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I think the "fairest" would be if the majors opened up everything in the vaults to digital download, then the items that did the best sales would be issued on CD from time to time. Not expecting it, but that's a model I could definitely support.

Not to start a fight, but there are plenty of Lonehill CDs that aren't readily available elsewhere such as one I learned about today -- Hank Jones & Tyree Glenn. This is pretty obscure stuff. Just possibly there is Japanese import, but that would be it. If you mean that it was available at one time on an LP, well ok, but that doesn't qualify as available to me.

Setting aside the morality for the moment, is the Gigi and Here's Love music worth tracking down? It looks like Gambit is the only game in town for this, unless Okra-Tone gets around to it. Also, Lonehill has Hank Jones/Tyree Glenn's Quintet/Sextet Complete Recordings. Three Complete Albums Tyree Glenn's "at the Embers", "at the Roundtable" and "at the London House". Is it available legitimately (on CD) and is it worth tracking down? Many thanks.

That must be the one including Jones's "Gigi" and "Here's Love". Watch out for the follow-up (just out): "Hank Jones Quartet With Kenny Burrell And Barry Galbraith - Complete Recordings, vol. 2". It includes the albums "The Talented Touch" and "Porgy And Bess" Yep, exactly like last year's Mighty Quinn's Okra-Tone reissue (approved by EMI, current owner of the masters). F Just recently heard a track or two from the Okra-Tone release Talented Touch and plan on buying it soon. Was wondering if there is a legit release of the contents of the Gambit Complete Recordings v. 1 (Gigi and Here's Love).

Cool. I'm listening to a bit of it now, but can probably hear the whole thing tomorrow.

I didn't move fast enough on the 13-CD Baden Powell box a few months back and the discounted ones available through Caiman have all disappeared. However, one appeared on Ebay recently and I put in a bid. Despite getting sniped, the seller actually had two and I got one of those Second Chance opportunities at a decent price. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing this. It also worth mentioning that another Meirelles CD appears to have been issued (or re-issued) recently: Esquema Novo. There's also one called Tropical but that seems a bit harder to come by.

A few months back I CDRed Monster and Virginia Woolf and they fit onto one CD. That would make a good reissue, though I guess since Virginia Woolf is coming out on the Mosaic, Verve wouldn't do that. Too bad. (Though if I read the bit in Payne's message correctly, only part of V. Woolf is coming out on the Mosaic, so maybe there is still a chance. Or maybe Monster with the Woolf that wasn't on the Mosaic as a bonus.) I would certainly get behind a campaign to reissue Monster and Black, Brown and Beautiful. I'm definitely getting this set, but probably not until fairly late in 2006 or maybe early 2007 depending on finances. The thing that may be a bit frustrating about this set is that it really is chopping up albums to just get at the Big Band sessions. That's not the way I would normally want material reissued, though I recognize the Nelson arrangements are the running thread. It still feels incomplete somehow.

Nothing says bloated excess like the Olympics. I would strip away somewhere between 50 to 75% of the events and get the thing back down to a week. But there is probably nothing that would restore the event to its roots where amateur athletes competed. It's not possible to train that hard without some compensation. But I am definitely not a fan of the trend of athletes moving to a different country and then competing for it.

It seems every year I am less and less interested in the Olympics. I believe I will go this time without watching any, except for 3 minutes of curling I watched inadvertantly. There are a lot of things I dislike about the Olympics, but probably the number one thing is adding in ridiculous sports that only one country (and usually the US) is good at. Currently, I'm thinking of snowboarding and other ridiculous X-games imports. The US is well behind its own goals for the medals. It currently has 13 medals and 6 are from snowboarding. If you removed them from the count -- and I think we should -- then this has been quite a flop for the US.

Don't know if this is for real, but was reading about a guy in Australia who is collecting vomit bags from different air carriers (unused presumably). So I'll bring that up the next time I get hassled a bit over my jazz collection. I basically collect three things - jazz and a bit of classical music, DVDs and books. In none of these cases am I particularly worried about first, second, etc. printing/pressing. I am very much about using the media and not storing it away in a vault. So that's not too much like a real collector. On the other hand, I have more music, books, video etc. than I can comfortably listen to in a typical year and I am a bit like a junky in needing a fix of something new on a monthly basis. Anyway, if anyone wants to share stories about their collections, please go ahead.

