GA Russell

It's been 25 all day; but not windy, so not so bad. No snow yet. Maybe ice on the roads tomorrow morning.

Because they have signed Darnell Sankey, a favorite of mine, the Lions have let go another favorite of mine, Micah Awe. https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/23/lions-release-linebacker-micah-awe/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/23/b-c-lions-release-cfl-tackle-leader-micah-awe/ ***** ***** Nathan Rourke highlight reel https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/23/nathan-rourkes-mop-season/ ***** The Collective Bargaining Agreement calls for sharing increases in revenue with the players. The league announced today that its revenue increased $10 million this year. This will increase the salary cap. https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/23/2025-season-yields-10m-in-league-wide-revenue-growth/ https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/cfl-salary-cap-increases-to-628-million/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/23/cfl-records-10-million-in-revenue-growth-for-2025-increases-salary-cap-over-200k/ ***** Calgary analysis https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/free-agency-preview-stampeders-look-to-reload-after-losing-crop-to-nfl/ ***** The Argos plan to use U Guelph as their home base until they can start playing their home games at BMO Field in August. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/23/toronto-argos-plan-to-use-university-of-guelph-as-team-base-until-bmo-field-home-games-in-august/ ***** Chris Jones will be an assistant at Louisiana-Monroe this year. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/23/former-cfl-head-coach-chris-jones-hired-as-assistant-at-louisiana-monroe-sources/ ***** Today's Sask analysis is about Andy Robustelli's grandson Joe. https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-joe-robustelli/

I saw Lyle Talbot on stage in New Orleans, starring in There's a Girl in My Soup.

Free Agent analysis https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/22/5-under-the-radar-pending-free-agent-extensions-of-note-so-far/ ***** The league has considered a draft for American players, but decided against it. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/22/it-didnt-make-a-lot-of-sense-cfl-shelves-proposal-for-american-player-draft/ ***** Sask free agent analysis https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-aj-ouellette/ ***** Winnipeg analysis https://cflnewshub.com/cfl-news/bombers-signings-continue-but-more-work-to-be-done/ ***** ***** ***** *****

Disc Three originally issued as... Stompin, my memory is pretty vague on this. My recollection is that EMI issued three or four similar box sets in the mid-'90s, each called "60 Great Jazz Classics.". Each box had four CDs, and sold for $19.99. A very low price in those days. I wish I had bought them all. I bought the one "For Lovers." I see these on Amazon.

The Scouting Bureau has released its winter report. https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/21/5-takeaways-from-the-cfl-scouting-bureau-winter-edition/ https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/21/mesidor-stays-no-1-in-winter-edition-of-cfl-scouting-bureau/ https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/miami-dl-mesidor-retains-top-spot-in-winter-edition-of-cfl-scouting-bureau/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/21/miami-dl-akeem-mesidor-remains-atop-2026-cfl-draft-scouting-bureau-rankings/ ***** Sask free agent analysis https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-shawn-bane-jr/

Edmonton analyses https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/free-agency-preview-elks-look-to-continue-to-add-in-hopes-of-taking-next-step/ https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/18/3-reasons-why-elks-kilam-are-poised-for-successful-2026/ ***** Peyton Logan and Dewayne Hendrix have signed with the Argos. The Argos have let go Branden Dozier and Darrius Bratton. https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/19/argos-sign-running-back-peyton-logan-release-defensive-back-branden-dozier/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/19/toronto-argonauts-release-three-veterans-including-darrius-bratton/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/19/toronto-argonauts-sign-recently-released-veterans-dewayne-hendrix-peyton-logan/ ***** Montreal analysis https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/free-agency-preview-alouettes-look-to-compliment-talented-core/ ***** Toronto analysis https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/free-agency-preview-can-argonauts-rebound-from-disappointing-2025-season/ ***** Sask analyses https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-braydon-noll/ https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-jake-maier/ https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-cj-reavis/ https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/riderville-roundup-january-18-2026/

