Dan Gould

I got to thinking about "Musicboy" and his postings and the way he is representing Norah. I don't think it reflects well on her when her representatives come to a bulletin board and heap scorn, slander and threats on its owners and memberships. Therefore, I did some quick searching and located an e-mail for her management, Steve Macklam, Partner/President of Macklam/Feldman Management and I have now sent a message to Mr. Macklam directing his attention to what has happened here. Now, granted, her management is probably happy to have a bulletin board which keeps things pro-Norah. Nevertheless, I do not see how her representative, Musicboy, can be seen to be doing things in her interests when he comes here slinging mud, accusations, slander and threats. If he replies I will let you know.

Not to mention SEVEN PAGES of threads that didn't attract a single reply. I guess when all anyone says is "I love Norah" there can't be much of a conversation.

Tell that to the GOD DAMN founding fathers you jackbooted Christian Fascist.

Jesus Christ, we are God Damn lucky my poll got Berigan to "adjust" his avatar-I'm sure that's a violation too. But you know I think its time to revive the "bouncing boobs" avatar-we gotta have something here that "musicboy " wil find offensive to his delicate sensibility. (What can I say but that jackbooted jackass Christian Fascist hypocrites have a way of making me take the "Lord's" name in vain.)

What Jsngrey said. "Musicboy" you are just stirring up a hornet's nest with your crap. I sincerely suggest that you tone it down. You can be the most active brownshirted banning moderator in the world, but you know how many access points there are to the Web? You know how much trouble could be made? You can keep banning but we can muck things up an awful lot. So check yo'self befo' you wreck yo'self.

Who - or what - am I looking for? The one about Blue Note Records and whether Norah plays jazz. It was in the main forum.

Well, I see that I have been 'restored' however I do not see my original thread being restored which I do not feel in anyway violated the spirit or letter of Norah Land's policies.

Well move on over, Ed cause I've been banned too! Now, of course I was just trying to have a little fun, and post something about the fact that Norah is on a jazz label and a famous one at that, and her music seems tangential, overall, to jazz. But I thought, how to do this? How can I fit in to the young, female population so that I would not set-off the Fascists who run Norah Land? Well, here's what I posted, I think you will see how I tried to disguise myself a bit: ******************** Hey peeps! What's up with Norah's label blue note? My step dad says that its a famous jazz label but he doesn't like Norah he says she's not jazz. So I just keep playing the CD everytime he drives me to soccer practice {evil grin} he played me a jazz song he said was from blue note "sidewinder" or something like that. It was sort of funky and phat but it was soooo long like ten minutes and there was no singing and it sounded really old! So does anyone care about this jazz record label that was smart enough to sign Norah? Does Norah play jazz? ************************ BTW, my user name was "Norah Norah Norah" perhaps the fact that it was inspired by the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" which is surely older than any registered user they've got made them question my "true" identity. And I thought I was being so clever. Of course, I completely miss whatever it is that offends them so. Maybe in Norah Land you can't say "he doesn't like Norah" because in Norah Land, everybody loves Norah? Or was it the fact that no one in Norah Land gives a shit about jazz, so anyone who comes in asking a question about jazz, on this day when Organissimo has been mucking things up made me stand out to them. But they don't exactly hesitate or give you a chance, do they? Nope, you are accused, tried, convicted and executed in whatever time it takes them click "Ban". Unbelievable. And amazingly enough, when you do get banned, it invites you to contact the Administrator for more information, but it seems to "freeze" all the links on the BB page so that you can't find the Administrator's e-mail or anything like that! I guess I've blown it by posting here, I could have waited and e-mailed from work to protest my innocence. These people scare the hell out of me and I am proud to join Ed in his Hall of Shame

