Jack Pine

I'm embarrassed to admit I'd not heard of Rickie Lee Jones until last week, and I'm not really sure exactly what I think of her older material, but this new album she just released is pretty exceptional. Interesting arrangements, great players, great tunes. Despite having guys like Russell Malone and Mike Mainieri on board there is very little soloing. The songs are short and sweet, just the right amount, nothing extra. Just In Time, Nature Boy, and They Can't Take That Away are standouts to my ears, but the whole thing is pretty strong.

Nice!

I know we have some serious Four Freshmen fans around here, so I wanted to make sure no one missed their excellent performance on Emmet Cohen. Not sure if you consider Cohen's thing a 'podcast' but nevertheless.

My entire collection is from dollar bins, more or less. Lots of Four Lads, Freshmen, and the like, but also plenty of Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Errol Garner and other quality artists who tended more towards the pop side.

I'm not that big on musical theater, but have to admit a deep fondness for a certain few shows: Brigadoon, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, you know... the good ones 🙂 Also tap dancing.

I recently picked up Alec Wilder's 'American Popular Song' and am quite impressed by it. I really appreciate the little bits of transcription and he has excellent commentary on the tunes. Though I have to admit it leaves me wanting for deeper analysis; he covers so much, but just a paragraph or few at best for each song. Can someone recommend to me a book that features similar content, looked at in a more complete manner? Something that analyzes the great standards in long form, with transcriptions ideally. PhD theses, blog posts also welcome. Here is an excellent long form analysis of 'Just Friends' that demonstrates exactly what I'm looking for: https://www.thinkingmusic.ca/thinkingharmony/justfriends/index.html

I'm 40- never have purchased one and almost certainly never will unless it's in a dollar bin somewhere. Don't get me wrong, they seem like fine products and I am an enthusiastic jazz fan, but I'm not really in the habit of buying physical media(aside from the odd thrift store record).

I had never actually heard of this model, but oddly there are now two of them for sale in my local area. One for just $400, but it has a bad power supply. The other for $4000!(both come with Leslies). I understand this is a digital emulation of the classic tone wheel design? I have some digital emulations of electric pianos, synthesizers and I generally find them sonicaly lacking compared to the analog originals. Some of the newest emulations are pretty decent, but this thing was made in the 1980s so I'm a little skeptical. There are a few youtube videos of the B3000 in action and it seems to sound pretty good actually. Can some more experienced organists tell me more about this model?

Here, here!

Man, if your hands are small for your height and you can reach a 10th I must some kind of really special case: I'm just over 6ft myself!

Yes, he should have been obvious to me. I just came across a list of mostly classical concert pianists that included Michel: https://wanderingtunes.com/pianists-with-small-hands Also Vince Guaraldi. Interesting, I'm not as familiar with him as I ought to be.

I don't have much of a reach on piano- I can hit some 9ths, but an octave is about all I can do comfortably. I try to think of this as a blessing rather than a curse, but I admit I'm jealous of those with larger hands. A thread on Johnny Guarnieri was just bumped and it was mentioned he had small hands. Patrice Rushen was called 'baby fingers' so I assume she also has a small reach. I read that Monk had small hands for a man of his stature, but it seems he could hit 10ths with his left so I don't consider that small. Are there any other notable players that had small hands?

When I was a kid CMU also ran the TV station, probably they still do but I haven't had a TV in so long now I'm not sure. I was mistaken that they pulled ALL music programing; there is still some on the weekend. Even so this is a massive change.

I'm happy to hear that Lazaro, I have fond memories of a summer program I attended there as a kid. Regretfully I'm just out of range of Interlochen, so like many in Northern Lower MI: WCMU is it. I would think CMU has one of the largest ranges in the state too, it goes all the way into the UP and both sides of the northern lower. I can see how some folks up here could be seriously bummed about the move, it's not as if we have any other options on the dial for similar content.

How fast things change these days. Since I posted my comment less than a month ago my local NPR station(WCMU) has pulled ALL of its music programing, classical and jazz, and replaced it with talk! It is hard to fathom this decision: aren't the syndicated talk shows much more expensive than just playing music from an already existing catalog? I don't have much right to complain since I don't tune in much or donate anymore, but it still makes me sad to see it go.

YouTube famous! The sire of young Golden Ears: That is how he became as famous as he is now: he leveraged that video into a sort of 'influencer' career. He had some success as a rock musician in the 90s and also wrote a decent music theory book. I've liked some of his videos well enough, but can understand how he might be annoying to people. He's really very sincere, or good at acting like it. He kind of has bad taste too, since it is for me to judge 😉- like he will play some obscure 90s rock song that uses a few extended chords and gush over how genius the writers were. If he is reaching people with his music theory videos though I say more power to him.

I hesitate to say anything if I can't say something nice, so I'll offer that it was a really finely tuned piano in that Martha fugue. And really well recorded!

Usually not my sort of bag, but that was exceptional. Really works with the visual. Would this be considered a 'walking ballad'? It is in some way reminiscent of 'Ask Me Now'.

Wow, that is like a straight up Horace Silver pastiche! Was not aware of the Ritenaur tunes, and wasn't mentioned, but very interesting. Can't blame anyone for not watching, it's longer than it needs to be and the presenter can be kind of grating. Glad for any discussion of the topic.

Indeed. There is some really interesting material in these books: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MGbtmKZ_FiGz51GPtvS7HajQBTIUeEez Jamming on 'Air Man Stage' from Mega Man this morning. Hearing a 'Dear Old Stockholm' sort of arrangement in the Tetris theme perhaps.

I'm not a huge fan of this particular "content creator", but he occasionally makes interesting stuff. I had some awareness that orchestral video game music was kind of the hot new scene, but didn't realize there was a jazzier side to it. I grew up playing the original nintendo quite a bit, and admit a soft spot for some of those old melodies. I'd be interested to hear what some of the folks on here think about this.

Indeed, it is intended for beginner/intermediate players.

He's not done anything as a leader as far as I know, but he's got a bunch of great stuff on youtube:

100% on Emmet!

I hope it might! I can't deny I reach for that Bb myself sometimes.