GA Russell

LOL! I've done the same thing in the past! Click on the edit button on your first post, and you will be able to change the header as well as the post.

Merry Christmas! I received three: Bobo Stenson - :rarum Laurindo Almeida and Bud Shank - Brazilliance, vol. 2 Cal Tjader Plays the Contemporary Music of Mexico and Brazil I have wanted all three of these for quite some time, so I'm a happy camper!

Here's his LA Times obituary, taken from the AP: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...news-obituaries Pianist, jazz great Oscar Peterson dies at 82 AFP/Getty Images One of the best-loved figures of the jazz world, pianist Oscar Peterson played with all the greats during his seven decades in the business, displaying a versatile style that included boogie-woogie, stride and bebop. From the Associated Press 12:59 PM PST, December 24, 2007 TORONTO -- Oscar Peterson, whose early talent, speedy fingers and musical genius made him one of the world's best known jazz pianists, died at age 82. Peterson died at his home in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga on Sunday, said Oliver Jones, a family friend and jazz musician. He said Peterson's family were with him during his final moments. The cause of death was kidney failure, said Mississauga's mayor, Hazel McCallion. "He's been going downhill in the last few months, slowing up," McCallion said, calling Peterson a "very close friend." During an illustrious career spanning seven decades, Peterson played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. He is also remembered for touring in a trio with Ray Brown on bass and Herb Ellis on guitar in the 1950s. Peterson's impressive collection of awards include all of Canada's highest honors, such as the Order of Canada, as well as a Lifetime Grammy (1997) and a spot in the International Jazz Hall of Fame. His growing stature was reflected in the admiration of his peers. Duke Ellington referred to him as "Maharajah of the keyboard," while Count Basie once said "Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard." In a statement, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said "one of the bright lights of jazz has gone out." "He was a regular on the French stage, where the public adored his luminous style," Sarkozy said. "It is a great loss for us." Jazz pianist Marian McPartland called Peterson "the finest technician that I have seen." McPartland said she first met Peterson when she and her husband, jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland, opened for him at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto in the 1940s. "From that point on we became such goods friends, and he was always wonderful to me and I have always felt very close to him," she said. "I played at his tribute concert at Carnegie Hall earlier this year and performed 'Tenderly,' which was always my favorite piece of his." The American jazz pianist Billy Taylor called Peterson one of the finest jazz pianists of his time. "He set the pace for just about everybody that followed him. He really was just a special player," Taylor said. Born on Aug. 15, 1925, in a poor neighborhood southwest of Montreal, Peterson obtained a passion for music from his father. Daniel Peterson, a railway porter and self-taught musician, bestowed his love of music to his five children, offering them a means to escape from poverty. Oscar Peterson learned to play trumpet and piano at a young age, but after a bout with tuberculosis had to concentrate on the latter. He became a teen sensation in his native Canada, playing in dance bands and recording in the late 1930s and early 1940s. But he got his real break as a surprise guest at Carnegie Hall in 1949, after which he began touring the United States and Europe. He quickly made a name for himself as a jazz virtuoso, often compared to piano great Art Tatum, his childhood idol, for his speed and technical skill. He was also influenced by Nat King Cole, whose Nat King Cole Trio album he considered "a complete musical thesaurus for any aspiring Jazz pianist." Peterson never stopped calling Canada home despite his growing international reputation. But at times he felt slighted here, where he was occasionally mistaken for a football player, standing at 6 foot 3 and more than 250 pounds. In 2005 he became the first living person other than a reigning monarch to obtain a commemorative stamp in Canada, where he is jazz royalty, with streets, squares, concert halls and schools named after him. Peterson suffered a stroke in 1993 that weakened his left hand, but not his passion or drive for music. Within a year he was back on tour, recording "Side By Side" with Itzhak Perlman. As he grew older, Peterson kept playing and touring, despite worsening arthritis and difficulties walking. "A jazz player is an instant composer," Peterson once said in a CBC interview, while conceding jazz did not have the mass appeal of other musical genres. "You have to think about it, it's an intellectual form," he said.

