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Another short piece here. Unless I am mistaken, Wyatt fell out a window at a party that Ayers' was throwing (maybe he was not the only person throwing the party?), which probably did put some massive and perhaps unspoken stresses on the friendship. There was some documentary about a Canadian athlete who was paralyzed in an auto accident (his friend was driving). The main focus was on how he became a powerful advocate for the disabled -- even traveling the Great Wall of China in his wheelchair -- but part of the story was how hard it was for the two to get past the guilt/anger and remain friends. Not that I am implying Ayers' ought to have felt guilty about Wyatt's condition, only that such feelings are common in tragic situations such as this.

I know this is totally a tangent, but I remember looking through the used CD rack and they were charging through the nose for a very marginal (but OOP) rock/pop CD. Yes, it was OOP, but even a quick glance at Amazon would tell you that the going rate was about $2! I have lost a lot of respect for DMG over the years and basically never even think of shopping on-line with them anymore. Even when I am in Manhattan, I rarely drop into the store.

That would be something. Not sure the most current composer they've done. I was going to say Lutoslawski, but that was an immersion thing, not Composer of the Week. They have done John Adams, I guess. And Philip Glass. Still not a likely choice. Anyway, I was wrong, at the moment, Max has two weeks and Fiona has two weeks on Late Junction (I vastly prefer his shows, but I still listen to hers). Assuming he hasn't pre-taped it, he might be able to add a track to tomorrow's show. I'll keep a look out.

I think Max Reindhardt's week is up at Late Junction at BBC Radio 3. (I think he has one week a month, but not sure.) Otherwise he would be fairly likely to do a tribute. I guess there's an outside chance Jazz on 3 will play a track or two off of a Soft Machine LP.

I just gotta have more hi-hat!

Maybe it is/was legit in Miles' eyes but still broke some copyright rules or not everyone on the recording was compensated. Or the Dragon release only covered one publication of the material and these subsequent releases aren't kosher. Or the radio company really has the rights but only for the Netherlands and not the rest of the EU. It could be anything, including perfectly legit. I don't know, nor do I worry too much about it. I do think a huge number of recordings, particularly live ones, have a question mark hanging over them, and in most cases the purchaser really doesn't know if it 100% legit or not. I've stopped worrying overmuch about it.

If the radio stations don't own the rights of their Miles Davis recordings and don't have the right to license them, then why didn't the actual owners for instance stop the Dragon set, which was released way before the old 50-year EU copyright limit? As Kevin posted above they did so with other releases. Furthermore, as was discussed on this board (Lon's first link above), Miles got royalty payments from Dragon and thanked them for it; I don't think that would have happened if the release had been illegit. Why don't copyright holders stop Amazon from selling PD material that shouldn't be brought into the US? Sometimes the fight isn't worth it. Just because they haven't stopped this release doesn't prove it's legit, esp. if it just slipped under the wire for PD status in the EU.

I do find it rather droll that in virtually any discussion that turns to the avoidance of bootlegs or grey market because the artist doesn't get a penny from them, in nearly all cases once you start digging the artist and/or estate still wouldn't get the money for one reason or another and it "should" be going to the label. If we were truly concerned about artists not being fairly compensated and boycotted all the morally grey cases, we would be restricted to a very small number of recordings indeed.

I really only went for the Elgar, and it did make the concert worthwhile. I believe this is the 2nd time I've seen it performed. Well, there are always exceptions, but honestly, I don't care for Bruckner or Mahler and generally prefer the Shostakovich pieces that are under an hour. Not even that taken by Beethoven's 9th. All of them could have been edited down and improved. It's obviously a personal preference, but I think anything that needs to be said and expressed in a piece of music can be conveyed in that amount of time. I find that even among the relative elite lay folk that attend concerts, 45 minutes is the limit beyond which you can't even recall how the piece started. Furthermore, an awful lot of recent pop and jazz albums would be better and certainly tighter if they stuck to 45-50 minutes.

Saw the VSO doing Delius's Brigg Fair, Britten's Violin Concerto, and Elgar's Enigma Variations. The Delius was ok and I quite enjoyed the Elgar. I did not care for the Britten, neither the performance nor the piece itself. It had all these interminable false endings, like I was watching Jackson's Lord of the Rings. I just wanted the f'ing performance to be over and it went on and on. With only a few exceptions, I really think concertos should bow out at 20-25 minutes max and symphonies should strive for 45 minutes. This was at least 30 minutes, moving into 35 minute territory. And I just thought all the super high pitched playing didn't do much or go anywhere interesting. It didn't help that this was right in the middle of the Passacaglia. A few modern composers have been able to get away with this high pitched playing, like Messiaen or Shostakovich in the early String Quartets, but usually only as the very ending of the piece. It is too hard to retreat from this and then keep the piece moving forward. There was one amusing moment, however, where the violin player takes the melody, such as it was, up into the rafters, and then it was taken over by the piccolo. A bit more of that, and I might have been a bit more open to the piece. Anyway, this is definitely a composition I will avoid in the future.

Really wasn't trying to nit-pick. The Interpretations of Monk is a really interesting grouping of sets.

While this is certainly an interesting project, I don't think it really qualifies, given that each set is from a different group and you don't have any sense of the group settling down into a medium-length residency at a club. At least I thought that was what was being discussed. Certainly some of these sets don't really qualify. Not precisely the same but the Goodman Madhattan Room Broadcasts might be of interest. Not sure there is a legit source for them at the moment (as a box set that is).

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...