preservation of an artist's musical heritage? that sounds like without the lonehills of the world, this music will be lost forever. that isn't the case. it continues to exist. it's just difficult to access it. let's face it - some of us believe we have a right to own this music, whether it's by legal means or not. If you can't get it from iTunes or from some torrent, it's as good as lost forever for 95% of the population. I think that ought to concern people who want the public's understanding of "jazz" to stand for more than Wynton, Miles Davis, Norah Jones and maybe some Monk/Coltrane thrown in for good measure. There are a lot of facets to this issue, but yes, fundamentally those of us who argue against copyright extensions believe that the public does have some right in being able to access the music in a convenient form -- and that PD recordings are a legitimate way to do that if the majors won't release the material.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I've not decided yet what entourage guy I want to be. Look Mean Guy Straighten Joe G's Tie Guy or Guy on Cell Phone But Not Talking to Anyone Guy ( do they still have these guys?) I'll be the disinterested-guy-barely-in-camera-range-watching-plasma-television-while-MTV-Cribs-is-filming guy. Or maybe driving-the-white-Bronco guy (just in case). Let me guess......, you'll be watching Scarface. Naah, Jammin' the Blues in an endless loop

Jez Nelson presents a concert by the American jazz composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. In her first appearance in the UK with her regular New York big band, Schneider conducts music from her recent Grammy-winning album, Concert in the Garden. Recorded at the recent London Jazz Festival. Available for roughly 5 more days before it vanishes into the ether. Click on Radio 3 jazz to get it started. Real Player seems to be the only program that can stream this, but I could be wrong.

Norm Coleman is a Republican. I suspect most of the staffers on both sides of the aisle know about Wikipedia. While on the one hand, it is hard to imagine senior members of Congress knowing about blogs or Wikipedia, the one thing these guys care about is their public image. Many of them hire staff to track how they are represented in the media, and I imagine that has been extended to the Web.

Huh - you learn about something new everyday. I was looking over some set lists of BBC radio programs -- which I have been listen to a lot lately -- and they mentioned some improv collective called Children of the Drone. Here's their mission statement: Children of the Drone is an expanding collective of musicians based in and around Exeter, UK which meets fairly regularly in varying configurations to play entirely improvised music. We're attempting to gently break out of the usual constraints and formats which conventional 'bands' tend to get stuck with these days, and do something a bit different... It does seem clear this is sort of a hobby for them and they are not trying to become paid musicians. Anyway, they put together essentially all of their music on their website for download. Some is quite good and I will sample more later. Drone downloads

0 - I've been vegetarian for about 10 years. Even though you can technically order salads there, it seems to me to be a pointless exercise in masochism to go there. Now what I will do when my son is 5 is a different story, but I think I will take him other places and let his mother take him to Mickey Ds.

If I have the same problem and it is confined to just three tracks, I will just download them from emusic and burn replacement CDs. Not really the same, but less of a headache than trying to return the box set.

It's taking the best known works from that show, and adding different things as well. I heard that one at Pomidou was HUGE!!!! I vaguely remember a DADA show at the MOMA in the early 1990s (I think) but it wasn't the size of this show. I'll see if I can make it.

You scared me when you said you finished the Cezanne show -- I see you meant you finished putting it together and hanging it. I'm hoping to arrange a trip to DC soon to catch the Cezanne and DADA shows. For anyone in DC, the Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris, 1870–1910 show is worth seeing at the Phillips Collection (I saw it at the Tate). I'm glad I managed to catch the Sam Gilliam show at the Corcoran right before it closed, but it doesn't quite make my list.

By the way, I don't know about current New Yorkers, but I am really torn over the new MOMA. It is definitely larger and there is something to be said for the new layout with its feeling of verticality. However, I am nostalgic for the old cramped MOMA, particularly the exhibits in the basement. And somehow crowd control seems worse in the new MOMA, though there may have been overflow crowds due to the Pixar exhibit, which I skipped. If anything, however, the artists on display seem even whiter than ever before. They do show the cool Wilfredo Lam painting, but that's about it. Can anyone recall some exhibit from the 1990s where MOMA put on display all its art by Mexican, Latin American and South American artists? The MOMA website tells me it is Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century from 1993. After this show, they kept a handful of the paintings on display in the main collection - the Lam, a couple Diego Riveras and one cool painting with a baby's screaming head that kept getting bigger. All but the Lam have gone into storage. To make it even more ghettoized, in 2004, they set up this separate exhibit in at El Museo called Latin American and Caribbean Art from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. I didn't see this show, though I suspect it is largely a repeat of the 1993 show. The catalogue does look pretty good, however, and I think I'll order it.

