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From what I have heard, all Tower Record stores everywhere will be liquidated, which seems kind of crazy. I really think the Manhattan and SF stores in particular could survive, and perhaps they will be converted to some other record chain. But like most people here, I found them too expensive with too few sales to justify going in on a regular basis (and the Chicago stores were never really anything to write home about).

Thanks for the heads up on Candid. I saw Stablemates (Blue Mitchell) and a Zoot Sims CD I'll probably download. They have just added Mingus At UCLA, which is pretty exciting. I think I will pick and choose a bit here, however, since I really don't want to use a download on an 8 second breakdown track.

This (Music played at UCLA) has been added to eMusic, so I'll probably get it this way now, and perhaps get the CD with notes a little later.

I have the Definitive and don't plan on upgrading to the Columbia set. The Definitive has a few bonus tracks not on the Columbia set, mostly radio broadcasts on Disc 10.

I think it is going too far, particularly Rae Sings, Basie Swings. How could you possibly read that title and not expect that Basie (even archival Basie) is the pianist? I do think it is willfully misleading and unethical.

A third time? So how bad could it be? I'm going to jump into this soon. As soon as I finish Proust. (Not even joking here, either, as I'm two-thirds through Marcel's opus and hope to finish it by year's end). I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that Brit engineers/programmers don't know who Powell is. Bet they know who Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore are. I think you will enjoy most of it, and it probably does make more sense to read Proust, then Powell, as you would catch where Powell is riffing (not ripping) off Proust. But I thought that reading Powell while living in England made a bit more sense. As it turns out, I will probably only be in the UK for another 5 months. Anyway, these engineers/programmers aren't coming from tech schools. They graduated from Imperial College in London or Cambridge University, where I would expect a broader exposure to culture. I think 10 or certainly 15 years ago a Cambridge grad would at least have heard of Powell, if not necessarily read the whole series.

What - no love for her role in S.O.B.?

I just completed Anthony Powell -- Hearing Secret Harmonies. This is the 12th and final book in his cycle A Dance to the Music of Time. No question it was ambitious, deliberately recalling Proust though different in that the narrator mostly lived through time and grew old, rather than reflected back on life (book 6 does have a high proportion of flashback, however). Some parts, maybe even most, are quite good. Other parts are a bit contrived. On the whole, I probably liked books 4-5 the best, covering the narrator's early adulthood basically. I wasn't quite as taken with the books covering the narrator living through WWII (7-9). The final set of books have some really odd and even unbelievable plot twists. But what Powell is good at is showing how people go in and out of one's life and how the threads sometimes can be integrated and how the whole web of relations unravels as one ages and friends and relatives begin to die off. Some of the interactions are only possible because he is focusing on the elites and near elites who do tend to congregate in London. One could imagine writing the same type of thing for New York City, but not too many other US cities (maybe a case could be made for SF with Maupin's Tales of the City). I doubt I will take the time to read it again, but maybe the mood will strike me. I am astonished at how few Brits have heard of Powell, but I also mostly hang out with engineers and programmers, and not too many literary types. Maybe Powell is a bit out of fashion now as well.

Just a small joke, but apparently the head of FIFA is thinking seriously about getting rid of penalty shoot-outs to decide the World Cup Final. Something that many people, mostly Americans apparently, complain about. Excellent -- if it happens. Here's the article from the UK Guardian.

After she resettled in Chicago, she and her family ran a gift shop on Belmont in Chicago. I think it did have Rose in the name, but can't remember. They had a few news clippings inside the store about her, but basically few people thought it was that remarkable and she got on with her life. I only went in a few times, as it didn't really carry things I liked.

I should have posted in the jazz radio area, but it is too late now. The BBC had a show where Zorn's Moonchild was played live with Mike Patton, the former singer of Faith No More, vocalizing in "preverbal language." I certainly didn't like it. That's a matter of taste. I like some of Zorn's music, but not much. I like some of what comes out on Tzadik and am glad he has kept doing that. What I found quite interesting was that the presenter -- Robert Sandall, who is a big fan of new music -- didn't hide the fact that he found it all pretty disappointing. He didn't just rip it up and say it was two seagulls making love, but had some cogent points about how Zorn had done this all better before. It's fairly refreshing to hear straight talk on the radio. (I know there are a lot of great jazz shows out there, but largely they are playing music that they really dig so aren't inclined to be critical.)

Me too. I'll see if I can get it in the UK for a reasonable price. Otherwise, it will be the second item on my Xmas list. I believe that one track was put on the 13 Pictures Mingus anthology. I believe that the anthology had "Meditations on Integration" from the Monterey date, not this one. Yes, I guess so. I was thrown by the discussion of it being a rare pressing on Mingus' label. So I see there are Japanese imports of "At Monterey." Anyone know if there are plans to reissue this in the States? It would seem to make sense now that the UCLA date is finally coming out.

