GA Russell

TTK, how is that one? I have one of his Brazilian LPs called Samba So! which is good, but I don't think as good as the two Verve LPs I have of him.

No CDs, all LPs today: Corea/Vitous/Haynes - Trio Music, disc 1 (ECM) 1981 Jim Hall and Ron Carter - Alone Together (Milestone OJC) 1972 Charlie Byrd - Guitar Artistry (ABC Riverside) 1964? Mark Murphy Sings (Muse) 1975 Mose Allison - Middle Class White Boy (Elektra Musician) 1982 Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine - At the Frankfurt Jazz Festival (Atlantic) 1970 Miles Davis and Milt Jackson - Quintet/Sextet (Prestige OJC) 1955

When I got my first cassette player in 1969 I also got a couple of pre-recorded cassettes - the first album by Manfred Mann Chapter Three and the second album by The Fourth Way called The Sun and the Moon something something Together. I don't think I ever again paid full price for a cassette, but I sometimes picked up a cutout. There were two times in the early 80s when I found a slew of ECMs for 99 cents each. I think I picked up two dozen of those.

Warren Bernhardt - Floating (Arista) 1978 The Best of Charles Lloyd (Atlantic) 1966, released 1969 Jean-Luc Ponty - Live (Atlantic) 1979 John Coltrane - My Favorite Things (Atlantic) 1960? The Leon Thomas Album (Flying Dutchman) 1970? Back Door (Warner Bros.) 1972 Gerry Mulligan - Something Borrowed Something Blue (Limelight) 1966?

The Eskimos dropped the other shoe today and cut Troy Davis, even though he rushed for 1,000 yards last year. I guess they think they are set with Josh Ranek. They also cut Kelly Wiltshire, who got hurt in September. He is 34, so he might be done. The Als traded Thyron Anderson to the Roughriders for a conditional draft pick. Something must be wrong with him to go for only a conditional pick. http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home

This is from today's LA Times: Al Viola, 87; longtime L.A. studio guitarist known for work with Frank Sinatra By Dennis McLellan, Times Staff Writer February 23, 2007 Al Viola, a versatile guitarist best known for his long association with Frank Sinatra and his memorable mandolin playing on "The Godfather" soundtrack, has died. He was 87. Viola died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Studio City, said his wife, Glenna. Viola, who arrived in Los Angeles as a member of the Page Cavanaugh Trio after World War II, became a prominent member of the local recording-studio scene. "He was a chameleon and could play in any style — that was his great talent," said jazz singer Judy Chamberlain, a friend who performed with Viola in many settings, including a jazz salute to Sinatra at the Hollywood & Highland Center in 2005. "He was a flawless player," she said. "You could barely see his hands move, he was so smooth and quick with his fingers. He was a marvel of dexterity on the guitar, even until the end." Said jazz musician Buddy Collette: "Once you played with him, you knew how great he was. He had his own way of playing, his own style; you could tell within a couple of bars who it was. And you could ask him to play anything. He had a background that was unbelievable." Sinatra, with whom Viola worked for about 25 years on recordings, TV specials, Las Vegas appearances and concerts, offered his own distinctive praise of Viola during a concert at the Lido in Paris in 1962, which can be heard on the 1994 CD "Sinatra and Sextet: Live in Paris." After finishing a free-form vocal-guitar duet of Cole Porter's "Night and Day" with Viola, Sinatra called him "one of the world's great guitarists…. I think he plays beautifully. As a matter of fact, if you weren't looking at him, you'd swear he was an octopus." For Viola, the positive feelings were mutual. "I had to turn down a lot of work to go on a world tour with him for 10 weeks," Viola told Guitar Player magazine in 1994, "but I liked what he was puttin' down." Viola, whose work with Sinatra took him from the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas to the Parthenon in Athens and beyond, can be heard on such Sinatra hits as "Witchcraft," "All the Way," "My Way" and "New York, New York." He first met Sinatra after the war when the singer dropped in to hear the Page Cavanaugh Trio in a club on Sunset Boulevard. Sinatra liked them so much, Viola later recalled, that he took the trio to New York with him when he performed at the Waldorf-Astoria, followed by an appearance at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, N.J. The trio also did a recording session at Columbia Records with Sinatra, turning out two sides: "That's How Much I Love You" and "You Can Take My Word for It, Baby." After quitting the trio in 1949, Viola remained in Los Angeles and began doing studio work. He worked in the recording studio — and occasionally did local gigs — with the big bands of Harry James, Ray Anthony, Les Brown and Nelson Riddle. He also worked with jazz groups, including playing with Collette, Red Callender, Bobby Troup, Terry Gibbs and Shelly Manne. "When I was working with Bobby Troup [in the mid-'50s], one of Sinatra's buddies heard me and told me that Frank needed a guitar player," Viola recalled in an interview on his website. "What I enjoyed most about working with Frank is that he was unpredictable," Viola said. "When I accompanied him, I couldn't quite predict where he was going, which made it challenging and exciting. He always surprised me on stage. Although he wasn't known as a jazz singer, he ad-libbed like one and wouldn't sing a song the same way twice." As a studio musician, Viola appeared on more than 500 albums with artists such as Julie London, Steve Lawrence, Marvin Gaye, Neil Diamond, Linda Ronstadt and Natalie Cole. In addition to being the solo mandolinist who performed the classic "Godfather" theme, he played on numerous TV and film soundtracks, including "West Side Story," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Blazing Saddles." Born in Brooklyn on June 16, 1919, Viola grew up in a large — and musical — Italian family whose home was filled with guitars, mandolins and an upright player piano.

