Chalupa

I think the person on NPR was referring to a story, probably apocryphal, about an interview between MTV VJ Tabitha Soren and Bill Clinton. From the LA Times website..... Joining the tireless Kurt Loder as the second face of MTV News, Soren performed her duties with a healthy sense of red-haired gravitas. However, she may be best known for her 1992 interview with Bill Clinton where she asked the candidate on a "Choose or Lose" special, "Who's your favorite musician?" When Clinton replied, "Thelonious Monk," Soren responded, "Who's the loneliest monk?" Since her time on MTV, Soren has dropped out of the public eye, free to ponder such Zen-like questions.

His performance at Woodstock is not to be missed.

My son, who is 2.5 yrs. old, loves the "Linus & Lucy" song. Yesterday, I spoke w/ one of his teachers at his nursery school and she said he was dancing around the room playing "air piano" when she played the song for him. I had played the "Linus & Lucy" song for him last Christmas but I don't remember him having any kind of reaction to it so I was kind of surprised to hear that he had such a strong feeling about it now. Anyway, we played it for him last night after dinner and sure enough the kid went into whirling dervish mode. After it ended his face just lit up w/ the biggest smile and he said,"Again, Daddy, again." We wound up playing it about 10x in a row before we took him upstairs. It reminded me of how when I was a kid and heard some new song that I really liked that I had to hear it over and over and over again. He loves music and is always singing/humming a song but, this was the first time I've ever seen him get crazy over a piece of music. It made my Christmas. Thank goodness it wasn't something horrible like Britney, et al.

Well, Wex says he didn't read the small print. He knew that Sam & Dave, who appeared on Stax, were actually Atlantic artists; and he offered Jim Stewart Aretha on the same basis. I think this is consistent with a view that there were only certain Stax recordings that Atlantic owned; the Sam & Dave's as well as those of Atlantic artists like Wilson Pickett, whose recordings were produced by Stax for Atlantic. Wex says: "In no uncertain terms, the ownership was in the original contract drawn up by Atlantic's lawyer, Paul Marshall. ... I couldn't act unilaterally, because by then I was an employee, no longer a partner." At the time the contract was drawn up, Wexler had only been involved with Atlantic 6 years and, in fairness, his contribution was not to the business end; it was as a record producer. Of course Jim Stewart should have known - the man was a banker by profession. What kind of banker doesn't look at the small print of a contract? So, if you were trying to slip some small print into a contract, would you try it on with a banker? MG Wexler can say what he says. I don't buy it, but if you do, that's fine. For all of his love for the music, and his gifts as a producer, Jerry Wexler was still a very ambitious man. I definitely don't believe that Ahmet Ertegun was ignorant of what was in the contract. You don't last in the music biz for as long as he did, and gain the power that he had, by being naive. Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, on the other hand, were naive and got chewed up by the sharks. That's the scumbag business side of the music business. "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -Hunter S. Thompson

