WorldB3

Heyward catches the ceremonial first pitch from Hank Aaron and then goes yard in first ab. Have a day kid.

^ like 04 and 07 the Red Sox on paper look like the team to beat, though in 07 playoffs I thought the Angels would run them out of the park but as we saw last night double steals are nice but two run homers are better. We shall see. Speaking of homers Pulojs went yard in his first at bat. Taking my furlough day to enjoy opening day festivities. Play ball!

um... I'd rather have Morgan blabbing his pedantic nonsense over Neil f-ing Diamond. This is making me want to hurl, as if I need another reason to hate the Red Sox.

Anybody need somebody who is good for 25 to 30 home runs this year who is not only a butcher in field but dangerous to other players in the field, who's strike out to HR ratio is 8 to 1 and who with a runner on 3 and less than two outs will always look for the walk which will result in a strike three looking instead of trying to put the ball in play in Jack Cust? I know its crazy to put on waivers your top home run hitter but I am glad to see him go.

Listening to Historicity and I am enjoying it, I agree with your assessment but I feel that way about some of the recordings of his most obvious influence on here in Andrew Hill. First impressions so far are good ones.

Yes, I forgot about Jim Lauderdale. The album he wrote with Robert Hunter that has Emmylou Harris, Tim OBrian, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings and Donna the Buffalo titled Headed for the Hills is fantastic. Lost in the Lonesome Pines with Ralph Stanley is also really nice. Don't know if its been mentioned yet but the Mountain with Steve Earle and Del McCorey is another good one, it finally came back into print last year with a good re-issue.

Saw two more shows this week at Yoshi's. Sometimes I will go four months without seeing a show yet this week its been three in seven days. Tue: Kenny Werner with Chris Potter, Johannes Weidenmueller & Peter Erskine. If Werner's book is called Effortless Mastery then the show I saw should have been called Effortless Swing. First time seeing Erskine and he is truly a master. Potter makes everything look easy and Werner looked to be having a blast. His young Bass player wrote a great arrangement of Monk's Evidence which smoked. A great night of top tier NY Jazz for us on the West Coast. Fri: Brad Mehldau Trio: Unlike his new record which is a bit hard for me to get into he came out last night and gave me exactly what I wanted. A Nick Drake cover to open, a deconstructed swing blues that went in and out of free jazz, a Be Bop workout and a gorgeous show tune ballad. One of the better nights I have seen form Mehldau and his trio.

Re: Rays. I think the Rays would run away with any other division in Baseball except the NL East. The Rays might be the funniest team to watch this year but I look at the rotations and line ups of the Red Sox and Yankees and I see no holes there. Re: Zito. He was great second half of last year, most of his losses would have been no decisions or wins on a team with any type of hitting. But its hard to separate his numbers compared to his contract. Having good numbers for a 3rd starter isn't good enough. I think Zito will have a good year, if Sanchez has any constancy as the fourth starter look out. Re: Mariners and the AL West. Without Lee there isn't much to get excited about outside of King Felix in the rotation, the bullpen and Bradley don't impress either. My A's look to have the worst line up in all of MLB but I really like the rotation and the love the Bullpen. Good team speed and defense, they might be better than I expect.

I don't want to get New and Improved Dan worked up too early in the season, but even with the signing of Texiera, Sabbathia and Burnett, the Yankees overall payroll was $16.5 million less in 2009 than it was in 2008. At this point, finally putting a lid on their outrageous and unconscionable spending habits of the past would seem to be working out quite well, wouldn't you say? Plus the Red Sox new starter which is 3rd in their rotation makes 19 mil a year.

good ones.

I think that would be great but the Giants have a lot of issues with defense especially in the infield and team speed. Not a lot of home runs in that line up and I don't see them manufacturing any runs. I do think the Rockies are bit over rated so they will be in it all year and if they get in they have the pitching to shut other teams down. Mine: Al East: Boston NY (Wild Card) Central: Wt Sox West Mariners NL East: Phillies Central: Cards West: Rockies Giants (WC) World Series: Phillies over Boston.

way to go worldb3! great suggestions. i don't have anodyne yet but really enjoy no depression. if you dig uncle tupelo and son volt you should check out a band i mentioned earlier in the thread: Richmond Fontaine. GREAT songs, similar vibe, and for my head even better lyrics. Vlautin simply writes his ass off. if interested, i'd posted my review of their latest earlier in this thread. and since you dig the jayhawks, maybe you've already got olson and louris' Ready For The Flood. i love it. when i 1st got it i couldn't stop listening to it. over and over and over for about a week. beautiful stuff. I'll check out Rihmond Fontaine, have been hearing good things about him for awhile now. I saw Olson and Lourus live supporting For the Flood but have yet to pick up the disc, their voices together sound so great. Anyodnye is a must have, brilliant. Greg K, I like Jacksonville City Nights also, by far his most country sounding record though some of his vocal stylings on a few tracks might turn some off. Great songs on it though.

