Tom Storer

Joyeuse anniversaire !

I like Pat Martino's "Consciousness." Particularly side two (I had it on vinyl in high school).

My most fervent wish for what I would like to leave behind is, like for some others who have weighed in, family-related. I'd like my son to be able to draw on his relationship with me and his memories of my example to find strength and meaning in his own life. If I were able to look down from my cloud in Heaven (or up from my flame-pit in Hell) and see that happening, it would be enough to have made life worthwhile. I think much of the desire to leave behind a legacy is simply that we don't want to die. I don't want to die but I'm resigned to it; even if my name were remembered by the whole world, it wouldn't make a difference to me because I'd be dead! My wishes for my son are about him, not about me. Otherwise, I'm more concerned with helping things go well in the here and now, be it at work, among family, among friends, among strangers... the kind of things that won't be remembered because they aren't at all remarkable, they're simply things that might make a document better (I'm an editor), help people get along, clarify an issue in dispute, relieve a little pain or bring a little comfort, or otherwise smooth the rough edges. That we can all do. No one remembers a raindrop, but enough of them will make the crops grow, and that's the real point.

Three of my favorites are: - Joe Pass, Intercontinental (1969, I think), with Eberhard Weber on bass, Kenny Clare (not Clarke) on drums - Jim Hall Live, with Don Thompson and Terry Clarke - Kenny Burrell, A Night at the Village Vanguard, 1959, with Richard Davis and Roy Haynes I had the K. Burrell on vinyl, got it when I was young, and I just picked it up on CD the other day. There are no fireworks but it has so much class. Another guitar favorite is Jim Hall's duo with Ron Carter, "Live at Village West." Beautiful interaction, beautiful sound.

Then there was Tim Berne's 1993 album of Julius Hemphill music, "Diminutive Mysteries." It had Berne, Marc Ducret, Hank Roberts, Joey Baron, Herb Robertson, Mark Dresser, and... David Sanborn.

I favor the virtual death penalty for virtual murder. Hey, this is cool. I can be a virtual conservative!

Wow, it even has an wikipedia entry (thanks, Chas). People collect these things? I thought maybe it was one of those annoying strips of plastic glued over the tops of CDs so you can't open them easily. They don't do that in France, it's only US imports. God, how I hate those things.

What's an obi strip?

What saxophonist? I see the saxophone, but no saxophonist. Only Max and the bassist. Could be Morrow on bass, but I dunno:

Last night I saw Eric Harland's brand new quintet--it was their first performance. Harland, drums, composer; Walter Smith III, tenor sax; Julian Lage, guitar; Taylor Eigsti, piano; Harish Raghavan, bass. Very, very cool--longish jamming over interesting grooves and melodic motifs, high energy, creative interplay, all the musicians having an absolute gas despite jet lag. A lot of fusion influence somehow, but indirect. It was my first time seeing any of them and I was very impressed. It was the sort of concert where everybody goes home grinning. They were recording, and will record subsequent concerts on the tour with the hopes of releasing a live album. So I started googling and found that there's a whole generation I haven't been aware of. Lage and Smith, Christian Scott, a bunch of other names all playing on each other's albums and gigging with each other. Anybody familiar with what these young guys are doing?

A tie... 1) Ornette Coleman and Prime Time, early 90's. It was so loud I began to feel panicky--like the sound waves were seriously doing me harm. I thought I might get sick, it was so loud. I had to leave. Out in the parking lot, about a hundred feet from the door, I turned around and could hear the music with full detail, at reasonable concert volume. I hung out for a while enjoying the music outside, kind of a surreal experience. 2) Johnny Thunders, long ago, not sure just when. A friend took me to the Gibus, a rock club in Paris, to see this. The canned music on the sound system before the concert was so loud that all conversation was impossible. When Thunders and his band came out the volume increased a whole lot. I had hissing in my ears for a full 24 hours afterward.

Lots of people have bad intentions, racist attitudes, and so forth; some people don't know how to deal with that well. Handling all confrontations by saying "you are acting in bad faith because you're a racist" has the dual advantage of protecting oneself against genuine racist attitudes and giving oneself an out whenever there's even the possibility of racist attitudes; the first advantage is self-protection, the second is self-indulgence. But it's hard to come to general conclusions. Her conclusion--"this conflict is not my fault, it's the fault of your racism"--while it may not have been accurate this time, may well have been accurate on other occasions with other people. I don't know that the incident is indicative of anything in particular on a larger scale, other than the presence of racism in America. Her experience of racism as a black American is no doubt part of her own troubles as an individual. She didn't just pull that accusation out of a hat, she did so after first picking a fight; also her son was there and she needed to frame the incident, in which she pointlessly bickered with a taxi driver to such an extent that she and her son were ejected, in a way that wasn't embarassing to her. Better, in her mind, to have her son thinking "that awful racist was mean to my mother" than to have him thinking "Mom is a crank who can't get along with anyone and embarasses me in public." Although he is probably aware of that anyway.

