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I would probably give Lincoln Park a pass for various reasons. While South Loop is expensive, there are some deals on the slightly older buildings, since there is so much new construction. If I was moving back, I would probably look at Old Town or Lakeview and maybe Wicker Park. At least a few years ago, Chicago was much more a renters' market than a landlords' market compared to New York and SF. The Chicago Reader listings are pretty good, as is Craigslist (though Craigslist is probably best for subletting or roommate situations).

Great photos, Mark. Did you take any b & w? Excellent news about coming back to Hot House in Nov. I lived right around the corner and definitely would have made it. Ah well. The music scene in Cambridge leaves a bit to be desired.

Most of the law surrounding patents and copyrights and other IP, particularly in international agreements, is so unbelievably venal. Basically politicians have been signing away all our rights in the name of free trade. Perhaps you remember the stunt Nader (I think) pulled when he offered $5000 to any Congressman to actually read the entire draft of NAFTA. Some Republican finally did and said that it was the most heinous piece of legislation he could recall ... but it's all like that now.

I have a few recommendations of "not happy" composers, all from the past century actually (one of the less happy, generally speaking). These have been covered by the Kronos Quartet: Black Angels by George Crumb String Quartets 1 and 2 by Henryk Gorecki Ghost Opera by Tan Dun This CD is harder to find but definitely on two dark subjects: Krzysztof Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima / Viola Concerto / Nancy van de Vate: Chernobyl / Concerto No. 1 for Violin & Orchestra Finally, I really like Quartet for the End of Time by Messaien. I have three versions of it. I find this a bit unusual because 1) I'm not quite as entranced by his other material and 2) I generally don't like music with overt religious significance, such as masses. (Even Ellington's Sacred Music leaves me a bit cold.)But this is fascinating stuff with an ending that is intentionally "celestial." So Messaien may fail on the grounds he is too religious to be truly unhappy, but it's definitely worth one listen. Here's a review that I'm stealing from Amazon with some of the back story:

All I'm saying is that I bet there are a bunch of lawyers with IP on the brain who will start trying to make life miserable for average musicians (and authors and frankly all creative people), and it will get worse every decade until we finally get a populist wave that reforms the IP laws in a way that is sensible. I'm not holding my breath. I hate the way the law is currently administered, and it is somewhere in my top 25 things that make Western democracies suck (the US even moreso than the EU).

Depends on the nature of the documentary and who commissioned it. Some film makers have rules as strict as the Dogma 95 crowd. Overdubbing something might be way too much. While documentaries inevitably frame reality in different ways and come up with vastly different accounts of what happened, they usually don't allow for the sheer falsification of reality (i.e. replacing the ring tone). In any case, I think the current IP regime is completely out of hand and may collapse under its own weight. Most of the great works of literature have blatant lifting of other works, and most jazz is based around common chord changes and lifting riffs from other places. This activity isn't under scrunity yet, but it won't be much longer before lawyers try to get in on the action.

I notice that CD Universe has it for $16.98. ← Thanks. Great news that this is back out, even though it might have been better to reissue the CD on its own as well. Even better news that CD Universe has it, since I think I need to order a few more things from them to get my karma back in balance (I got the Cellar Door at the low price).

Damn straight! ← Funny this thread has kind of vanished. I'm a big fan of the Age of Steam and am wondering if it has ever been rereleased. It's quite rare, and I had a CDR that finally passed away. As I started looking to replace it, I find this unusual package that claims it has the original version of the Age of Steam CD plus a master class and interviews on DVD. It can be had fairly inexpensively on amazon or ebay or apparently ejazzlines. Age of Steam Has anyone actually purchased this? Is the CD a regular CD, or is it one of those instructional things with the music separated into channels to allow you to play along with Jeru's solos? According to the reviewer, the CD is fine, but I'd like some independent verification. Many thanks. Eric

Hmm. I didn't think it was that bad. (I only have the download from emusic, but will listen again.)

I went a little crazy after reading through the Hard Bossa thread and ordered a 3 CD set by Meirelles, which included O Som and Samba Jazz. Then 2 CDs from the Sambalanco Trio, Obras and Obras #2 by Edison Machado and something by Dom Um Romao. I came very close to ordering Coltrane's One Up One Down and Booker's Tex Book Tenor from CD Universe. I'll probably do that tomorrow.

Ask and you shall receive. This site has samples of every track apparently. DVD Brazil The samples are short of course, but it should be enough to allow me to make up my mind. It does sound like great stuff, but I'll probably still have to put it on a wish list rather than ordering it today. Eric

I'd consider myself a fan of Naxos. They are generally good quality recordings, sometimes very good. For obscure Baroque composers, they are usually the only titles in print at any given time. Right now I am staring at Naxos recordings of concertos composed by Locatelli and Geminiani. In any case, I just ran across something called the Naxos Music Library, where you can join and stream essentially any Naxos title. I'm going to sign up for the 7-day free trial and see how I like it. At least according to the website, the user has complete control over what is being streamed, unlike Blue Note radio for example. Naxos Music Library

Not sure if this has been mentioned above, but emusic has a handful of Baden Powell albums for download, including Seresta Brasileira. Also a place called calabash has four of his more recent albums. Calabash I'm looking for a place with working samples of the earlier material to see if I am ready to spring for the box set. I may have to hold off for a while. Eric

Interesting piece, though not without its own hyperbole -- that many if not most jazz lovers come to jazz through Armstrong, Bix or Morton. This has to be a generational thing. I came to jazz largely through Brubeck, Monk and Mingus and to a lesser extent Miles Davis. I suspect most people in their 30s came to jazz through Miles Davis and perhaps Coltrane or Cannonball. Some teens are probably coming to jazz through the remix projects that are played in Starbucks, etc.