Wow. I had no idea he was from Philly! I think he must have lived very near to Chris A. when Chris was living in Philly. I wonder if their paths ever crossed..... Posted on Thu, Dec. 14, 2006 Actor Peter Boyle, 71; roles belied his true personality By Gayle Ronan Sims Inquirer Staff Writer Before Peter Boyle began an acting career that included his portrayal of the crotchety and profane father in the television hit Everybody Loves Raymond, he played football for West Catholic High, studied to be a monk, and substituted as a teacher in Philadelphia-area schools. The 71-year-old actor died Tuesday of multiple myeloma and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Mr. Boyle's character, Frank Barone, in Raymond, which ran from 1996 until 2005, was that of an angry, suburban, blue-collar guy - which could not have been further from his sensitive, artistic temperament in real life. "He's nothing like Frank Barone, and that makes his performance even more impressive," the sitcom's creator, Phil Rosenthal, said in 2004. "He's hilarious. For a lot of people, he's their favorite character because there's no filter on what he says." The show's star, Ray Romano, told the Associated Press that he considered Mr. Boyle a mentor. "The way he connected with everyone around him amazed me," Romano said. "The fact that he could play a convincing curmudgeon on the show, but in reality be such a compassionate and thoughtful person, is a true testament to his talent." Although his days in a Maryland monastery would not portend a career as one of America's favorite TV dads - Frank Barone's favorite expression, after all, was "Holy crap" - Mr. Boyle's efforts on the long-running comedy gained acclaim. He was nominated for an Emmy seven times, but never won. He gained notice in the title role in the 1970 movie Joe, playing a barroom bigot who was angry with the hippie culture. Mr. Boyle found the role - a precursor to Archie Bunker - uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the role opened doors for him as an actor, and he played a series of tough guys until another break, in 1974. That was the year he played the monster in Mel Brooks' classic horror-film send-up, Young Frankenstein. He played the role for laughs, most memorably in the song-and-dance routine "Puttin' on the Ritz" with Gene Wilder. The monster wore a tux. "Pete loved making Frankenstein," said lifelong friend Gerry Molyneaux, a film teacher at La Salle University. "He would go to the set to hang around the actors on his days off." Young Frankenstein, Mr. Boyle said, was the highlight of his career. Mr. Boyle met his future wife, Loraine Alterman, who was a reporter for Rolling Stone, on the set of Frankenstein. He and Alterman had become friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. So, when the couple married in Manhattan in 1977, Mr. Boyle asked Lennon to be his best man. The couple raised two daughters in Manhattan. In West Philadelphia, where he was born, his life was ordinary, even if his father was a local celebrity. Mr. Boyle grew up in a stone twin near 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue. He was the youngest of three children of a homemaker mother, Alice, and an artist and television personality father, Francis X. "Pete" Boyle. His father starred in the early 1950s on WPTZ (Channel 3) kiddie shows Lunch With Uncle Pete and Chuckwagon Pete. He drew cartoons on the air and introduced a generation of Philadelphians to the Little Rascals on Fun House. Mr. Boyle described his childhood in Philadelphia in a 2004 Inquirer article as "very mellow, lots of trees, lots of backyard. I would walk to school at St. Francis de Sales." At West Catholic High School, Mr. Boyle "played football, acted in school plays, and cracked us up by drawing caricatures of the teachers and then passing them around the class," said his friend Molyneaux. "He was very bright and creative and could imitate anyone." After graduating in 1953, Mr. Boyle joined an order of Christian Brothers and studied at Ammendale Normal Institute, a monastery in Beltsville, Md., considered a boot camp for would-be monks. "Pete was a deep, reflective, spiritual guy," Molyneaux said. "Ammendale was hard core. The rules were strict. He prayed all day and could not speak. I think the place really troubled him. He left after a year." He left Ammendale to study English at La Salle College. He was still a Christian Brother and continued to wear his habit. He graduated with honors in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in English. After graduating, Mr. Boyle left the Christian Brothers, worked briefly as a substitute teacher, and then moved to New York to become an actor. "I left the monastery and joined the circus," he told The Inquirer in 2004. For the next five years he worked odd jobs, went to acting classes, and lived in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York. He briefly joined the Second City improv troupe in Chicago before returning to New York, where he made television commercials to pay the bills while waiting for his big break. The bulk of his work came after Joe. His roles in films and television tended to be masculine, rough, aggressive - most notably, the racist prison guard in Monster's Ball in 2001. On television, he demonstrated his singing voice in 1975 while hosting Saturday Night Live. He starred in Joe Bash, a 1986 show in which he portrayed a lonely cop. He won an Emmy in 1996 for his role in an episode of The X Files. He made dozens of films, including Johnny Dangerously; Conspiracy: Trial of the Chicago 8; Dream Team; The Santa Clause; While You Were Sleeping; and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. His most recent work was as Father Time in the Tim Allen comedy The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. Mr. Boyle, who lived in Manhattan, survived a stroke in 1990 and bounced back from a heart attack he suffered on the Raymond set in 1999. He continued the part until the series ended in 2005. In addition to his wife, Mr. Boyle is survived by daughters Amy and Lucy. Services have not yet been announced.

NESN cable bills will be rising.

Conrad, thanks for posting those pm's. I can't say I remember his postings all that well. I did a search and found that he last posted in December of 2005. Besides his great taste in music as others have noted, I was struck by the sheer positive energy that was expressed in his posts. Also, while I rarely read the "Happy Birthday" threads I see that he never missed a chance to send good wishes to all of the celebrants. He seems to have been a really good, kind person. Condolences to his family and friends.