I am all over this, I really enjoyed the previous Frank Kimbrough Trio recordings Lullabluebye and Play.

Bev, Since your enjoying the Saides and Buddy Miller maybe try: Neko Case - Fox Confessor, Middle Cyclone Ryan Adams - Cold Roses, Heartbreaker, Whiskytown-Strangers Almanac The Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall, Music From The North Country - The Jayhawks Anthology Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne Son Volt - Trace

I love his take down on Wynton in his interview over at AAJ. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=35665&pg=1 "I had Wynton tell me my music wasn't jazz because the main rhythm wasn't swing," Scott recalls. "He was like: 'If it's not swing, it's not jazz.' So I said to him: 'Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Papa Joe Oliver—all these guys aren't jazz musicians. All of those early New Orleans guys are not jazz musicians.' He was like, 'no, they're jazz...' And I'm like 'no, they're not, based on what you just said, because swing was invented in Kansas City in the '20s! And jazz predates swing. That rhythm is a perversion of jazz, so how can you say this denotes what the music is when it's a perversion? It's an offset.' That was the first time I ever saw a Negro turn red. He was done." "The problem is that jazz has turned into an academic thing. And what people don't realize is that it was done on purpose, because there's a horrible structure in jazz right now."So the problem with jazz musicians now is they're trying to figure out: 'Why do I still sound like John Coltrane? Or why do I still sound like Charlie Parker?' It's because when you were 10 years old some asshole told you to only listen to Parker and Coltrane and nothing else. So you only studied that, while the asshole who told you to do it was listening to Sonny Stitt, and he was listening to Sonny Rollins, and all this Stanley Turrentine, Gary Bartz and all this shit! And you let him tell you only to listen to these two people. This is why you can't compete with him. You've been bamboozled."

Wait a minute, he got kicked out of two spring training games that don't count? Have fun with that. I think on paper Seattle should win the division easily, but something still doesn't seem right with them. Same for the Angels. However 83-84 wins I think gets you the AL West this year and I don't know if the A's (my team) or the Rangers have 84 wins in them.

Ralph Towner and Paolo Fresu at the SF Jazz Festival. My expectations maybe were low, I like the new album Chiaroscuro quite a bit, its a lovely record but I wouldn't put it in my list of favorite Towner releases. The location wasn't one one of my favorite places to see a show and they were only going to do one set and there was no 12 string on stage (only a classical and baritone guitar) and Towner is now 70 years old, I was thinking I may have waited to long for my first chance to see Towner. That said two minutes I knew I was in the presence of greatness. I left saying saying that was the best live guitar performance I have ever seen. My friend said it was one the three best shows he has ever seen by Towner and he has seen him over 20 times. Paolo Fresu was also great and their swing together was something, the record doesn't quite captured the energy they have together. For those of you in Europe if you get a chance to see them this year I highly recommend it. After the b.s with Jarrett last week it was nice to see someone as humble and talented as Towner.

It's too bad that its lost on Keith that when he goes on one of his rant's he ruins it for the people who love him, pay a lot of money and who don't cough!

He did do five encores so at least people got their money's worth. I contemplated going but didn't due to the price and the risk of getting verbally abused. I will buy his CD's but I won't give him concert money.

I am throwing together a comp to turn friends on to all of this great 70's African music on Shout, Analog Africa and Soundways. A little taste below with youtube links: Blo-Chant To Mother Earth – Christy Azuma & Uppers International - Din Ya Sugri http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I3xunlbTqQ Gnonnas Pedro et ses Dadjes- Dadje Von O Von Non http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTBxw2Ec-A The Don Issac Ezekiel Combination – Amalinja http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXXuuU5Ufk4 Mono Mono - Ema Kowa Iasa Ile Wa

I have to give Allen his props for turning me on to early Peter Green Fleetwood Mac and Pat Hare and the old Sun records blues releases. I can't remember who it was here but whom ever you are who turned me onto Walt Dickerson thank you!

Have fun, the Nigeria Rock Special, Ghana Special and Nigeria Special are excellent.

I think for accessible releases to move forward on I would try Grass Roots, Shades and his last one Time Lines.

It didn't sound that way to me, maybe a bit less so than a studio recording but not that noticeable. I have the Sub on a little bit louder than normal to give it a little more room ambiance and low end.

I don't but I have the one before that titled November and liked it a lot, the 60's Quintet vibe is spot on.