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Yeah, you can listen to samples of pretty much all their releases on their website: Boddie at Numero Numero is definitely more soul, and even pop, oriented (than most of what I listen to), but many of their releases have been quite good. (I would definitely check out the Cult Cargo series also. One of them has a crazy cover of Take Five.) I kind of think of Numero releases as the alternative history of pop music. Some of these groups had the talent to make it quite big, but they signed to the wrong label and/or broke up before they really got noticed (and switched labels). And perhaps had there been less payola in radio at the time, maybe some of them would have gotten further. But in general, I like the Numero model a lot more than the RSD model with its artificial scarcity. This piece kind of hints at the pros and cons: Chicagoist on RSD. Honestly, I think some people just get the colored vinyl for scarcity's sake, and it's not much better than those people getting collector spoons or first day issue of stamps. But then when the industry sort of suggests that there is money to be made, but in fact fans are left with crappy products with no inherent value, then that definitely risks burning out the whole movement when people start to feel they've been scammed -- or alternatively they find they can never find what they were looking for because it sold out in minutes (or wasn't actually distributed properly). The positives only slightly outweigh the negatives in my mind. Incidentally, here is co-founder of Numero Group discussing RSD: Rob on RSD

I guess I was a little harsh on RSD. It can be fun, if you like dealing with crowds. I never really did (in a shopping context anyway) and I am probably more anti-social than ever (for me on-line shopping is not only acceptable, it is definitely preferable). I just don't think pushing jazz through RSD is going to lead to any long-lasting benefits. I do, however, really support what Numero Group is up to and have bought quite a number of their recent releases, including the full-blown Boddie Recording Company set and the newest Eccentric Soul. Haven't had a chance to listen to them though.

I think it is perfectly legit to consider him a very, very minor figure in jazz. I'll cop to not being consciously aware of him. Wasn't really aware we had to do our homework before coming on the site.

Speaking as one who loathes Black Friday sales, I basically can't support RSD. It's just an attempt to create artificial scarcity (and the subsequent buzz) around products that are very rarely worthy of such attention. An hour to stand in line and buy some crappy limited edition vinyl? No thanks. Personally, I don't think that making casual customers go through that is more likely to bring them into the shops at other, more normal, less crowded times. Ironically, I did go to the RSD just a short while back since I was in Chicago and wanted to see what the Numero Group's pop-up store was like. That at least had some true rarities, though in the spirit of honesty, the super rare 45 I picked up from them -- I listened to it once and found it totally forgettable. Now the limited edition CD that Numero Group put out (Burned at Boddie I think it was) is actually pretty good, but it's been available at DG for months after RSD was over, so I certainly didn't need to hustle down there.

As long as we're dredging up old posts, Demon Dogs was lost when they rebuilt the Fullerton El stop. Both Fullerton and Belmont now span their respective streets, which is actually really convenient when trying to catch the buses going west. You used to have to dodge cars to get across the street. Plenty of people still do this, but most know to cross on top before coming out of the El. So there is a secondary station entrance right where Demon Dogs used to be. It is a shame that the CTA didn't do something more to help Demon Dogs relocate, but they were embarrassed when a series of articles came out in the newspaper claiming/proving that Demon Dogs had a sweetheart deal and paid almost nothing to the CTA. AFAIK, Demon Dogs never reopened in the city. I didn't eat there often, but from time to time I would get fries there. Interestingly, on the south side of Fullerton, DePaul just opened a new art museum right next to the station, relocating its existing one from a few blocks west. It's worth a look if you are in the area.

Got this a bit over a month ago. Some great stuff that isn't performed that often (septets and octets).

Problem is today's kids would think that is a compliment. Heck, I wouldn't mind having a t shirt that said "Groove Assassin."

Is Winnepeg and 40 still left? If so, I'll take that. BC does have a habit of choking in the big games.

But this seems entirely generational. The majority of Millennials do not care about physical artifacts and actually prefer not to have those bulky CDs laying around, so I do think the end is in sight, even if it doesn't come in 2012. But you know -- 2012 It's starting to make sense...

So I'm looking at tackling Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth, which I've had for a long, long time. This was the core of his unfinished second novel where he had some really powerful blockage going on. He actually wrote and wrote and wrote, but just couldn't bring himself to finish the novel. Anyway, Juneteenth came out over 10 years ago, but then a year or two ago a much longer expanded version of this unfinished novel came out called Three Days Before the Shooting. It is three times as long and just under 1200 pages. I have to be honest, the plot of Juneteenth doesn't really grab me (a white boy is raised by a Black preacher but then grows up to be a race-baiting U.S. Senator), though I think I can make it through this novel, but I can't imagine reading 1200 pages' worth. Anyway, just wondering if anyone had read either version.

Generally I've been pretty good, but I did place an order with Dusty Groove (to use up my remaining credit): Numero Group -- Eccentric Soul -- The Nickel & Penny Labels Tom Ze -- Grande Liquidacao and then over at Deep Discount (to basically draw down my Paypal account): Rendell/Carr-Shades-of-Blue & Dusk-Fire

Yeah, way too expensive for the Live vol. 2-4 box set. I thought the whole point was to make new projects possible, not to cash in on something that happened a long time in the past. Anyway, I'll probably get the Birdland CD, which should include Osby and Baron (actually details are kind of scarce on the CD itself). I think it would definitely be better if they accepted Paypal, however.