Yeah! I like it too, Sidewinder. At the time, the British jazz I was listening to seemed to swing more than the US jazz, a lot of which was hard bop which had become tired.

Corea/Vitous/Haynes - Trio Music Live in Europe (ECM) 1984 Mike Mainieri - Wanderlust (Warner Bros.) 1981 Herbie Mann - Windows Opened (Atlantic) 1968 Art Pepper - Today (Galaxy/OJC) 1978 Mike Westbrook's Love Songs (Deram) 1970 Annette Peacock - The Perfect Release (Tomato) 1979

I don't have Boogaloo Sisters yet. Is there an alternative to going to CDBaby which will result in the band getting more of the purchase price?

El Skid - s/t (Vinyl) 1977 Stan Getz - Sweet Rain (Verve) 1967 Thelonious Monk - Thelonious In Action (Riverside OJC) 1958 Hugh Hopper - 1984 (Br. CBS) 1972

Lon and Shawn and Rachel, I pray for my friends every night, so I will make it a point to include you in them. The Lord will provide, although not in ways that we expect!

Mike Nock - Succubus (Sutra) from 1980 Klaus Doldinger - Blues Happening (World Pacific Jazz) from 1968 Don Ellis - Live at Montreux (Atlantic) from 1978 Now it's off to bed!

When Your Music's price was $4.99, my budget was five dolars a week. When they raised the price to $5.99, my budget became $6.00 a week. That ended when I spent $165.00 at the Concord Blowout Sale in August. I didn't buy anything after that (except my monthly Your Music queue selection) until a couple of weeks ago when I spent $23.00 to join the Jazz Heritage Society. I don't expect to be buying anything again until I buy myself an Easter present in six weeks.

You bet! PS - Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. It was the original hit by Love that was played!

Hi Danielle! I spent this evening watching a movie from 1979 I had never seen called Breaking Away. It won the Oscar that year for Best Screenplay. It wasn't that great a movie, but it was enjoyable. It's been a long time since I've seen a French movie, but I used to think that those were the best!

Hugh Hopper - Hopper Tunity Box One of the Brits over at AAJ, I think it was Bev, posted that a new superbly remastered CD of this is now out, so I thought I would pull this out and remind myself of it.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Paul, I really like the way Wayne plays on Morning Mist. I think you'll get to really like that album!

