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I'm not that familiar with either. FWIW, I just was looking at The Poll Winners Exploring the Scene (quite a nice record), which is supposed to be the trio exploring jazz "hits," and the first track is Bryant's "Little Susie."

Because they created something new from what they were being influenced by ( or stealing ). Also because they have no money thats why they are singing the Blues. But these guys are just taking pre-recorded music ....that would be like me ( a photographer) buying photo books and cutting up all of Walker Evans pictures and than scanning them and presenting them as my Photos/Art. I have no interest in that i would rather try and create something new on my own ( even though Evans might influence me.) That to me is more rewarding in the end. Actually, there is a famous case of a photographer who takes photos of billboards and other commercial photography and suddenly it is a new work (with a minimal amount of cropping and resizing/framing etc.). (This may have already come up.) He makes no attempts to track down the source of these commercial photos. And his "work" has hung in art galleries all over. Thomas Struth may be an even more famous example of a photographer who incorporates others' work in the background of his own large scale photos of crowds. Why is it that the visual arts have few if any hang-ups over this kind of sampling and recycling? Is it because all the starving artists are in it together, or that the stakes in the visual arts are low -- though this is manifestly not the case for some artists. Or perhaps artists know that if the corporate dickheads had their way, someone would copywrite the color green and then they would all be fucked. So they simply don't sue each other over it. You can get away with a great deal of recycling, even of copywritten images, if you are making a parody. Suddenly this is protected speech. This would seem to be a stronger line of legal reasoning than Fair Use, which has always been ambiguous. Culture is always about hybridization, and I just find it hard to understand how there is so much overzealous protection of a couple of bars of music or a riff in the audio realm and not in these other arts.

The point is well taken, but the issue is still a complex one. The problem is that, in addition to people wanting to fulfill genuine individual creative urges, there are even more sharks out there thinking only about money, and who would prefer making money using other peoples' shit if they can get away with it. The solution is not an easy one, but there is no avoiding tough decisions about what constitutes creation and what constitutes theft. I think most people who have paid close attention to copyright in the US believes it seriously impedes rather than fosters creativity. Thinking back to different eras, how much of our classical music canon would we have if we had lawyers from the majors going around saying -- hmm this bar sounds a lot like my client's bar here, your honor? We've already discussed how Shakespeare would have had his quills impounded under the current copyright climate. I despise the law as it stands, but more to the point I find the work that the mash-up artists do is very much in the spirit of using the creative commons -- and I do believe it falls under Fair Use doctrine. Obviously people can dispute that, but calling these guys thieves seems absurd to me.

Thanks again. Most have been shipped out, just waiting on a couple of checks. So I really want to try to ship out the rest. The final deal is buy 3 get 1 free (the cheapest will be free). This applies to multiples as well - buy 6, get 2 free etc. The only restriction is to qualify for the handful of $15 CDs, you have to take at least 2 of them. I've even sorted the $5 CDs to make it easier for your perusal.

Great news. He was just here playing at Andies and I nearly went but just wasn't feeling well. I will try to make the Friday set.

The number I had was pretty high, considering this just came out. This might be one of the few sets that actually sells out rather than times out. How many of those were there? Does anyone know? 5,000. What number is yours? A bit under 2000. What I meant was how many Mosaic sets -- if any -- actually sold out rather than timed out.

The number I had was pretty high, considering this just came out. This might be one of the few sets that actually sells out rather than times out. How many of those were there? Does anyone know?

I'm conducting my own personal boycott of the Olympics. I haven't found it interesting in a long time, but I think this one will take the cake in terms of the general awfulness/emptiness of the whole thing. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the long-distance runners/cyclists come down with lung disease and try to sue the IOC for their terrible decision to let this go to Beijing.

Fair enough. I haven't read First Circle (was just worn out after reading the Gulag books), perhaps will put it towards the bottom of my long list to things to read.