Don Chevrier has died. Some of you may not remember his work because he was a true professional without the goony personality so many sportscasters have nowadays. I had the pleasure of meeting him in 1978 at a Grey Cup party. Nice guy. Here's his LA Times obituary: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...news-obituaries December 21, 2007 Don Chevrier Broadcaster called Blue Jays' 1st game Don Chevrier, 69, a longtime broadcaster who covered several Olympics and called the Toronto Blue Jays' first game, was found dead Monday at his home in Palm Harbor, Fla., according to his daughter, Melanie. The cause of death was not immediately known. The Toronto native began his broadcasting career in Canada at 16 announcing high school sports. He eventually worked on TV and radio for several networks, including ABC, NBC, ESPN and the Canadian Broadcasting Co. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., he called the USA-USSR "Miracle on Ice" hockey game for ABC Radio. By one count, Chevrier had broadcast 21 sports, including team handball at the 1976 Olympics. Chevrier called the Blue Jays' opener in 1977 and did his best to make the baseball games sound exciting during the team's dismal inaugural season. During the 1970s and '80s, Chevrier covered some of boxing's biggest bouts, often with Howard Cosell, on ABC's "Wide World of Sports." In addition to doing the play-by-play on "Monday Night Baseball" for ABC Sports, Chevrier called National Hockey League games for ESPN and other networks, Canadian Football League games for ESPN and United States Football League games for ABC Radio. He spent more than 20 years on radio covering the Kentucky Derby, 14 years as the television voice of curling in Canada and was the longtime host of ABC Radio's "World of Sports" show.

RIP. It was my impression that he was always a gentleman. There are many jazz musicians you can't say that about! I can't say that I was a big fan of his, but I enjoy hearing him on Sirius. The jazz channel there plays plenty of him. I read here sometime in the past year that in 1959 he recorded 13 albums. Talk about mind boggling! Have you heard the story of his discovery? Norman Granz and a colleague were in Montreal. In the cab on the way back to the airport, they heard on the radio a live broadcast. They asked the cabbie, "Who's that?"; and told the cabbie to turn around and take them to the nightclub where he was performing.

Merry Christmas to everyone! I'm not able to spend it with family this year, so I expect that it will be a very quiet day reading and speaking to everyone on the phone. Tonight I'll attend Midnight Mass. It looks like my Christmas wish for next year will be to spend it with catesta!!!

Here's what Phil Spector said at Ike Turner's funeral: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317986,00.html Music legend and murder suspect, Phil Spector, isn't trying to make friends or curry favor with old pals while he waits for a second trial. He turned up at reviled R&B legend Ike Turner's Los Angeles funeral on Friday and gave an impromptu speech that laid into both Tina Turner and Oprah Winfrey. Spector, according to our spy in the Greater Bethany Community Church in Gardena, Calif., was among several celebrity mourners including Bonnie Raitt and Little Richard who gathered to say good-bye to the Grammy-winning musician. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't prepared to say anything," said the thin and frail-looking music producer. "Nobody had told me that I was going to speak. This is a very sad occasion for me." Spector rambled, but he had points to make. Here they are, for better or worse: "First of all, the things that were said about Ike, that were in that piece-of-trash movie they made about him were ... (applause), it was a piece-of-trash movie. I haven't seen the movie but it was told to me, and [barney] Kessel was the world's greatest guitar player in the world and the only reason that Ike didn't play on 'River Deep, Mountain High' was because Ike was the second greatest guitar player in the world. I treasured him and everybody knew it except Ike. That's how good he was "B.B. King told me at a party with Doc Pomus and Joe Turner and Ray Charles sitting there that Ike Turner was the only guitar player he wouldn't play behind. That's how good he was. But Ike never boasted. He came to parties with me and I'd say, 'play, play' and Ike would never play. "Ike could play circles around Eric Clapton and Eric knew it. I had someone once ask me what's the difference between Ike Turner and Eric Clapton. I said, 'you don't know the difference between Eric Clapton and Ike Turner? That's funny, why don't you ask Eric, Eric knows.'" "Ike made Tina the jewel she was. When I went to see Ike play at the Cinegrill in the '90s after his absurd reason for being sent to prison for no reason other than being a black man in America, there were at least, and I counted them, five Tina Turners on the stage performing that night, any one of them could have been Tina Turner." "And sell-out, whom you really love and respect but I have an ambivalence towards Oprah Winfrey. She made Tina Turner's book into a bestseller, which demonized and vilified Ike. The book wouldn't have sold 10 books. It was badly written. It was a piece of trash and because Oprah idolized Tina, she didn't feel it wrong to vilify a 'brother.'" "Other black sisters did the same thing to Ike and there was a very famous story about Whoopi Goldberg, who had a television show for about five minutes, interviewed Ike. Ike had called me and said, 'Shall I do the show?' "I said, 'You can't get hurt.' And he said, 'OK, I'm going to do it.' "And we figured it would be good because it's Whoopi and Whoopi asked him, 'I understand before you were married when you were living together, you beat the hell out of her and she tried to commit suicide because she was so terrified of you and she tried to jump out of a window,' and Ike said, 'Yeah, but it's hard to jump out of a window from a basement floor.'" "It was only one Ike. I learned more from Ike than any professors I've been around. He never, ever bothered me. He never interfered with me. He never got in my way." "When we did 'River Deep Mountain High,' people said you can't put Ike and Tina Turner's name on that record. It won't sell because they are rhythm and blues and it's a pop record. I said I signed Ike and Tina Turner, it won't even say featuring Tina Turner; it's Ike and Tina Turner." Spector said part of the reason he became disillusioned with the record business was because he could not make Ike and Tina as big of an act as he wanted. "I wanted them to be the biggest revue in America. They were the first act that I recorded that ever could play big-time and break it in Vegas and America." edit for typo

