Peter Johnson

Same trombonist as on Mingus Ah Um, right? LOVE his work on that side...I wasn't certain he'd done anything else! I'll keep my eyes open for this. Huh--after looking at Allmusic, I see he died last year. Bummer.

When did they put in the stoplight?

Thanks so much, Dan, KH and Jim. I definitely do vinyl, and as I think back, poor Charles' sections in all the places I frequent are sadly full of records waiting for someone to come along. It's gonna be a Charles Earland New Years, baby! Impressions to follow!

Yes, Alan, I took it from the recently constructed trail that starts at Locust and the Schuykill (just north of Schuykill River Park) and runs along the river up toward the art museum, then underneath the West River Drive bridge to connect to the Waterworks and Boathouse Row. It's a neat trail, and is going a long way towards overcoming the, uhm, "reputation" that area had for some time, as I understand it! The picture was taken at 28th & Race, looking east.

Every once in awhile, I check my Amazon "recommendations", which can be quite humorous (I think Amazon thinks I'm a woman, but that's another story). Anyway, recently Amazon recommended two of Earland's Prestige sides, Black Talk and Funk Fantastique. Never having heard Earland, or really seen his music discussed on this board, I thought I'd throw this out there--what do you all think of him? Looks like Mogie is on Funk Fantastique, which, in my book, is reason enough to get that! I welcome your thoughts--thanks!

Kevin, I haven't ordered any wax from them in a while (nine months or so) but can't imagine things have changed. Their packing of LP's should be a model for all who ship them--they come in a new, appropriately-sized (given the number of records) box which is taped all around; each record is shipped with the record in the jacket, in the original inner sleeve (if available) or a new paper sleeve (not ricepaper) if not available, placed in an individual poly bag. The stack of records is then surrounded on the verticial with bubble wrap, and then on the horizontal with bubble wrap. Bulletproof! I Euclidrecords and could not have built my collection without them.

Wild-ass guess: Lou Donaldson -or- John Coltrane?

How did I go 1.5 years _completely_ missing this thread? Thanks for your work on this, Chuck--I can't WAIT to get a copy of it!

Kenneth Gorelick!

Happy birthday, Mark!

And the rear of the building:

And two details of the cornice of the Philadelphia Art Museum (check out the light--these were taken at about 4:50 p.m.):

Here's the fabled "Boathouse Row," where scullers from all over the world come to row on the Schuykill River:

A few Christmas day photographs of Philadelphia. Here's downtown ("Center City" to the locals) from one of the two rivers that borders the downtown area:

What time should I be over?

Couple of highlights: Washington's Crossing (very interesting historical account of 12/25/1776); Larry Kart's Book! Dexter's Keystone sessions (my first Mosaic); these are extraordinary recordings. Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook (already made three things out of it!); Bose noise cancelling headphones (with the impending move to Seattle, I've got lots of flights in my future (Gail is staying here until August). It's been a hell of a good Christmas!

Spent some time at Philadelphia's Italian Market today, shopping for food for Christmas dinner! Got the roast beef here: Bacon for Christmas morning breakfast here: Veggies here: A little scallop chowder for lunch (waiting out the rain) here: And wrapped it up with dessert: Yum!

Oh, god, I'm addicted, I'm addicted... Bought four more of these today. I'm starting to think Naxos are deserving of the "bastards!" moniker. The ability to listen to 25% of each track of each CD for _free_ is really selling stuff to me. You guys don't help either! Plus, Tower has these on sale for six bucks each. What a fucking deal! Anyway, I picked up the Ibert Escales/Divertissement/etc. (I know there are better recordings of these works, but SIX BUCKS), Antheil Ballet Mecanique (not available anywhere else other than my ancient copy on wax from the sixties), Piston Violin Concerti (thanks Epithet and DTMX) and the new Carter Symphony No. 1/Piano Concerto. Sorry Clem, no Bax 4tets--Tower was out of copies. On order. I also have Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience on order. Man oh man is this shit opening my ears up to mid/late 20th century classical. I've always liked compositions from that era, but never known what to grab. I'm pretty well-schooled in the classical repertoire (including lesser-known/recorded artists) up to about 1920, and know my Poulenc, Copland and Stravinsky well, but there's SO much out there and this label (SIX feghing bux!) is doing us addicts a huge service. Listening to the Piston record now--very nicely recorded, very well played, excellent piece which is REALLY reminiscent of early Copland. If you're into that era and haven't got a recording of these, GET THIS CD NOW!

Clem--I'm not Baggie, but your statement is consistent with my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I can dig 80's GD _for what it is_, of a time and of a place, but I think JG was utlizing the JGB at that point in time to "get back to the roots," so to speak--his JGB work then was filled with some of the soul, energy and rawness that got stripped out of the GD studio sessions of the time due to wack production, and a bit later in the decade with Brent on keys (at times good AND bad, depending), etc. etc. etc. Sorry to include so many qualifyers in my assessment, but evaluating this music from this time is MANIFESTLY situational-specific, don't you think? Did that help? If not, I can take it!

Well done! This is in my top five of the CD's I bought this year (more than 5!)

Thanks Claude. The 25% samples really worked on me--I got four this weekend. Frank Bridge, Holst, Naxos quartets (Maxwell Davies) and Music for Saxophone and Orchestra (Debussy, Glazunov, Ibert, etc. etc.). I have the new Bolcom (Songs of Innocence and Experience) on order. $6 bucks each at Tower (on sale!).

This is so weird--I was just looking at this thread today, after I bought _my_ first Naxos CD--the Davies "Naxos" quartets nos. 1 and 2. I'm not sure how I feel about them yet--I think they're a bit of an acquired taste. But the production is excellent, and this thread led me to Naxos' amazing website--$19.99 to listen to EVERYTHING they've got in print! Unbelievable! Has anyone signed up yet? I've been listening to the 25% samples (there's a lot of great music on the site) but haven't pulled the trigger to listen to things in their entirety. Can you listen to, say, an entire album with a click of the mouse?

Yippee! The discs arrived in yesterday's mail, Al--thanks!

Sorry, sorry...I know, a week in Pittsburgh can be tough!

Those crazy Yalies!