarke.

Am I the only one here who reads "Wired" (no not "The Wire" but "Wired")?

One of my local Public Radio Stations has a morning Jazz show during which they play a brief (3 minutes?) feature called "Talkin' Jazz". It's very good and often rather esoteric: e.g today I heard about Billy Bauer's (sp?) only recording as a leader. The local station usually follows it with a number that relates to the feature. They didn't have the Bauer record (is it on cd?) but did play a Lee Konitz cut with Bauer on it. Anyone else ever hear this show?

Last night I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see a friend of mine who was opening for George Benson and SMV (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten.) My friend, Sharon Robinson, was great and I recommend her new cd to you (It's called Everybody Knows after the song she co-wrote with Leonard Cohen.) I doubt if anyone in the audience could tell that this was the first solo performance she's ever done. Good way to start: in front of 15,000 people. I stayed around for the last 2 acts because we were a invited to a small gathering after the evenings performances, but hadn't really paid attention to what they'd be. SMV was the 3 bass players accompanied only by a drummer and a keyboardist! They rocked the place! I haven't seen 3 bass players together since I saw Ornette Coleman and obviously he was in the spotlite. These guys were having a great time and so did the audience. George Benson bored the shit out of me but he got the crowd up dancing which was fun. He didn't even hold his guitar on many numbers. When he did play it was smooth jazz. As a singer I'm not sure what you'd call his genre. Smooth R&B? The women in the crowd sure loved him though.

Bernie Brightman (Stash) died awhile ago and from what I've heard the cds and lps are sitting in a barn somewhere in upstate NY. I've been checking barns as I see them and still no luck on finding the recordings Stash was shut down by the Harry Fox agency for never paying royalties. Sorry to hear Bernie died, but while a charming guy, he was a crook. Does Fox collect for publishing or for performance or for both?

I can see your point. I don't rip anything that is not in my collection on CD (to go to the iPod) or LP (to make a CD-R) but I can see how all sorts of problems might emerge. I just had the same thing happen again, having CD-RW'd Ralph Towner's 'City of Eyes' from vinyl. 'Gracenotes' recognised it immediately on inserting in the PC! This would explain why every so often I get a disc mis-identified.

Just got this. It is a goody!! What ever happened to Stash Records?

Who's the "they"? The Jazz Heritage Society? Do they have many exclusives? On iTunes it says it's from MusicMasters.

Bix played piano licks too. . . There's a documentary about him where one of his ex-band-mates plays an unrecorded Bix piano piece. He discusses it first, then says to the interviewer "Should I play it for you?". At that point the audience I saw it with all yelled out "Yes!".

So then it wouldn't be OOP. Were the others all out of print?

So ol' Bob knows what he's talking about. (Actually I don't think he writes the shows-- though they do reflect his taste in music.)

No "Koln Concert"? They probably sell enough of those at the regular price. (I'm presuming that it's their biggest seller-- though I've never read that anywhere.)

One of the Gil Evans biographies suggests that Gil could have sued The Doors over Light My Fire because of its resemblance to his own Jambangle. But I think I remember hearing a Basie number that ended with that same riff. (The one that goes "Come along and light my fire" in the Doors' version.) Anyone know what I'm talking about or is this just another of my acid flashbacks?

I was listening to one of the Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Shows the other day (the theme was "Birds") and he claimed that Hoagy Carmichael based Skylark on a Bix solo. If this is true, what solo is it. Ooops I just realized that it may not have been a recorded solo. (I've also heard the Stardust was very influenced by Bix.)

When I was in college I could always get people to leave my dorm room by putting on some Ornette or Trane records.

I don't have many duplicate cds (it's easy to trade them in LA) but I have a lot of duplicates of single tracks. e.g. I must have Hawk's Body and Soul on about a dozen different cds.

A sentence in the new Mosaic catalogue re: their new OP box set reads: "Norman Granz' vision of the "Songbook" album, was perfected by the trio and the series of "Oscar Peterson Meets…" have long been unavailable and are finally in one package." I know there area no "OP Meets....." in this set. Does this mean they're planning another box in the future? Or did a line of type get dropped? BTW They mention that there were several masters missing from the Universal Music vaults. After the infamous fire there maya be several more missing.