ejp626

Never heard of them either, but IMO better than many recent musical guests on SNL. I happened to be reading about a musician horribly miscast in the Off-Broadway musical, Love, Janis (about Janis Joplin). If the Alabama Shakes don't work out, she might consider auditioning the next time this show is mounted. Only, half-kidding by the way.

you better! I was tempted to add, not as terrible as you might think, but my "cred" is low enough as it is. At least a few people might be interested in Chick Corea and Origin in concert, which covers Thurs-Sun concerts (Friday night appears to be missing):

I'll get my coat ...

Still per track in Canada as well. Sometimes you get a great deal, but for anthologies of early jazz it is a lousy deal.

I know there is a thread on eMusic, but it is dormant. I'm pretty unhappy with the changes they've made over the past 5 years, and I unsubscribed for a while. I recently rejoined and have maybe 6 months' worth of albums to go through still, and then I will quit again. The pricing structure never made much sense to me (per track rather than per byte), making it absurdly expensive to buy older material with songs under 3 minutes. Same with classical music where a 40 minute piece might be 4 tracks or 25 tracks. There are vast swaths of the catalog unavailable to one country or another (in which case it shouldn't be left in there as a tease). And the search function is so crap that it is easier to start searching for whether eMusic has n album in Google rather than from the eMusic site itself.

That's awfully nice, even if it doesn't appear to have the Bebop in Paris sessions. I may consider it more seriously, even though I do have much of this already (75% or so).

If you are lucky, two of the Zsellers or whatever they are called now will have it in stock, and you kind of watch the automatic price adjustment at work. (Granted this is more common on Amazon.com than the other Amazons.) The De Larrocha set went down 2 or 3 dollars over a week (a few pennies at a time) until it was back where I was willing to buy it. But you do need some patience, and if one of them sells out, the price shoots back up...

I'm fairly sure how is not correct, but I'm not sure I can give a precise reason, only some examples. You have two linked clauses, and sometimes if you reverse the order you can spot the problem. You can imagine saying "We did it last time like this" You might even say "We did it last time as such and such" (a bit snooty). But you would never say "We did it last time how you wanted it." (Well, I wouldn't say this. It sounds very ignorant.) How just shouldn't be used to link a subordinate clause in this way.

Finished Atwood's Lady Oracle. Definitely more entertaining than I was expecting, though goodness knows the main character made a bunch of strange and sometimes outright foolish decisions. There are some interesting parallels to Cat's Eye. Another Canadian novel for the time being Powning's The Sea Captain's Wife (and then Malone's Handling Sin after that):

Well, I guess it is all of a piece then and they went into the Grammys with their eyes wide open. It is a bit droll and more than a little sad but not unexpected that in the reviews of this "new product" (it's newness being far more important than the content), reviewers explictly single out all the material in the box set recorded since 2000 as being pretty crap. I guess in order to save the village, they had to flatten the village, as it were.

I didn't think that worked at all -- their backing The Black Keys. Not that the song was horrible but what they played was generic horn comping and not at all representative of what they are about. Yeah, that's true about what they played, but they are very good players indeed. I'm sure they are, but who would know that? It was a total waste of their time and talent. And anyone watching would say, hmm, PHJB -- almost as good as the DapTones but nowhere near as good as Tower of Power. Maybe I'll go check out one of their albums... In that super unlikely scenario, this unknowing viewer is probably going to be disappointed indeed when they hear their actual music. Which is why I really don't see how they benefit at all from backing The Black Keys.

I didn't think that worked at all -- their backing The Black Keys. Not that the song was horrible but what they played was generic horn comping and not at all representative of what they are about.

I agree with this, but there can still be acts that make me go -- uggh. I actually didn't have any problem with Dr. John backing The Black Keys, but then to turn the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band into a backing horn line? Absolutely stupid and having no sense at all of what they are all about. I would have been a lot happier if Sharon Jones backing band (The Daptones?) had been performing with The Black Keys -- it would have been a much better fit. Again, no real surprise, but I didn't think it made any sense for the Preservation Hall musicians to agree to participate. Having one's name out there more widely isn't that helpful if you become known for something you absolutely aren't...