I learned something over the weekend regarding the US college players' getting paid under the NIL program. I thought that a few guys were paid $30,000, with the biggest stars getting $100,000. It's nothing like that. They are getting millions. Archie Manning's grandson Arch was the highest paid this year, receiving US$6,800,000. BC's GM Ryan Rigmaiden is concerned that American kids, after receiving that kind of money in college, will have no interest in playing for what the CFL pays if they don't make it in the NFL. Instead, they will just move on with their lives. This might not be a bad thing, as it might increase the number of Canadians in the league, kids who grew up wanting to win the Grey Cup. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/18/b-c-lions-gm-ryan-rigmaiden-sounds-alarm-about-nils-effect-on-future-of-cfl-qbs/

Episode 52 https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/straight-life-episode-fifty-two-2 ***** Art: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman Episode 8 https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/episode-8-of-art-why-i-stuck-with-a-junkie-jazzman

Ralph Towner, 1940-2026 The New York Times Obituary Ralph Towner, guitarist of unique sensibility, writer of highly original compositions, and an ECM artist for more than fifty years, has died, aged 85. Towner, who once described himself as an improvising “raconteur of the abstract” was born into a musical family in the small town of Chehalis, Washington. He started playing music at the age of 6, developing into a young multi-instrumentalist adept at trumpet, French horn and piano. He was 22 before he took up the classical guitar, heading to Vienna to study with Karl Scheit, immersing himself in transcriptions of renaissance lute music, and practicing every waking hour. Back in America, other influences asserted themselves. “In the early to mid 60s, I was strongly influenced by Brazilian music, then basically drifted away from it while retaining its wonderful fundamentals,” he recalled. “But it had a big impact on me, as a classical guitar player who was then making a living playing jazz piano! The Bill Evans Trio with Scott La Faro and Paul Motian was another enormous influence, and I tried to develop the idea of embracing the interaction of a small group on the guitar itself. So there were these three lines – Brazilian music, Evans’s conception of jazz, and the classical guitar. Over the years I kept on adapting each of these in my own way. I abstracted them and modified them until the sources were no longer recognizable, and I’d arrived almost without noticing it in an idiom of my own.” Many jazz listeners first encountered Towner on Weather Report’s 1972 album I Sing The Body Electric, where his harmonically-free 12-string guitar introduction to Wayne Shorter’s “The Moors” was a revelation. In the same period, Ralph met Manfred Eicher in New York – Dave Holland made the introductions – and the stage was set for half a century of creative collaboration at ECM and a lifelong friendship. Towner’s early recordings for the label included many outstanding albums. Among them: the studio and live solo albums Diary (recorded 1973) and Solo Concert (1979). Solstice (1974) brought Towner together with Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber and Jon Christensen is now regarded as a classic of modern jazz. Matchbook, 1974 duets with Gary Burton, included what Charles Mingus hailed as his favorite version of “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” Ralph loved to play with his friend and fellow guitarist John Abercrombie and their album Sargasso Sea (1976) led to many concerts on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a follow-up, Five Years Later (the two of them also play beautifully together on Kenny Wheeler’s Deer Wan). Batik (1979), with Jack DeJohnette and Eddie Gomez, has a glistening, rippling flow, established right away by Towner’s tune “Waterwheel.” Ralph also made crucial contributions to the recordings of others, meeting the challenge of Keith Jarrett’s “Short Piece for Guitar and Strings” on In The Light (1973) and, along with the mysterious drone of the windharp, helping to establish the emotional climate of Jan Garbarek’s stark masterpiece Dis (1976). A guest appearance on Egberto Gismonti’s