And now the latest from Fox News: Britney Spears checked into rehab again on Tuesday at the urging of family members, TMZ reported. Spears checked into an inpatient rehab facility in Los Angeles. Last week, she checked herself into Eric Clapton's Crossroads Centre rehab clinic on the Caribbean island of Antigua — but stayed only 24 hours. This weekend, many speculated that the star was having a nervous breakdown after she shaved her own head. But insiders said not so fast. Less than 24 hours after her act of "shear madness," Spears happily lounged poolside at West Hollywood's chic Mondrian hotel sporting a short blond wig to cover her newly shorn skull. The star had a green cap over the wig and was wearing a multicolored bikini top and a mismatched bikini bottom, reports E! gossip columnist Marc Malkin. Though rumors persisted that Spears had "lost it," witnesses at the pool said she seemed to be in good spirits, chatting with her friends and chain-smoking. Her kids were not with her. "She was definitely having fun with her friends," Malkin said. Cameras also caught Spears sporting a platinum blond wig at The Roxy in West Hollywood Sunday night. Video: Click here to see video of Britney wearing a wig As for the buzz cut, a Las Vegas gossip Web site offers another possible reason for Spears' new do. Three weeks ago, it says, Spears went to a salon in the Palms hotel and casino in Las Vegas. There, staffers found her hair was so badly damaged from repeated dye jobs, bleachings and extensions that it had broken off and thinned to the point "where bald spots had begun to appear," the site reported. So she may have clipped it off to start over. Spears also may have shaved off her hair in an act of rebellion against her mother, a source told the New York Post on Sunday. The source, with the Los Angeles-based X17 photo agency that uncovered Spears' haircut at a Los Angeles hair salon Friday night, said Spears and her mom, Lynne, 50, had been feuding over the mother's demand that her 25-year-old daughter clean up her act and settle into motherhood herself. The source said Spears and her mother had been fighting about rehab since she returned to Los Angeles — and the photo agency has pictures to prove it. So Spears shockingly shaved off her long locks to rebel against her mom, the source said. Lynne, who lives in Kentwood, La., flew to Tinseltown last week to be with her daughter — and to help take care of Spears' kids, Sean Preston, 18 months, and Jayden James, 5 months. "Yes, Lynne took a flight to see her a few days ago," Spears' cousin Ernest Spears told The Post Sunday. Spears strode into Esther's Haircutting Studio in the Tarzana section of Los Angeles on Friday and asked owner Esther Tognozzi to shave her head. "I tried to talk her out of it. I said, 'Are you sure you're not having a bad day and tomorrow you'll feel differently about it? Why don't we wait a little bit?'" Tognozzi told a cable news network. "She said 'No, I absolutely want it shaved off now.' Next thing I know, she grabbed the buzzer and she went to the back of my salon and she was shaving off her own hair," Tognozzi said. When she finished, she declared: "'Oh, my God, I shaved it all off. My mom is going to be upset with me.'" Then as TV cameras rolled, shutterbugs snapped and onlookers cheered and jeered, Spears put a hood over her hairless head, got into her black SUV and was driven to the Body and Soul Tattoo parlor. There, she had red-and-pink lips tattooed on her wrist and a black, white and pink cross inked on her lower hip. Then she got into her SUV and drove off. There may be one more reason Spears hasn't been herself lately. In the star's hometown of Kentwood, La., her aunt Wanda Bridges told the New York Daily News that Spears had been greatly saddened by the death of her aunt Sandra Bridges Covington, 59, who succumbed to cancer last month and with whom she was very close.

In celebration of Shrove Tuesday today, I went to Bob Evans to have a stack of pancakes this morning. The muzak was playing the usual easy-to-swallow 60s music, when then comes Love's Seven and Seven Is!!!! That was a hit when I was in high school, and it was the sort of music that would cause my mother to shout "Turn that off!" The music was very soft, so many people probably didn't notice it. But still, my dear late mother would turn in her grave!

Happy Birthday Hans!

Happy Birthday John!

Happy Birthday Skid!

In celebration of Mardi Gras, today I opened up The Best of Pete Fountain (Decca Jazz). Great stuff!

Received this email today: February 19, 2007 To: SIRIUS Subscribers Today is a very exciting day for SIRIUS customers. As you may have heard, SIRIUS Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio are merging to form the nation's premier audio entertainment provider. This combination of our two offerings will benefit you - our loyal listeners. As a single company, we'll provide superior programming to you every day with the best of both SIRIUS and XM. Currently, XM and SIRIUS broadcast a wide range of commercial-free music channels, exclusive sports coverage, news, talk, and entertainment programming. Howard Stern. Oprah and Friends. The NFL. MLB. NBA. ESPN. CNBC. Fox News. Additionally, the combined company will be able to improve existing services such as real-time traffic information and rear-seat video as well as introduce new ones. After shareholder and regulatory approvals, we anticipate that the combination will be finalized by the end of 2007. Until then, both companies will continue to operate independently. We will continue to provide you with the uninterrupted service - as well as the outstanding customer support - that you have come to expect and enjoy from SIRIUS. We do not anticipate any changes in your service during the merger process, however, please call our customer care team on 1- 888-539-7474 should you have any questions. We look forward to the many benefits this combination will offer and continuing to make your listening experience an enjoyable one - offering more of the Very Best Radio on Radio. Stay tuned, Mel Karmazin, CEO