This is a little different - Boult from Bach to Wagner. All non-English fare on EMI. The Amazon price is kind of steep, but there are plenty of market sellers selling for under $20. I can't tell how essential any of this is, but I am curious to hear him doing the Brandenberg Concertos. Also, some reviewers highly praise his Brahms. There is another Boult set coming out of him conducting Vaughan Williams, but unless you are a completist, it is hard to justify. I felt more than sated with a cheaper box of Boult conducting the symphonies and then a stand-alone CD with some of the major orchestral pieces (Lark, Greensleeves, Serenade, etc.).

A few weeks back I managed to get to several museums in NYC and DC. Picasso in Black and White was the main exhibit at the Guggenheim -- it was sort of bifurcated -- a lot of early work and a lot of late work, which was slightly less familiar. I spent just under 2 hours at the Guggenheim and 4+ at the Met. The Met had quite a nice exhibit on George Bellows, as well as a Matisse highlight exhibit. This is also the first time I've been back since they reopened the Islamic art area (it was shut down for close to 10 years), and I think they enlarged and rearranged the paintings in the American wing. On the down side, it was impossible to reach most of the European masters because of some reconstruction. The Vermeers and Rembrandts were reachable but not the Titians and El Grecos. Still, a very good visit all in all. (The Bellows exhibit will be in London at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, March 16–June 9, 2013. I don't think the others are traveling, but I could be wrong.) I tried to get into DC fairly early on Sunday, since there was an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art that was coming down on Monday -- Roy Lichtenstein. It was quite crowded, since a lot of people had decided to come for the last look. I have to admit, I was about halfway through when I suddenly recalled that this was the same exhibit that I had seen in Chicago at the Art Institute. It is really interesting how the shape of a gallery and the staging/presentation really affects your perception. Honestly, the show was more effective in Chicago, though I was glad to see (again) some of the larger pieces where he was riffing on modern art. I spent another 4 hours checking out the other parts of the gallery, mostly in the building with the older art. I obviously had a lot of conference going the other days, but I did manage to sneak away and saw some of the other parts of the Smithsonian. Probably the most memorable was at the Hirshhorn where they had a massive retrospective on Ai Weiwei. Some of his art is really amazing, and some you just go -- hmmm (esp. the covering up of Han Dynasty vases with house paint). He would be a low-level provocateur in the west, and there is no question his stature is magnified because of his dissident status in China. That doesn't take away from his bravery, but it does make me wonder if the quality of the art suffers because everything he does now automatically gains admiration from Western art critics. I was kind of surprised to learn that he had lived in New York for a while. I wonder occasionally if China considers exiling him back to New York. I probably would in their shoes. Curiously, I was at the Tate Modern the very first weekend his exhibit opened there -- it was something like 1 million porcelain sunflower seeds. You had to take off your shoes to wander through. A number of people had taken a few, and I was very tempted to steal one or two. Had I known that a week later they more or less shut down the exhibit for "health and safety reasons" (supposedly the dust from the seeds being disturbed was aggravating the asthma of some of the guards!) I definitely would have taken them. No sunflower seeds at this retrospective, but there was a huge pile of clay crabs and some other mass produced art objects. Anyway, one of the more droll aspects was that Ai Weiwei apparently insisted on a low cost ($5) mass-produced catalog magazine in addition to the fancier hard cover edition, and for $5 I was definitely willing to spring for one. The Weiwei exhibit will be traveling on -- Indianapolis, Toronto, Miami and ending in Brooklyn (spring-summer of 2014).

RIP. Listening to Byrd in Flight right now (Byrd and Mobley and Pearson -- nice). Will listen to a few other CDs tonight and over the weekend.

PM sent on the Mingus.

