Pete C

I can't do 3, but I can do 5, and Ella & Sarah don't make the cut for me either. Billie Dinah Carmen Anita Jeanne Lee I don't care much for Karrin Allyson. Too "clean" a sound for my taste.

I agree. But I wonder if Mr. Lewis felt that the academic jargon was necessary for his book to be accepted by the academic community. I suspect he's comfortable in that language. I've been in that world, and I just don't get why clear writing is so looked down upon. Academics really love their shibboleths, and I've often heard the, IMO, baseless claim that certain concepts require opaque language. I say, bullshit. My experience with university presses (for a book of 19th century cultural history, based on my dissertation, that ultimately was never published) was that they wanted me to be less clear and more "theoretical." I had interest from Smithsonian, which worked on a different model, however I was a casualty of a greatly scaled back publishing program.

Berry Gordy Berry Oakley and, saving the best for last... Halle Berry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka#Controversies

I was just talking with a friend and discussing synthesizer players who don't use it merely as another keyboard in jazz, and I mentioned that Muhal, Patric Gleeson and Tucker Martine (on the Postcards album with Rivers & Priester) fit in this category. Then I did a search on Martine and found this concert with Rivers & Priester: http://www.archive.org/details/OM5PriesterRiversUntitled3

So that's what the pre-Buddha-nature Jarman sounded like!

There's a film clip of Mulligan and Jobim together. By the way, on your blog you write: "Are there visitors of this blog who haven't heard about Anonio (Ton) Carlos Jobim?" It should be Antonio (Tom) -- Tom is pronounced like Tone, but spelled with an m.

Yes, pretty good, jargon-free writing. George Lewis's book would have been much better without all the academese.

Shepp?

Now I know I can trust you with my secrets. I don't know if he ran into any of this, but one thing about peer review for university presses is that sometimes the reviewers' own agendas end up painting authors into corners they'd rather not be in. Oops--I guess you decided to not be totally silent...

My pleasure. I think Handbrake is pretty much the de facto standard for conversions to portable formats.

I'd generally agree with that, but I'm not sure even back then he was a great as many made him out to be. In more recent years he's become, IMO, a laughable mediocrity.

Arnaldur Indridason Bjork Bjorn

There was a pretty good documentary about him. http://www.amazon.com/Stuart-Sutcliffe-Beatle-Rosie-McGinnity/dp/B000G1ALE8

It's a subject fraught with risks, but I don't think Pullman's solution advances anything, it just supplies substitute terminology for the same constructs and in a way, by being so obtrusive, just brings more attention to those constructs by making a big thing of it. But I don't think we want to go back to many "once accepted" terms, be it regarding race or medical conditions and birth defects. Even if they were once commonly used, I don't think we'd want to refer to people as Mongoloids, spastics, cretins, imbeciles, etc. One thing that has always bothered me was the need for some writers to describe the relative skin tone of African Americans when it really does nothing to advance the narrative, things like, "He was a handsome man with a cafe au lait complexion." (Not a real example, but I've seen lots of similar descriptions).

A.R. Ammons Amon-Ra Herman Blount

Let's save all the 5th Beatles' houses: Murray the K, Pete Best, Billy Preston, Klaus Voorman--am I forgetting anybody?

Baraka was always a blowhard who never let aesthetics stand in the way of his political agendas. His "disappointment" with Wayne Shorter, in the postscript to his profile in Black Music is one good example of his cluelessness.

Cluny Brown Jennifer Jones Jessica Jones

Bobby Plater The Platters Buck Ram

Thanks. I just learned something new.

Why not Pete Best's house?

Well, I think he shot himself in the foot then, by passing on the university press. I'm sure he could have gotten his concerns in the introduction. He's also deluded if he thinks his humble effort will have any effect on common usage. In addition, it's a bad move vis a vis jazz scholarship, as he would have had plenty of university library sales of a physical book.

Have you tried Handbrake?

Earl of Suffolk Earl Fatha Hines Soupy Sales (Milton Hines)