Sol Do Meio Dia (1977) was a welcome opportunity to meet Brazilian music head-on. Départ, a 1979 recording with the Azimuth trio of John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone also pointed toward future collaboration. Wheeler had played on Ralph’s Old Friends, New Friends earlier that year, and Winstone would return often to Towner compositions, adding her own lyrics – as on the albums Somewhere Called Home, Dance Without Answer and, most recently, 2024’s Outpost of Dreams, which includes Ralph’s “Beneath an Evening Sky." In parallel with his leader dates and his life as a touring soloist Ralph was a member of the transculturally oriented chamber group Oregon. The band’s classic line-up, with Towner, sitarist and tabla player Collin Walcott, oboist and saxophonist Paul McCandless and bassist Glenn Moore appeared on the ECM albums Trios/Solos (1972), Oregon (1983) and Crossing (1984). Towner’s 1980s albums with Oregon, like his multi-instrumental multi-tracked solo recording Blue Sun (1984) found him intermittently expanding his sonic palette with electronic keyboards, a Prophet 5 now added to the instrumentarium, with synth also bringing washes of sound to an atmospheric duo album with drummer Peter Erskine, Open Letter. Meetings with remarkable bassists – including Marc Johnson, Gary Peacock, Arild Andersen – re-emphasized the primacy of acoustic interaction on albums such as Lost and Found (with Johnson among the cast), Oracle and A Closer View (duos with Peacock), and If You Look Far Enough (Andersen’s album, prominently featuring Towner, alongside Naná Vasconcelos). By the 1990s, Ralph Towner, now married to Italian actress Mariella Lo Sardo, was living in Southern Europe, firstly in Palermo, Sicily, and subsequently in Rome. New artistic collaborations came into view including a duo with Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu (“here’s a guy who can really play melodies!” Towner cheered) on Chiaroscuro (2008), and a guitar trio with Wolfgang Muthspiel and Slava Grigoryan on Travel Guide (2012). Yet most of Ralph Towner’s later works are embodied on a series of absorbing solo albums: ANA and Anthem, recorded at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio in 1996 and 2000, followed by Time Line, from Sankt Gerold in 2005, and then My Foolish Heart and At First Light, both recorded in Lugano, in 2016 and 2022. Each of them is strongly autobiographical in character, reflecting on Towner’s singular artistic journey. The concluding At First Light rounds up some of his early influences with original compositions incorporating “trace elements of the musicians and composers that have attracted me over the years. Musicians such as George Gershwin, John Coltrane, John Dowland and Bill Evans, to name a few…” Towner once said, “It’s my contention that music unfolds to the listener as does a work of literature, only without the specific meanings of written or spoken words… An advantage of being an improvising soloist is that you are free to alter or depart from the form of a piece at any point if you sense that the ‘story’ needs a turn of events.” Listeners who experienced his solo concerts and heard his solo albums know that Ralph Towner was indeed a master storyteller. For more information on ECM, please visit: ECMRecords.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Wilbur Wood has died at 84. RIP. He was a favorite of mine. I saw him at Fenway in 1972, the day of the Vendome Hotel fire. Black smoke rose over the outfield wall the whole game. Late in the game, Chuck Tanner replaced Wood with the young Terry Forster (many years later referred to by David Letterman as "a fat tub of goo"). After two hours of Wood's knuckleballs, the Red Sox never got their bats off their shoulders for Forster's fastballs. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/wilbur-wood-famed-white-sox-knuckleball-pitcher-dead-at-84/ar-AA1UtDFR

Disc Four

Sask free agent analysis https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-lake-korte-moore/ ***** Sankey is a favorite of mine. ***** *****

I got this one for Christmas. I enjoyed it. It's a love letter to the entrepreneurs who started their own small record companies. The authors clearly decided beforehand that they weren't going to say anything bad about anybody.

