Dan Gould

Note, however, that like a row of men at the urinals, all are strenuously avoiding even a sidelong glance at any "packages".

Actually, I did have a thought of slipping in Gene Harris' version of "I Can't Stop Lovng You" in the middle of the night, see if anyone was listening.

To get back on the specifics of the thread subject, I can tell you that when I got my start at WTNT-Tallahassee, a country station, the Program Director suggested that I come up with an alternative to "Dan Gould" because, I assumed, the hick country listeners wouldn't take to a Jewboy on their station. So, looking for a name I thought wouldn't be hard to remember, I used my mother's maiden name to become "Dan Cunningham;" this led the jock who I followed to refer to me as "Richie Cunningham's little brother."

Now Ann Arbor looks good yet its last in the polls ... I suggest we give this thing through the holidays, but right now it looks like everything is on hold until Chicago decides.

Some being of greater Mass than others.

Its been a while, but my impression of Tower is "no"; Virgin in Time Square was OK but pricey when I was there last. I can't imagine the Jazz Record Center NOT being worthwhile.

Looks like a new poll is in order Actually its a well argued point, Ed, the one thing that would concern me is that the event would need to coincide with a gig, and I wonder how far in advance that notice could be given?

Very nice job guys on a personal favorite of mine. Thanks, Happy Holidays to All, and I eagerly await the new CD!

I vote for Chicago with St. Louis as alternate.

Please vote for one but also post a list in your order of preference, so that #1 and best alternate can be determined. That will give us an idea of the true consensus of the board, pending the decision of the Chicago Festival management.

The poll was flawed from the start due to incomplete information-no one knew that Chicago would turn out to be an option because the band might play the Festival. It was also flawed because I did not include the specifics of when St. Louis would be most attractive-the week of the IAJRC convention. So, hold your horses, Paul and stay tuned.

Happy Birthday, John!

13 to 12 and the vote is now concluded? Give me a break.

Paul, if Lansing were a city of any significance, I wouldn't be opposed. The point is to justify a trip by making the trip worthwhile in a number of ways. I think people are more likely to make a trip of 500 or 1500 miles under those circumstances than to go to some backwater for a day or two. And who says we have to split off to do other things? If we go to St. Louis, I can imagine a pack of Organissimos raiding the blues/jazz record show or attending the movies or lectures, or going to O'Connells for burgers. Or for that matter, a group of us might want to join you at the Chicago Art museum. No one says that socializing begins and ends in a bar. And by the way, St. Louis has hardly been eliminated. Its being held in abeyance pending the decision of the Chicago Jazz Festival, just as Lansing is.

I would think its the two extra tracks on the OJC: Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me and Keep it Moving (Take 3)

So, what say we suspend judgement and planning pending the Chicago Jazz Fest.'s decision? All who agree say "aye". The motion carries.

Wouldn't it be a whole heckuva lot more fun to hear the band play in front of a real audience at the Chicago Jazz Festival, if they get the spot?

Hope its a good one! Happy Birthday!