I read The Ginger Man when it was a cult book c.1960 and found it utterly trivial then. Funny, but the only bit I can now remember is when someone flushes the toilet in a rickety house and the contents end up in living quarters in the storey below. Yes, I did read that part. It actually ends up in the kitchen! And then Sebastian buggers off and won't help clean up in the slightest (though it was he that flushed the toilet) and he is too afraid to even confront the landlord to see about getting it fixed. That was basically the moment I decided this book wasn't worth my time, and I skimmed a bit more, then skipped ahead to the end.

There are certainly a few recordings that are so bad that I won't listen to them. I don't consider myself a musicologist or someone who really has to dig into the history of early jazz because it is "good for me" or something. I like early Basie or Ellington just fine, but if the recording quality is really poor, then no, I won't keep revisiting that album.

So I am about halfway through Norman Rush's Mating. It's pretty slow going and I am getting bored with it, so I will probably just stop. It is definitely at least 100 pages too long. Life's too short. I positively hated Donleavy's The Ginger Man. Basically only for those who find intellectual-poseurs and drunkards compelling (as found in Withnail and I). And then to add to that, the main character is a wife-beater who treats all women equally shabbily, basically trying to screw all the women in Dublin. Maybe this was genuinely liberating in the 1950s and early 60s, but it strikes me that the only liberation that mattered was for men. I can't imagine Donleavy remaining in the literary pantheon (in fact he's probably not there now). A poor man's Norman Mailer, basically (not even sure Mailer will be in the pantheon in another 50 years). Ultimately, it was the physical abuse of the women that make me stop reading -- I skipped to the last 25 pages and he was still a complete shitheel, so I tossed the book into a donation box. Life is definitely too short to read books that glamourize violence against women. Starting Kroetsch's Badlands. Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy is around the corner. Boy, that is going to be a tough book to digest. I imagine it will take a month at my current rate of reading.

finished it. not for me, but i see how others would enjoy it. I haven't read this, but I did read Moth Smoke, which had its moments. I will say that of Pakistani novelists, I prefer Kamila Shamsie to Mohsin Hamid.

I don't think there is a molester behind every tree, but certainly most institutions have some creeps and genuinely horrid people involved. This is a sad and sick tale, and I can't believe it is not given more coverage except that PSU is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. In some ways, I think the cover up here is even worse and certainly criminal, and I do hope some of these folks in the Boy Scouts (yes, the Boy Scouts) do some hard time but I guess it was just too long ago. Rest of story here: Boy Scout cover-up

Hmmm... I've have nothing under the tree this Christmas WTF?!?!?! CrAzY. Frustrating. I was hoping to have this in my hands a week or two from now... Thanks for the heads up. Frustrating but still good to know. I was on the fence about a pre-order, but had basically decided to wait out of fiscal prudence (just had to buy a new computer and still am saving up for a commuter bicycle that I was supposed to be getting this month ). With the delay, I'll just have to suck up the extra cost and have it sent to Canada, so there really isn't any rush any more.

Not sure I could narrow it down to 3, but I could live with that list, though I would substitute Farmer/Golson Jazztet for Bix.

Saw Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba in Vancouver last night. Almost sure I saw them one time a while back. Last year they were coming through Chicago but something came up and the gig was canceled. Definitely a great group to see live, though I have to admit it took them a while to really get the crowd going after the intermission. Still the closing number was ace! Probably should have stuck around for the encore, but I was way out in Kitsilano and the trains and buses really start slowing down around 10:30. Thinking back over the last 5 years, it really is amazing how many great African bands I've gotten to see live -- Toumani Diabate is probably still the top, then Tinariwen (twice), then perhaps a tie between Konono #1 and Ngoni Ba. And a bunch of other great concerts. I have to be honest, if it came down to a world music concert and a jazz concert, I would probably go with the world music if it was an African group -- you can always count on a strong rhythmic component (even if it doesn't swing in 4/4).

You know -- I do have some empathy for the split-second reaction. I hope I would have been more of a hero in the first instance, but just am not sure. I don't have any empathy for the not following up, instead of just trusting that the higher ups would take care of things. That's where I definitely would have done things differently.

It is hard to know what precisely one would do in that situation in the generic. I'm pretty sure I would have gone to the police unless I actually saw Paterno (or whomever McQueary talked to first) pick up the phone himself. But that's because I have always been a bit of an egoist, willing to buck the chain of command. Sadly, many people are not. Anyway, I do wonder what some of the other football "greats" would have done when this landed on their desk. I can definitely imagine some coaches covering it up or letting the buck stop somewhere else. I'm pretty sure Woody Hayes or Bo Schembechler would have gone to police, but it is all speculative. Sad thing is that Joe Paterno was from that school of old-timers who supposedly always did the right thing, and he certainly did not.

In cases like this I buy the box, sell the older duplicates and both make some money back and free up some space. Par for the course for long-time jazz collectors! I've never wanted to get into all that hassle with selling stuff... some discs have scratches, some digipacks don't look like new. Too much work there, I think! And frankly the market for used CDs has collapsed, esp. for titles like More Blues and the Abstract Truth and some of the common Coltrane titles. You'll end up more or less giving them away to the used CD shops.

I have to admit I don't have this, but I did get a chance to hear Toussaint playing live in Chicago and it was very enjoyable. He's actually said in a number of interviews that if it hadn't been for Katrina he would never have started touring or making some of these more recent recordings (I believe there is another one in the works to follow on from The Bright Mississippi). That said, some people were getting up on their hobbyhorse and saying what a farce that he was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame (is that right?) but only in the non-performer category. My feeling is that for the vast majority of his career he has been a behind the scenes writer and producer, so it wasn't really that much of a slight.