And who is to say that he was wrong in reporting that? I'm sure the Russian population did view it that way, whether correct or not. I've always maintained that people waste their time by taking seriously the political or even social views of artists. Many of them are quacks in that area, from Ezra Pound to DH Lawrence to TS Eliot to Joseph Conrad to Henry David Thoreau to....you name it! I am not defending artists in that regard, but art and politics are almost contrary realms. It seems almost impossible in some ways for an artist to have normal or sane political views. But I do not judge artists by their political or social views. Shakespeare was anti semitic too, you know. I just assume that they are very ignorant in that area. For that matter, I am not interested in the political views of sports stars or movie stars either, but maybe that's just me! Fair enough, but there is almost nothing to Solzhenitsyn apart from his political views. He is far more a historian/political scientist than an "artist," in which case I think political views are totally fair game. Actually One Day is a good piece of literature, but that is less than 5% of his output. I slogged through the Gulag books (all three volumes) and they are heavy going.

I had the same problem. E-mailed Concord, but no response yet. I wonder if perhaps the sale applies only to the 100 or so CDs listed directly under the sale sign. That would be fairly lame, though there are a handful of interesting discs there. I guess we'll know more tomorrow.

Just showed up! Should be able to play it tonight while packing up.

That's a pretty good sale. I'll go mosey on over and take a looksy. Not sure my wallet thanks you though.

Dusty Groove has a very limited amount of used CDs. I don't think they put them on-line like they do with the used vinyl. Probably the best I've picked up there was Krzysztof Komeda Astigmatic (the version with the video interview with Zofia Komeda) for $6. The last time I was there (last week) they still had Patton's Memphis to New York Spirit for a low price. They might be willing to dig it out and sell it over the phone.

Thanks for the new orders. Cleaning out my inbox now. Just a note that I will be in Boston from Friday-Monday, so will be a little lax in responding and anything I don't mail out tomorrow has to wait until Tuesday. Hope you understand. Eric

All but one shipments have gone out. Thanks again. Don Grolnick and a couple of Rene Urtreger CDs added above. I'll probably keep this going until Chicago Jazz Fest and then pull the plug. Everything left will go to Reckless, Jazz Record Mart, Dusty Groove or the charity shops. I can't clean out my inbox right now, so if a PM bounces, just post below. Thanks. I'll deal with the inbox in a couple more hours.

I think Ferlinghetti will stand the test of time, as will some of Ginsberg's work. All things considered, I would say that probably the Black Mountain school, operating at around the same time and a bit later than the Beats will hold up better in 50 years time than the work of the Beat poets. I would consider Ed Sanders a Beat poet, and I've tried several times to read his work and I just don't care for it at all. There are certainly a huge number of poets I've left off the list, but for now this covers most of the ones I would be likely to pull out just for fun. I should give WC Williams more attention I suppose, but he just never sticks with me. One poet who really does require that extra effort but then it pays off is Wallace Stevens. I took a seminar course on Stevens in grad school and it totally changed the way I thought about him, for the better.

While I am all for breaking away from the restrictions of rhymed poetry, I do wonder if the (sometimes studied) casualness makes it difficult to memorize, or make it feel worth the effort to memorize a poem written in a conversational style. Ironically, though O'Hare was the king of the I-go-here, I-do-that style of poetry, I do have a handful of his lines committed to memory, including the one about the blade of grass.

Whoops - this is La Transfiguration. Anyway, the link should work through Sunday morning. I'm about to listen myself. It looks like a handful of very good Messiaen recordings have been added to eMusic. If they haven't been listed in the thread I'll add some a bit later.

My son loves trains, so I actually went and bought the Age of Steam catalogue, and we've looked through it many times. The show is actually traveling to Kansas City this fall, and I occasionally have work there, so I am crossing my fingers that I can work something out. There are 3 "train" paintings at the Art Institute, and I always promise to end any visit by looking at them. Well, all 3 have gone into storage, so he was particularly disappointed and it may be hard to get him to go again until 2009.