Very interesting article in today's Times. Basically, it says that Steinbrenner isn't even consulting Cashman or Gene Michael about anything-everything is totally in his hands, to the exclusion of his usually ballyhooed "Baseball People". And I love the comparison made between the players who were pursued during the Championship run and the guys George is after now: "... all jerks." (This last part was, very strangely, deleted from the online edition, so I put it back in below) Read it and weep, Yankee fans: By JACK CURRY Published: December 13, 2003 NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 12 — The various team officials kept streaming through the lobby at the Marriott hotel here on Friday. There were general managers, managers, assistant general managers, scouts, trainers, traveling secretaries and public-relations officials walking, talking and happily participating in one of the routine off-season events in the baseball business. The Yankees, the alone-on-an-island Yankees, did not send any of their top executives to the winter meetings. George Steinbrenner revoked General Manager Brian Cashman's ticket on Thursday and he advised Damon Oppenheimer, a vice president, to stop packing on Wednesday. Somehow, Gene Monahan and Steve Donohue, the two trainers, managed to sneak here and perhaps study the latest innovations in treating strained hamstrings. "George doesn't want us to go there because we would give away our secrets," one club official said. "There are a lot of teams out there who don't really care about our secrets." That is not what the increasingly obsessive Steinbrenner, the team's principal owner, thinks. According to officials from the Yankees, other teams and agents, what he thinks, feels and does is what the Yankees think, feel and do these days. More than ever, Steinbrenner, who is perturbed about three straight seasons without a World Series title, is dominating how the Yankees will take shape in what should be a hectic 2004 in the Bronx. One baseball official who has spoken to a few members of the Yankees' hierarchy said the 73-year-old Steinbrenner had stopped seeking the opinions of Cashman; Oppenheimer; Mark Newman, a vice president; Gene Michael, the trusted evaluator who has been with the organization for more than three decades; and other club executives whose opinions normally help mold the Yankees. The official said a Yankees official had told him that Steinbrenner had sometimes acted so single-handedly and haphazardly that, if he did listen to someone about pursuing a player, it was just as likely to be an accountant as a scout. Michael said he had not been quizzed about signing the 35-year-old Gary Sheffield to a three-year contract, about signing Kenny Lofton to a two-year deal or about acquiring Kevin Brown from Los Angeles. "If you ask me if they've contacted me about anything, I'll say they haven't," Michael said. "That's all I can say." Steinbrenner declined to be interviewed about his handling of the Yankees, but did speak to his longtime spokesman, Howard Rubenstein. Rubenstein said that Steinbrenner depicted the Yankees as a unified organization in which he listens to his subordinates, absorbs the information and decides what to do. "I have a saying that I like to use: you can't lead the cavalry unless you know how to sit the saddle," Rubenstein quoted Steinbrenner as saying. "In reality, I make the final decision on everything. But I have a large number of people, real professionals in their field, who compile a lot of material for me and make suggestions. We're in constant contact. But, in the end, I come up with the final decision." Whenever the Yankees have discussed off-season plans in the last several years, they have stressed three traits they want in a player: ability, durability and character. But in their pursuit of Sheffield, Lofton and Brown, and their sloppy shedding of Andy Pettitte, one former team official said that Steinbrenner had seemingly eliminated character from the equation. The character issue was paramount in helping Michael and the former manager Buck Showalter boost the dreary Yankees of the early 1990's into the championship form that blossomed into a run of four titles in five years, beginning in 1996. Players like Paul O'Neill, Jimmy Key and Joe Girardi were positive influences on and off the field, as was the low-maintenance Pettitte. Sheffield, a superb offensive player, has been a malcontent in multiple clubhouses. Lofton has sometimes been selfish, and it is questionable whether he is even a defensive upgrade in center field over Bernie Williams. Brown had a bounce-back season in 2003, but he is ornery and does not seemingly fit in with the image of the businesslike Yankees. While Steinbrenner has pursued other players this off-season, he was strangely indifferent toward Pettitte, who signed a three-year deal with the Houston Astros on Thursday. "It's a sad deal because the Yankees of the mid-to-late 90's acted the right way and worried about winning," the former Yankees official said. NOTE: The following sentence is in the print edition but, strangely, not in the online edition: ...the former Yankees official siad, "Now it seems like every guy they're getting is a jerk." Soon after the postseason, Steinbrenner always gathers his baseball people around a round table in a conference room in a one-floor cinder-block office on Himes Avenue in Tampa, Fla. Yankees officials refer to the place as "the bunker." Unlike other teams, the Yankees have executive offices in two cities — New York and Tampa — and it is likely that they lead the majors in conference calls. Steinbrenner positions himself at the head of the table and has a telephone in front of him. Pens and notebooks are in front of each seat. The former Yankees official said that Steinbrenner could be a decent listener, but he began to lose his listening skills after the Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in seven games in the 2001 World Series. That was apparent when Steinbrenner summoned Cashman, Manager Joe Torre and the rest of the Yankees' hierarchy to Tampa three days after the Yankees lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins this season. Steinbrenner stopped listening and started barking about signing Sheffield, Vladimir Guerrero, Kazuo Matsui and Bartolo Colón and trading for Javier Vazquez and Carlos Beltran, spewing the names as quickly as a Rotisserie league player and behaving as if he wanted each one more than the next. After the meeting, one club official told another, "I thought, for a minute, we were going to have the Dream Team this year, you know, like the Olympic basketball team." As the World Series loss to the Marlins unfolded, Steinbrenner criticized Cashman for whatever went wrong on the field, according to a Yankees official. Steinbrenner's criticism of Cashman has shifted to indifference in the off-season; Steinbrenner has made player decisions without consulting him. Cashman did not attend the winter meetings in 1999, either, and after fighting Steinbrenner for permission to go each winter, he did not fight him this year. Like Torre, Cashman is in the final year of his contract, and speculation about being fired by Steinbrenner will surely follow both from spring training. One American League executive said Steinbrenner's two sons, Hank and Hal, and son-in-law, Steve Swindal, have been concerned as Steinbrenner has steadily increased the payroll. The Yankees had a major league-high $180 million payroll in 2003 and will undoubtedly exceed that total by the time Steinbrenner is finished tinkering with the roster for next season. But even as Steinbrenner's heirs watch as the Yankees lavish money on another free agent not named Pettitte, the A.L. executive stressed that they would probably never have the temerity to try to subdue him. No one stops Steinbrenner from doing what he wants to do. "By the way, make no mistake, I'm active," Rubenstein quoted Steinbrenner as saying. "I'm very active. I have the same enthusiasm and desire to put good teams together for the New York fans as I've always had."

'Fraid not, Mike. At least I wasn't the only one to hear "Ask Me Now"! Its that interspersion of those notes (or something very close) that threw me

Not sure if you guys are still on Silver's Spiritualizing The Senses for the very first track but I can say definitively that's not it.

The website shows that last year's Festival was the last weekend in August, I'd imagine its the same or similar for the next one. When will you guys know if you got the gig? I think this would be an awesome way to get together, even if the heat will be brutal.

Hey, Organissimo gets the gig, I think we have a winner by unanimous consent!

See, this is the reason why a serious metropolitan area like St. Louis (or Chicago for that matter) would be the better choice. And dare I say it again, a meeting of the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors, complete with two day jazz and blues record/cd sale, sounds like the ultimate time to try to get together, as long as enough people are able to go in mid-June. I'm sure there will be other hangs, but how can we pass up St. Louis in June???

I thought the number one point was to get together, not necessarily for the fellows to jam. Also, is it remotely realistic to think that Lansing wouldn't write off every non-North American from this shindig? I mean, like I said before, getting to St. Lous is a snap; Lansing maybe not so much.