GA Russell

Big day for the Bombers yesterday. Lyle Bauer decided that he couldn't get along with the new Board Chairman, so he resigned. Then the Board fired Mike Kelly. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/bombers-coach-kelly-arrested-fired/article1404604/

I got a new Christmas album this year that I can recommend. It is by a group which has been around for twenty years called The Hot Club of San Francisco, and is called Hot Club Cool Yule. It's a fun album with great musicianship. Its sound is sort of a combination of Reinhardt/Grappelli and western swing. I see that the band is booked for Yoshi's in Oakland on the 23rd, and in Hampton, VA, for New Year's Eve. I bet that's going to be a great time New Year's Eve.

Tenor Saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart has an interesting new album called Abyss. I've had it a couple of weeks, and it has been growing on me. This is basically a sextet album with a number of guest artists. What makes the album remarkable is that there is no drum kit. Instead, two of the six musicians are percussionists who play African drums I am not familiar with called the marke and the boula. One of them sounds like a deep bongo. This experimentation really works - the album swings throughout. Pianist Milan Milanovic is very good in support.

I heard a recording today on the Sirius 50s channel that I had never heard before, and in fact never knew that it existed - Bumble Bee by Laverne Baker. I had no idea that The Searchers' hit was a cover of it. The Searchers' version was a note for note copy, but with a completely different sound. Laverne Baker's had horns, and of course she was an alto. Quite a contrast to The Searchers' guitars and high-pitched voices.

A British bookmaker is now laying odds on the size of Tiger's divorce settlement. It's 25-1 that she'll get more than half a billion dollars. http://www.theglobea...article1404091/

‘Why would I own it, because I have access to everything?’ Don't these guys ever consider anything going out of print? Thanks for that link, Brad. I still have my doubts about the subscription model. Lala's model of paying a low price one time makes more sense to me.

Happy Birthday 2009 Phil!

Happy Birthday Jim!

The Argos fired Bart Andrus today. Will Adam Rita be next? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/argos-fire-bart-andrus/article1399477/ ***** I have changed the thread title for the off-season.

Looks great! I'm looking forward to getting used to it!

LBJ thought that those narrow-brimmed hats made you look like Robin Hood!

Happy Birthday 2009 ghost!

You can listen to Fly's Sky & Country at lala here: http://www.lala.com/#album/432627039264011...Sky_%26_Country

I didn't know that your first name really is Clifford!

We can expect a Lala app for the iPhone soon. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/1207...tion-5-big.html http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/n...ba219d411851a05 Here's an article that notes that Lala's inventory is now over 8 million songs. I remember that when it started it offered 6 million. http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/n...ba219d411851a05 http://www.pcworld.com/article/183804/what...87:b29233028:z0

Amen! Infinite Search is one of my favorite albums, although part of that could be based upon sentimentality. I assume that you are referring to the release that paired it with Tones for Joan's Bones. In that case, a good song was omitted, while a bonus track (that I thought was no big deal) was added.

Thanks, chewy! That is my first experience with Google Books.

Chewy, Sonny recorded for Blue Note, Riverside and Contemporary in the years immediately prior to signing with RCA. What was big news was the contract - $60,000 for five albums, as I recall. RCA had hired George Avakian to give its jazz program a kick start, so Avakian signed Sonny, Paul Desmond, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Joe Morello. Chuck would know much more about this than I do.

I've been listening to this every day this week. Very enjoyable. Very laid back compared to the other Carla Bleys I have heard. Twenty years from now this may prove to be ECM's best seller of all time. (Of course, the appeal of The Koln Concert has always been a mystery to me.) I can definitely see this selling each year.

Greg, last year was the first year it was on cable/TSN. As I recall, TSN got a five-year deal.

It's that time of year again! Time to review what has come out in the past twelve months that is the creme de la creme for you. Here are my 10 picks, in the order in which I got them. Bill Henderson - Beautiful Memory Clifton Anderson - Decade Art Pepper - The Art History Project Kobie Watkins - Involved John Surman - Brewster's Rooster Mark Levine and the Latin Tinge - Off & On John Abercrombie - Wait Till You See Her Quartet San Francisco - QSF Plays Brubeck Here Comes The Nice Guy Trio Dana Hall - Into the Light Honorable Mention: Enrico Rava - New York Days Al Hood - Just a Little Taste What say you?

