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It's very sedate. There is a guitar player that I can barely hear, to say nothing of the bass -- of course, I am listening in an office environment and don't have it turned up loud. It doesn't grab me, that's for sure.

Someone dumped a review copy at HiFi, so I got it at a verrry reasonable price. I am sure I will appreciate it more than the reviewer. I'll post some thoughts this evening after I spin it a few times. Sal, Moran is going to be playing at the CSO I believe in March. It's not the ideal setting. I preferred seeing him at Hothouse, but I'll still be going.

Growing up I did a lot of social science research, assisting on surveys and coding the data. I also worked as a librarian until the end of college. One night spent tearing down a traveling carnival (was offered a job for the summer but they didn't go anywhere I wanted to visit) Math teacher (2 long years) Temp all around Manhattan Graduate teaching assistant Transportation planner Transportation planning consultant (same job, better pay)

Yes, congratulations. Very exciting times are ahead. No sleep for you, sir. My son is 8 months old and only now do I sometimes get to sleep through the night. I'm wondering if Milo is from Bloom County, one of my favorite comics growing up.

I haven't but my firm probably did. I am supposed to be involved in doing some work for the Chapel Hill region and two other nearby metro areas once they complete a new survey of bus riders. Actually, I see that Jim Dye is in Murfreesboro, TN, which I had never heard of until two weeks ago. Now I am investigating the possibility of commuter rail between Murfreesboro and Nashville.

I do a special brand of transportation planning called travel demand forecasting. We predict regional traffic flows 20-30 years into the future. If your state decides to build an entirely new highway or wants to put in a commuter rail line, then they come see me or my colleagues, though sometimes they go with the competition and get bad advice.

I agree with Chaney. I like MOMA the best of the three. I also preordered this. I also combined it with the Mulligan Concert Band, so now I have two things to wait for (instead of Mulligan showing up next week). Hopefully there will not be any significant delays.

I have more BN than Prestige, though if you added all the labels under Fantasy, it would be pretty close. If you were going to give me the entire run of some label, I probably would go with Prestige, since I have most of the BN I am looking for (other than Head On, and Inner Glow, and Jutta Hipp, and some Bill Evans ... and Trainwreck).

Mine's a squeezed down poster of Eric Dolphy. We share the same first name. I have only had the one avatar since I added it a few weeks after I joined the board.

I've read that novel and enjoyed it. It is written from multiple perspectives and often information is contradictory, much like someone trying to track down the "truth" about an elusive musician for a biography. In fact, if I recall, the main character is a white biographer who is writing about Jackson Payne. The only thing I would alter from Larry's description is that Payne is much more like the character Dexter Gordon played in Round Midnight (running out on his children and never conquering his addictions) than Coltrane.

I tell you in all seriousness that no one in Chicago expected this, but it is very nice to see the Bulls return to respectability. They have an incredible bench. I don't think they will get too far in the playoffs this year, but if most of the team returns and they continue playing defense and good, unselfish team ball (yeah some big ifs), we should have some very solid seasons. This is a very, very young team, so they should continue to improve, especially as they no longer have any bitter veterans to drag them down (and no I wasn't talking about Pippen who was on the roster last year).

Maybe he changed his name to Henry Darger.

I still think it is very questionable judgment to consider badly drawn cartoons by 10-year-olds as something that meets the threshold of a felony. Part of childhood involves doing all kinds of stupid things, and I think putting these into an adult legal framework is inappropriate. I remember drawing cartoons (usually about classmates or the teacher) that would be libelous or grounds for a slander suit. Probably most of us did. Now this is going to be legislated out of existence, along with the drawings of tanks and machine guns and everything else. If you look at existence in the US on the ground as influenced by lawyers and pressure groups of all stripes, we live in a much more enlarged and oppressive nanny state than the EU members do, despite our so-called love of freedom and celebratation of the lone wolf hero.

Sal: I have Nine to Get Ready. It's ok. I don't listen to it a lot. It's not as "important" as Sound (I'm being a bit facetious) and it's not as fun as Snurdy McGurdy on Nessa Records. It's probably better than ok, but I just haven't listened to it in a while. If you PM and remind me, I'll try to bring it to the Jazz Showcase on Sunday for Alexander/Mabern. Eric

What this country has is a severe shortage of common sense. Principals and school boards enact "zero tolerance" policies that are absurd (mostly to pat themselves on the back and say they are doing something about crime in school) and only back down when confronted by the media. At the same time, there are situations like the one in Berwyn in the Chicago region where a teacher had several reprimands for touching students inappropriately and they don't report this to the police. Now it turns out that 10 or more students have been molested by this teacher. My impression of principals, formed in high school, is that they are inflexible authoritians who are nonetheless cowards when it comes to possible lawsuits. I see no reason to think any different now. If anything, the situation is much worse than when I was in high school.

