Tom Storer

What a brilliant idea! I want to join!

Weekdays, I get up at 6 AM, do the breakfast and shaving etc. thing, then hit the gym on the way to the office. I get home from work around 7:30 PM--sometimes earlier, sometimes later--and try to get to bed before 11. Not always successfully--if I get to bed at midnight or later, I get up at 6:30 or 7:00 AM and skip the morning gym, because I need my beauty sleep. Weekends, I get up around 8:30-ish. I can't fathom getting up at 4:30 AM. That's the middle of the night. Nor can I fathom going to the gym at 5:30. They don't open here until 7:30 anyway, so the question is moot.

Haynes played Paris on March 12, 2007, and when midnight arrived he announced that it was his 82nd birthday and commanded champagne for the entire band. It was brought on stage and they all stood around drinking champagne as Roy held forth with his stream-of-consciousness patter. They put on a hell of a show that night, too. I recently got the 3-CD+1-DVD box set and it's fantastic. Everybody knows what an extraordinary career he's had, but it's still startling to actually hear that range.

I guess it's possible that many live shows from those years have been Dimed, yes.

I hear all of Shorter's albums as being "personal." I can't think of anyone who has made less impersonal music.

John who?

I wasn't around at the time and was unaware that there had been a thread involving vulgar speculation as to Norah Jones' supposed promiscuity, complete with guffaws from the gallery. Let's face it, given the male-dominant context of the board, that was indeed an example of rank sexism. One can hardly be surprised that a bunch of corporate suits (with their wallets in their pockets) got a bad impression if they happened to chance upon that the one time they glanced at the board. First impressions are often the only ones. I guess the question, though, is what proportion of board traffic was represented by that thread. The board was unmoderated, so there is no way to prevent one fool from posting something offensive, nor others from guffawing. From what I know of this board in recent years--the inheritor of the Blue Note board--I do not believe it's a club of woman-haters by any means. But Bill, when you wrote the article, were you aware of that thread? If so, why not cite it as an example instead of falling back on an "expert" who can blandly report that "jazz communities feel threatened by females"? It's the absolute lack of nuance that I noticed, as well as the "experts report" method of lending credence to a generalization. I don't suppose you remember who the expert was? I wouldn't mind reading his or her research.

I feel for all of them, actually. No one has a happy choice there. The Wire does an excellent job of showing how everyone is interdependent and hence compromised in a complex system.

Hi, Bill. Pleased to meet you! I think it's interesting, and worthy of in-depth analysis and discussion, that almost all message boards I know of are predominantly male. I have no objection to pointing this out or to airing the grievances of women who feel there is an "old boys' club" atmosphere to many message boards that excludes them. However, your paragraph hastily tosses this out: "I talked to a psychiatrist who was an expert in the field of jazz and communities. He told me there is a strong male identity to jazz communities and they feel threatened by females." Some unidentified expert tells you that jazz communities feel threatened by females. OK, he told you that and you told the readers that he told you that. Fine, it's all very above board. But it's meaningless. With no evidence, no explanation, no history, it breezily implies that jazz boards specifically, and the Blue Note board in particular, are bastions of male chauvinism and that's why Norah Jones was greeted with skepticism. Cassandra Wilson is a woman on Blue Note who met with considerable success and wasn't booed or dismissed. Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O'Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Sheila Jordan, Dinah Washington, and also Mary Lou Williams, Terri Lynn Carrington, Matana Roberts, Ingrid Jensen, Maria Schneider, Toshiko Akiyoki... not necessarily Blue Note, but all women whom even a male jazz audience would be unlikely not to take seriously. So I think the real problem, to the extent that there was one, is just that that your article included a big, unexamined generalization at the expense of the Blue Note board members. And it still rankles some of them, obviously! I didn't come along until after the fact so I'll now go back to sitting this one out. ;-)

She's not a rat, she's a responsible professional who doesn't accept that the end justifies the means! I mean, a little cutting corners is one thing, but falsifying evidence and wholescale deception is another. Was she going to slide down the slippery slope of self-deception and rationalization until she was willing to lie and cheat in order to set her own agenda, as McNulty did? The role that"chain of command" plays in the show is complicated. On the one hand, it allows people at the top to enforce their own corruption; on the other, it provides people in the middle and lower regions of the force with a standard by which to judge their own behavior in the sea of ethical ambiguity that surrounds them. How can McNulty credibly complain that the people on the top are liars and cheats if he does the same thing? Furthermore, his lying and cheating was itself criminal, and he's a cop. That's what Kima declared her allegiance to in reporting McNulty: the rule of law.

Actually only one track from BN. But more than one "similar"! Reading through the thread, I see that this is the BN track, and I have committed a grave sin against Blue Note orthodoxy!

