Kevin Bresnahan

The availability of Widmer (and Redhook) should be no surprise - Anheuser-Bush is a part owner and they have control over many distribution networks.

Damn! All these years and I thought "Rescue Me" was Aretha's work. D'oh! RIP Fontella. I always love it when "Rescue Me" comes belting out of my speakers.

Johnny Hodges - The Complete Johnny Hodges Sessions 1951-1955 (Mosaic) LP1. Yaaaaay, I finally got one! Merry Christmas Kevin.

If these weren't ~$85 a piece, I might own a couple. If they were closer to $25 a piece, I'd own a bunch.

A joke my German friend told me: Why is drinking Coors Light like making love in a canoe? They're both fucking close to water.

I used to drink Michelob all the time back in the day. The last time I was in a store looking for a non-microbrewed beer for a party, I looked around for it but only found some weird low carb version. Michelob Ultra maybe? No way I was buying that.

Mistletoe Magic - Holiday Jazz Improvisations (Palo Alto Jazz Records)

Bobby Timmons - Holiday Soul Jack warned me that he's looked and there aren't any clean pressings of this and I have to agree with him that this is pretty noisy. The last two tracks of Side 2 sound awful - Rice crispies galore and what sounds like an out of tune piano. Great music though.

I can't imagine how I would be right now if one of my girls was senselessly killed in this tragedy.

Why wouldn't she get her DNA tested? There's got to be money in that estate.

I wish I got a chance to see him live before this but he'll live on in my music collection. I am listening to a beautiful raga right now ("Homage to Mahatma Ghandi").

Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch novel, The Black Box, takes Connely's/Bosch's love for Jazz to a new level. Not only does he listen to the latest Art Pepper live CDs put out by his widow, he even mentions the label by name and describes in detail which tracks he really likes. Let's put it this way, I'm buying Art Pepper: Unreleased Art Vol. III, Croydon Concert because of his write up. Harry Bosch also gets into a little challenge with another character to see if they can name a Jazz artist that the other hasn't heard of. Harry's pretty bad at it, naming somewhat well-known names like Gary Smulyan and Grace Kelly. The other guy comes up with Danny Grissette (singling out his recent CD Form and the track Let's Face The Music And Dance) & Michael Formanek. It was pretty fun to read this one just for these Jazz mentions. They're sprinkled throughout. Later, Kevin

One part of me says that what Marvin Miller did was great for professional sports (athletes) and yet another part of me, the part that has seen so much labor strife in every major sport since Miller's breakthroughs, wishes he never did what he did. Every time there's a strike by these multi-millionaries today, I find less & less sympathy for them. The door has swung too far the other way, as is often the case in businesses that get unionized.

I've had Darcy (Pig Whisperer on the Hoffman forums) try to find me Jazz CDs in Japan. If you're a member there, you could pm him and ask him to look around for you. However, he isn't cheap. Another Hoffman forum member who goes buy the name of yasujiro lives in Tokyo as well but he doesn't sell as much as Darcy.

With Hiroshi closing his store, I only know of a couple of guys on the Steve Hoffman forums in Japan these days. It's a very difficult title to find, even in Japan.

I recommend the live version of "Funkallero" done by Evans' trio with Getz as guest artist performed at Laren in '74. The CD is titled BUT BEAUTIFUL (Milestone MCD-9249-2) released under Evans' name. The liner notes to this CD make it plain that there was some tension between Getz and Evans on this performance (Getz' fault mostly, it seems, no surprise there). It got to the point where Evans refused to comp behind Getz on one tune. So it's not hard to imagine that there were some major issues on the '64 studio session. Careful, you're moving awfully close to saying something bad about Stan. We know where that got us last time.

Phil Woods - Heaven (Black-Hawk)

I went into NYC twice to see him and never got around to it. RIP Mr. Sims. Cancer sucks.

Roland Hanna - The New York Jazz Quartet In Chicago (Bee Hive) I like the Bee Hive record label. It's too bad that the label's owner never licensed any of them out for CD reissue (except for the Johnny Hartman date). I really can't figure out what he is waiting for to reissue them.

Nat Adderley - In The Bag (Jazzland)

Elvin Jones - Midnight Walk (Atlantic) Kind of an uneven record. Dig one tune, eh on the next. The electric piano tracks don't do much for me. Not an audiophile's dream record but a bit better sounding than the Collectables CD.

"Standard Gonz" on Blue Note is very rare and has been hard to find for years. When I pulled out a copy for Jerry to sign, he said that he doesn't even have a copy. Kevin

Stan Getz - Sweet Rain (original Van Gelder pressing). One of my favorite Getz dates and I don't know exactly why. It just hits me right. EDIT: Why is it that most Verve vinyl (like CTI vinyl) is noisy? You find "Van Gelder" in the deadwax and you figure it'll sound good but the crackles & pops drive me nuts. There are times when CD is better. Getz's "Sweet Rain" would seem like one of them.

Fats Navarro - Nostalgia (Savoy MG 12133) RVG pressing

I bought mine from Smulyan directly when came into Methuen last month. A very enjoyable disc.