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,5203954.story Irish singer Liam Clancy dies With his brothers, he inspired the rise of U.S. folk music. Bob Dylan called him 'the best ballad singer I'd ever heard in my life.' Associated Press December 4, 2009 | 5:40 p.m. Irish balladeer Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers troupe whose feisty, boozy songs of old Ireland struck a sentimental chord worldwide, died Friday in a Cork hospital, his manager said. He was believed to be 74. Clancy for years had incurable pulmonary fibrosis, the same lung-destroying disease that killed one of his older singing brothers, Bobby, in 2002. Ireland's arts minister, Martin Cullen, led nationwide tributes to Clancy, praising his "superb singing, warm voice and gift for communicating in a unique storytelling style." Clancy, the youngest of 11 children in a County Tipperary household filled with folklore and song, immigrated to the U.S. in 1956 to join two elder brothers, Tom and Patrick, who were singing on the side as they pursued budding careers as Broadway actors. After recording a 1956 album of Irish rebel songs, they built a New York following as musicians and formed a partnership with Northern Ireland immigrant Tommy Makem. Scouts for the Ed Sullivan Show spotted them performing in Greenwich Village's White Horse Tavern, and their 16-minute TV appearance in March 1961 -- extended because of the last-minute cancellation of another act -- turned them into an Irish American folk phenomenon. Their agent cultivated a schmaltzy appeal to Irish emigrants worldwide, encouraging the Clancy Brothers and Makem to perform in hand-knitted cream-white Aran wool sweaters as well as tweed fishermen's caps. But their up-tempo resurrection of traditionally slow, sad Irish songs made a deeper impression on much of America's emerging folk artist movement, including Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to Liam Clancy as "the best ballad singer I'd ever heard in my life." The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed at Carnegie Hall; toured Ireland, Britain, Australia and the U.S.; and recorded more than a dozen albums before breaking up in 1974. Liam Clancy, broke amid unpaid tax demands, retreated to his in-laws in Calgary, Canada, before making a comeback on Canadian television and in a new singing partnership with Makem. In the 1980s and 1990s, he and other Clancy brothers combined with a range of other Irish traditional musicians on tours of North America, Europe and Australia, but brotherly feuds kept shaking up the band's lineup. Tom Clancy died of stomach cancer in 1990, Patrick Clancy of lung cancer in 1998 and Makem of cancer in 2007.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,5676500.story Aaron Schroeder dies at 83; prolific songwriter for Elvis Presley and others The music industry veteran, whose career began in the 1940s, wrote more than 2,000 songs, including 'It's Now or Never' and 'A Big Hunk o' Love.' By Dennis McLellan December 4, 2009 | 2:00 p.m. Aaron Schroeder, a songwriter, independent music publisher and record producer who co-wrote 17 songs for Elvis Presley, including “It’s Now or Never,” has died. He was 83. Schroeder, who had a rare form of dementia for about 18 years, died of heart failure Wednesday night at the Lillian Booth Actors Fund Home in Englewood, N.J., said his wife, Abby. In a songwriting career that began in the late 1940s, Schroeder wrote more than 2,000 songs and was the composer, lyricist and/or producer on more than 1,500 recordings. He co-wrote five No. 1 songs for Presley, including "Stuck on You," "Good Luck Charm," "A Big Hunk o' Love," "I Got Stung" and "It's Now or Never," the last of which ranked No. 92 in Billboard magazine's 2008 list of the "Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs." Schroeder also co-wrote songs such as the Perry Como hit "Mandolins in the Moonlight," Frank Sinatra's "French Foreign Legion," Carl Perkins' "Glad All Over," Bobby Vee's "Rubber Ball," Barry White's "Love Theme," Johnny Duncan's "She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed Anytime" and the Staple Singers' "Hammer and Nails." Among the other artists who recorded Schroeder's songs are Tony Bennett, Roy Orbison, Pat Boone, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole and Dionne Warwick. "He was known first as a lyricist, but he collaborated on melody much of the time with many of the collaborators," his wife said. In 1960, Schroeder went into the music publishing business. Around the same time, he launched the Manhattan-based Musicor Records. Musicor had its biggest success with Gene Pitney, for whom Schroeder produced his early hits, including "Only Love Can Break a Heart" and "Town Without Pity." He also managed and wrote songs with Pitney. Schroeder sold Musicor Records around 1965. "He wanted to concentrate more on the writers that were coming to us like Barry White, Randy Newman and Jimi Hendrix," said Abby Schroeder, who worked with her husband. "He was dedicated to helping young writers succeed," she said. "We'd be their publishers and support them. Aaron groomed them and spent a lot of time teaching them the art and the craft of writing." Schroeder also was the international music representative for Hanna-Barbera Productions and provided music, singers and songs for "The Banana Splits" and "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!"

On his Misty album, Groove Holmes introduced a style (which he soon abandoned) which Chris Albertson referred to as the dripping faucet. I would have enjoyed an album of Christmas standards by Groove using that style.

Here's an article about Blue Rodeo's halftime performance. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Gre...978171-sun.html