Kevin Bresnahan

If you think it's the wireless router, buy an ethernet cable and hardwire your PC to the router to see if that helps. You should be able to get one pretty cheap from Monoprice. If it's your internet provider throttling you back, try doing the updates at off hours. Many providers throttle you back during peak usage times so doing your updates during their slow period may help avoid this problem. BTW, I thought that a lawsuit was settled recently that made it "illegal" to have your internet connection throttled?

Pepper Adams - Live At Fat Tuesdays (Uptown Records). Recording made by Malcolm Addey Recorders with Jim Anderson at the controls. Two masters at work created a well recorded live date.

It looks like Sonny is still touring. His website has been updated to include some 2016 dates: 2016 FEB 14 Sunday Half Moon Bay, CA DOUGLAS BEACH HOUSE - Quartet - Tickets TBA With Theo Saunders, piano; Henry Franklin, bass; Marvin "Smitty" Smith, drums For the BACH DYNAMITE & DANCING SOCIETY FEB 16 Tuesday Seattle, WA JAZZ ALLEY- Quartet - Tickets With Theo Saunders, piano; Henry Franklin, bass; Marvin "Smitty" Smith, drums FEB 17 Wednesday Seattle, WA JAZZ ALLEY- Quartet - Tickets With Theo Saunders, piano; Henry Franklin, bass; Marvin "Smitty" Smith, drums FEB 18 Thursday Portland, OR JIMMY MAK'S - Quartet With Theo Saunders, piano; Henry Franklin, bass; Marvin "Smitty" Smith, drums For the PORTLAND JAZZ FESTIVAL - Tickets FEB 19 Friday Portland, OR JIMMY MAK'S ALAN JONES, with AZAR LAWRENCE and SONNY FORTUNE and JONATHAN LAKEY A TRIBUTE TO ELVIN JONES For the PORTLAND JAZZ FESTIVAL - Tickets

Larry Young - Unity (Blue Note/Music Matters). New 33 rpm version. Sounds fine to my ears but not one of my favorite listening sessions. I guess I'm more a funky organ guy.

For some reason, I was sure this story was going to say, "When he returned, he found 3 more basses in his car".

I see where one just sold for $150 on eBay. It used to sell for ~$350. Is that $150 what you are considering unreasonable or the $350 it used to sell for?

I've been waiting for Weeds to make his way to Boston for several years now. Last year, he toured, but didn't get to the East Coast. I'll just have to enjoy his playing on CD.

I have a signed copy of this hanging on my office wall:

J.R. Monterose - Live In Albany (Uptown). J.R. - sax; Hod O'Brien - piano; Teddy Kotick - bass; Eddie Robinson - drums. This one is pretty good. Rough in patches but still worth the spin and I'm gald I bought it. J.R. sounds a bit short of breath in places where he seems to "bite off" notes but it could be his style of the time (recorded May 8, 1979). O'Brien (as usual) is pretty spot on, even if stuck with a nominally tuned piano (the bass sound isn't much better). On Monterose's original, "Lu-an", he is on but the rest of the band seems to be playing at a different tempo, which strikes me as weird for a ballad. BTW, I really enjoyed Robert Sunenblick's liner notes.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. I've kept the early albums I have by her, but I've never kept the more recent Bloom albums I've tried for more than a couple of months. "Mighty Lights" is one of Bloom's earliest efforts (1982). I hope by "early" you mean prior to 2000. Because if you missed "The Nearness" (1995) or "Red Quartets" (1999), you missed some good stuff. I do agree that her latest efforts (2000-2013) are not as good as her earlier stuff.

His updated review still seems to diss Brignola's two leader dates based on his negative impression of one tune and he still hasn't fixed his error of claiming that Ricky Ford played on Dizzy Reece's "Manhattan Walk".

I do like this date. Always have.

#1 - I think that's Brignola, and #2 - this hangup on "prime time" and "schooling" seems to me to be (unintentionally?) saying more about where Iverson's head is at about himself than it does anything actually happening on the records. Yeah, Holland does seem to trip over a string or two and is behind the beat for a most of the intro, but it's not as obvious as Smith turning the beat over a couple of times during his solo. Who knows, maybe it was intentional? Interesting to think that the second bari solo is Nick. I can hear it I suppose. I'm at work, do the liner notes mention the solo order for this song? Edit: The LP liner notes are shown on line and it does appear that the second soloist is in fact Brignola. Jim gets a gold star! Any way I look at it, they took this song at an insane tempo and it amazes me that they were able to pull it off at all. The first time I heard it, I laughed. It's comically fast. That poor drummer... He must've taken 5 after that take. I can't begin to imagine seeing a band try to do this live on a stage. Maybe James Carter would try it? He's a bit of showman at times.

I am actually thinking about another vinyl purge. Not as large as the one I executed in the late 80's, when I gave away my entire collection except for about 10 records, but maybe one where I cut back to a small number of titles that I play often. Vinyl is a pain in the ass. It takes up tons of space (too much for me) and you never know when that next "mint" record will start popping away in the middle of a perfect area of the record.

