ejp626

Wrapped up Kroetsch's The Puppeteer. Maybe his worst novel. Didn't enjoy much of it at all. Not sure what I'll read next. I have a bit more of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. After that? I might stick with the Canadiana and return to MacLennan's Barometer Rising and/or Callaghan's A Fine and Private Place. But I keep thinking I'll return to Mahfouz and Narayan (that was my program last year but I got totally derailed).

Mine's been mailed as well, but I won't be able to hear it for some time.

Next time I discuss VIJF I'll go start my own thread, promise. Anyway, am definitely looking forward to The Cookers, and I'll start trying to figure out the ticket situation soon. Anyway, I happened to be listening to BBC Jazz Line-up and there was a short feature on the UK band Get the Blessing, which is sort of a jazz-rock hybrid -- a fair bit like Led Bib or Acoustic Ladyland. Interestingly, GTB claim to be heavily influenced by Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, though I am having trouble hearing that. They mentioned they would be doing a North American tour, and sure enough they are coming to VIJF the week after The Cookers. Looks like another group I'll want to check out. Never heard of Get the Blessing, but Googled them and came up with their website. Sounds pretty cool. Got a touch of the Residents in their performance, apparently. Yeah, totally new to me as well, though I knew about Led Bib and had actually seen Acoustic Ladyland at a London street fair! I do think the video is a bit of a put-on compared to their actual performances, but I'm willing to give them a chance. I don't think the rest of the dates have been announced, but probably a better than even chance they'll turn up in SF over the summer.

Next time I discuss VIJF I'll go start my own thread, promise. Anyway, am definitely looking forward to The Cookers, and I'll start trying to figure out the ticket situation soon. Anyway, I happened to be listening to BBC Jazz Line-up and there was a short feature on the UK band Get the Blessing, which is sort of a jazz-rock hybrid -- a fair bit like Led Bib or Acoustic Ladyland. Interestingly, GTB claim to be heavily influenced by Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, though I am having trouble hearing that. They mentioned they would be doing a North American tour, and sure enough they are coming to VIJF the week after The Cookers. Looks like another group I'll want to check out.

I always thought it was more that (most) people who want to follow their passion will leap at any opportunity to do so, and will rarely stop and look at the fine print. This is by no means restricted to musicians.

Really? Are you another guy who is making excuses for bad behavior? It's not that difficult to stay away from drugs, ya know. And I'm a New Yorker who has seen it all. Why should they be criminalized in the first place? There are presumably some that are so lethal and/or contribute to such impaired behavior that they could be strongly regulated like methadone, but it's more or less a historical accident whether marijuana or cocaine or tobacco or caffeine or speed are legal or not.

I learned just the other day, that in the on-line world this is called Flouncing. Seen it my share of times, even here. Came real close to flouncing myself, and decided it would be better just to take an unannounced break for a while. 'Course the problem is no one noticed (either the going or the coming).

I have to say this is the one I find the most tiresome. No one's opinion (or actions) is going to be changed relative to whether they buy PD releases, buy PD releases but only while in the EU or Canada, refuse to buy PD releases but scour the interwebs, etc. Seriously, give it a rest. I have gotten a bit better about not getting drawn in but every now and again I succumb (usually ranting about free jazz or something).

Whoa, Derrick Rose is so rusty. He came so close to losing the match-up with the Heat (and that game they lost to Knicks was due to the poor foul shooting of Rose and Deng down the stretch -- hate it when that happens), and it was almost entirely the bench that saved the day (though I have to admit that Boozer is playing much better this year, even his D is marginally better). Bulls bench 47 points -- Heat bench 7 points! (Even Wade is saying that the coach ought to utilize the bench more...) I thought there was no way the Bulls would come back, but the Heat completely wilted after the Bulls tied it up in the last seconds and then they played like a broken team in OT. That is going to be a loss they remember come ECF time! Rose has got to get it together, but something is definitely wrong with him and I fear he will push too hard and come back too early (given how little time there is remaining to get back in game condition). As well as the Bulls play without Rose, I still can't see them winning a title if he is completely off his game (or out with injury).

If I'm not mistaken, even closer inspection will reveal that "Smoke Signal" (3:28) and "Nica's Tempo" (5:27), both recorded February 4th, 1957, are missing from Jazz Lab (CD 2, #1-6). F Mr. Urbina is correct with the two additional missing numbers. It's kind of a drag but I'll live with it. My primary interest in this set was getting "Sayin' Something", "The Hap'nins" and "Reminiscin'", all which are fully intact. Well, speak of the devil (not you, Mike). Fresh Sounds has jumped in as well with a package that includes these three albums and the Rat Race Blues. FS-Gryce All of the same issues apply, but there will be marginally more effort put into the packaging and so forth. I believe all tracks from these albums are in place, but they seem to be slightly shorter albums to begin with.

I'm almost certain that I had (maybe still have) the Milestone CD that combined Out of This World with Priester's Spiritsville. However, this CD omitted Iris from the Benton session! Really not sure that I want to buy a FS issue for a single track, but couldn't Milestone have done it right the first time? It wasn't a question of doing it right, there was no room for that track; at the time the capacity of a CD wasn't what it is now. If you do it "right" you either combine albums where you aren't forced to cut off tracks or you put it out as separate CDs. I have no way to judge at present, but one reviewer on Amazon claims that "Iris" is vastly more interesting and musically important than some of the other ones left on the final CD.