Shoot -- it looks like another essential release to get (and my finances are tight this month), though I will be seriously pissed if they offer an expanded edition with all the music in six months. So is "Creation" as good as Guy says it is, and how come Verve didn't see fit to release that? Eric

Not a huge fan by any stretch, but I like some of their songs a lot (Take the Long Way Home in particular). On the other hand, I find it painful to listen to some of their "hits."

To be honest, I wonder that myself. My family has "good genes" or at least "old genes" with most family members reaching late 80s or 90s. My parents' generation seems to be dying in their 50s. I wonder if in the US we have created such a toxic environment, including the switch to an unhealthy diet, that our life expectancy is much shorter, along the lines of the really thin bird egg shells that are broken so much easier when the mother is exposed to pesticides. Are today's boomers more fragile, health-wise than their parents? So far, I guess the mortality rates aren't picking up on this, but I definitely wonder if there will be a wholesale shuffling off the mortal coil of the boomers before they reach 70.

Well, I hated dishwashing as a child (one of my main chores) and I hate it now. It generally falls to me, since my wife does more of the cooking. Sometimes I just wouldn't get around to it in the evening. So having a dishwasher removed a huge source of stress from my life and from our marriage.

I was one block east of City Hall when two panhandlers tag-teamed me and followed me for two blocks. That is by far the most menaced I have ever been by panhandlers, and yes I have been all over the US and lived for five years in both New York and Chicago. Also, three blocks south of City Hall on a weekend, a panhandler/vendor swore at me and called me a racist when I didn't buy an umbrella from him for $5 when it was 90 degrees out. People's experiences are always subjective, but my experiences, particularly walking on the east side of the downtown, tell me that Philly is on a downward skid.

The SIMS card thing is very specific to Europe. That's not how US phones are designed, though it used to be possible to have the number changed or turned back on. Maybe the GPS thing would be a problem.

Actually, I was just in Philly in Aug. and left far more depressed about the state of the city than I have in a long time. Any city that leaves it central core deserted on the weekend and running over with agressive panhandlers (much worse than the ones in NYC and Chicago) is not a healthy city.

Why do we always come back to killing people when this topic comes up? Sure most people agree it's a bad idea to go about killing people. That's one prohibition out of a thousand that civil society needs to function. And please don't come back and say that the humanist version of the Golden Rule is enough to keep society going. It ain't. I'm not saying that societies have to be religious to function, but I do think secular societies with a very diverse population (with very different background ideas on how to behave) are under a great deal of strain. I think we basically bumble along, making it up as we go along, and it is astonishing there aren't more social strains than there are. In any case, while most people agree that killing people is wrong, there are plenty of people (in the US and other societies) that carve out huge exceptions. Either they feel the State can kill people to punish them under certain conditions (particularly treason), or they feel that they can kill someone who murdered their brother or raped their sister. Or if their head of state declares war on another state. Or their territory has been invaded by another clan. The number of people who adhere to an absolute policy of no killing is actually quite a small percentage, even though the number of people who actually kill someone is quite low fortunately. I have pacifist leanings myself, but I certainly would have fought for the Allies in WWII, for example.

I agree with some of what Noj wrote, but I was responding to what appears on the surface to be an extremely weak article that seems to simply cherrypick data designed to make the US look bad (not that there's any shortage of that) and attribute it to religion. I think the problem with coming up with a moral system outside of religion is that when you consider the moral rules that *everyone* would agree on, there wouldn't be enough of a system to make society function. In general people fill in the void on a sort of ad hoc basis, drawing on their own traditions (generally religious) to give sufficient support to civil society.

Maybe, though I think one really has to stretch the definition of Godless citizenry to include England, where the majority of the population is nominally Christian though also pro-evolution. As for the reverse position, that the uniquely Christian nature of the US has led to more STD and other social ills, this seems like a completely spurious set of associations. The causal chain is much more likely to run something like the Puritanical strain leads to weak sex education in the US and thus to higher STD. There might be a connection to a particular brand of Christianity, particularly right wing Evangelical Christianity, leading to social ills, but a blanket statement about religion leading countries downward into chaos seems downright stupid.

I didn't see Dungeons & Dragons -- or other role playing games. Those had been around in the 1970s but really got big in the 1980s. I played a bit BUT I stopped in high school. Trendy clothes - OP (Ocean Pacific) - nothing more pathetic than kids from the midwest dressing like they are going to go hang ten. Izod - still around I gather Polo The preppy look was kind of a fad, though one that seems to have returned. Skinny ties I still like narrow ties, but not the extremely skinny ones. Tie-dies (from the 1970s). I've indulged in more than my share of fads, though I've never let one take over my life (well, maybe the internet).