riddlemay

Hank Jones' solo, which starts at about 2:25:

I'm certain that I've never heard Armstrong before without any trace of "performance" or shtick. Of course he talked like a regular person and serious artist in real life--I just never heard it. This was great.

I'm enjoying the discussion/evisceration. 1959 is a bit too late to be considered mid-fifties, but FWIW, Sinatra's Come Dance With Me included several songs from roughly contemporaneous Broadway shows: "Just in Time," "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," "Too Close for Comfort," and "I Could Have Danced All Night." (One can suppose the selection was quite conscious, that Sinatra, or somebody, said, "Hey, why don't we do some of the newer Broadway stuff for a change?")

Answering honestly (and not as I wish I could answer), I'm 100% comfort zone. The jazz I choose to put on is the music that excited me when I first discovered it as a pre-teen and teen in the sixties: Monk, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Silver, Basie, Miles, Golson, and on and on. (The on-and-on part is what keeps it from getting old; the list includes dozens more.) And then, of course, all the great singers, with Sinatra as my home base. The singer-songwriters of my twenties (in the seventies) are my other touchstone. Along with the Broadway cast albums I discovered as a child and then through all the decades of Sondheim. I'd admire myself more if I were more open to new music, but it is what it is.

A desert island album (for me) is this one. Great West Coast big band jazz. Inspired by Mancini, no doubt, but its own thing. And more consistently great from beginning to end than Mancini's albums.

Cool. Thanks.

Dumb question. If I downloaded a hi-res track from HD Tracks (let's assume for the moment that it's a well-sourced, well-mastered download), and then burned it to a CD (because basically that's the only way I can listen to it on my current home system), do I throw away all the benefits of high-res?

Coming out of lurkdom because "gargly" is a pretty good descriptor of the high-frequency musical sounds I'm hearing with the hearing aids I've been trying out (and am finding unacceptable as a result). So Larry, I have the same question re whether your hearing aids are in or out while listening through headphones. If they are out, that keeps open the possibility that the hearing aids are the culprit.

I just looked it up. The USPS delivers 509 million pieces each day. I count it a miracle that in the approximately 45 years I've lived independently at my own addresses, maybe 3 pieces of mail which I was expecting failed to show up. To my recollection not a single bill or check has failed to be delivered. To my knowledge, not a single piece of personal mail has failed to be delivered. Two or three parcels in all that time have failed to be delivered. Overall, when considering the enormity of their task, I think the Post Office does an amazing job.

Just sent funds via paypal.

Chicago Tribune article by Howard Reich here.