GA Russell

Prayers sent, Allen!

Here is the Bandcamp link for Atlanta. https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/album/unreleased-art-pepper-volume-eleven-atlanta

I liked them as well. I read that they were unpopular in England because they were both rich kids. I bought the 45 of Willow Weep for Me, but returned it because of what sounded to me like a defective decrease in volume midway through. I eventually bought their Capitol Best of album.

As long as the speechifying is short, that sounds great!

Are these recordings merely performances, or would there be a lot of talking and conversation as well?

As you may have noticed, I have not been seeing deals on stereo components this Christmas. I wonder why. Does no one have a stereo system anymore? However, today I see two bargains for you late shoppers which are sure to please and amuse. 1) a firelog which smells like Col. Sanders' eleven herbs and spices - $9.88 (51% off) https://www.walmart.com/ip/KFC-Limited-Edition-11-Herbs-Spices-Firelog-by-Enviro-Log/280532214 2) a waffle iron whose waffles resemble legos with which you can construct buildings, etc. - $39.99 (33% off) https://sellout.woot.com/offers/cucinapro-cucinapro-building-brick-electric-waffle

The Microsoft program Nitro Screen Recorder is free for a couple of days. Any opinions of this? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/nitro-screen-recorder-pro-screen-recorder-screen-recording-screen-record/9nqdd85mt0p2

Shut down, as in permanently. https://nypost.com/2020/12/11/nycs-iconic-21-club-to-shut-down-for-good/

Thanks, Mike! I wonder why CDs taken from CDs don't sound exactly like the originals. Isn't that what the industry was afraid of? Thanks, jc!

Waffle House is getting its own beer, and it's "bacon-infused." https://www.southernliving.com/syndication/waffle-house-beer-collaboration

Of course. As I say, the landlord refuses to help. Since stealing mail is a federal crime, maybe I should file a lawsuit. I've also thought about trying to get my congressman involved.

We have a security guard at the door who demands ID.

Ken, I was thinking along those lines. The UPS Store will collect your mail/packages, and email you if you have any waiting for you. It costs $15 to start plus $66 every three months. I think that's what I will do. Thus far, I have received replacements for everything that has been taken. I think I am more bothered by the disrespect of it all. I have been told that the packages most often stolen are those which look like there is medicine inside. Dmitry, we don't even have CCTV in the mailroom! But you cannot enter the building unless you are a resident or a guest like a relative. That's why I think it's an inside job.

Guy, all I know about her is from the previous press releases I have posted. Is there something you want me to ask my contact?

I get emails from oldies.com about those 10-CD sets weekly. How is the sound? Are we talking cheap junk here?

Jim, this is the mailroom of an apartment building. I think the packages are taken by one or more of the residents. The landlord refuses to help. Many of us have been victimized.

It happened again today. I was informed less than 45 minutes after the mailman left it in the mailroom. I'm spitting mad.

RIP Richie Allen! I saw him play for the White Sox in '72. By that time, he had changed his name to Dick.

Yelena Eckemoff Intensifies Her Conceptual Approach to Music With "Adventures of the Wildflower," Scheduled for March 19 Release By L&H Production Pianist-Composer Traces the Life Journey of a Flower On a Double Album Recorded with a Unique Finnish Sextet December 7, 2020 Pianist-composer Yelena Eckemoff unfurls her most elaborate and ambitious musical work yet with Adventures of the Wildflower, which her own L&H Production label will release on March 19, 2021. As its title suggests, the double album is the story of a life, from birth to death (and rebirth), of an anthropomorphic columbine flower. Its story is told through the inspired work of Eckemoff and a Finnish ensemble that includes saxophonist Jukka Perko, multi-instrumentalist Jarmo Saari, vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, bassist Antti Lötjönen, and drummer-percussionist Olavi Louhivuori. Long a conceptualist, Eckemoff has previously tended to craft albums of thematically linked but discrete pieces. Adventures of the Wildflower, however, functions as a single narrative. The flower—aptly named Columbine—undertakes a vivid journey, growing from baby to mature plant as she observes from her garden spot the whirl of nature and of life, plant and animal, around her. She even learns to communicate with her garden mates, a real phenomenon that inspired Eckemoff to create the album when she read about it in a magazine. “I was intrigued to learn that plants communicate with each other through the air, by releasing odorous chemicals, and through the soil, by secreting soluble chemicals,” she says. “Such communal life sparked my imagination. I started to envision how a single plant would feel being part of such an interconnected community and how it would react to its neighbors who lived next to it. Soon I had a kernel of an idea about a wildflower.” Eckemoff supplements the original music with an 18-part narrative poem (one part for each composition) that tells Columbine’s story. While nuanced, the narrative is built on an earnest simplicity, like a children’s story. The music, on the other hand, is much more complex. The multiple levels of melody in “Home by the Fence” or “Children Playing with Seed Pods” are sumptuous feasts for both the ear and the intellect, while pieces like “Chickens,” “Butterflies,” and “Another Winter” are filled with experimental, even psychedelic, textures. Credit for these soundscapes must go as well to the musicians who work with Eckemoff. The sounds Saari conjures from his guitars, theremin, and glass harp lend the music a unique palette, augmented by the bold, unconventional playing of Perko, Savolainen, Lötjönen, and Louhivuori. “They were fearless in approaching my extensive lead sheets,” the pianist affirms. In Adventures of the Wildflower that fearlessness has, like Columbine, blossomed into a splendid and very alive specimen of its own. Yelena Eckemoff was born in Moscow, where she started playing by ear and composing music when she was four. By seven, she was attending the Gnessins School for musically gifted children, eventually matriculating at Moscow State Conservatory to study classical piano. In her twenties, Eckemoff found herself drawn to jazz—at a time when the music, or at least recordings of it, were a rare commodity in the then-Soviet Union. Yet an appearance by Dave Brubeck behind the Iron Curtain reinforced her newfound love of the music and shaped her creative path thenceforth. That path turned out to run through the United States, where Eckemoff immigrated in 1991 and settled in North Carolina. Now ensconced in the country that gave birth to jazz, she went in search of players who could do justice to her intricate ideas. The search was a long and sometimes frustrating one, but it paid off when she was able to work with the likes of bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Peter Erskine on her 2010 album Cold Sun. Later collaborators have included projects with Mark Turner, Joe Locke, Ralph Alessi, Billy Hart, Chris Potter, Adam Rogers, Joey Baron, Arild Andersen, and Jon Christensen, the Norwegian drum great whose final recording was on Eckemoff’s 2020 release Nocturnal Animals. With Adventures of the Wildflower, Eckemoff wanted to make an offering of positivity to her adopted country. “I was moved to make this record as my answer to our turbulent times,” she says. “I believe that nothing is more important than for all earthly beings to find a way to live together peacefully, next to each other in the same community. Characters of my story may have disagreements with each other, but in the end, they always find a way to coexist together on the same plot of land.”

I lost a package in April and a second in late October. The USPS does not want its people to deliver packages throughout the building because of the virus. So all USPS packages are left in the mailroom out in the open, there for anyone to steal. UPS and Amazon will deliver to my door. Whenever my friends and I see a package in the mailroom, we bring it to the person's door (if so requested by that person).

This week everything at Bombay Electronics is 10% off with free shipping. Code: CM2020

Presumably the rent is whatever the landlord can get. After the club closes, will someone else come along to fill the space at a higher price?

Thanks, Michael! I don't remember Loma.

This deal is back on.

What record label did Ike & Tina record for that wound up in Columbia's hands?