ejp626

Couldn't wait any longer and there was a price drop, so I put in an order. Looking forward to it.

Not quite my cuppa, but passed along to a friend who ordered. Thanks!

I believe these are the contents (didn't verify beyond a quick search though): http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/RCA-Living-Stereo-Vol-2/hnum/3793157 Definitely tempting. I have the Reiner already (but there is not that much -- Box 1 is more Reiner heavy). A bit more Munch and Leinsdorf. I'd definitely listen to this more than the Decca #2 set, which I think I will pass on. It just slays me that there are 5 CDs devoted to Rubinstein doing the Beethoven Piano Concertos (w/ Krips), as I just picked this up in a different set. Oddly enough they packed that (along with three other concertos) onto 4 CDs, so not quite sure what is going on here with 5 CDs (and if there is bonus material or not).

I believe these are the contents (didn't verify beyond a quick search though): http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/RCA-Living-Stereo-Vol-2/hnum/3793157 Definitely tempting. I have the Reiner already (but there is not that much -- Box 1 is more Reiner heavy). A bit more Munch and Leinsdorf. I'd definitely listen to this more than the Decca #2 set, which I think I will pass on.

I know I shouldn't dwell on this, but Michelle is just so icky. (I imagine the others aren't any better.) Backup vocalists on all or virtually all the tracks (right now they are cooing "Turn Turn Turn" in my ear). This is so much worse than I had imagined... Taking the vocals into account, I would actually rate this as lower than Musak and mostly Shank just seems to be phoning it in. Maybe I am just not willing to listen too hard to see if he is actually performing anything resembling jazz.

So perhaps interesting is that the most accomplished of the bunch is The Talents of Bud Shank on Kimberly Jazz. After some research, it became obvious that this was really just two different sides from Pacific Jazz (Bud Shank and 3 Trombones and Bud Shank Quintet). I am almost positive that these were just licensed/reissued on Kimberly (but recorded by Pacific) rather than the other way around. And yet there is a huge paragraph on the back cover talking about the amazing recording equipment over at the Kimberly Studios, and basically claiming the recordings were in fact done there (which I don't believe). I mean there's hype and then there's hype. This is how this blurb ends: "This recordings that you now have in your hands truly represents a miracle in sound and is a perfect copy of the most perfect and painstakingly engineered recording."

Well, they could by a publisher in a country with 50 year copyright law, but there are fewer of those left... But in broader terms, rights were for one broadcast and not rebroadcast.

Very intrigued. Just ordered.

I haven't listened to all of it (just 2 or 4 CDs), but I enjoyed what I heard. Enigma Variations was nicely played. There is also the Cello Concerto (with Janos Starker); hard to go wrong there.

Keep putting Proust on the back burner. May just never finish, when it comes right down to it. Renata Adler's Speedboat -- pretty disappointed with this actually; intentionally disorganized snippets of text/anecdotes that she admits cut off before they actually gel or cohere. I think I'll be a lot more satisfied with Gregor von Rezzori. I have an early novel (Oedipus at Stalingrad) and a late novel (The Orient Express) checked out from the library. At one point, I owned a copy of The Death of My Brother Abel, but am not sure I still do. I'll keep an eye out for it.

Is it better than the real thing? Or is it the real thing? Recorded music is pornography. I'm slowly coming around to Gould's view that the conditions in the concert/opera hall are so crap that it just isn't worth it. I don't remember the situation in the UK, but the height of the concert season here just happens to coincide with crappy weather and a lot of people with hacking coughs that can't be bothered to bring any cough drops. Add to that, the general creeping selfishness of people who actually refuse to refrain from texting and what have you (to say nothing of those who forget to turn off their cell phones!) and you wonder why you spent this money. Just last night, in the middle of the sublime (yet so quiet) 2nd movement of Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto (performed by Yefim Bronfman) and someone's cell phone goes off -- and keeps going off for close to a minute before they silenced it. Puts a real damper on things, and basically I see people getting worse, not better... So I am generally opting not to go out and to listen to my "pornography" instead.

Anytime I've tried natural peanut butter, I find it disgusting and even get a bit ill. So yes, I'll take fake peanut butter anyday over the natural stuff.

Of course, if you are buying natural peanut butter, that's the mistake right there.

