Kevin Bresnahan

@randissimo (Randy Scott March), the drummer for organissimo, used to run a jam session every week. He is active on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randysm You could send him a friend request on Facebook and ask him if he is still doing them.

My thoughts exactly!!

He posted a lot on Facebook. Cancer sucks.

But it's not just people in the IT/web industry. I was a product and test engineer for over 40 years. I wrote test programs in Fortran, Basic, Hp Basic, C, C++, Hp VEE, Roos GUI and probably a couple more that I'm forgetting. A good friend is still doing this and he tells me that AI is taking over there too. What I worry about the most with AI is how it will innovate. As a test engineer, there were always the same tests that needed to be done. Turn on the part, make sure it functioned in spec and that was it... at a very basic level. At that basic level, there really isn't any need for innovation. But the devil is in the details. I can't begin to tell you how many times someone looked at a test program and thought up a way to do it better or faster - usually faster. Will AI be able to figure these things out? I suppose if it is "taught" enough tricks but I really have my doubts. We had this one part that was digitally controlled. It had several operating states that needed to be tested to make sure it worked as designed. Testing the part in all of these states took weeks. One of our product engineers figured out a way to load all of the digital states into a buffer and load them all into the test hardware. No one had thought of it before. He cut the testing down to days instead of weeks. Sure, it's the "standard" way to do that today, but would it be if AI was doing it?

My daughter has a BS in IT - her college was the first to offer a 4 year degree in IT. She was in their first graduating class. She works in the world of web design, mostly front end stuff, but her skills range across most everything you could do with a website. She was laid off in June by a large fashion company with a huge web presence. They laid off half their web staff. We all figure it's due to AI taking over their website, but there's no way to know. What we do know is that she has applied to a ton of jobs and been unable to get past the 3rd round of interviews. There are just so many people out there looking right now. She's getting extremely frustrated - me & my wife don't blame her - and it's certainly gotten me to like AI less and less. Anyone in the software/web design industry is probably screwed at this point. It seems like it's only a matter of when they're going to be replaced, not if.

This bit of AI is pretty freaky to me. https://www.threads.com/@samuelaranda63/post/DS6ZdCbkYho/

Amanda Whiting - A Christmas Cwtch

Norah Jones plays Jazz piano in the background of a scene in "Two Weeks Notice":

I think a lot of the confusion over Billy Harper still being a member of The Cookers stemmed from the fact that many (most?) of the band pictures used on Facebook were older ones from when Billy was a member. I know that I was surprised when I saw one of them, thinking, "Billy's back with the band"? If you saw any of the initial posts, Billy simply clarified that he was no longer a member of the band. When he kept getting called out it by several people, he then posted his thoughts on it. I don't think he planned to get so involved in this but people wouldn't leave him out.

I'm hearing that The Cookers cancelled as well. It sounds like most artists are bailing.

Posted over on the Steve Hoffman forums: Downbeat Magazine, 1966 In a surprise move, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson abruptly quit the Horace Silver Quintet in the midst of the group's performance before a Saturday night crowd at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop on April 2, 1966. Silver told Down Beat that the tenorist's reported reason for leaving was that drummer Roger Humphries' playing "was thwarting his solos." The pianist's group finished the Saturday night and played the following afternoon and evening performances as a quartet. Altoist Frank Strozier, who was "borrowed" from the Shelly Manne group in Los Angeles, substituted for Henderson through Silver's April 10 closing. The pianist, who said he did not plan to bring union charges against Henderson, indicated he would add a new sideman upon returning to New York City. Silver said he had no intimation Henderson was planning to leave, though the tenor saxophonist had asked the leader for a three-month leave of absence to form a recording group some months earlier. At that time, Silver refused on the grounds that by the time a replacement was taught the group's library, Henderson would be due to return. Asked then if he wished to leave, Henderson elected to remain.

I've played that one 4 or 5 times this year. It's a favorite in our house as is Nat King Cole's "A Christmas Song". I have both of these titles audiophile SACDs .

I'm giving this one another spin before the holiday season moves onto next year...

The OJC CD of "Olio" is going for crazy money these days. It's good but not that good.

I was all set to pick this up but then saw that there were no Christmas songs played that night.

Cued up for Christmas Eve eve dinner... Disc 2 of

I just learned from a Jim Alfredson Facebbok post that George Howard passed away at the age of 100. Jim brought George into his home studio in 2017 to record "How It's Done", Howard's first recording - undertaken at the age of 92! It is a great CD and I'm glad Jim convinced George to do it. Lansing's City Pulse did a story on the session: https://lansingcitypulse.com/stories/oh-yeah-george,2650 Here's George's obit: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/george-howard-obituary?id=60161751 I'm going to give this CD a spin again. discogs link: https://www.discogs.com/release/34602784-George-Howard-How-Its-Done

Violinist Michael Urbaniak has died two days after a fall. He was 82. https://tvpworld.com/90673082/a-huge-loss-polish-jazz-legend-michal-urbaniak-dies-aged-82

Next up is a long time favorite in our house - The Carpenters "Christmas Portrait - The Special Edition". I've never managed to find a copy of the early version of this CD released in Germany in 1985 with the music as originally released before Richard Carpenter re-mixed them.

My daughter's favorite Christmas artist is playing now... Her version of "Grown Up Christmas List" is probably the best one out there.

I saw Jane Monheit perform her Christmas show at Jimmy's in Portsmouth, NH last night. She did a nice job. I finally broke down and bought the download of Joey D's Christmas release. Good stuff.

It's time to lock this before it gets too political.

Which is why Jim A. is pretty much OK with it being closed. You know that he hates doing that here.

Finerpoppin' Records is a new bootleg label to me. There is no info anywhere on the web about it. It says "Made in the EU", but the EU PD cutoff is 1962, so this isn't in the public domain there. I wonder if it's another Blue Moon/Jordi Pujol label? He usually presses sessions like these in Andorra where the EU PD cutoff is not observed.

If we can keep pictures and references to you-know-who out of it, we can try to leave this open. If it gets too political, Jim A has directed me to close it.