Kevin Bresnahan

Now that I've seen so many pictures of Morgan after the unfortunate burnt scalp incident, I wonder if that's why the top of his head is cropped out of this picture?

Won't help. Since I moved to this beach house, I have no place to stack milk crates. Plus, I have a wife who would kill me if milk crates started getting stacked all over the place.

My biggest problem recently has been these new Tone Poet and 80th Anniversary LPs that Blue Note has been putting out. Many of them sound great but they are vinyl and I'm quickly remembering why I hated the stuff back in their heyday. It's like buying a lottery ticket where the jackpot is you get one without underfill, offset centerholes, warpage, double labels or scratches. My latest saving grace is that Universal Music's web store has the worst customer service I've ever encountered. I ordered 8 LPs from them and they dropped the ball so many times that I finally cancelled the entire thing. I doubt I'm going to buy them at all now. I just went to put away my last LP purchases and they won't fit into my LP rack.

I have nearly all of Hank Mobley's recordings. My only holes are his earliest dates with the Paul Gayten & Dizzy Gillespie Orchestras, mainly because Jazz orchestras have never really been a favorite of mine, particularly with a vocalist like those Gayten dates. Somewhat like Lon, as I've gotten older, my attitude towards completeness has changed. It looks like my attitude is trending the opposite of Lon's however. As I've gotten older, I've felt much less compelled to own every recording player X is on. In fact, I've come to the realization that I already have far too much music to truly appreciate all of it. I notice this especially when I am perusing my music library and see a title I really liked and then think that it's been years, sometimes even a decade, since I last played it. I literally have too much music.

Hey - it's only $902.81 on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Home-Holidays-JOEY-DEFRANCESCO/dp/B00NBB9YJ8

I think it's pretty funny that the purported "Jazz detective" missed all those edits for his CD release. I get making those cuts for the LP, but inexcusable for the CD.

It still may after Christmas. The numbers are still very high and until the vaccine gets widespread distribution, they will likely stay high.

I still haven't managed to pick up that Joey DeFrancesco Christmas set yet. I should see if I can find it this year.

Kenny G(orelick) - Miracles: The Holiday Album (Arista). Ahhh... Christmas pablum at its finest. I feel like I'm in a Starbucks.

I still haven't mustered up the courage to head down to Stereo Jack's yet. I've popped into the Bull Moose Music in Portsmouth a couple of times but it was pretty much empty, so I wasn't too uncomfortable. That grunge you get on your fingertips after browsing the racks for a while takes on a whole new meaning now though. I've always felt "dirty" after browsing the used racks but after doing it in this world, I feel infectious. Thank god for the copious hand sanitizer jugs by the entrance/exit.

Bronzing may happen with CD-Rs but I've only seen it on a manufactured disc. The one I had it on was made in England at the Nimbus factory, It looked like this: And I guess PDO? https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/pages/bronzed.asp Here's a Nimbus pressing:

I have some CD-Rs that I burned almost 25 years ago, so they can last. The problem with most modern CD-Rs that I've gotten from labels is that they use the cheapest blanks they can get and I have had at least 4 of the cheapie CD-Rs from record labels fail. I have only had one manufactured CD fail and that was an early Nimbus CD made in the UK that "bronzed", which was a known manufacturing issue that was cleared up quickly. These were the best CD-Rs in those days:

She's 80! Wow... time sure is flying by.

I e-mailed Michael Cuscuna about this and he said that Bob Belden and David Weiss went through these tapes and chose what they felt was the best take of each track. I trust their judgement and for me, the 3 CD set is enough... actually too much to be truthful. Like you, I think the double-LP issue was pretty good by itself. No way I'm dishing out over $200 for this box set full of alternate takes.

This is what the one I have looks like: This is what it looks like opened: You can see that little half moon hole? That is where you are supposed to clip the cardboard tip into. It doesn't hold. And after a couple of tries, of course that little cardboard tip bends and will never hold. I almost think they expect this to be disposable.

Soon to be reissued on 12 LPs. Yes, you read that right - 12 LPs.

So it gets better... I open the mailbox today and what do I find? My gas cap! USPS "tracking" is such a joke, I don't know why they even offer it.

I called the parts department at the dealer who sent my gas cap and he said that because of the high holiday volume, the Phoenix sorting center is out of capacity, so they ship some packages to a New Jersey sorting center, then they get sent back to Phoenix to get shipped out. W. T. F!

Nice CD but horribly packaged. Whoever thought that this would be work as a CD carrier, never tried using it repeatedly. Hey, cool, it opens like a Christmas present. Hmm... how do you put it back together and stick it onto a shelf? That little tip of cardboard doesn't seem to hold it closed.... better get it in a plastic sleeve. As an engineer, I don't like it when an art director foists such a poorly thought out package on us.

Tony D'Aveni - Winter Wonderland (IZTONE). I picked this one up at a Christmas show at Jocko's Jazz club in Methuen, MA quite a few years ago. The show was great as is this CD. Recorded and mastered in MA. Not often I hear a CD mastered in East Longmeadow, MA, which is a short drive from my old hometown of Holyoke, MA.

Yule Struttin' - A Blue Note Christmas Even the CD is festive:

A needle drop of Don Patterson's "Holiday Soul" (Prestige). Of Prestige's 2 "Holiday Soul" LPs, the other being by Bobby Timmons, this one will put you to sleep. If Christmas music can be boring, this one fits the bill.

If you like Donaldson's "Mr. Shing A Ling" and you still spin LPs, the Tone Poet LP sounds very nice. Well worth picking up.

Barbara Dennerlein - Christmas Soul (MPS)

Some weird shit going on with a gas cap I ordered from Amazon. Shipped on Monday, Nov. 30th. Showed as departing the carrier facility in Phoenix, AZ on Dec. 2nd. Showed up as "out for delivery" in Maine on Monday Dec. 7th. Now showing as "Package arrived at carrier facility" in Phoenix, AZ on Dec. 9th. Did it ever leave Phoenix or was that weird "Out for delivery" message an error? If that is what happened, it still doesn't explain why this package has sat in Phoenix for 11 days.