I'll list some of my favorite art exhibits here. I'll probably have to keep updating and correcting dates, places, etc. and add commentary as I feel up to it. This is far from a complete list of everything I have seen, for I have spent many, many, many afternoons in museums, but these are the ones that still stay with me. There is a bias towards larger shows, since I can't track down too much on smaller gallery showings or some of the really cool things I have seen in the Yates Gallery in the Chicago Cultural Center (an amazing resource for the city). Georgia O'Keefe - retrospective 1987 Chicago (show probably originated in DC) This is the first major exhibit I remember seeing - we drove to see the exhibit because my mom really wanted to see it (I was still in high school). So glad we did. Wasn't old enough to see the Picasso blockbuster show at MOMA and missed the big High/Low show by about 2 years. But I did see the Matisse blockbuster show at MOMA in 1992. I loved it. Only time I've ever seen scalpers working an art gallery. Stuart Davis - Met 1992 Magritte - Met 1992 "Rolyholyover: A Circus” travelling exhibition curated by John Cage and Julie Lazar This basically originated out of the Guggenheim in 1993, but I saw it in Philadelphia a year later Barnes Exhibit - DC and Toronto 1994 I know this completely violated the spirit (and the letter) of the charter of the Barnes Foundation, but I'm still glad I managed to catch it (twice in fact) Gustave Caillebotte - Chicago 1995 Time Dust, James Rosenquist, Complete Graphics : 1962 -1992. This traveled all over the place, and I happened to catch it in Madison, WI in 1995 Kandinsky: Compositions MOMA 1995 Edward Hopper and the American Imagination Whitney 1995 So I can be a bit of a sucker for Americana, but I really do like his empty urban landscapes and the quiet desperation of so many of his intimate portraits. Claes Oldenburg: An Anthology National Gallery of Art DC 1995 Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South. The Art Institute of Chicago, 2001 Chiefly memorable since it had both the MOMA and Musee D'Orsay versions of Starry Night in one room. Very nice for Midwesterners unable to travel. Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence Whitney 2001 Many good parts to this show, but best was the seeing the entire Migration Series in one place Andreas Gursky Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 2002 Surrealism: Desire Unbound Met 2002 Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne Philadelphia 2003 The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints 2003 This exhibit was organized by the Worcester Art Museum, then traveled to Cleveland and I caught it in Evanston, IL actually. A really well-done exhibit with an excellent catalogue still kicking around Matisse Picasso MOMA Queens 2003 I was surprised that there were some paintings I hadn't seen, i.e. they weren't only drawing on paintings from New York museums I was already familiar with. Not nearly as amazing as the Matisse exhibit nor presumably the Picasso one. Max Beckmann MOMA Queens 2003 Probably the only time I've really gone out of my way to see an art exhibit - I actually scheduled a business trip at the same time as the show to ensure I saw it. I believe 5 of his triptychs were in the exhibit. Terrific. James Rosenquist: A Retrospective Guggenheim 2003 Finally a really effective use of the Guggenheim's interior. This is by far the most impressive show I've ever seen at the Guggenheim (though I don't go that frequently). Sebastiao Salgado Migrations 2003 I managed to see this in New York and again in Chicago. Some very moving images, particularly the teeming masses in Far Eastern megacities. In its last 18 months of existence, the Terra Museum (in Chicago) put on some terrific small shows. I think my favorite was called Chicago Modern: Pursuit of the New (2004). I feel considerably melancholy over its passing, however. Romare Bearden 2004 SF MOMA I managed to get to see this in San Francisco and I think I just missed it at the Whitney and in DC. (I'm a little disappointed the Met is no longer currently showing The Block, but it will probably come back pretty soon.) Art of Gunther Gerzso - Mexican Fine Arts Center, Chicago 2004 I was only introduced to Gerzso through a fine show "DIEGO, FRIDA AND THE MEXICAN SCHOOL" I had seen the previous year. I was fascinated by the idea that this abstractionist was working in Mexico at the same time as most Mexican artists were doing more figurative work. Very good show - very nice catalogue. Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 2004 Universal Experience: Art, Life, and the Tourist’s Eye Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 2005 In some ways, the catalogue is more unified and coherent than the show was. Some of the individual pieces were really lame (and perhaps I could have lived without the room that combined an Egytian tomb with hardcore pornography). However, I was completely blown away by the installation by video artist Doug Aitken and went back to see it three times. Frida Kahlo Tate Modern 2005 Robert Rauschenberg: Combines Met 2006 As always, there are a few that got away. I'm bummed I couldn't get to the Guston show at the Met a few years back. But I have certainly managed to get to most of the exhibits I wanted to see, provided I was on the same continent.

I probably also didn't make it quite clear enough that in my examples 1-6 those were not necessarily artists I disliked personally. I actually really like De Chirico in particular. For me, one bad phase doesn't negate an artist's career. It's really only #4-6 that get me going.

I think in a couple of hours I'll post the far more positive thread about great art exhibits. However, the one I was most excited about seeing (rather than the BEST) was the Max Beckmann at MOMA Queens with the Matisse blockbuster show a bit behind that. An artist that does very little for me is Gerhart Richter.

I like a lot of that kind of work - Bacon, Guston - but maybe not right for a hospital room.