I think we are still outliers, but we are not "Unique," i.e. the only one who listens to jazz, and that can be a bit of a comfort.

I'm almost certain that I had (maybe still have) the Milestone CD that combined Out of This World with Priester's Spiritsville. However, this CD omitted Iris from the Benton session! Really not sure that I want to buy a FS issue for a single track, but couldn't Milestone have done it right the first time?

I think I'll be able to make the Vancouver show. On the whole, Cookers aside, I am not that impressed with the VIJF lineup announced so far, but some of the up and coming artists that fill in the rest of the slots should be interesting. I see Wayne Shorter does have a heck of a group backing him, but honestly I've been fairly disappointed when I heard him live as a leader, and the ticket price is high enough that I would really regret it if the gig turned out like previous ones.

I saw this group at the Vancouver Jazz Fest last year. I remember not caring much for it, but I can't recall exactly why. Probably something like the drummer dominating the set.

Was going to pull the trigger on this one, but I got scooped and the seller ran out of stock. That's ok. It should be around for a while, and I'll get it eventually.

Yes, the other one is Anna Livia Plurabelle, the hour long 1966 radio opera. Thanks for any leads re B.E. ... I had been trying to dl this (Anna Livia Plurabelle) from Amazon for some time, and I finally bit the bullet and signed up to eMusic so I could legally dl up here in Canada. I wish I liked it more, but I find it really tiresome. I can't imagine listening to this more than a couple of times. In general, I really don't like vocal jazz; they leave me completely cold, including some of the real classics like Byrd's A New Perspective and Hill's Lift Every Voice. I might have been a bit better able to swallow this if the voices were Irish, but everything is spoke-sung with thick French accents. Just not feeling it...

Not sure. I suppose I was more or less socialized to like rock/pop on the radio and then gravitated a bit to "alternative" rock in college. But probably 75% of my listening is to jazz/classical/world music, and I have virtually no one to discuss this with in my real life (as opposed to the Big O ). And I had started listening to jazz by my late teens. If it was just about fitting in socially, I wouldn't have followed that path. Also, where I grew up, there were no jazz clubs period, so there were no opportunities to meet fellow devotees. But perhaps I am misunderstanding the question.

This may have already been discussed, but eMusic (and I guess iTunes) are available up in Canada, but not Amazon mp3 service. There are a fairly small number of albums I wanted from Amazon but can no longer get, so I am thinking of signing up again for eMusic for maybe a month or two. What concerns me is how prevalent is it that certain CDs are only available in the US but not for Canadian subscribers. I don't think there is any way to know unless I actually do subscribe, and it would be a total drag for these CDs to be "off limits." Is this mostly an issue with rock/pop, or is it fairly common problem for jazz as well?

Sure we lose on each penny, but we make it up on volume. One of my favourite jokes (told about the car salesmen). I try to use it with some frequency. I had a collorary -- sure they're not very talented at their jobs but they make up for it by not working very hard either.

All I know is that I was at a store yesterday and the bill was $4.01 and I didn't have any change (just a fiver) and the clerk insisted on giving me 99 cents back instead of rounding down and giving me a Loonie. If that happens in May (after the pennies are no longer minted), I guess I'll have to stick the feds on them. I am in favor of dropping the penny, but I would say it appears that the implementation is going to be pretty half-assed up here, at least for the first six months.

Was hoping to see Von Freeman and Ed Peterson do one of their tenor battles at the Green Mill in Dec. Weather was threatening, so I called the club. Oh sure, of course, they'll be on tonight. (Acted like I was stupid for asking. It's Chicago, dumb-ass, what's a bit of bad weather.) We had a huge-ass blizzard. Obviously, the show was canceled. I think I actually did drag myself to the club only to find no one was there (didn't have a cell phone at the time), but maybe that is a false memory and I am just making it overly dramatic. What year? Well, I think it was actually the (Jan) 1999 blizzard, so maybe I called them Dec. 31 or even Jan. 1. It was a while ago.

Was hoping to see Von Freeman and Ed Peterson do one of their tenor battles at the Green Mill in Dec. Weather was threatening, so I called the club. Oh sure, of course, they'll be on tonight. (Acted like I was stupid for asking. It's Chicago, dumb-ass, what's a bit of bad weather.) We had a huge-ass blizzard. Obviously, the show was canceled. I think I actually did drag myself to the club only to find no one was there (didn't have a cell phone at the time), but maybe that is a false memory and I am just making it overly dramatic.

The details have slipped my mind, but I believe David Newman was going to play the Jazz Showcase in Dec. 2008, as I was thinking of bringing my father in law (who was a Fathead fan). Of course, David had major health problems and died within a few weeks (followed so closely by Hank Crawford). On a more positive note, I saw Johnny Griffin on one of his last concerts in Chicago (and did bring my FIL). Never expected to see Griffin play live, given that he had relocated to France.

Oops. Wrong thread -- let me fix. Skimmed some popular non-fiction books to try to get more books out of the house. James Gleick Faster -- basically a look at how accelerated our lives have become. Not nearly as interesting as it could have been -- or maybe I simply didn't learn that much that felt new. Anyway, appropriately enough I did skim this one and only read closely a few of the chapters. Much better is Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift, which is an examination of different aspects of Silicon Valley in the mid to late 1990s. Some of Po's pronoucements haven't held up as well, but some of the sketches are pretty interesting. I feel I work in a field that is kitty-korner to programming and I definitely recognize some of the strategies that keep people motivatived (given that huge stock options aren't available in my field ).