The New Morning is a pretty good club that wastes no money on decor or comfort. Folding wooden chairs, little round tables to set your drinks on, and they pack them in tight when they can. Nice vibe, though. No Paris jazz fan gets through the year without going to at least a couple of concerts there, often more. Holds about 300 max when it's packed, including standing room only by the bar. They don't take reservations. You can get tickets beforehand from ticket counters at the FNAC chain of CD/book/etc. stores, the Virgin Records on the Champs Elysées, and the Galeries Lafayette department store near the Saint Lazare train station, or from the New Morning itself either on the night of the concert or on prior days in late afternoon or early evening. Alternatively, you can pay online and have them send you the tickets through the mail--although I note that the late November programming isn't available for pre-order on the site yet, and you might not want to risk doing that from abroad, although I've never had any trouble doing it locally. On the night of the concert, they let in everyone first who has already purchased a ticket, and only then those who still need to buy one. That's why it's wise to visit one of those aforementioned ticket places, or the New Morning itself, to get your ticket beforehand. Music starts (theoretically) at 9 PM, doors open at 8 PM. They have a bar and often sell overpriced, undersized sandwiches until they run out, but you'd be better off getting a bite to eat first, and getting on line before 8 if you really want a good seat. Oh, yeah--it's pretty centrally located on the right bank, not far from the Chateau d'Eau metro station on line 4. The recorded announcement you get when you call them is emblazoned on my memory, so often have I heard it... "7 et 9 rue des Petites Ecuries au métro Chateau d'Eau dans le 10ème arrondissement." Pick up a little Paris map book and you'll find it very easily.

"Stooping"?

"Could of been"? ARGH! Could HAVE been!

Hell, I didn't need no steenking financial crisis to live on the edge! No, but seriously. I have a very small nest egg in a company investment plan and all the rest of my income (and my wife's) goes into living month to month and paying my mortgage. We save crumbs every month. Even if my savings are halved I'm not out much.

I'm really looking forward to this one. Much as I love the quintet and big band, it'll be nice to hear his music for another configuration.

Somebody is old! He's not the only one. Hang on, I'll google him... Ah, yes, the actor, singer, producer, composer and screenwriter born on August 28, 1969 in Hermosa Beach, California. That Jack Black!

Anyone know when this was recorded?

Take heed, users of portable audio devices. I used them for years while commuting in the Paris metro and had to give them up overnight when a hearing test revealed that I had indeed damaged my hearing. Don't let it happen to you!

Argh. I have enough trouble wrapping my head around all this finance stuff. Language like "if the market is allowed to do what it thinks is best" doesn't help! A market does not think or have opinions. It's an aggregate of millions of individual actions. I think what that phrase means is "if the market is allowed to function without regulation." I know I'm splitting hairs, but the term "the market" is often used imprecisely. Whenever it's anthropomorphized into a thoughtful individual I just get more confused (even though I can understand the temptation to sum it up that way). It's kind of like when people talk about evolution as if it has clever intentions ("this species evolved this way to solve the problem of..."). Thank you for listening.

As I understand it, the problem is not whether the banks in a given country are strict about home loans, but about whether they invest in the financial products whose value is uncertain because they contain "subprime" home loan credit originating in the States. Those subprime mortgages were sliced up and packaged, resliced and repackaged with other stuff, and so on, and sold and resold all over the world--all the while being given good credit ratings. Therefore conscientious Canadian banks could well be stuck holding the same risky assets as banks in any other country.

Rachel, I'm trying to guess what profession you might be in... lawyer? Painter? Short order cook? Computer programmer? Opthalmologist?

Actually, I was wrong, they do have my neighborhood, but they have no idea what it contains. Not surprising that they wouldn't have good data for the entire world, but even in the US they seem to be sort of random, according to comments. A great idea for a site, but dependent on having complete data.

Just started Balzac's "La Comédie Humaine," starting with "Le Père Goriot." I've never read Balzac.