Kevin Bresnahan

Joanne Brackeen - Ancient Dynasty (Columbia/Tappan Zee). I bought this one when I saw Joe Henderson listed on the back. Henderson, Brackeen, Eddie Gomez & Jack DeJohnette - what could go wrong? What a great record this is! (so far) Really digging this. This is my first purchase of Brackeen as a leader. I probably would have skipped it if I hadn't had the chance to see/hear her perform as a sub for George Cables at a Javon Jackson show at Scullers back in 2017. Why hasn't this made it to CD? Is it caught in limbo because of the Tappan Zee label?

Charles sells his last recording on his website: https://charlesmcpherson.com/store/

Now spinning... Eddie Higgins - Eddie Higgins (Vee Jay). Mono LP is really nice shape. I thought that these were all trio tracks so I was surprised when I heard a trumpet & tenor on a few of them. I've enjoyed Eddie's Venus CDs for years so I was curious to hear him on an earlier recording. He didn't change much.

Freddie Hubbard - Classics (Fantasy). Only two tunes - one for each side. Side 1 is Red Clay and Side 2 is First Light. Killer band - Freddie has Joe Henderson & Bobby Hutcherson in the front line.

iCloud is like Microsoft's OneDrive. It's just a backup service. You don't have to use it. In fact, I got my first Apple product a few years ago, an iPhone 12 mini, and after about a month of using it, I started getting notices that my iCloud was nearly full and would I like to pay for additional storage. I looked into it and Apple was backing up my phone nightly and backing up stupid stuff like my text messages, including any pictures or videos. I went to my iCloud and deleted all of that stuff and turned off the backup. I've never heard from them since. I'm not worried if I lose some text messages to be honest and I backup my photos on my phone fairly regularly. FWIW, on my Window PC, I backup my music on multiple external hard drives (currently using 3) and I'm sure that if I ever did try to use a service like OneDrive or iCloud, it would be very expensive for me. I have hundreds of GBs of music.

I have To The Ladies on LP as well as Bush Dance. All of them have some good playing. I'm spinning To The Ladies now. The bass is all twangy on this one too but other than that, very enjoyable. Griffin was playing great then.

Watching Lioness on Paramount+. It's just OK. It kills time and the acting is decent. The story is a bit far-fetched, especially how quickly they insert the operative in the initial episodes. My wife & I keep trying to watch Only Murders In The Building on Hulu, but we just can't get into it. Nether Martin Short's or Steve Martin's characters are likeable and they seem to go into extreme stereotypes in their respective roles, if that's possible.

I've never seen that CD in my days of perusing the bins and it looks like it's going for big bucks these days. Oh well, I still have the LPs.

Johnny Griffin - Call It Whachawana (Galaxy). Not a great one, but certainly worth a spin. Mulgrew Miller plays very pretty on a couple of tunes. Unfortunately, it has that lousy bass sound from that era. This never made it to CD, even in Japan, which is odd because he seems to have had a lot of fans there.

Tomorrow night, I'm seeing George Coleman at Jimmy's in Portsmouth, NH. He's bringing Eric Alexander to help out on the front line and this new pianist that I can't wait to hear named Mike Delonne .

I don't like this at all. Certainly nothing "musical" happening here. I could see them playing this 24/7 in a prisoner's cell to break them and get them to talk. Edited for clarity.

I don't know that "salesman" captures what he did for A&M. From the stories I've read over the years, Moss went out and found talent as well. He was also considered one of the better label bosses when it came to treating the artists fairly. A pure businessman/salesman would not give two hoots how the artists were treated.

I think I bought both of these Sonny Fortune Horizon LPs for a dollar. There were often multiple copies in that $1 bin at Stereo Jacks.

It's there for all to hear in YouTube land. And while I do think "Waves Of Dreams" is much better than the "Awakening", it still has a couple of tunes that just didn't click with me.

While I do have a signed copy of "Waves Of Dreams", I wouldn't consider either of these near the top of my Sonny Fortune playlist. They sound rather dated, particularly the electric keys. I really enjoy his later Blue Note recordings much more than these 2. In particular, I think Sonny is a better sax player than a flute player, so "Awakening" rarely sees the turntable.

Over the years, I've created a huge digital library that I've managed to attach to my main listening system with a little Raspberry Pi minicomputer and an SSD hard drive. I find myself listening to this set up more than any physical media, so when I do retire, I'm going to start selling off my CDs (maybe some LPs too) and cut way back on my music purchases... well, I may still buy some downloads here & there. There's another reason I'm moving away from hard copies to mp3 rips... my hearing has gotten worse & worse as the years have progressed, to the point where these mp3 rips sound mostly fine to me. I still buy LPs because I'm having fun. The LP playback noise still sucks compared to a well-mastered CDs but fun is fun.

I am rapidly approaching a sell-off of my physical media as I am very close to retiring and don't want to keep tripping over piles of CDs & LPs the rest of my days. I don't stream much at home but I do XM radio every day going to & from work. I'll probably allow that to lapse when I do retire. I was streaming Amazon on the back deck for a few years but then they moved most of their music to their paid service & managed to strip me of stuff I actually purchased from them that were supposed to be in my "library". I'm not willing to give them a penny after that.

Ravi Shankar - Ragas Hameer & Gara

I believe the JALC sells out Boston Symphony Hall every time they play there so maybe he figures that is better money?

For the past 30 years or so, Wynton has brought the JLCO into Boston, typically to Symphony Hall. I've never seen them play live and don't think I ever will. During those same 30 years, Wynton brought a small group into Boston twice. The first time, I couldn't get a ticket. It's was one of those "you have to know someone" shows. The second time I got lucky and got a pair of tickets. It was an excellent show. I think it was a sextet maybe? Wynton played his ass off. He can play very well in a small band, without a doubt. Last July, Wynton brought a sextet to Jimmy's Jazz Club in Portsmouth. I thought I might want another chance to catch Wynton in a small band... but $200/ticket with all of the best seats already sold to "Jimmy's Inner Circle" members? Thanks but no thanks. BTW - Jimmy's Inner Circle membership costs $5K per year. So spend $5K to get first dibs at $200 Wynton tickets... and who said Jazz shows are inexpensive?

Patented by B. Beavis & B. Head?

Regarding The Music Of Wayne Shorter recording, I have heard most of it. In fact, a majority of it is on YouTube. However, I am not a big fan of the JALC sound, so I didn't buy the CD. Their ensemble playing isn't for me. I was never a fan of that style. I'm much more more of a small group fan and probably will continue to prefer that over big bands. I'm also not a fan of the JALC because of their continued bias against having women in the band but that is for a different discussion.

Love how you ignore that this "tiny label" is Jazz At Lincoln Center's own label that has released JALC recordings since 2015 or that this is not even a new recording. It was recorded in 2006. So this is the Jazz At Lincoln Center releasing what they feel is a recording they made that they felt would be enjoyed by JALC fans. Why this one? You'll have to ask them. My guess is that there was strong demand for it. FWIW, this same label put out a JALC's tribute to Wayne Shorter, featuring Wayne himself, back in 2020 to decent reviews. Did that meet your sniff test for "early jazz re-enactment"?

I think Tiny Grimes' Profoundly Blue is up there for me.

Not a fan of brutalist architecture but like TTK, I grew up with a horrible example, Boston City Hall, which looks like someone on acid thought he'd make a building that looks like a really big harmonica.