"It’s not fair to the box to open this review with the Salvador records, really, except that what the box does open with is even worse, a two-bari date featuring Nick Brignola and Pepper Adams. Derek Smith, Dave Holland, and Roy Haynes are the rhythm section. Jesus Christ, do they all go down with the ship on track one, “Donna Lee.” The tempo is very fast, and while Brignola at least keeps the form, Smith loses his place at least twice. Admittedly, Dave Holland and Roy Haynes are pretty ragged as well. Holland got better at this style, but in 1977 I don’t think he’d played with many musicians as authentically bebop as Roy Haynes. So it is up to Pepper Adams, who rescues us from total chaos thanks to his impeccable authority. Pepper plays a long time, perfect, almost like Coltrane or Rollins, clearly trying to teach everyone else what uptempo jazz is supposed to be. I always enjoy Adams, but his mastery is revealed as truly Olympian in this context." C'mon, Iverson - you boil down several Brignola dates to the one track where pianist Derek Smith clearly loses his shit a few times? Did he even listen to the rest of the stuff? How about Brignola's other bari date, "Burn Brigade", with Brignola, Cuber and Payne? Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water. You know, I've given burns of Brignola's "Baritone Madness" to several people over the years and told them to listen to the first track and hear these guys trying to play "Donna Lee" at the most insane tempo ever with the caveat that the pianist *fails* to do it. It's a "wart", but a wart on the most beautiful face. Why does every track have to be perfect to be enjoyed? It is times like this that I am glad that I am a listener and not a player. I am glad that I am not listening for every "mistake" on every track and giving grades for each solo. I am extremely glad that I can find incredible enjoyment where players like Iverson find disappointment.

Pepper Adams & Barry Altschul - Be-Bop? (Musica Records - France). Adams, baritone sax; Jean-Pierre Debarbat, flute, soprano,alto,tenor,baritone sax; Siegfried Kessler, piano; Jacques Vidal, bass; Altschul, drums. Danny D'Imperio asked me about this date many years ago and it intrigued me so I picked up a copy from France a few years ago. Nothing earth-shattering here but it is an exciting date. Rinky-dink piano sound though that doesn't do it any favors. The other horn player doesn't do much for me. Good but not worth the ~$35 I paid but I'm a sucker for anything with Pepper on it.

More Elusive Disc "blow out" specials... Makoto Terashita Trio - Ihatov (Tokyo Sound City Planning Company). Makoto Terashita, piano; Koji Yamashita, bass; Masahiro Tajika, drums. Normally $30, on sale for $10. Pianist & leader Terashita was a student of Barry Harris (it shows) and played in Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine in the 80s. Nice relaxed piano trio playing some straight ahead Jazz. I like their version of Monk's "Trinkle Tinkle".

Manabu Ohishi - Nebula (East Works Entertainment). Manabu Ohishi, piano; Yasushi Yoneki, bass; Dairiki Hara, drums. Elusive Disc put this audiophile LP on sale for $4.99 (regular $29.99) so I figured I'd give it a try. Nice stuff. Typical of a Japanese piano trio.

The Bobby Jaspar Quartet - At Ronnie Scotts - 1962 (Mole Jazz). Jaspar, tenor sax & flute; Rene Thomas, guitar; Benoit Quersin, bass; Daniel Humair, drums. Recorded in 1962 but not released until 1986. Dusty live sound but acceptable... better than many bootlegs. I bought this even though I'm not usually a fan of dusty-sounding live dates but I just like Jaspar's sound. He does not disappoint. Can someone tell me why this CD version adds 3 tracks from the session but drops the LP track "It Could Happen To You"? Love this one too. It gets played often.

Don Patterson - Mellow Soul (Prestige). Green label Van Gelder pressing. Patterson, organ; David 'Fathead' Newman, tenor sax & flute; Billy James, drums. Not the best sounding RVG recording I've heard. For some reason, the reverb is off the charts, making the band sound like they're playing in a airplane hanger. It's worse on side 1. I do like Newman's "Head". Overall, this one won't get on the turntable too often.

Nice one. I was there, my first jazz concert. The Couriers were supporting Dave Brubeck. damn - that's pretty incredible. A great concert and sure a wonderful way to familiarise yourself with jazz! I gave it another spin tonight, my 50+ years old copy has a beautiful sound! A new audiophile pressing is currently being cleared out at Elusive Disc for $10.00.

The fact that they have decided to blackball Jethro Tull, one of rock's classic bands, just makes them look like idiots. I guess they just don't like flute.

Yeah, you're right. But I do remember seeing him back before he was on oxygen and he was definitely a heavy smoker. Anyway, enough about that... Thank you Phil, for the great shows you put on for me and for the awesome music you left behind.

I see that cover photo of "Greek Cooking" with Phil smoking a cigarette and think about the Emphysema it likely caused and I'm glad that cigarette smoking is no longer a "requirement" to be an adult like it was 50 or 60 years ago.

Great news! I looked around and couldn't find any listings for upcoming shows so I was wondering if he was retired.