I have been spinning a lot of vinyl but not actually listening to it. I'm in the process of converting over a bunch of LPs that I've picked up over the last year. Some of it is great stuff, but then there is a whole stack of Bud Shank doing pop tunes that I imagine I'll listen to once and that's it. (I got these as part of a lot sale.) Just looking at the titles gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can see maybe doing one or two LPs of this stuff, but he's got at least 5: California Dreamin', Let It Be, Magical Mystery, Michelle, A Spoonful of Jazz... The last deserves special mention. From the back cover: Honestly, my opinion of Shank has dropped based on these records (and I have no respect for the writer of these notes (Patricia Willard) who even mixes up personal and personnel). Three of these tracks are Bud with strings (oh joy). Actually it is quite frustrating as he has some amazing personnel on some of the tracks (Frank Rosolino and Conte Candoli -- with Shorty Rogers arranging the whole album) but the starting material is just so weak. Anyway, I can't wait for the record store owner to laugh in my face when I try to pass these on to him.

RIP. I probably have more albums by him than any other UK jazz musician with possible exception of Tubby Hayes.

I just got my copy of Velvet Blue (the CD of the sessions from Kickstarter). Looks promising, and I can report back a bit later. (I'm very impressed they've already uploaded the track info to somewhere in the cloud, so that my player can figure out the track titles.)

I read this a few months back. Some parts are really interesting, and some just drag...

Yikes. I would be thoroughly pissed if I downloaded this music based on that cover. In the good old days, they would definitely be sued over this. Now it really isn't worth the trouble.

Sorry if already mentioned, but I picked up Slatkin conducts Elgar - a 4CD box (http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Slatkin-Conducts-Elgar/dp/B00EC0VWQK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385954657&sr=8-1&keywords=slatkin+elgar) The store had it at a decent price ($18) and I had some store credit anyway... I'll try to report back after listening to some of it over the next few days.

In general, I have been underwhelmed by Anne Applebaum's various oped pieces in the Washington Post and/or Slate. They usually strike me as neo-con-lite (and consistently Rah-rah'ing for American Power) to the point I rarely click through if I see her name in the byline. However, I had no idea that she lives permanently in Poland and is married to Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski. That is certainly interesting.

So Terry Jones has revealed that the reunion shows will just be a rehashing of the old Python skits. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/22/monty-python-reunion-o2-show-terry-jones) Pretty disappointing really. But hardly unexpected.

That's very strange. I put a few box sets in the cart and normally it came out to $15 to Canada (or the UK). 2 single CDs was usually $6 to Canada, which is 50% less than international shipping rates from Amazon (or really 75% less if each is charged a separate shipping rate, which is pretty typical nowadays). It's still far from ideal, but they seem to be trying to wrestle shipping charges down. I don't know the scoop about JazzLoft, but it's hard for me to imagine these options weren't also available to him.

Yes, but JazzLoft should have been positioned to benefit from the same shipping breaks that DG can exploit. It must have been incorporated as a business, etc. I'm just saying that if there were some options out there that would have lessened the pain for 40% of your customers, it would have been worth exploring them... In the larger scheme of things, it is completely ridiculous what happened to overseas shipping rates in the U.S. But at this point, the USPS is just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic (Harry Potter stamps, looking for corporate sponsorship of stamps, etc.). In 5-10 years, the international shipping rates for individuals will be so high, that it will grind to a halt. All the benefits of globalization will revert back to corporations and the little guy will be completely shut out. We will remember the glory years when you could send letters to international pen pals and send CDs/DVDs to them in the mail. That is definitely going away. And so it will all just be in the clouds...

I knocked off 2 from my list (The Bad Girl and Le Grand Meaulnes). While I will always prefer a printed book for reading on the go, reading the epub file (through an epub-reader extension on Firefox) wasn't too bad. I went ahead and downloaded a few more epub files from Project Gutenberg. Apparently, a bunch of folks on-line are reading Middlemarch in Dec. and have a whole schedule to follow. I might join along. I should be able to finish That Awful Mess on Via Merulana by Friday, then refocus on Proust. Or at least I should have been able to, except I have gotten interested in reading Robert Walser (Berlin Stories, The Tanners, etc.).

Looking at Sqidco's website I see they recommend using a company called Bongo International for shipping to overseas customers. According to them it could reduce the cost of shipping by over 80%!...too good to be true? Has anyone ever used this company? Edited to make it clearer what I meant! BTW here's a link that explains it in more detail: http://www.squidco.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=S&Category_Code=POLICY I have no idea whether they use Bongo specifically, but I did note that Dusty Groove had found some way to cut shipping rates to Canada (didn't check to other countries). I mentioned this in an email to Alan, that it might be something he would want to look into. His reply indicated that he wasn't that interested -- he would stick with the shipping process he knew. So I can't help but feel that this is at least a bit self-inflicted.