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He's terrific. I have a number of his Concord recordings; all are elegant, refined, lyrical, swinging, and very good. His playing is heavlily based on the style of Louis Armstrong, but he nonetheless has an individual and recognizable sound.

David Newman is one of my favorite jazz musicians, and I've seen him in many settings, mostly at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth--he played there a couple of times in a quartet with Ellis Marsalis on piano, once in an organ trio with Leon Spencer, in a quintet with Roy Hargrove, with James Clay and Cornell Dupree, in various quartets, and I've seen him in concert with Marchel Ivory--he's always an utterly superb combination of sophisticated, soulful hard bop, and the blues. He's great and underappreciated.

He's playing his best and making his best recordings now.

It'a a wonderful recording. Charles McPherson is the most prominent soloist and he plays brilliantly. The concert starts with an exquisite Duke Ellington melody, a series of beautiful ballads, climaxed by a stirring Take the A Train, performed by a small group (Mingus, Richmond, Jaki Byard, John Handy, Charles McPherson, and Lonnie Hillyer). Then there's an extended, slow and gorgeous version of Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk, again a small group version. Finally, there's a tremendously exciting large group version of Meditations on Integration, with Buddy Collette filling the role of Eric Dolphy, featuring very exciting soloing by McPherson, and a wild collective improvisation by the group at the climax.

I haven't seen that Jazz Casual. Is that a Europe only release?

Two tracks of Magic Sam playing and singing are "bonus" tracks on volume 2 of The American Folk Festival of the Blues DVD. These DVDs (and these tracks) are great. There's also some fine mid-1960s Otis Rush and a smidgeon of Buddy Guy in this collection. As for Freddie King, if you haven't heard the DVD the Beat you are missing out--amazing 1960s performances from a local Dallas teen dance show. Mick Taylor's second studio album as a leader came out a couple of years ago, A Stone's Throw. It's pretty good. Mike Bloomfield's had a couple of good issues lately, an unreleased Fillmore East recording with Al Kooper and his album with Nick Gravenites My Labors. The latter recording has Bloomfield's best playing on record.

I hope you're not the one who gave it to me. Definitely pure misery.

It was a Christmas music bonanza for me: CDs: Mosaic set, the Complete HRS Recordings; Django Reinhardt Proper Box; Kurt Rosenwinkel HeartCore; and Duke Ellington and Ray Brown This One's for Blanton. DVDs: Freddie King Live in Europe; and One Night with Blue Note.

I haven't seen that one. But I do wholeheartedly recommend Live at Tivoli Gardens, Memories of Duke, On the Road with Duke Ellington and the Intimate Duke Ellington, four great Ellington DVDs.

It depends on the form of ownership of the business and how the sale was structured. If, say, the business was owned by a corporation, and the buyer purchased the stock of that corporation, then of course that corporation remains liable for its debt, even though it has new stockholders. However, for an insolvent business, it is likely that the buyer would insist on an asset sale--that is, the buyer would purchase the assets of the business and assume only those liabilities specified in the contract. In that case, a new corporation or other entity set up by the buyer likely would acquire the assets of the selling corporation and generally would not be liable for the seller's debts unless the the debt's were assumed under the contract, the creditor had a security interest in the assets sold, or there was a fraudulent transfer (that is, the buyer is purchasing the business for less than its value and has a bad intent). Without knowing the facts, it's impossible to say for sure if the buyer is liable for unpaid trade debt, but if the buyer was represented by a competent lawyer, the deal could certainly be structured in a manner which left the old corporation liable for the debt, not the new corporation. In that case, the debts should be paid from the proceeds of sale received by the old corporation, if any, before any proceeds could be paid to the owners of the old corporation. If they liquidated the old corporation and distributed proceeds without paying creditors, then the shareholders of the old corporation would be liable to the extent they receive distributions. Of course, I don't know how this business or this sale was structured, so this is merely speculation.

I believe that the transcriptions were studio recordings, which were distributed by the record companies to radio stations, but were not intended for sale. Airchecks were recordings of live performances broadcast on the radio.

The Mingus Candid recordings couldn't be hotter--What Love, All the Things You Could be By Now..., Folk Forms No. 1, Lock Em Up, MDM--some of my favorite music of all time. On the other hand, I wore out from all the Dixieland at some point in volume 3 of the Commodore Recordings. And as a Bird fanatic, nonetheless I can't take the snippets from the Dean Benedetti recordings.

Sweet Rain may be my favorite Getz recording, but next I might recommend Dynasty.

The Tower near Lincoln Center on Broadway is definitely worth visiting. There's a Tower in my city but the selection is far inferior to the one on Broadway, where on my last visit a couple of months ago I found numerous interesting and hard-to-find CDs. I also really liked the Jazz Record Center, but this one is more for someone who prefers vinyl.

"The extra materials are unedited takes and broken down takes, and I'm sure Mingus never meant for them to be issued in this way. I'm sure they are useful for those who take an academic interest in jazz, but I much prefer the original version." Who doesn't prefer the original? Not me. However, I like the alternate takes of Los Mariachis and Ysabel's Table Dance almost as much as the originals. I also really like the alternative take of Scenes in the City. And since Gene Shaw is one of my favorite trumpeters of all and there is so little on record, any additional material is valuable. Nothing academic about it.

Look for Melvin Taylor, one of today's best blues guitarist, who also plays jazz (actually, I suspect he can play anything, his technique is so brilliant). He records for Evidence.

This is one of my favorites and any version is worth having. I especially like the latest 2CD version, with all the alternate takes and some incomplete takes. Any additional playing by the great Gene Shaw is extremely valuable. My favorite track is Los Mariachis.

I like the Jazz Standard also. They are actually nice to their customers.

You need some new glasses. Cassandra Wilson is a jazz musician, and a very good one.

Mayan Temples on Black Saint is a very good introduction. It's very well recorded, features excellent performances, and a variety of styles. It's probably his best recording from his later years. Sun Ra's two visits to Fort Worth's Caravan of Dreams (1987 and 1988) rank rather high in my favorite live experiences. Eight great sets.

Actually, I forgot my very favorite McPherson performance with Mingus, which is Mingus at Monterey.

I think he's referring to Mingus and Friends in Concert, which was recorded at Philharmonic Hall. I used to not like the original LP issue of this one, making it almost the only Mingus release I didn't care for (other than the two features for Gene Ammons, which I always thought were great), but the 2CD reissue (thankfully deleting Bill Cosby) of the entire concert changed my mind. My favorite McPherson with Mingus recordings are the two French America releases which used to be available on Prestige as an LP twofer, Reincarnation of a Lovebird (with Byard, Bobby Jones, and Eddie Preston). I wish I had a good CD reissue of this one. And the bootleg, Live at Chateauvallon (a quartet with John Foster on piano) is a really good one.

What do the Mac users use? The only one of these that seems to have a Mac version is Readerware.

That front line of Hadi, Jimmy Knepper and Gene Shaw is truly fantastic.

I enjoyed the article, as it reminds me that thanks to the Caravan of Dreams, from 1983 to 1986 I was so exceedingly fortunate as to see Ornette perform with Prime Time in the club on no less than five occasions, and also once in the Theatre there providing music for a play. Not to mention, I saw Ornette play there with Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden, and finally a single set performance with Charles and Charnette Moffett. Some of those Prime Time sets are among the greatest I've heard (better than any of their recordings, what a powerful group.)