Starting the new year with a book of trivia.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Adarius Pickett has signed with the Argos. https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/16/argonauts-sign-adarius-pickett/ https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/east-all-star-pickett-returns-to-argos/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/16/toronto-argonauts-sign-adarius-pickett-following-release-from-redblacks/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/16/almost-none-adarius-pickett-reveals-limited-negotiations-led-to-departure-from-ottawa-redblacks/ ***** Top 5 Roughriders plays https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/16/top-5-saskatchewan-roughriders-plays-from-2025/ ***** Nathan Rourke highlight reel https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/16/nathan-rourkes-mop-season/ ***** Sask free agent analysis https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-keesean-johnson/

Ottawa analysis https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/15/3-early-markers-for-dinwiddies-vision-in-ottawa/ ***** Jordan Lynch (Remember him?) has been named to the College Football Hall of Fame. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/15/grey-cup-winning-qb-sneak-specialist-jordan-lynch-inducted-into-college-football-hall-of-fame/ ***** Dane Evans has been named to the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/15/former-cfl-qb-dane-evans-inducted-into-north-american-indigenous-athletics-hall-of-fame/ ***** The Bombers have declined to pay Peyton Logan his bonus. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/15/winnipeg-blue-bombers-cut-peyton-logan-ahead-of-offseason-bonus/ ***** The Lions have declined to pay DeWayne Hendrix his bonus. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/15/b-c-lions-release-dewayne-hendrix-ahead-of-offseason-bonus/ ***** Sask free agent analysis https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-benoit-marion/

I have that one on CD with this cover.

Karen Stachel Norbert Stachel & LehCats Join Forces with Giovanni Hidalgo On "Live at the Breakroom," A 2-CD Set to Be Released March 20 On Purple Room Productions Jazz-Funk-World Fusion Band Led by NYC Multireedist Couple Captured with Legendary Conguero In a Hard-Driving, Groove-Heavy Performance of 10 Original Compositions   January 15, 2026 Omnivorous jazz fusion combo LehCats channels the awesome percussive power and ingenuity of conguero Giovanni Hidalgo with Live at the Breakroom, set for a March 20 release by Purple Room Productions. Captured on a night at the titular San Jose venue when Hidalgo was featured with the New York–based band led by husband-and-wife Karen (flutes, vocals) and Norbert Stachel (saxophones, flutes), the double-disc album is a superlative example of what can happen when spontaneity, unforced chemistry, and an energetic and receptive audience all converge. Crucially, none of the six musicians working together on Live at the Breakroom knew that the performance was being videoed and multitracked. The night of October 18, 2024, was the first of two nights of engagements in the San Francisco Bay Area, with LehCats (Stachel, spelled backwards) inviting Hidalgo—among the most acclaimed and in-demand conga players in the world—to join them as special guest. They did, however, know that the performance, featuring 10 original compositions by Norbert or Karen, was on fire—which made it a delightful surprise when they discovered that it was documented for posterity. “We realized that it was a great opportunity to produce and release a new CD,” writes Norbert Stachel in the album’s liner notes. “We felt the good vibes, and you can feel and hear great moments of high intensity and spirited interactions.” You sure can. LehCats’ polished but driving blend of jazz, funk, and Afro-Caribbean traditions oozes with the excitement and joy of inspired creation. From the raw-edged dance beat of the opening “Step On It” and the graceful Latin flow of “Sunshine” (illuminated by both Karen Stachel’s vocal and Matt Clark’s montuno piano), to Norbert’s sleek, brawny tenor marathon on “Power Tap,” to the Stachels’ dual-flute-led slow burn on “Soul Cha Cha” and the ferocious African polyrhythms (Karen’s stellar percussive flute solo among them) that charge the closing “Mandela,” the set is positively hair-raising. LehCats is a dynamic ensemble with shifting personnel—Bay Area pianist Clark and bassist Dan Feiszli here joining New York’s Stachels and drummer Dan Gonzalez—that builds a formidable Latin-spiced groove on its own. Yet Hidalgo’s presence on Live at the Breakroom sends that groove into hyperdrive, as heard in his dazzling solo intro to “Afrobaldi” and gritty lock-in with Gonzalez, Clark, and Feiszli on “Power Tap.” What the band thought was a one-time, ephemeral moment in San Jose instead stands as indelible proof that rhythm and music might be the most powerful unifying forces on earth. Norbert Stachel was born in Vallejo, California and grew up just outside of Berkeley in the town of El Cerrito. Gravitating to the saxophone as a teenager, he became a friend and collaborator of Bay Area jazz multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, which led to a remarkable career as a sideman for the likes of Prince, Sheila E., Boz Scaggs, and Tower of Power, as well as Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, and Roy Hargrove. Karen Stachel (nee Anderson) was born in Fort Lewis, Washington, the child of a military family that raised her in a nomadic base-to-base lifestyle. She began playing the flute in the third grade and became fascinated with jazz in high school, earning a jazz studies degree at California State University Hayward (where she studied and played with legendary bassist Chuck Israels) and a master’s in classical music at San Francisco State before founding the Karen Anderson Jazztet in the 1990s. Meeting and developing their relationship on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene, Norbert and Karen married in 1996 and moved to New York in 2002, where they nonetheless maintained separate musical and professional trajectories until 2015, when they and drummer Dan Gonzalez came together to launch LehCats. The next year brought their debut album, Out of the Bag. They followed it up with 2018’s Movement to Egalitaria, with the Stachels and Gonzalez joined by a rotating cast of 28 musicians in various combinations. The unplanned but inspired recording Live at the Breakroom is LehCats’ third album. Upcoming performances by LehCats include Sat. 1/17 (7:30pm-10:30pm), Vault 240, Hawley, PA; Tues. 1/27 (7pm-11pm), Arthur’s Tavern, 57 Grove St., NYC; Sun 2/15 (7pm-8:30pm), Paul Kares: The Room at Cedar Grove, Lewes, DE; Tues. 2/24 (7pm-11pm), Arthur’s Tavern, NYC. Photography: Chris Drukker    LehCats EPK  LehCats Website  