I haven't had time yet to consider a top 10 for 2006. However, two cds that would definitely be on it that haven't been mentioned yet are "Time Lines" by Andrew Hill and "Momentum" by Dave Burrell. Both of these albums are filled w/ stunning compositions and beautiful playing. "Palm of Soul" by Kidd Jordan/Hamid Drake/William Parker would also get a nod as well. Whoops. Almost forgot... What top 10 list of 2006 would be complete without this one????

SI is reporting 6 years, $52Million for Dice.

Oh I knew I forgot something! Yes, Do This and the two Organissimo cds got a lot play here too. Besides the free jazz kick I also listened to a bunch of compilations of 70's funk/jazz from Africa. This one, that I bought on a board member's recommendation, is killer!

Does this count??? or this one???

Well if that method works for you, great. Personally, I've noticed little sonic gremlins when I use the "on the fly" method. I think this is becoming less of a problem w/ computers that have "dual core" technology. Anyway, it didn't happen all the time when I did OTF burns but the gremlins occurred enough that it made me switch over to EAC.

Nada, the only thing I did to the photo was shrink down the pixel size. It's a photo of my son lying on his back playing w/ one of those hanging mobile crib toys that was suspended about 4 inches over him. I was standing right over him shooting downwards through the mobile. I guess he hit it just as I was snapping the picture. The resulting movement along w/ the bright colors of the mobile caused that weird psychedelic blur effect. After I viewed the picture I tried to recreate it w/ my point and shoot digital camera to no avail. I'm guessing the cell phone cameras have a slower shutter speed than the PAS cameras. Edit: Hmm.. I thought I did shrink down the size. I think you can make out the toys a little better in the larger image.

I've never tried it w/ audio but you can send pictures to your email account. My avatar was taken w/ my cell phone.

I love EAC and would not think of using anything else. When you use Roxio to extract are you saving a copy to your hard drive and then burning or do you just extract/burn the disc "on the fly"? You might not notice any problems w/ the former but you probably will w/ the latter.

I've really been listening almost exclusively to "Free Jazz" in 2006. My obsession started w/ the acquistion of the Ayler box back in January and just grew through out the year. Fortunately, I've learned a lot from reading the discussions boards here. We have some very knowledgeable folks on this board who pointed me in the right direction w/ their recommendations and insights. Unfortunately, this music has not been "free" in the monetary sense - most of this stuff is OOP and costs a lot of $$$ to track down. I've been trying to grab everything I can that was put out on ESP, BYG, Free America, Hat Hut, etc. I've also been seeing a lot of musicians perform this year that would fall into this category. Peter Brötzmann/Han Bennink Duo, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Sonny Fortune/Rashied Ali Duo, Henry Threadgill's Zooid, Henry Grimes(2x), Marshall Allen(2x), Cecil Taylor, Dave Burrell/Reggie Workman/Rashied Ali/Muhammad Ali, and a few more I'm blanking on.

You got me, Conrad. Either Boras isn't telling his client the truth, or his client is willing is to wait up to two more years to get every last dollar possible. But the bottom line is that every team who bid would have taken the same approach as the Red Sox - the posting bid represents a portion of the contractual value of the player - they are bidding on the right to have him under contractual control precisely because he isn't a free agent - so Boras would have these very same issues. But if he thinks that Matz gets a 100 million dollar contract separate from the posting fee, they might as well quit right now because that will never fly. And if Matz thinks that is what is he should hold out for, instead of taking a decent offer so he can compete in the majors, than I sincerely hope that he has to wait until 2008 to be a completely free agent, and that his arm falls off before then. I think Boras still has the upper hand because what do the Red Sox do if they don't sign Matsuzaka??? Go after Zito?? That will drive up Zito's price, which is already in $70 million range. They would probably being paying Zito close to what Boras is asking for what we assume to be a better, younger pitcher. Either way they are gonna have to spend $100M. I mean their hands are tied now - all of the good pitchers are gone. They will have to overpay for Zito or try and swing a deal for a pitcher. Manny as trade bait?? They tried that already. What I want to know is how is Theo going to spin this if he fails to sign Matsuzaka?? They can't use the,"They were asking for too much money", excuse when The Royals are showing Meche the money. The Royals! With the kind of money that is being thrown around this year on marginal pitching(cough, Marquis, cough) the Sox have to come up big or they can kiss that Asian market(and the playoffs) goodbye. The fact is Theo underestimated the FA market(to be fair I don't think anyone thought the market would explode like it did this off season) and now he has to pay. A lot.

