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The Prestige/Fantasy material is on Naxos (though probably unavailable in the US). This makes up 6 albums' worth. First Class! is also available on iTunes. The Muse sessions are generally not available, with exception of One, Two, Free, which is also on iTunes.

I don't mind Thoreau in relatively small doses, though I am finding that I am really not enjoying Wendell Berry (who is deeply inspired by Thoreau), particularly any of Berry's essays written after the late 1970s. I'll be reading an early William Maxwell novel, They Came Like Swallows, next, as well as Dawn Powell's My Home is Far Away. I've requested Oz's Judas and Salter's Light Years from the library, and they'll turn up soon.

Not sure it is my favorite, but for sure the best bargain I ever landed was this 3 volume edition of Burton's translation of 1001 Nights for $1. I still own it, though I've only read through it once. Maybe one day I will crack it open again.

Not sure this is a greatest album, but it is frustrating - The Fourmost Guitars compiles three different guitar-led sessions: Chuck Wayne, Jimmy Raney and then Joe Puma/Dick Garcia (a 2 guitar session). The Raney and Puma/Garcia tracks have come out in various other formats, including on CD, I think. But not the 3 Chuck Wayne tracks. Since Dave Schildkraut plays alto on 2 of them, this is particularly tantalizing. Apparently the whole album was even on iTunes, but no longer. It may still be on Amazon music (in the US only) and Spotify (listed under Jimmy Raney only), but it is still a bit odd this never came out on CD as a single unit.

This does sound pretty horrible. I'm not quite sure where they got the chutzpah to claim this was based off of de Quincy's book, more like coincidentally they both discuss opium addiction, though de Quincy tries to deglamourize addiction (and while my memory is foggy, I think he claims there are positive uses of opium when used in moderation, though enabling one to kidnap young women didn't make the list for some reason).

Was incredibly annoyed to find that my account was suspended and they were supposed to notify me before restarting it, but they did not. So I am a member again. Took a look around and basically there are no labels of interest - Black Saint and Soul Note were dropped, as well as Hatology (as noted above). I think ECM may have been on eMusic at one point, but definitely not now. It looks like Rivebea is still there and ESP-Disk, but otherwise the rest of the jazz offerings are limited to pretty junky PD labels. This time around I am going to quit and make it stick!

In yet another example of how tastes change, I am somewhat more interested in Toni Morrison's Sula (than I remember being as a callow youth), but I am not enjoying Tar Baby at all. She introduces a lot of minor characters, who clutter up the main plot, and the main incident that allows the plot to continue strikes me as so outlandishly improbable that it has put a huge damper on the book. I'm very doubtful I'll actually manage to finish this. It would be one thing if this was supposed to be read as a fable (or even fairy tale, like much of Angela Carter's work), but Tar Baby is predominantly in the realist mode. I'm skipping around in Wendell Berry's The World-Ending Fire (a compilation of selected essays). While there is much that is interesting and admirable, I am more in tune with Loren Eiseley's world view and preoccupations. Also reading through Teju Cole's Known and Strange Things, which is interesting so far.

It did appear to be a guest drummer (in baseball cap), but definitely five others. I've seen a slightly larger configuration, and I think one time (in Chicago) they had joined up with female vocalists/dancers but that is quite rare.

Tinariwen was in Toronto last night. I think this is a slightly smaller touring ensemble than I've seen in the past, only 6 members including a dancer (who at one point in the middle of the set did play 2 guitar pieces). It was a good show. This actually makes the 4th time I've seen them over the years -- twice in Chicago and twice in Toronto.

About 1/3 through Dawn Powell's A Time to Be Born. Still quite entertaining, though I think Turn, Magic Wheel is a bit tighter overall. Should wrap up Morrison's Sula fairly soon as well. I'm reading Eiseley's books in a somewhat random order. Finished The Immense Journey yesterday and will launch into The Night Country probably in a week or so. Also, put a few Wendell Berry essay collections on hold at the library.

RIP I believe I saw him twice in Chicago, both times backing Eric Alexander. It's vaguely possible I saw him a third time, but I don't remember the context. I know that he came to Vancouver fairly recently for a show in support of the Kirk MacDonald CD Ted mentions above, but when Kirk played Toronto, Harold wasn't with the group unfortunately.

It looks like VLC Media Player will also play that format. You should be able to download it for free. I don't use VLC that often any more, but it still comes in handy for some files.

I think she actually wrote 15 novels, but the very, very early novels are all completely out of print. A while back, she came back into vogue and the publisher that published her diaries and short stories also published 10 of her novels (the best of the bunch). LOA reprints 9 of them, with only The Happy Island left out. The Happy Island is set in New York, so you might want to see if your library has it if you enjoy your deeper dive into Powell. It's also one of the first novels to feature homosexual characters without invoking "gay panic" (I mean leaving aside The Satyricon).

Dawn Powell's Turn, Magic Wheel. This is one of her earlier novels and perhaps her first pure satire. I enjoyed it. It sets me up to read A Time to Be Born, which I'll probably start towards the end of the week. I'm about a quarter of the way through A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers. This is one of the relatively rare cases where I saw the movie (starring Tom Hanks) first. I can't even remember why I saw the movie in the first place, as I am not a huge Tom Hanks fan or anything. The theme of the US losing its way, along with its manufacturing base, is pervasive in the novel, even more than in the movie. I'm also reading some Loren Eiseley - first The Invisible Pyramid and now The Immense Journey.