Disc One

East analysis https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/12/mmqb-one-burning-question-for-every-east-division-team/ ***** The Ticats have announced their coaching staff. Bob Dyce has agreed to be their Special Teams Coordinator. https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/12/bob-dyce-joins-ticats-2026-coaching-staff/ https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/tiger-cats-hire-former-redblacks-hc-dyce-as-assistant-hc/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/13/hamilton-tiger-cats-promote-jarryd-baines-to-offensive-coodinator/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/13/buck-stops-with-orlondo-steinauer-in-hamilton-as-he-leads-tiger-cats-football-operations-department/ https://cflnewshub.com/cfl-news/hamilton-tiger-cats/tiger-cats-hire-bob-dyce-as-special-teams-coordinator/ ***** Top 5 Ottawa plays https://www.cfl.ca/2026/01/14/top-5-ottawa-redblacks-plays-from-2025/ ***** The Rules Committee, whose recommendations are always approved by the Board of Governors, has suggested that ties be abolished. They will keep playing until somebody wins. https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/cfl-rules-committee-proposes-end-to-regular-season-tie-games/ https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/cfl-rules-committee-recommends-eliminating-ties-keeping-late-half-timing-as-is/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/14/cfl-rules-committee-recommends-leaving-late-half-clock-unchanged-eliminating-ties-in-overtime/ ***** Casey Sayles has signed with BC. https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/article/lions-sign-all-star-dt-sayles/ https://3downnation.com/2026/01/13/casey-sayles-to-sign-with-b-c-lions-following-release-from-tiger-cats/ https://cflnewshub.com/cfl-news/bc-lions-sign-standout-defensive-tackle-casey-sayles-through-2027/ ***** PJ Walker had surgery on his throwing shoulder. https://3downnation.com/2026/01/13/dave-dickenson-stampeders-qb-p-j-walker-recovering-from-surgery-on-throwing-shoulder/ ***** Sask free agent analyses https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-malik-carney/ https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-mario-alford/ https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/roughriders-free-agents-aj-allen/

I remember well!