I am utterly speechless after glancing at Norah's board. BTW, y'all didn't notice Norah's message to her "peeps": hellooooo people! hope that you guys are doing well. I've been kind of out of the loop for the past few months so I thought I'd check in. i guess some of you came here from the message board on my site? I'm sorry to say that I don't think that will be coming back. Lee doesn't have time to moderate it, and since these guys are doing such a great job, and it's pretty much the same format, i think its better to just have one. We'll be checking in here when we can. We're playing for the Tribeca Film Festival tonight in Battery Park. We did the rehearsal last night, and it felt great for the band to play again. The set is beautiful. I can't wait to see The ROOTs play tonight also! We did some recording for our new album last month. i think that we got about 6 good songs. We're gonna finish it in the fall after the summer tour and then put it out in February. Its so fun to record. the band sound great. We need a good band name.........it's a lot harder to come up with than I thought. We're gonna try a few different ones out this summer on the audiences........We can't wait to get back on tour. this summer for the first three weeks our special guest will be Gillian Welch! We're very excited! She is so GREAT! then we'll have our dear friend Richard Julian as our special guest for the rest of the tour. He's got some beautiful new songs. My friend Jesse Harris' new album comes out this month. you guys should check him out if you haven't. (jesseharrismusic.com) (he wrote 5 songs on my album and we used to play together a lot.) His band is amazing......... anyways, that's all my news. just been hangin out at home listening to the new lucinda williams record. (Awesome!) Hope you are all safe and warm. Norah Notice that she says this i guess some of you came here from the message board on my site? I'm sorry to say that I don't think that will be coming back. Lee doesn't have time to moderate it, and since these guys are doing such a great job, and it's pretty much the same format, i think its better to just have one. We'll be checking in here when we can. so its clear that this is less and less of an "unofficial" Norah board. All of this simply shows just how far afield BN went to sign her. I don't deny her talent and I don't denigrate her success, but, Jesus Christ, what does it say about her music to see who her biggest, most devoted fans are?

This reminds me of the time when I discovered that the audio software that I use at work plays backwards as well as forwards. Now, did I record a Beatles or Queen tune and check for "backward masking"? Nope. Me and the guy I was recording tried to record ourselves speaking "naughty words" backwards, so that when I played it forwards they would sound like the vulgar word. "piss" and "fuck" worked pretty well as I recall. B)

Its on the rare Jazz Workshop label, Motown's jazz imprint. Anyone heard of this?

I was looking through a discography of the obscure and highly sought after Motown subsidiary label Workshop Jazz and discovered that "Breaking Through" was supposed to be their very first LP for the label. Just like a handful of Blue Notes, the LP was pictured on inner sleeves but never released, apparently pulled by Berry Gordy. It was issued on CD in 1999 as Lost and Found: Breaking Through . Here's the AMG review: The Four Tops' early years as a jazz-vocal group are generally glossed over in capsule histories. Long before they signed to Motown — nearly a full decade as a matter of fact — they had been one of the popular Detroit jazz-vocal groups, earning the admiration of such luminaries as Smokey Robinson and Billy Eckstine, whom the group supported. After some persuasion, the group signed with Motown on the condition that they could record jazz. Over the course of a year, they cut nearly two albums' worth of material, which boiled down to one album, Breaking Through. Berry Gordy pulled the record at the last minute, believing that it would have been a commercial failure. Gordy's fears were not unfounded — indeed, had the album that comprises Breaking Through (1963-1964) been put out in 1964, it likely wouldn't have found much of an audience. Still, Breaking Through is a strong record, firmly within its tradition and working well on those terms. The Four Tops may not sound as distinctive singing jazz as they did with pop-soul, but they are convincing, as are the Motown house band. Neither of them take many chances, however. The songs are primarily standards, plus four new songs that feel like standards, all given good generic arrangements. This may sound like a dismissal, but it isn't; it's hard to do this kind of music right, but the group most certainly does. And it's not just one member that shines; everyone gets to take a lead, and the results are uniformly strong. Even so, Breaking Through appeals primarily to hardcore fans of the group, plus a handful of straight-ahead vocal-jazz aficionados. Reminiscent of a cross between Eckstine and the Four Freshmen, it's good stuff, but it's essentially a curiosity. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine Anyone ever hear this?

