Kevin Bresnahan

Some clarity on Kiyoshi's sudden passing: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-yuka-after-kiyoshis-passing

The AAJ forums were taken down a long time ago.

This was posted on Facebook with the following caption: Lou Donaldson with Herman Foster, John Webber and Larry Johnson (?) at George Jazzcafé in Arnhem, The Netherlands, October 23, 1988. Photo by Joop van Osch That's a very young John Webber on bass. In 1988, he would've been 23. I actually didn't know he was playing professionally that long ago.

Chick Corea at one of his last performances in the Boston area.

I have read that Kiyoshi's death was sudden and unexpected. Ken Peplowski's cancer was in remission. It has been reported that Ken suffered a heart attack and died in his sleep. Chemo does stress one's heart, so having a heart attack is not really "unexpected". It is a possibility which unfortunately happened to Ken.

Do you have any great stories about his playing days? We'd love to hear them.

Muscle relaxers don't typically work for facet joint/nerve pinches. Be very careful here. I had a coworker who woke up like you and he pushed through for a day. The next day, he had to call an ambulance and be rushed to the hospital for immediate back surgery. He had ruptured a disc and came close to doing some permanent damage doing it the way he did.

Another thing - the flu hits so much harder the older you get. I've been very sick for almost 5 days now. I used to be one of those people who got really sick for one day and then I was back at it. Used to drive my wife crazy that I got over colds/flu so quickly. Of course, maybe I should give the current strain of Influenza A some credit here?

I assume you re-did the woofer foam surrounds? Even if they look good, if they are original they are likely not working as they should. I once had a friend say that his woofer surrounds were fine but when he lightly touched one, it crumbled before his eyes. After re-foaming, they sounded great.

Three more bari sax LPs that never made it to CD for the "needle drop" pile: Nick Brignola's "New York Bound" (Interplay), "Northern Lights (Discovery) & "Signals... In From Somewhere" (Discovery). Cheesy covers for sure...

Did it ever get mastered but just didn't make release on CD? I'd go for a download at this point.

Oh man... he was such a big part of Kenny Barron's trio. Great bassist. RIP Kiyoshi.

I'm in the process of "needle dropping" several LPs that have never made it to CD or download. I started with Joanne Brackeen's two Tappen Zee LPs, "Keyed In" & "Ancient Dynasty". Next up will be a couple of Lew Tabackin LPs, "Tabackin" (Inner City) - also called "Let The Tape Roll" & "Tenor Gladness" (Inner City), which has been released on CD in Japan but I never got around to ordering. After that, I'm planning Cecil Payne's "Bright Moments" & "Brookfield Adante", both on the Spotlite label. I'm a sucker for baritone sax dates. I'll probably also do Don Joseph's "One Of A Kind" (Uptown) as I've kinda given up on the expanded digital release that @Chuck Nessa hinted at a few years ago. I used to needle drop LPs a lot years ago but got tired of the process after stupidly agreeing to make about 75 of them for a fellow in Florida in exchange for being able to keep the LPs afterward. I have all of Kamuca's Concord LPs as needle drops. I listen to them often.

I think T.D. is right in that Watanabe got rolled up into the "smooth jazz" side of things and he rode that for quite a while. He's like the Japanese David Sanborn.