Finally wrapped up Midnight's Children. Just didn't do that much for me this time around -- too many digressions and simply too long. I doubt I'll read it a third time. I am somewhat curious how the movie turned out (that was at least part of the reason for tackling this again). I have been struggling through Amado's The War of the Saints. Finally made it to the halfway mark and he is introducing even more plot complications. But I find that I am completely uninterested in any of the characters and their problems. Time to bail on this. I really don't understand as I liked most of his other novels, but this was a very late novel and perhaps he was trying to hard to do something "literary." But I did enjoy Greene's Travels with my Aunt. The narrator, Henry, is the straightest of straight men observing the madcap adventures of his 75-year old aunt. Ripped through this in 3-4 days (just so glad to be back to something fun). About to tackle Atwood's Lady Oracle. Certainly not expecting it to be as fun as the Greene but hopefully not as dire as some of the other books I have read recently. It too appears to be a bit too long for its own good.

Well, sure enough Sony is reissuing some Perlman recordings, and it appears to be his earlier recordings (as Ubu reported above). I can't find any details at the moment, but I am hoping that at least some of the classic recordings from the Original Jacket Collection are included, since I never picked that up. Edit: Some information here, but a bit confusing at the moment. It appears that the Prokofiev Sonatas are on here, which was one of my main considerations (as I did pre-order). A fair bit of overlap with the OJC set but some reprogramming of pieces onto different CDs. I can't tell at the moment if anything was dropped from that set or indeed if there is anything new. But clearly if you have the Perlman OJC set, you won't need this. Perhaps a bit disappointing is that the kitchy film score recordings with John Williams are in the box as the last CD. I could have lived without that, esp. if it left room for something better. I have been eyeing the complete Van Cliburn and complete Byron Janis sets, but there is so much overlap with what I already have that I just couldn't justify either one.

I can empathize with Branford. I cannot hear any performer's personal style, tho' perhaps if music was my living I would pay more attention. Can't tell any of them apart, and I no longer really aspire to. It definitely makes me wonder why I bother listening to the music at all (and I am 75% serious when I say this). In contrast, I can identify probably well over 100 different painters by style, color selection, etc. I guess the difference is I can have music playing at work, and I can't have a slideshow of my favorite paintings running in the background, as it would be too distracting. But I am definitely starting to re-evaluate my life and how much attention I pay to music (and the balance between jazz, classical, African/world music, rock/pop, etc.) -- and certainly how much I spend on it. It has probably been too much, given how my mind works -- and how little I care for where contemporary jazz scene is going.

I guess you never know, but this looks like one of those spoof things that people send to the newspaper to see if they will run it. Given all the problems they have with tablets and handwriting recognition, a pen that can tell the difference between a cursive c and e for example. And will let you know as you are writing that you are spelling something wrong? In real time? I highly doubt it.

So this is what Amazon.jp (and Google translate) has to say about the Yo-Yo Ma set: Disc1 Vivaldi: Concerto in G minor for Cello RV531 two Vivaldi: Largo from Winter 2nd movement Four Seasons Violin Concertos No. 4 Vivaldi: RV423 Cello Concerto in B flat major Vivaldi: (from the opera chaste nymph RV714) Staring at my eyes thus Vivaldi: RV540 Concerto for viola d'amore and lute Vivaldi: my glory through the blood (from the opera Giustino RV717) Vivaldi: RV401 Cello Concerto in C minor Vivaldi: You Just Can not Smile It Away (from Yudita of winning oratorio) not be yearning Oh Vivaldi: Do not praise Onmi (from the Gloria RV589) Vivaldi: noble woman than how much (from the oratorio Yudita of victory) Vivaldi: Oh, (more chaste nymph RV714 opera) send said Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra Ton Koopman (conductor) Disc2 · BOCCHERINI: Cello Concerto in B flat major Pinchas Zukerman, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (conductor) Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major Jose Luis Garcia English Chamber Orchestra (conductor) Disc3 Schumann: Op.129 Cello Concerto in A minor Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Colin Davis (conductor) Dvořák: Op.104 Cello Concerto in B minor Dvořák: Op.68-5 Silent Woods Dvořák: Rondo in G minor Op.94 for Cello and Orchestra Lorin Maazel Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (conductor) Disc4 Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor - Lalo: Cello Concerto No. 1 in D minor Lorin Maazel Orchestre National de France (conductor) Walton: Cello Concerto Andre Previn London Symphony Orchestra (conductor) Disc5 Elgar: Op.85 Cello Concerto in E minor Andre Previn London Symphony Orchestra (conductor) Shostakovich: Op.107 Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat major Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations on a Theme in A major Op.33 Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel (conductor) Disc6 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 (recorded in 1982) Bach: Cello Suite No. 3 (recorded in 1982) Bach: Cello Suite No. 5 (recorded in 1982) Disc7 Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 1 Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 3 · WoO.46 Variations on a Theme by men to know the love of "The Magic Flute" Mozart · Op.66 Variations on a Theme by either lover or wife of "The Magic Flute" Mozart Emanuel Ax (P) Disc8 Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 2 Schumann: Adagio and Allegro in A major Op.70 change Schumann: Op.73 Pieces fantastic collection Emanuel Ax (P) Yo-Yo Ma (Vc) Years 1981-2004. Generally, an interesting selection. I do find it somewhat strange that we would get 3 of 6 Bach Cello suites. I would guess anyone that really wanted them would already have them, but then for those relatively few that have some interest but haven't rushed out to get them, they would want all 6. Maybe I am off-base though. This doesn't look like it overlaps very much with my collection, so that's good at any rate.