I discovered something interesting this morning when I swung by AAJ and here. I logged off both sites essentially simultaneously last night, but when I came back this morning, there were only 17 active threads at AAJ but something like 25 here. Surprising that Organissimo was more active than AAJ, I'm pretty sure that was the first time its happened. A personal word: I went away for a time, came back because I thought this was a better group to poll regarding my interview with Eddie Higgins, and because that Higgins interview led to some off-board interaction with Chris A., I'm finding it harder to slam him on the political threads. So, with that constraint in place, I think I'll keep hanging here. And I agree with Chuck, though I think part of it is Rooster's active posting which has really played to the era he enjoys most.

Up at Minton's includes Horace Parlan and Grant Green and is quite good. But the best in the group is The Complete Blue Hour. Some find the original date sleep-inducing but it is, IMO, a gorgeous set of late-night, soulful blues, an all-time desert-island disc (and I say that not just because I am the (former) Gene Harris Fanatic!). The second disc isn't as cohesive or as consistent as the first but it has more uptempo tunes and is still pretty nice. Its actually interesting to see how in picking tunes Alfred had a hand in creating a masterpiece. Its clear from the two recording sessions that he didn't set out to make a late-night downtempo blues album, but he had the insight to recognize the best that the musicians laid down and then took one of Gene Harris' originals to give the date its name.

I've sworn off speculative buying because it seems that invariably the item I think is OOP is in print, or the item I think will fetch big bucks either doesn't fetch anything at all or I barely make the $$ back.

I tried to use an emoticon for "dead" but it didn't work.

Is that all that much worse than walking into a public restroom to find someone having an animated cel phone conversation while seated on the throne?

I guess since the law and common decency keeps people from getting shock value from their genital piercings, they have to find something new to do. I'm waiting til someone decides that spikes through the nose or, even better, temple, is the newest "new thing" in body "modification".

Thanks David. They kill you on the shipping charge, lucky my wife won't be seeing it. This thing better live up to the raves I've been reading!

Since even Mr. Tanno has now failed, I am just about losing hope that I will find Tango in Harlem by the dear departed Teddy Edwards. Unless of course some kind person is willing to do something off-board

Chris, Chris, Chris .... Can't people have principles different from yours and still be principled? You're just demonstrating what I am saying ... if you are black and don't adhere to the Jesse Jackson/Carol Mosely Braun/Al Sharpton agenda, then you are an unprincipled whore, selling out your people because the "man" throws you a few crumbs. It is the worst example of how people try to enforce Politically Correct views or else destroy those who stray.

But only if it were true that she had held the principles before she "compromised" them. What is always missing from these assertions is a willingness to accept that black Americans might actually, honestly, sincerely, and rationally come to the conclusion that they support the policies or principles of conservatives. Instead, they must always be "traitors" or "whores" because, in the eye of certain people, the only rational explanation is that they are selling out their people for personal gain.

Gloria Coleman, Soul Sisters on Impulse with Grant Green and Leo Wright Jon Hendricks, A Good Git Together on World Pacific with Nat and Cannonball among others.

Al, I saw the reviews but have not picked up First Lady yet. And Mark, I have no idea if Coyote V. Acme appeared in National Lampoon originally, though I can check when I get home. I'll second the nominations of the Hitchhiker books, though I would probably stick with the first three and let the last two slide.

Al, I saw your thread and instantly thought "Christopher Buckley" but in reading the actual post I see that you already know about him. I have enjoyed his work ever since "The White House Mess" and while "Thank You For Smoking" was extremely funny I thought in the end he lost his nerve a bit. Have you seen his collection of humor pieces, Wry Martinis? I found that one in an amusing location: the "Drinks" subsection of the Cook Book section of a Barnes and Noble! Another compilation book that has its moments is Coyote V. Acme by Ian Frazier. The title essay imagines the opening statement of an attorney representing Wile E. Coyote in a product liability suit against the Acme Company. I know you're asking for novels but thinking about Christopher Buckley brought me to these two recommendations.