medjuck

I'd say yes, either this or The Masters of Jazz cd which may be hard to come by. However I notice that there's also a disc from 1949 but I've never heard it.

Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara with the Liberation Jazz Orchestra!

Yes regular DVD discs do look a bit better on Blue Ray machines. I bought my machine the day after HiDef went down the tubes with the Warners announcement that they were going Blue Ray. I decided to do so after comparing some regular DVDs to Hi-Def tv broadcasts of the same films. I'd been a skeptic until then.

I got a Blue Ray player a few months ago but haven't bought any discs yet (I'm running out of room for more DVDs) though I've rented several from Netflix. So far my favorite is Ford's "The Searchers". It was shot in Vista Vision and the Blue Ray transfer looks great--so much so that after viewing the whole film I began to watch parts of it with the sound off so I could concentrate on the visuals. Anyone here have any other films to recommend that they think look particularly good on Blue-Ray? I'm looking forward to seeing some older Black & White films.

Chris: You have a lot of material about Alberta Hunter. Were you ever planning a bio of her?

Recently l I've been to concerts by Leonard Cohen (74), and Bob Dylan (67). Tomorrow I'll see Brian Wilson (66) and later this year Charlie Haden (71) and Sonny Rollins (78). I also saw Radio Head but they don't count for purposes of this discussion. I saw Benny Carter perform when he was (I think) in his 90s. He paced himself but he was great. I guess as one gets older one's heros get older with you.

And BTW except for the last song and the 2 encores, he didn't play anything he'd played in Santa Monica.

I've been on a Thornhill jag recently but re-listening to this cd made me want to recommend it in the sense of "if you're only going to buy one Claude Thornhill cd this is the one to get". Not only is the sound better than on most of the others I have, but of the 23 cuts 15 of them are arranged by Gil Evans and four by Gerry Mulligan. There's a lot of Lee Knonitz and Barry Galbraith solos and a few by Mulligan including a brief one on which he plays tenor. They even play Godchild which I thought originated with the Miles Davis Nontet. ( Is Thornhill's the first recording of it?) The only Thornhill highlight missing from this disc is Evans' arrangement of part of Mussorsky's (sp?) Pictures at an Exhibition which Evans titled The Troubadour or somehting like that. I think it's only available on Masters of Jazz cd containing all of Gil's instrumental arrangements for Thornhill.

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!".