I don't think the Toronto Library is likely to stop its book sale model of donated items any time soon, though I don't think they accept CDs. I might be wrong. The University of Toronto and associated college libraries also have annual book sales of slightly higher end materials, but again no CDs, as far as I know. There are fewer and fewer places that will take CDs and give you any value for them. The one place I knew that had some interest in jazz and classical shut down. Most of the used book stores have shut down, with two more going out of business in the last year (and Elliot's Books on Yonge shutting down the year previously, which was a major loss). There is probably a 3 year window remaining to get anything, even $0.50 for used CDs at a store, and, after that, it will be all be strictly donated. I know my collection will more or less end up in the landfill unless my son bothers to schlep them over to Goodwill or Value Village. By the time I shuffle off, I'm pretty sure even Mosaics will be valueless. I don't know about books. They'll likely retain some value longer, but the days of estate sales where the store would come out and grab all the books are over. So I suspect realistically the books will also end up in a landfill.

I had no idea he was still alive. RIP Definitely a major figure who really changed the way the art world thought about photographs. I saw an exhibit with the original prints from the The Americans and then some of the images that didn't make the collection, along with several pages of negatives.

There are two overlapping issues. First, the fact that relatively few people borrow CDs and most libraries do prefer to invest in streaming services - Hoopla, Naxos, etc. That said, the library here does get a very few new CD releases and even has a few new vinyl additions to the catalogue. The second issue is that it is fairly expensive to catalogue a bunch of random CDs (or even books), and if one is looking at a big stack of MOR rock/pop records in who knows what kind of condition, then it is a lot easier to just say no. I've found it all but impossible to donate targeted books (i.e. ones not in the collection that would fit with the theme of the collection). The real problem for me is that most used bookstores and used CD stores are going out of business, so there is almost nowhere to get rid of this stuff. As the boomers and Gen Xers shuffle off this mortal coil, most of the stuff they accumulated is just going into the dump unfortunately...

Decided to go ahead and reread Morrison's Sula after all... (As mentioned above, my personal favorite is Song of Solomon, followed by Tar Baby.) Starting in on Dawn Powell's major novels. A Time to Be Born first, then the ones in the LOA volume Novels 1944-1962. Really looking forward to The Locusts Have No King, which I'll probably get to by late Sept. (Though now I see that I probably should read Turn, Magic Wheel prior to A Time to Be Born, since there are recurring characters. Hmmm.) Speaking of late Sept., Salman Rushie is on another reading tour (for Quichotte this time). He's giving a reading in Toronto at the AGO on Sept. 30, and probably other major North American cities around that time. I've generally heard good things about his last three novels, including Quichotte, so I'm looking forward to this reading.

It appears you aren't the only ones bothered by the editing (butchering?) of the session. There was a Gambit release, now upgraded to Essential Jazz Classics (part of the Fresh Sounds family), called Jim Hall "Complete Jazz Guitar." This happens to be on iTunes. I gather the first 10 tracks are dubbed from an original LP, and the rest is bonus material that has popped up from time to time. The Good Friday Blues (by the Modest Jazz Trio) has turned up on a few labels and is also on iTunes in various incarnations.

It does start off pretty slow, and the first part is just explaining why the Baron has come back from the pages of his book. Chapter 5 is probably the strongest where the Baron is doing a field report on conditions in the USSR. The payoff is basically that the fantastical tales that the Baron spins are not actually any further removed from the truth than what was reported in Pravda on a daily basis. That said, this is more of a clever tale and not a fully-fleshed out novel, but even in this it mirrors the original.

Wrapping up Krzhizhanovsky's The Return of Munchausen (NYRB). It's pretty droll, though this is a case where the allusions run deep, and it pays to read the notes at the end. It probably isn't a bad idea to have read Baron Munchausen previously. There are a bunch of versions on-line. This one, with illustrations by Gustave Dore, is pretty good - https://archive.org/details/adventuresBaron00Dore/page/v

Saw Angelique Kidjo last night at a free concert at Toronto's Harbourfront. It was solid; she had the crowd on its feet for most of the show. She mostly performed material from her latest two albums, a CD of Celia Cruz covers and Remain in Light, which remakes Talking Heads's songs from their album of the same name.

Call It Sleep is quite an achievement. Don't know if I would still like it quite as much these days, but probably so. I would start there for sure. I made it through two volumes of Mercy of a Rude Stream and felt that was more than enough. The whole incest thing was a bit too much, particularly when his sister made it clear she wasn't happy with him publishing the details. (I'm sure it plays a much smaller role in the later books, if it comes up at all, but the whole enterprise felt pretty tainted by that point.)

I've seen the marketing machine gearing up for this album (I guess it hits in Sept.). Assuming Rubberband comes to iTunes, I imagine I'll listen to a couple of tracks, but that would be the extent of it. The sample track certainly didn't grab me. Of the late Miles mentioned upthread, I remember thinking Amandla and Aura were probably the best. I probably have a bit of a soft spot for the Dingo soundtrack, but I haven't listened to it in a long, long time.

I wrapped up Naked Lunch this weekend. I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed it, as it is fairly repetitive and maybe even a bit juvenile in its insistence in being shocking. I'm about 50 pages into Craig Nova's Wetware, but am finding this to be a major disappointment. Most reviews have said it is a slow burner, and that is true -- the pace is glacial for SF, but I don't find the main characters particularly interesting or even believable. Worse, the ideas in the book (about the morality of infusing human consciousness into non-human artificial beings) are fairly pedestrian and have been recycled endlessly (well before Blade Runner). I'll probably read another 25-50 pages but can't actually see finishing this book. It's a shame, as I liked most of Nova's earlier novels. Murakami's Men Without Women next.