Tom Storer

You would think that competition would force prices down rather than up. I see two different markets corresponding to different communities of taste: mainstream, major-label music, on the one hand, and historical or non-mainstream indie-label music on the other. Obviously there's overlap, and a given customer could be interested in both, but a very large proportion of the mainstream listeners aren't going to be interested in the indie stuff and vice-versa. For the mainstream market, eMusic will now be competing with Amazon and iTunes, with lower prices. So competition will be forcing prices down there. For the indie labels they already offer, eMusic just about has a monopoly, so they can afford to up their prices. Their sales will go down but in exchange for that they'll enter the larger and more lucrative mainstream market. In addition, as Captain Wrong surmises, they might have been pricing too low to retain their indie labels anyway. BWTFDIK? Anyway, John, having seen your collection, what surprises me is that there remains any jazz or blues for you to purchase anyway.

This whole thing is not aimed at their existing customer base of aficionados mining for independent-label gold at low low prices. They want to expand their customer base, and that PR campaign is aimed at people who have been getting mainstream MP3s elsewhere, not at you. The raised eMusic prices will be competitive with iTunes and Amazon. They've decided to target a much wider audience. Some long-time customers are already feeling betrayed and canceling their subscriptions in order, apparently, to pay more per track on Amazon, which I confess I don't quite get. There's still huge amounts of music on eMusic I couldn't get at Amazon or iTunes, so when they get around to jacking up prices for eMusic Europe, I'll stick around as long as they're still competitively priced.

This one sounds interesting: Steve Kuhn Trio with Joe Lovano, Mostly Coltrane Joe Lovano: tenor saxophone and tarogato Steve Kuhn: piano; David Finck: double-bass Joey Baron: drums Release date: July 7, 2009

I'm assuming the volumes already out will continue to be sold as long as supplies last. I'm going to be getting the ones I don't already have right quick.

Any idea what the release date will be? The 1957 set did come out. But the European Union has just voted to extend copyright protection from 50 to 70 years. The compilers of the Trésors du Jazz series, André Francis and Jean Schwarz, are elderly gentlemen. So that, I'm afraid, is that.

Not if the European limit is extended to 95 years as proposed by the European Commission. Read in the paper the other day that they compromised: the limit was extended to 70 years and voted. This means that the Trésors du Jazz series of 10-cd boxes per year is now over. They got up to 1957.

In the June issue of the French monthly Jazz Magazine, there's an ad that says "Label Bleu reissues 12 essential references." Their website is currently online. The content of the site seems to be two years old and doesn't mention these reissues, but apparently the Maison de Culture d'Amiens, a municipal cultural center under whose auspices the label was created, has found a new distributor for the back catalog, Sphinx Distribution, in Paris. Here are the 12 reissues: Marc Ducret, Gris Daniel Goyone, 2 Daniel Humair, Edges David Linx/Diederik Wissels, Bandarkah D'Andra/Humair/Rava/Vitous, Earthcake Enrico Rava, L'Opéra Va Barbara Casini/Enrico Rava, Vento Palatino (Romano/Benita/Fresu/Ferris), Palatino Palatino (Romano/Benita/Fresu/Ferris), Tempo Enrico Rava, Carmen Henri Texier Trio, The Scene Is Clean Henri Texier, Skopja

Some unintentional humor...

Maybe he can marry Veronica, be hired as vice-president of the firm by his father-in-law, then they'll have kids, who'll grow up, a whole new cast of characters... then they can "reboot" or whatever they call it for Superman comics, where they go back and create entirely new, alternative story lines. Alternate universes of Archie. Why not? If it's good enough for DC...

It makes nice background music, the tunes are somewhat catchy if generic, but so far I haven't found anything in the lyrics that I find particularly inspired, and that's what Dylan is all about, so...

OK, OK, already! What exactly is a CHICAGO SOUL DOG? Found this here: But now that I think about it, the place is called Soul Dog and that's just the house sandwich. A commenter on the web said about this eatery: "I come here for the hot dog toppings: roasted poblano pepper salsa, caramelized onions and lots others." I'm dying to know what a SOUL DOG is in Chicago.

Another great one is "Red 'n' Me," a duet album with Red Mitchell.

A couple that I like are "James Street" and "Ain't Misbehavin'", both quartet albums on High Note featuring John Hicks, Dwayne Dolphin on bass, and Cecil Brooks III on drums.

No, AntiVir is not the same as AVG. I started using AntiVir recently after reading rave reviews in consumer computer magazines. It seems to work just fine. Only drawback is that when it downloads updates it pops up a window encouraging you to buy the Pro version.