Hell of an episode! Hard to see how they can realistically cover up McNulty's fake investigation, but enough is at stake that they might try to... It was Snoop's end that I thought was stunningly well acted. The final moment, when, knowing Michael is about to kill her, she catches sight of herself in the side mirror of the van, brushes her hand over her head almost coquettishly, and says with resignation, "How my hair look, Mike?" Meanwhile, we've learned that lawyer Levy has been selling courthouse documents to the gangsters, but who is the source? I think it's the judge. It's possible that all of Baltimore will end up behind bars in the final season!

They're public servants. They SERVE THE PUBLIC, of course!

Ah, different worlds... in France the government is the largest employer, accounting for over one-sixth of total employment.

Wasn't able to get to this right away, and have avoided the discussion thread. I couldn't make any confident guesses on any of these (well, on one, but not based on the music!). There seems to be a lot of Blue Note or similar music here, and I confess I would never have been allowed on the old Blue Note message board because I've never really been a Blue Note expert by any means. I always preferred late Blue Note--the Andrew Hill, Tony Williams, Joe Henderson, edging into avant-garde sort of stuff. Anyway, here goes... 1. Sounds like Coleman Hawkins on tenor. Don't know who the others are but they sound great! The music reminds me of mid-50's bop with swing memories. I could imagine Lucky Thompson recording this tune. Love the crisp drumming. 2. The arrangement is a little dated, but I like the soloing. What soprano player would be in a situation like that? No idea. 3. Nice and suave, I like it a lot. No idea who it is but it sticks with me. 4. Formulaic but enjoyable. Not much originality, IMHO, but quite an alto player nonetheless. 5. Very nice. I love the tenor's tone and phrasing. 6. Good but kind of generic. 7. No surprises, but it swings and I like the arrangement--well, except that it kind of wears out its welcome after a while. Interesting pianist--sort of jittery and jumpy. 8. Good enough playing but I find the tune annoyingly dull. 9. Beautiful! 10. Initially I was lukewarm--that piccolo in the opening bars isn't my cup of tea. But in the end I decided it's pretty solid. 11. A nice, aggressive tenor sax. Red meat! The speaking voice gives it away--has to be James Moody, with that characteristic slight lisp. "We'll be white black!" What a sense of humor! He no doubt sang "Bennie's From Heaven" somewhere in that set. 12. A mellow, Eddie Condon style affair. Perhaps a bit too mellow--I would have preferred a little more gumption! 13. I'm convinced by the singer, whoever it is. Good tenor sax counterpoint. I'm sure I know them both but no names spring to mind. 14. The alto's phrasing is a little stilted or something--he's very hot but a little mannered somehow. IMHO. 15. Two pianos--there were so many of those piano duet things, during the 70's in particular. No idea who these are. I rarely like two-piano duets--they're just too rich. Thanks, Jack, for a vintage BFT!

Hey, I thought it was only in France that they called cassettes "kay sevens." Maybe Québec too?

YouTube: Because

I have the CD of the turkey song! The music gets very old in about two seconds flat, but the lyrics are hilarious. "We're sick of Riverdance, Flatley is a Yank..."

Oh, Christ, not the JFK assassination. Everybody's an expert, everybody knows the fact or supposed fact that PROVES a vast conspiracy, unless they have the slam-dunk refutation of the other guy's incontrovertible fact. Quick, somebody start talking about Wynton!

Buckley's politics were everything that I despised, but a good friend of mine is a close relative of his. Through the anecdotes and memories she has shared about him over the years I came to feel quite affectionately about him by proxy. I know from this small window into his family life that he was a very generous, warm and (obviously) very witty man who inspired love and loyalty in those close to him. He was a reactionary and an authoritarian whose views on society and politics were, in my opinion, pretty much entirely wrong. But to hell with that, he's dead. May he rest in peace.

A friend of mine found this somewhere and sent it to me... couldn't find it on the web but here it is!

Yeah, I went back and had a look. It was the same kid. And later when Omar tells Chris and Snoop about it, he says something like "the hopper went in and popped him just to see the damage." Omar wasn't even done in by his enemies.

Actually, he noticed that the old white guy had Omar's tag, and he put it back. Absolutely no clue what that was about. Why was it switched to begin with? Weird. Presumably there will be some explanation.

Huh. I guess I missed the comedy in Omar's demise! And the kid who didn't run was also in the process of calmly setting a cat on fire when Omar walked past him. The new generation of empathy-free psychotic murderers... I'm also kind of worried about McNulty, especially after that heart-to-heart with Beadie where he seems remorseful, despairing, introspective... it's so out of character that he must be depressed. And guilty, drunken, armed, depressed, self-pitying, impulsive police are a high-risk kind of group.

So has episode 8 been shown already to everyone? Can we talk about it yet?