Kevin Bresnahan

The disc is probably stuck on the spindle. Just reach in there with a soft tool and try to loosen it up and bit and then see if can be pulled out. You may also want to try putting another CD in and see if the two of them come out together but be warned that you may damage your player. I used to have a Savoy CD by Ralph Moore called "Who It Is You Are" that I had to throw out because the hole in this CD was too small and it used to get stuck in several players. Luckily it never happened in a car player.

I'm in for my usual.

Tonight at The Sahara Jazz Club in Methuen, MA, The Cryogenic Renaissance Orchestra, otherwise known as The Greg Hopkins Nonet will be on stage. Should be a great time. The cost? A whole $10. Kevin

Nobody is really recording much these days. Look at the latest new releases from... well, *any* label. Jazz, blues & classical are all suffering from this.

This past Saturday, I saw Gato Barbieri at The Regattabar in Cambridge, MA. Gato should be retired. He is clearly in fading health - barely able to walk (almost fell down taking one step after his helper let him go), can't stand for very long (played the entire set from a chair, making it nearly impossible for anyone to see him) and just in general looking like a very old man (he's 78 or 80 depending on the web source). I felt like I was seeing my grandfather up there just before he died. But most importantly, he's just not capable of playing at a high enough standard any more. He can't hold a note without an off pitch waver. It was not a pleasant sound. The people we sat with were very disappointed. It was hard not to be. If it wasn't for a pretty decent backing band, it would have been even worse. It was sad, really. Afterward, I went up to talk to him and maybe get an autograph and he was yelling at a woman (wife?) to get him off the stage because he was tired. Actually , he was yelling at her that he was "too tired" to stand there any more. The crowd, who up until this point were standing around thanking him for the show and shaking his hand, heard his shouts and silently parted. There was a hush as he shuffled off. The poor guy. I truly felt bad for him. It seemed like he didn't even want to be there. Actually, somebody uploaded a video from the show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVswQBufptk

I saw Gato Barbieri last night at The Regattabar in Cambridge, MA. Depending on the source, he's either 78 or 80. I'm sad to report that he should strongly consider retiring. His ability to play has faded too much. His intonation is barely there and held notes waver pretty badly.

Gene Ammons - The Gene Ammons Story - Gentle Jug (Prestige). Nice early morning music. I play the Analogue Productions gold CD of this date quite often at dinner time. Beautiful ballad playing.

Cal Tjader - Trio (Fantasy). Record store day orange 10" vinyl. Like the Brubeck, some warble here too. Maybe it's the vinyl itself? It's always worse on the first track. It ain't the turntable because nothing else is showing it.

There is currently no such thing as an "LED" monitor. Currently labeled LED monitors are LCD displays with LEDs used as a backlight instead of CCFL (where FL stands for fluorescent). For a computer monitor... well maybe even for a TV, LED backlighting is not the panacea that the manufacturers are making out to be. There is a high chance of "flashlighting", which is when the edge LED cause brightness in the corners on dark scenes. Either LCD or LED will work fine. For computer monitors, I currently stick with Dell Ultrasharp or Samsung monitors. LG will work well too.

The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (Apple)

The New York Jazz Quartet - Song of the Black Knight (Sonet)

Dave Brubeck - Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals (Fantasy). 10" red vinyl from record store day. Tons of tape warble on the first two tracks. I don't get why so many were raving about the sound of this on the Hoffman forum. To my ears, it sounds like the tapes are pretty beat up. Did an original sound this bad?

Sonny Stitt - Personal Appearance (Japanese Verve)

Kinda hard to believe the accuracy of this when they write "Rudy Van Gelder 24 Bit Mastering - 1987 Digital Remaster" when 1) RVG was not doing masters for Blue Note in 1987 and 2) there wasn't a 24 bit mastering station in 1987.

Herb Ellis - Nothing But The Blues (Verve). I don't know why, but I really like this date. Great CD, OK LP. Lots of crackle. Am I the only one who can't seem to get decent Verve vinyl?

Laszlo Gardony - The Legend Of Tsumi (Antilles/Island). I bought this mainly because it has Dave Holland on bass. It turned out to be a very nice date. Intricate melodies played by a kick ass trio.

I'm off to Limerick Ireland for a week. I wonder what the live Jazz scene is like over there?

He was one of my favorites. I loved him in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World". The world is a little less funny place with his passing.

All VSOP CDs are now CD-Rs. I found this out when I ordered Danny D'Imperio's latest CD, The Upstate Burners - "Live at the Rum Keg Lounge" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Upstate-Burners-Live-Lounge/dp/B005P89E3G), paying very good money from Amazon, only to find out it was a cheap(er) CD-R. When I told Danny that this is what was happening, he bitched to VSOP and was told that this is what they were doing from here on out and that there was no problem with CD-Rs. Clueless idiots. I have backed it up to a hard drive as well as a 2nd CD-R (better quality). I have had quite a few cheap CD-Rs fail. One was Alan Grant's "Opening Night" with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. I laugh when I see how much people are paying on the secondary market for that CD-R.

From http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=212-MD-CD: Limited Edition: 5000 copies

Stag's Leap Petite Syrah is one of the finest Petite Syrahs being made these days. Well worth what they're charging, especially considering the grape's low yield. You should treat yourself to a bottle Goodspeak. You only live once and you don't want to lying on your deathbed wishing you had bought another bottle of great wine. Screw it, just buy a bottle.

McCoy Tyner is one of the greatest Jazz musicians still walking but it's painful to say that it doesn't look like that will be true much longer. He looked more than a little frail last night. Barely walking and barely talking. I felt like I did at Tommy Flanagan's last concerts - I think that I just saw McCoy for the last time. And as great as the show was, it was incredibly short. They started late and played for about 45 minutes. The crowd gave them a standing O and they came back and played a short encore. I haven't been to a show with a set under an hour at a Jazz club in a long time. Short but oh so sweet. McCoy may be frail on his feet but he can still wail at the piano. It's actually pretty amazing to see him shuffle in and sit down and then see his hands and fingers start flying.

You meant to say "certain" Californian wines, surely. True, a lot of the more fruitier, jammy wines come from California and those are often difficult to pair with many foods but there are quite a lot of wines that pair very well with food. It's often very difficult to pair some of the wines in my cellar with a meal. Rare steaks off the grill - easy. A pasta dish with a chorizo, spinach & tomato in a light garlic sauce? Not so easy. And let's face it, a majority of the chefs in any area are usually making flavorful dishes like this all the time. Not too many "chefs" are making spaghetti Bolognese. FWIW, a lot of the French & Italian wine makers have been slowly moving toward the fruitier, jammier styles for decades as this has been shown to be what the wine buying public likes (and often gets the high scores in wine publications). If someone opens a perfect "food wine" and starts sipping it as they cook, they might find the acidity or the earthiness or the lack of fruit off-putting. They might write off the wine right then & thyere. If they hold off until the food appears, they'd probably feel differently but most people can't hold off that long. Ha ha. I go to a lot of wine tastings. There are a lot of times when I'm sipping a wine solo that I'm thinking "Good food wine". Others make me think, "Great standalone wine". And even others make me think "Great cheese & crackers wine". Those lines blur a lot too. I tend to buy the "great standalone wines" more often than "good food wines" because I never know if I'll be opening that wine with a meal or just for sipping when friends come over.

McCoy Tyner is coming to the Regattabar in Cambridge, MA tonight. Gary Bartz on tenor will be interesting. I haven't seen Bartz in a long time.

Coleman Hawkins - The Genius Of Coleman Hawkins (Verve)