Happy Birthday aloc! Today was my parents' wedding anniversary. We always went out to a nice restaurant.

FFA, He & She was one of my favorites! As I recall, it caught on during the summer reruns after it had been canceled. The network wanted to bring it back, but Benjamin and Prentiss had already made other commitments. Speaking of beauties, Paula Prentiss was always one of my favorites. Does anybody remember her movie with Rock Hudson called Man's Favorite Sport? And I think she was in another favorite of mine called The Horizontal Lieutenant.

This is a topic we've discussed before somewhere. I found this list today at Digg. Enjoy! http://www.wallstreetfighter.com/2007/01/2...f-all-time.html

For many years it was Vince Guaraldi for me, but then I got tired of it, so it became Charles Brown's King album. But I have gotten a little tired of that one too. I've bought quite a number of Christmas albums over the years, and this year I don't think there is any I have played more than twice; but there's still time! So this year I'll vote for The Kingston Trio.

I too share Noj's experience. When I was in high school, I enjoyed all of the few instrumental hits played on the pop radio stations. To this day, I far prefer instrumentals. That said, three of my very favorite new albums of 2007 were by singers - Janice Friedman, Jan Shapiro and John Vance. They each have their own threads. I'm sure that I've played them more than the new instrumental albums I've gotten this year. I imagine it says something, though I'm not sure what, that all three are available from CDBaby rather than the major retailers.

I heard the tail end of Bill O'Reilly talking about it, and he said that the girl's mother is reported to have already sold photos of the baby for $1 million.

Happy Birthday Phil!

Quincy, it's been forty years since I read Cather in the Rye, but as I recall Holden daydreamed about catching a girl falling in a rye field. Baseball wasn't a part of it.

It's been years since I have paid close attention to baseball, so you are welcome to dismiss my opinions as those of someone who is out of touch. But from what I have seen, there are two obvious improvements in the game compared to when I was a boy in the early 60s. The first is the ability of batters to connect on the low and inside pitch. The second is the defense. When I was a boy I watched Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese every week without fail. They would almost always show the Yankees, the best team in the majors. And it was routine to see at least once every game a wild throw to first in which the batter would take second. Often the throw would go into the stands. It's been years since I have seen that.

I have the two Live Oblivion albums (one a double album). I never ranked them very highly because I just don't like Alex Ligertwood on vocals. I remember seeing them once on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert.

The Canadian league's Jake Gaudaur, as well as Bobby Simpson. The NFL's Ed Brown and Max McGee.

Happy Birthday Jim! In your honor I'll put on some Hi-Lo's.

Can I be Secret Agent John Drake? I've been told that I look like John Lithgow, the star of Third Rock from the Sun.

I saw the other day that Quartet San Francisco's Whirled Chamber Music was nominated for the Best Album Grammy in the Crossover Classical category.

I ordered this one from CDBaby today for my niece for Christmas. My niece likes Blossom Dearie, so I'm confident she'll like Jan Shapiro as well.

I ordered this one from CDBaby today for my sister for Christmas.

Vibes and Sandy may disagree with me on this, FFA, but I don't think retailers would mind if you come back and use a coupon again. I think the idea is to get you into the store to buy something you hadn't planned on at full price. By using the coupon a second time, you are visiting the store a second time, which is what they want. That's my guess.

Thanks, Al. I'm a bit tapped out to be spending money on myself, but with just a little bit of surfing I found a few that I would like to have. We'll have to see what the bills look like this month!