Well, we have most of the other arts covered, so why not some love for poetry -- distinguishing it a bit from the What are you reading thread. Through a confluence of forces, I have been inspired to write poetry again. The trigger was seeing Charles Simic give a reading in Chicago, but in the background I have wanted to be more creative and not simply be a consumer of culture (prodded by the creative types here I assume). I had two major creative periods: a 3 year sustained period during college (when I also kept journals like you wouldn't believe) and then the year after I got my Masters in English. I was involved in poetry workshops (even in grad school) but for some reason the second time around, my writing was definitely better after the workshops had ended. Anyway, at the Simic reading, I picked up some fliers for local magazines that were looking for poetry, so I brushed off a few and sent them in, but more importantly I have written a few new poems. Hard to tell if they will stand the test of time, but perhaps. I will refrain from posting my work for the time being (though some were published in zines and small magazines, so I wasn't a poet just in my own head). I thought I would list some of the poets I've really liked and try to sort them into categories. Probably the genre that interests me the most are poets writing on urban themes. Here are some I like: Paul Blackburn (really underrated in my opinion) Frank O'Hara (while a bit overexposed some of his pieces are wonderful) Ted Berrigan Weldon Kees L.E. Sissman (I think this is the one I am thinking of) Gwendolyn Brooks Audre Lorde Charles Reznikoff I also like poets that use strong imagery and/or surrealist techniques. Here I would group: Anne Sexton Sylvia Plath Charles Simic Faye Kicknosway John Berryman Dylan Thomas Lawrence Ferlinghetti W. B. Yeats Finally, in a grab-bag category there are poets that have something interesting going on with their inner voice. Almost all poetry is reflective, so I suppose it is how I react to the pieces. These are generally cerebral poets, though a few are very political poets that resonated with me at one time or another. Philip Levine Wallace Stevens T.S. Eliot (not sure I would like as much now but a big influence when I was young) Adrian Rich Marge Piercy Robert Creeley Sharon Olds Emily Dickinson (It's really hard to decide where to put foreign poets, or indeed whether it is worth reading poetry in translation, since so much is lost in translation. Still, I would probably put Baudelaire and Rimbaud under the strong imagery category and Rilke in the inner voice category.) I think this covers most of the poets I like enough to read for pleasure from time to time. I'm sure I forgot a bunch and maybe I'll update the list later. Eric

A small update. I never did make the DADA show, though I did manage to see the Cornell boxes (I think we discussed this on another thread). Likewise I missed the Cezanne in Provence show in DC, but I more than made up for it by seeing the exhibit in southern France. I was in Europe for roughly 18 months and saw all kinds of amazing museums. Probably the best unified shows were the Cezanne, Jeff Wall (Tate Modern, then a slightly smaller show in Chicago I saw several times) and Kandinsky (Tate Modern). There was also a pretty cool exhibit on the theme of Melancholy that I caught in Berlin, and Vienna had a special exhibit on Klimpt (more than usual), which partly makes up for missing the Klimpt show at the Tate Liverpool now that I am back in the States.

Chicago currently has a Jeff Koons exhibit at MCA. Not all that really, though a few of his pieces are nice (or at least shiny). The Art Institute has been undergoing renovation and up until now it was ok, a few things shuffled and some pieces sent off to Texas I believe. But now they have gone and moved out all the modern pieces. There is maybe 1 room left out of 15-20. That's the main reason I go, though their Asian art collection is still very fine. I'll probably go half as often as I normally do until they start reopening some of these rooms in 2009. Anyway, they have a major exhibit on the art of Benin. But honestly I wasn't that moved by it. One exhibit that really moved me was Portraits from the Mind: The Works of William Utermohlen, 1955-2000 at the Chicago Cultural Center (this is a real gem of Chicago that only locals know about). The show only runs through Sunday, however. The artist found out in 1995 that he had Alzheimers, and his paintings/drawings shift and become more claustrophobic. Eventually he loses motor control, and the drawings regress:Last portraits It is sad but somewhat inspirational in that the drive to create was so strong. (Though it seems that his final art was from 2000 and he died in 2007, so the sadness of a tragic end outweigh the uplifting coda -- in my mind.) Anyway, I had never heard of this artist (American but had most of his career in London) and his paintings from 1991-1995 are just stunning. This is probably the best from the series, titled Snow: It just was one of those neat art exhibits that you stumble into and it changes your life a bit.

I had a copy of Elvin Jones Skyscraper (v. 2 I think). I can't recall about the sound quality. I thought it was too bad that there wasn't a legit release, since the music was pretty interesting. Haven't checked, but it might be a concert that has ended up on dime or a torrent.

These are excellent. I particularly like Terminal 1. Definitely my favorite late period Golson. I've just snatched up a bunch of the Milt Jackson's but The Harem is still there and someone should grab that. It's quite good. Eric