GA Russell

USA Today didn't say that Jeff Garcia is the most coveted free agent in the NFL, but from the looks of today's paper they sure act like it. They gave him a big color photo on page one just under the words USA Today, and a second big photo in the Sports section. Nice ego trip for the guy! ***** The Saints cut Joe Horn today. Anybody else remember when he played for the Memphis Mad Dogs with Damon Allen?

Happy Birthday Al!

Happy Birthday Paul!

Brownie, by coincidence I stumbled upon my copy of that yesterday! So tonight I pulled it out and enjoyed it. Thelonious Monk - The Riverside Trios, disc 1 (Plays Duke Ellington) (Milestone twofer) The Fourth Way (Capitol) 1968 George Russell - Jazz in the Space Age (MCA twofer coupled with New York, NY) Tony Williams - Once in a Lifetime, disc 1 (Verve twofer of TW Lifetime material) Herbie Mann and Bobby Jaspar - Flute Flight (Prestige) Dennis Budimir - Alone Together (Revelation) 1964

Last night Bob Young told me that Jake Gaudaur has published a four-volume autobiography of his years as Commissioner with lulu. So tonight I have ordered Volume 3, which covers 1976-79. The total including tax and shipping came to $24.57. I'm looking forward to reading it!

That's not the case in North Carolina. I'm talking about going on a two lane winding country road. And when they have the opportunity to pass, they often don't. Most tailgaters here in NC want to drive 20 miles over the speed limit. When I drive five miles over it, I don't consider myself driving slow. That has occurred to me as well, because of NASCAR's popularity here in NC. I didn't realize that that might also be an issue in other parts of the country. By the way, I've noticed that plenty (maybe 40%) of the tailgaters here are women. It's not just male NASCAR fans.

Four Freshmen and Five Saxes (Pausa) Miles Davis - Friday Night at the Blackhawk, vol. 1 (Columbia) Soft Machine - Seven (Columbia) 1973 Soft Machine - Fourth (Columbia) 1971 Mose Allison - Western Man (Atlantic) 1971

Tonight I met the owner of the Ticats, Bob Young. Nice guy. I attended a presentation he made on behalf of his company lulu.com. I wondered aloud why he traded DJ Flick for Rocky Butler! I'm sure he enjoyed finding someone who cared in North Carolina.

This from Breitbart: HARRISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - A woman who told authorities she was fed up with tailgaters pulled out a gun and shot at the tires of a pickup that got too close, police said. Officials believe the bullet missed the pickup, and no one was hurt. Bernadette Headd, 39, was in rush-hour traffic Wednesday in suburban Detroit when the pickup pulled behind her, police said. Headd changed lanes and fired one round from a 9 mm handgun, police said. The driver followed her and flagged down a deputy, who stopped her and found the weapon. "She said she was tired of people tailgating her," Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said. Headd, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm from a vehicle and use of a firearm during a felony. She was ordered held on $50,000 bond. ***** The tailgating here in North Carolina is the worst I've experienced in my life. I was hit (my truck was totalled) a few months after I moved here four years ago. If I were on this woman's jury, I'd vote to acquit. The tailgaters are threatening violence to the innocent. I've got no sympathy for the guy whose tires were shot at. edit for typo

Great news! I'm happy for you!

I hope you'll let us know what your experience is after a while, Rooster. I've been thinking that when the time comes to buy a new computer, if I have to get a new operating system I might as well get an Apple Mac. edit for typo

Happy Birthday Noj!

Today's lot: Wolfgang Dauner - Rischkas Soul (Brain) early 70s Rolf & Joachim Kuhn and the Mad Rockers (Goody) 1968 Miles Davis (The Lost Quintet) - Double Image (Moon) 1969 Henry Cow - Unrest (Virgin) 1974 Blossom Dearie - 1975 (Daffodil) 1975 Jackie & Roy, disc 1 (MCA twofer of 50s Coral recordings) released 1982 The Progressives, disc 1 (Columbia sampler twofer) 1973 Charles Lloyd - Warm Waters (Kapp) 1971 Lennie Tristano - New York Improvisations (Elektra Musician) 1955 Chet Baker - Smokin' (Prestige) 1965?

Trevis Smith got 5 1/2 years. The prosecution asked for ten. Is anyone else struck by the fact that the press refers to him as a former player, as if he played years ago and now has gotten into trouble? The guy was bedding women knowing that he was HIV positive while he was playing! Furthermore, he continued to play after knowing that he had HIV. And the team let him do so! The team said that it is against the law (privacy rights) to do anything like cut him just because he had HIV and it was not yet made public, but I have to believe that the players to a man didn't like that idea. Think about all the cuts and wounds inflicted on the football field. No one wants to rub up against someone who is bleeding who has a communicable disease. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Sas...3474553-cp.html

Yeah! I like that one! I like just about everything I have of Mike Nock. I think it shows Maupin in a good way, dispelling the notion people might have had if they had only heard him on Bitches Brew.

Mike, I had you pegged for Easter!!! I have the Demond Mosaic box and the Wilson CD you picked up, and in my book they are all five stars. I've never heard Tubby Hayes. In fact, I had never heard of him until the Brits at AAJ raved about him. One day I'll pick something of his up. edit for typo

Sounds great! Congrats everyone!

Today I opened up a box of LPs I haven't heard since 2001: Ian Carr's Nucleus - In Flagrante Delicto (Contemp) 1977 Ransom Wilson - Reich, Glass & Becker (Angel) 1982 Richie Cole - Some Things Speak For Themselves (Muse) 1981 Charles Lloyd - Moon Man (Kapp) 1970 Transit Express - Opus Progressif (Peters Int'l) 1976 Thelonious Monk - Solo Monk (Columbia) Robert Wyatt - The End of an Ear (Br. CBS) 1971 The Best of Charles Mingus (Atlantic) 1956-61, released in 1970 Soft Machine Six, disc 1 (Columbia) 1972 The Manhattan Transfer - Vocalese (Atlantic) 1985 Herbie Mann with the Bill Evans Trio - Nirvana (Atlantic) 1961

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.