Me too. I'll see if I can get it in the UK for a reasonable price. Otherwise, it will be the second item on my Xmas list. I believe that one track was put on the 13 Pictures Mingus anthology.

Well, I agree with those who say the more the merrier. Having Scott Yanow here is cool. Having other new members who like jazz but have never reviewed CDs is also cool. I guess Mr. Yanow has given me a bum steer now and then (a solo Steve Lacy CD I really didn't like), but I've found his reviews useful most of the time. Still, I certainly don't rely on AMG or any other reviews to shape my listening habits.

I think only two came out so far, with two more still in the pipeline. I do have them, and think they are fine but not essential. There's a very short thread over in New Releases.

That's a pretty good price, esp. for the UK. Thanks. The CD Universe offer is also good, but comes with a hefty shipping price, especially as I do live in the UK (for now). I think I saw that one piece is more recent (than the previous box set), but I probably wouldn't buy this if I had that 10 CD box set.

So Nonesuch is releasing a 5 CD retrospective later this month. CD Universe has a good price, and I am leaning towards ordering, even though I already have roughly half the music already. CD Universe - Reich There was a remix project previously, which generally got very poor reviews. This time around, the 2006 remixes are a bit better apparently, but either you get 3 on an EP or you can have 4 but only bundled with the original remix album (I think this is called Reich Remixed - Expanded, but currently is only available on amazon.co.uk). So that's a bit annoying.

So I've just heard the track Icarus off Mythologies. Not bad. Sort of a rock beat. The ending of the song is very dense with guitar (multi-tracked unless I am mistaken) on top of piano without any vocals. I'm still not ready to buy this, but if the rest of the album is similar, I probably will eventually.

Saw Acoustic Ladyland for 30 minutes at the Brick Lane Festival in London. I think it was just a fluke I found out about their performance, as the Brick Lane organisers just did not have their shit together and the website didn't have anything useful until a couple of days before the event. But it was still a good time. I went down and had some street food (Indian and Bengali) and listened to the band. They played very loud and fast as expected. I don't think any piece lasted more than five minutes. I can't really explain why I don't mind their "schtick" but don't like the Bad Plus, but that's just how it is. I had to leave a bit early to make sure I caught the train home and didn't have to wait an hour for the next one.

Just finished Anthony Powell's Temporary Kings, the 11th book in A Dance to the Music of Time. One more to go. I think the first half didn't work quite as well as the second. Sometimes Powell seems to dwell too much on some legend and then show how it illuminates contemporary events. It's also a little strange how most of the non-artistic characters are fading out, so that the only ones who interact with the main character are novelists, editors, painters and musicians (and Widmerpool of course). Maybe this is somewhat overstated, and maybe it simply reflects how upper class people from that era were educated -- heavy exposure to the arts.

Well, I like Global Warming (from the late 1990s). This is What I Do is a contender for 2000, but I haven't listened to the new one yet ...

I was quite surprised to see this, as some sets hang around forever and just time out, but these two really must be selling. It will be interesting to see what happens if there are still EU sets of the Mulligan floating around.

In Region 2 land, a new collection of the films of Louis Malle is coming out. In fact, it is split over 2 box sets, though I am renting the ones I am interested in to see if I will buy the whole thing (either one): Louis Malle set1 I was particularly intrigued by Zazie in the Metro, which is not available in the US currently. This is based around a novel by Raymond Queneau and was considered unfilmable. I find it pretty interesting, particularly seeing shots of 1960s Paris in vivid technicolor, though it is a fairly frantic film with a lot of surrealistic touches and not to everyone's taste. Maybe you should just mix uppers and downers, watch a bit of Zazie, then a bit of Tati's Mon Oncle to take the edge off. I was particularly struck by this weird scene, practically out of Benny Hill, where this buxom blonde (looking a bit like a low-rent Marilyn Monroe) is being bothered by a horndog cop. She runs into a kiosk with a poster of Sachel Distel on the door! Then when the door opens a man emerges and there is a bit of guitar on the soundtrack, presumably by Sachel. So I went to look for info on the soundtrack and can't find confirmation of this, but I did learn that Sachel Distel had an uncredited cameo in the movie. And sure enough when I watched it again, it is Sachel Distel standing right next to his poster. Weird. By the way, is anyone else excited about the new Criterion edition of Playtime? I think it will be pretty cool and it should be the best transfer of the lot, though I would like to read some reviews once it is out. So far it is the only thing on my Xmas wish list.

I guess I didn't think it was that hard to reseal a 2-liter tight enough to save the bubbles at least for a few days. Get yourself one of these down at the five and dime and you'll be set: This is useful for those without freakishly strong wrists to reopen the bottles that you've sealed back up.

No problem. My dilemma is Seasons 4 and 5, since there are quite a lot of stinkers in these two seasons, but a few of the great episodes as well. I know I'll get them eventually, but they are a lot lower on my list. I haven't decided if I will get the Outer Limits. I'd probably like them, but I never watched this very much.