The 76ers' locker room at the Wachovia Center was emptier than usual tonight when media members were allowed in before the game, and the customary glimpse toward the far left corner of the room bore that out. Allen Iverson no longer had a locker. Iverson's nameplate above the space had been removed. The hangers were empty. No sneakers could be found anywhere. The only sign that someone once had occupied that locker was a lone white bathrobe hanging up. If you had any question the Allen Iverson era had ended in Philadelphia, this confirmed it. http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/16217444.htm

He lost 16 games this past season. His ERA for the season was 6.02. He was left off the post-season roster by the Cardinals. His name is Jason Marquis and the Cubs just signed him for $21 million for 3 years. I going to give my 2 year old son a baseball and glove for Christmas.

Spent almost the entire weekend with him, Henry and his band last weekend at the Velvet Lounge and all appeared well....Fred played his ass off. Maybe he's under the weather just enough not to play. m~ Good I'm glad it's nothing serious. Thanks for the reply.

Goodbye, A.I.

From the rest of the DMG email... HE FIRST RELEASE ON OUR 'DMG ARC' LABEL [after two years, finally!!!] SELWYN LISSACK'S FRIENDSHIP NEXT OF KIN With MIKE OSBORNE /MONGEZI FEZA/KENNETH TERROADE/HARRY MILLER/EARL FREEMAN - Facets Of The Univers (DMG ARC 702; USA) The First Release on our newly formed DMG ARC label is considered by many fans to be one of the rarest late '60s Euro/Brit avant jazz recordings Originally released on the BYG associated 'Goody' label in France [in fact the only one of seven Goody releases that was an original release, and not a questionable reissue], the LP has commanded high prices ranging to $100 to $300 from collector's shops and auction websites including eBay. From Clifford Allen: "To most historians of the "new music", creative improvisation took a somewhat different turn in Europe during the late '60s than it did in the United States, concentrating less on African roots (understandably) and building on both European folk forms and innovations in academic art music and other time arts. Yet in England there was a greater confluence of African musical forms and influence, which is crucial in distinguishing vanguard British improvisation from its brethren in other parts of Europe. Chris McGregor, a white classically-trained pianist from Cape Town, brought the Blue Notes with him to Germany in 1966, finally settling in London. This was the ensemble that, ostensibly "led" by a white South African (though clearly drawing more from kwela and township music as well as jazz), introduced drummer Louis Moholo, bassist Johnny Dyani, trumpeter Mongezi Feza and reedmen Dudu Pukwana and Ronnie Beer to the European jazz community. In addition to the South African scene, expatriate improvisers from Jamaica (reedmen Joe Harriott and Ken Terroade) and Barbados (trumpeter Harry Beckett) were also at the forefront of London's new music community. Drummer Selwyn Lissack, though often not mentioned in the same breath as the above, is nevertheless an interesting piece of the British-South African puzzle. Born and raised in Cape Town, Lissack emigrated to England in 1967 (independently of the Blue Notes) on his way to New York - visa problems kept him in Europe until the end of 1969. Lissack was active on the Cape Town scene in the early 60s, despite anti-integration laws that often broke up musical associations (he's white), but the pull of more fruitful work opportunities elsewhere was undeniable. Upon joining the London community, the young drummer began organizing sessions in his apartment with John McLaughlin, Mike Osborne and other luminaries of the scene, while also studying with Philly Joe Jones (at the time living in Kensington). Lissack's style merges the tidal waves of Elvin and Sunny Murray with the fleetness and occasional bombast of Roy Haynes and Philly Joe, and is more rooted in bop than Louis Moholo. The result of two years of weekly rehearsals with the British and South African avant-garde, Facets of the Universe, released in a limited edition by the BYG subsidiary Goody in 1969, features Lissack in a sextet with Feza, Osborne (alto and clarinet), Terroade (tenor and flute), South African expat bassist Harry Miller and American bassist and multi-instrumentalist Earl Freeman, a stalwart on many BYG-Actuel recordings, heard here also on piano, flute and reciting his poetry. Produced by Aynsley Dunbar vocalist Victor Brox, Facets of the Universe consists of two sidelong pieces: Terroade's Love Rejoice, retitled Friendship Next of Kin for this LP; and a lengthy collective improvisation inspired by Freeman's poetry entitled Facets of the Universe (though confusingly the poem also includes the line Friendship Next of Kin). Yet this music has little in common with strains of British