Not really a fan of Byrd's New Perspective either. I'm also not crazy about Hill's Lift Every Voice, though I like it better than Perspective. (I guess it's 1969 and 1970, so just outside the frame as well.) There is something about wordless vocal parts (at least that's how I remember them) that I don't care for. For instance, I can't stand Thomas Bruckner, who often performs and records with Roscoe Mitchell. His presence completely ruined a recent performance for me. Similarly, I have learned to pass on Meredith Monk recordings. Anyway, I do like Whistle Stop and Unit Structures of the ones mentioned above. One other dog record just outside the parameters is Lou Donaldson Live at the Scorpion Club recorded live in 1970. Really almost nothing happening on this one. Edit: Oh - it's Scorpion Live at the Cadillac Club.

There is a lot of cruelty inherent in this show, and I don't care for that. I really wish they hadn't added the shows featuring the worst performances last season, since it just encouraged people to ASPIRE to be the next Hung just for exposure's sake. Still, it is pretty amazing that people get on and are sure they can sing when they can't. I have the self-awareness to know I would be awful trying to sing on stage. All things considered it is better than Fear Factor, and ultimately they are producing a few pop wonders who can actually sing rather than sing to a backing track. Still, I am glad that it appears the reality fad has peaked. Most of the new reality shows are getting very poor ratings.

This may have been discussed a long-time ago, but anyway we all know that the Columbia CD 1989 issue of Indigos was pretty bad, only including the alternative take of Autumn Leaves and not the original. I do hope that we see this get a better US re-issue now that they have done Blues in Orbit and some other great re-issues. Anyway, I had an opportunity to pick up the LP version fairly cheaply and did a burn for comparison's sake. My question is that The Sky Fell Down is mentioned prominently in the notes on the back cover (and is one of the tracks not included in the re-issue) but it is apparently not on this LP. Only eight tracks are listed on the LP and Sky Fell Down isn't there. Perhaps it is combined with another song, but I don't think so. Are the stereo and mono releases of this album that different to the point of different tracks? If so, I do hope that if Columbia re-issues this we get both versions.

I found out about Mosaic when someone told me about the Andrew Hill set. Unfortunately it was OOP at the time (probably missed it by about a year before I got serious about collecting). I didn't see it show up too often on Ebay, and I started gathering up the OOP or import Hill and Hutcherson CDs via Ebay, only to later have to pass on several opportunities for the set (including some here). Oh well. The first Mosaic I ever purchased was the Mobley set, though curiously it was the one I left in wrap the longest.

It seems pretty well established that Mosaic is going to do a Select of Hutcherson's 70s work, so I would be surprised by a Conn

Ok, well I will try to make that one. Sal and I have missed each other a few times, even though on at least one occasion we've both been at the same show.

Well, we did brave the weather and went to see Eric Idle's new show Spamalot. We wondering if people would stay home since it was so hard to drive or even find a cab, but the theatre was pretty full. This is the last weekend of it's Chicago tryout, and it is heading to Broadway. My understanding is that the original run is already sold out, though it will probably be extended, since it is quite clear this will be a hit on about the same scale as the Producers. I broke down and went through the ticket brokers (legal scalpers), but it was worth it. Here's some info. Spamalot Webpage If you are a Python fan, you will enjoy it. No question. Some parts are lifted directly from Holy Grail, but there is far more music, including many numbers that spoof Broadway conventions. The best is a song called "Where is the song that goes like this?" but there is another good song by the female lead called "What happened to my part?" I can go into more details, but I would recommend it if you can find a way to go. I assume at some point it will do regional touring. We were lucky that the original cast was all there and not taking a break to save up energy for the last couple of Chicago performances. Tim Curry was great, as were Hank Azaria and David Hyde Pierce. I knew Curry could sing, but didn't know about the other two.

I live near Lake Michigan and we got about a foot of snow, not quite as much if you lived further west. The most annoying thing was the snow kept falling all day, and there weren't nearly enough plows out. At least I get to take CTA and not have to worry about driving. But I had to travel north to shovel the sidewalks near my building, and I'll have to do it again tomorrow. I was pretty surprised at how badly the merchants on Clark St. had shoveled the snow off in front of their stores, and far more places were closed than I expected. Seriously, this is Chicago, this happens nearly every winter. Many years back I lived in the Portugeuse part of Newark. We got hit with a blizzard/ice storm you wouldn't believe. The whole state pretty much shut down (was this 93 ?) but the Portugeuse merchants had everything cleared off and open for business the next day. That's the way to do it.

I haven't been able to make much live jazz recently, but I am hoping to make it to see this group at the Jazz Showcase, mostly to see Harold Mabern. I have most of his recordings on DIW, as well as the Prestige two-fers Wailin and A Few Miles from Memphis. Feb3 - Feb. 6 ERIC ALEXANDER / HAROLD MABERN QUARTET WITH DENNIS CARROL (B) GEORGE FLUDAS (D) Mostly likely I would make the Thursday show or the Sunday matinee. Let me know if interested.

Wow, this thread has gotten pretty far off track. I still haven't picked up the book but I probably will soon thanks to a Borders coupon. I did want to mention there is a very long and very positive review of the book in this week's Chicago Reader. I don't believe this is on-line (in the free section), but I didn't really look that hard. If it isn't on-line now, then in about a week, you can check the archive and order the article (for about $1).