I imagine it was something like that. Basically up to that point, bookstores could hold onto all this stock but either claim it as a deadweight loss or simply keep it off the books (not sure which), but this change in the tax code assumed that all of it would be sold (obviously or why have it) and then forwarded the profits to present day (without even discounting for the portion of future sales that are over a year in the future). Definitely thought up by someone who knows economic theory but not the realities of retail sales. The inevitable consequence was smaller inventories and a move closer to just-in-time inventory control. Maybe not terrible from a societal perspective, but not at all good for people who like fringe-ier items in the long tail. Frankly, it is somewhat amazing that Amazon is willing to keep some of this stock around to serve the long tail when it doesn't help them from an accounting perspective. Well, IS it the case that Amazon in the US is keeping this inventory? Over here, I've noticed a lot of the things I buy from Amazon itself (not sellers) are actually supplied by a European branch of Amazon, perhaps because our accounting is done like that in the US (I don't know) or maybe for some other reason. But the fact that you buy smething from Amazon doesn't necessarily mean you're getting it from Amazon. If you're dealing on the web, you can put physical stock where you want; where it serves your tax strategy best. Indeed, Amazon may not pay taxes in America at all. MG Mostly it does come from US-based warehouses. They have located the warehouses in states with lower local taxes (and 0% state sales tax if they can manage that), but that shouldn't matter as far as their federal taxes. The cost of international shipping would pretty quickly eat up any tax benefits from offshoring their inventory, esp. as they are moving more and more to 2-day delivery for Amazon Prime. Definitely can't guarantee that from the U.S. Virgin Islands or wherever. Indeed, Amazon has finally thrown in the towel and is urging for "uniform" statewide sales tax, in part so that they can open up smaller warehouses in more states and lower their delivery times further and increase reliability. It is going to be another blow to brick and mortars once they have this ironed out (and are no longer competing just on sales tax avoidance). But Amazon is just about the only retailer that can have such a huge inventory and use "creative" accounting to offset the inventory tax.

I imagine it was something like that. Basically up to that point, bookstores could hold onto all this stock but either claim it as a deadweight loss or simply keep it off the books (not sure which), but this change in the tax code assumed that all of it would be sold (obviously or why have it) and then forwarded the profits to present day (without even discounting for the portion of future sales that are over a year in the future). Definitely thought up by someone who knows economic theory but not the realities of retail sales. The inevitable consequence was smaller inventories and a move closer to just-in-time inventory control. Maybe not terrible from a societal perspective, but not at all good for people who like fringe-ier items in the long tail. Frankly, it is somewhat amazing that Amazon is willing to keep some of this stock around to serve the long tail when it doesn't help them from an accounting perspective.

Same here. Please elaborate, ejp626. Sorry, I had checked out of this thread. This may be more specific to bookstores than record stores, and in both cases, it is US-specific, though other countries might have followed suit. A short thread on the topic here, and I'll extract just a bit below. Prior to the change, bookstores (and presumably record stores) could hold into low-selling inventory for longer periods of time and not worry as much about best sellers and churning through inventory.