J Larsen

Thanks for posting this; somehow I hadn't heard about it until just now. Just made my reservation for the late show on Friday.

I guess Thurston can have whatever ten favorite "underground free jazz" records he wants to have. Back in the early mid-90s I knew a couple guys who made their living trading really rare punk/indie records, and I heard a couple stories about how Thurston was dumping a ton of that stuff so he could load up on free jazz.

I hope so; the mastering on the last cd version of Love Call is pretty bad. Great album, though.

Another vote for the Euro concerts box.

So far it's going great! From the very first track I played through the new speakers, the high-end detail was unbelievable - on a good recording, it sounds like the cymbals are right there in the room. Of course, this is a mixed blessing with poor quality recordings (I finally understand why people on the boards have complained about certain discs in the past), but overall I'm a very happy camper. I am finding that the bass quality is subtly changing as I break them in. The low end seems much more present tonight than it did yesterday afternoon... so far, so good, but if it becomes too much more present I may experiment with the foam plugs.

Thanks for the tips - based on these comments and advice from the one stereo store dude in NYC that I trust (Anthony at Stereo Exchange), I went with the Kimber 4TC. They told me that the speakers and cable will sound better after 400 hours of play - if that's true, I'm really excited to hear what they sound like in a few months, because they're already incredible to my ears (with the only drawback being that I can now hear imperfections in some of my favorite recordings that I had never noticed before).

I think Mingus is the most gaping whole in your collection right now. Blues and Roots and/or Black Saint and the Sinner Lady would be good places to start. Brilliant Corners, mentioned above, is one I came to way too late... if I had to build my collection all over again it would probably be one of the first ten I picked up. I'm tempted to recommend Intersteller Space by Coltrane on the grounds that it just might be my favorite record that I've ever heard, but I can also see an argument for it not being a "starter" jazz album. Watch out for the guys that post around here. When I first started hanging with them online, I had about 100 jazz cds (and a big chunk of that was the Coltrane's Impulse catalog)... now I probably have close to 2,000...

This one has been making the rounds lately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCBwa-uzU5U (Not music related, just a guy making an ass out of himself trying to land an IB job...)

Thanks - based on this I think I'm going to just get whatever they have on the presumption that it has to be better than whatever I already have, and then invest in a cable upgrade once I've had time to do a little research. Thanks a lot for all the help. I should have the speakers in my house by noon!

My speakers are at the store and ready to be picked up in the morning! Any last-minute advice on speaker cable? Thanks.

Yeah, Live at the East is my favorite too. I don't dislike any of them.

I'm kind of surprised that none of the Selects have hit "Running Low" status yet. I realize not all that many people buy jazz box sets, but I see these things in stores all the time. Seems they'd be running low just on the basis of what they've supplied to retailers.

Thanks - looks like its going to be the 704s. They will be hooked up to a Rotel 1062 integrated amp, which brings me to another question: I'm probably due for new speaker cable (the cables I have now are whatever Circuit City sold me 12 years ago). Here is what the store by my house sells, is any of it worth buying? I'm a little put off because I've been told Monster isn't a very good brand: http://www.stereoexchange.com/catalogue/su...ubcategoryId=41

Code of Business Ethics: (1) Make money. (2) See (1).

Happy birthday!

I've got myself a business plan.

After years of talking about it, I think I'm finally comfortable dropping some savings on a nice pair of speakers. I checked out the B&W 704s at Stereo Exchange. I liked them best out of all of the decent-looking speakers that were within my budget. Here's the dilema: I don't live in the biggest apartment. My living room, which is where the speakers would go, is roughly 11 feet by 12 feet and is slightly teardrop shaped. On the other hand, the apartment has an open floor plan (basically a 1BR railroad with no doors), and the whole thing is about 500 square feet. My question is whether getting tower speakers in this kind of space is just the wrong idea. My problem with bookshelf speakers is that I'd rather not deal with speaker stands and because of the layout of my current apartment I really don't have a place to put a subwoofer. Also, I have been led to believe that speaker placement is a bigger issue with bookshelf models than it is with towers, which is something to think about given the somewhat odd shape of my living room. Further considerations: 1) I do plan to move into a place with a larger living room sometime in the next couple years, where the tower speakers might make more sense (once my current apartment is no longer rent stabilized, I'll move). 2) The speakers these would be replacing are floor-standing Infinity Sterlings that I bought in 1994 for probably about $400. They've served me well, but I think I'm ready for something a little more refined. Any advice would be much appreciated.

I've seen him several times in the past year or so. I thought he was $(#%ing incredible every time. I'm not a big fan of the CD Spiritual Unity put out on Pi, but their live shows are consistently great.

There's a somewhat sketchy cd store near my apt that often sells single discs from Mosaic sets... I'll check for you next time I drop by.

I wouldn't be without that DVD, but it is my least favorite of the legit Hendrix dvds out there. The music is great, but it has the worst video quality of the bunch. Sometimes that's sort of cool in its own way, but I prefer the videos where you can really see his technique (the two-disc version of the Woodstock dvd is great for that).

What album(s) was/were that? If it's Merry-Go-Round, I might suggest giving them time. Jan Hammer's playing some very cool shit on there, even if there's a blatantly wrong note in the ensemble head of "La Fiesta" which I'm shocked that the producer didn't catch. Wait a sec - I just consulted the LP insert & saw that the producer was George Butler. Never mind. Will do - I wasn't really paying attention to which session was which. I've initially hated a few things that I later figured out were actually pretty hot.

I'm sorry, but I have a really hard time with those sessions on discs 5 & 6 with the electric piano... I'm going to let those sit a long while before I give them another chance. No regrets about buying the set, though. Looking forward to getting the M Roach box next.

I'm glad you said that Chuck, because I like discs 3&4 and the Lighthouse stuff, but the rest of it is very hit and miss, with some of the misses being real doozies in my book. I may change my mind after a few more months, but that's where I'm at with it right now.

If you call Mosaic, maybe they can give you a tracking number. Mine was sent by DHL with tracking.

Does anybody know what kind of specialist you would see for this sort of thing? Maybe a sports medicine physician. That's the type of Dr. I was referred to for a shoulder injury (which had nothing to do with sports).