When even Japanese noise artist/musicians are freaking out over swine flu, what is the world coming to?

Over the last few days I've ordered: - Lou Rawls, Live! - Lou Rawls, Stormy Monday - Fly Trio, Sky & Country - Jack DeJohnette/John Patitucci/Danilo Perez, Music We Are Anxious to hear the last one!

I can't say I know the lyrics of either EOTH or Genesis off the top of my head, but I doubt that one is better than the other. But "jazz lyrics" are a tiny fraction of what gets song by jazz singers, compared to the Great American Songbook. The thing about all those songs from musicals is that they are, by and large, more sophisticated in terms of rhyme and rhythm, and also less pretentious. In my humble opinion. As for the "jazz is for sophisticates, rock is for the riff-raff" thing, I think the flaw in that is not seeing that one can be both. Personally, I might risk saying "jazz standard lyrics are for the sophisticate in us, rock lyrics are for the riff-raff in us" (with riff-raff meant in a good way). I think that's what I meant by "pretentious" above. Portentous meaning--I prefer trite lovey-dovey lyrics!

That'll teach you: no good deed goes unpunished!

What you put on the web is public. We should never forget that. Therefore, refrain from posting anything that is potentially embarassing, be it compromising photographs, foul-mouthed diatribes, admissions of extreme, illegal or unethical behavior, etc. If you're on Facebook, configure your privacy settings to allow only your "friends" to see what you post. A gray area is discussing your politics, religion, or sexuality, for example on a message board. Of course there will be times when a prospective employer, having googled you, will say, "This person is a conservative/liberal/monarchist/radical; a religious fanatic/one of those atheists/a religion I don't like; a homosexual/heterosexual/fetishist/prude. Therefore, I will reject this candidacy." Does that mean we should avoid talking on the web about these things? Or just be glad we don't end up working for people who are ready to reject us for such reasons?

What the - ?? What's the title of it?

How much prog rock was vocal-free? I've always considered that a big differentiator. With the exception of Chick Corea, fusion bands didn't do vocals. Even when Corea did have a vocalist, the lyrics weren't rock-like. Rock lyrics are usually topical, navel-gazing, or akin to poems in a teenager's journal, whereas jazz lyrics are usually romantic (in a sophisticated way, rather than with adolescent immediacy), linguistically clever or playful, or simply something of little intrinsic interest to drape notes over. Writing the above, I of course thought of counter-examples, but in general, I think that's a fair description.

I concur, but the drummer was Louie Bellson. In a similar timeframe, also on Pablo, with Roker and also with Brown and Pass, was "Dizzy Gillespie's Big 4." Beautiful, relaxed playing, even at the ridiculous tempo of "Bebop (Dizzy's Fingers)."

That sounds remarkably like a famous quote from American Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935): "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

I turned 16 in 1974, and under the influence of a musician friend of my older brother, began listening to records including Weather Report, Chick Corea's "Light As A Feather", and CTI albums. I quickly followed the thread back to Miles Davis and was soon listening to Bitches Brew, Big Fun, and Get Up With It. (That led back to Coltrane, and bebop, and following the Corea trail I also started in on Circle, then Braxton and the AACM in general, but that's not this thread's focus.) I remember that Rolling Stone had a big cover story in 1974 about "Jazz-Rock," with articles on Mahavishnu, Weather Report, Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock and more. That's what it was called at the beginning, jazz-rock or "jazz-rock fusion," which eventually morphed to just "fusion." What seemed exciting, and this was as much a real development as a marketing tool, was the sense that something new was happening, something energetic, liberating, fun and beautiful. That same feeling was there for lots of ECM's music at the time: Gary Burton, Steve Swallow, certain Corea albums and Keith Jarrett were there. The use of electric instruments, the "pastoral" lyricism to use Larry Kart's phrase, and the fact that you didn't have to pass a test on the bewildering world of "old jazz," all served to open doors for young people. I also agree with what someone said above, that "jazz rock" was a misnomer for most of the Miles-derived early bands like Weather Report, RTF and the Headhunters. The rhythms there were more funk than rock. During all this, I was completely unaware of "prog rock." Before plunging into jazz I had liked blues-rock with lengthy guitar solos--Hendrix, Clapton, Allman, etc. I switched allegiance completely to jazz, and things like King Crimson I considered just more rock, hence I wasn't interested. None of the English groups had any visibility at all, at least where I was. And to reply to one of the questions at the start of the thread, I would be surprised if many of the American "jazz-rock" musicians were influenced by prog rock. I could be wrong, of course.

This sounds like tension had been building, but between Chris and whomever else I don't know. "Little brother"? I'm bewildered. Bye, Chris. Sorry you're leaving.