or South African jazz of the time; rather, the approach is somewhere between Sunny's Swing Unit, the Art Ensemble (of Chicago) and fiercer Brotherhood of Breath dates. For this reissue on New York avant record store Downtown Music Gallery's own ARC label, Friendship Next of Kin is presented in two versions: an edited version which includes a drum solo excised from the original take (replayed here), and the album version without the solo. With masters apparently long-gone, the original vinyl in all its French-pressed glory was used, and it is a credit to the engineer that the muddy mix has been brought up to clear, crisp levels that do well in separating the musicians and the music. Friendship (under its alternate title) appeared in somewhat more frantic form on Terroade's BYG session (Love Rejoice, Actuel 22, recorded a few months prior to this date), with reedmen Ronnie Beer and Evan Chandley (Cohelmec Ensemble), pianist Francois Tusques, drummer Claude Delcloo, and Freeman and Beb Guerin on basses. The tune is a weighty, churchy dirge much like those penned by Sunny Murray and Frank Wright that the leader directs into a fast tempo to gird a brittle, smeared Feza contribution, the composer's paint-peeling tenor pyrotechnics (under which Freeman switches to piano), followed by a collective lead-in to Osborne's thoughtfully searing contribution (of the three horn players only Osborne maintains the tempo and character of the original theme, however distorted the notes get) and, finally, Lissack's restored drum solo, a dense thematic exposition recalling his opening salvo on trumpeter Ric Colbeck's Aphrodite. After a brief collective improvisation, the joyous processional through the back streets of Cape Town and Kingston returns to close the piece. Facets of the Universe is something altogether different from the post-Ayler material on side one, and echoes Ra and the AACM in its wide-open spaces, with Freeman reading a highly disparate imagist poem over a stew of tympani, finger cymbals, organ, marimba (courtesy Brian Gascoigne), piccolo and clarinet that recalls Joseph Jarman's reading on Song For or David Moore's with Muhal Richard Abrams and Anthony Braxton on Levels and Degrees of Light. Following this otherworldly declamation, Feza, Terroade and Osborne take off into a maelstrom of brass and reed smears over surging bass and percussion, an ecstatic tidal wave of activity brought on by the tension of words and poetic ideation. Such a setting necessarily focuses the attention on Freeman, who went on to lead the Sound Craft Orchestra in the early 1980s, which featured leading lights of the New York underground, and recorded a hideously rare LP with clarinetist Henry Warner and percussionist Phillip Spigner, The Freestyle Band. His poetry and arpeggiated piano on Facets of the Universe add to the mystery of the uniform of aviator goggles and union work suit. Facets closes just as sparsely as it began, with the last gasps of tenor and pocket trumpet encircled by castanets, celeste, wooden flute (Freeman again) and gongs as it comes full circle. In a way, this is not surprising, as the session was taped on the night of a lunar eclipse. The record sank upon its release, even by BYG offshoot standards. Goody was a bootleg label that released unauthorized versions of records on Delmark, Metronome and Clifford Thornton's Third World imprint, and Selwyn Lissack's one and only LP as a leader was the closest thing to a "legitimate" release in the series. Unfortunately, Claude Delcloo butchered both the English liner notes and the track listing, leaving some to wonder who the poet was on side two, which along with poor mastering and shoddy pressing and even the omission of a major solo by the leader (!) resulted in nothing less than a shameless mishandling of one of the heaviest slabs of improvised music of the late 60s. Lissack made one more startling appearance as a sideman with Osborne and bassist Jean-Francois Jenny-Clarke on trumpeter Ric Colbeck's lone LP for Fontana (The Sun is Coming Up, 1970) before finally heading to New York to become involved with holographic sculpture and design (he taught and assisted Salvador Dali in holographics), still practicing music but concentrating his research on three-dimensional forms. Despite its inconsistencies at the hands of its label, Facets of the Universe is truly a fascinating document of the Pan-African avant-garde captured at a place where European, African, American and West Indian roots merged to create two universal improvisations. What more could one have asked of a single opportunity to record as a leader?" - Clifford Allen

FYI... Just got an email that Fred Anderson has canceled due to illness. He is being replaced tonight by Andrew Lamb.

Does anyone know how Fred is doing??? I just got an email that he canceled his appearance w/ Henry Grimes & Marshall Allen tonight due to illness.

Bad news Dallas fans...