mjzee

I have the Farlow Universal/Mosaic, and disc 6 ripped and plays fine.

Interview with Dylan in AARP Magazine.

I'm familiar with most of these singers, and I still like Allyson just fine. I think she brings her own thing to these songs. Liking one doesn't preclude liking the other.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this one. The format itself was sort of a shocker: rather than knowing the songs and then hearing them played instrumentally with a jazz interpretation, here I knew the songs from Coltrane's albums (largely from "Ballads") but had never heard many of these sung before. Allyson has a bewitching, sumptuous voice, and is a very good interpreter of these songs. A top notch band backs her (James Williams, John Pattitucci, Lewis Nash, and either Bob Berg or James Carter on tenor and Steve Wilson on soprano). Recommended.

I find it hard to relate to the word "significant." It all comes down to whether you'd like to listen to it, whether it "speaks" to you. That could also take some time, to acclimate yourself to the strange dialects and to try to make sense of it all. I thought the Roots & Blues series was well done, judging by the material selected (Sony does own the original recordings of most of these); I haven't heard these discs to comment on the noise reduction. But if you can buy it for a good price, it's a good investment.

The Jazztet and Farlow sets are excellent.

I probably will not be getting it. His voice is simply a turn-off at this point. Sinatra's voice was also shot in his last decade, and unpleasant to listen to.

Stay With Me, from the new album.

Listening now to "Bluesette." Marveling at his playing style; such a sure touch. He's not trying to beat you over the head, but the ideas are so good they're almost compositional. Truly a master; this is not lightweight stuff at all, though it is very enjoyable and swinging. Great accompaniment by George Duvivier and Alan Dawson, and a great program of tunes.

I've been slowly listening to the discs in the Vivarte box. Sure enough, disc 13 is defective (skips on both my CD machines). The disc I returned to ImportCDs in my initial box played fine, per my iTunes rip. If I could have just swapped out the one problem disc from the box I originally received, I wouldn't have had this new problem. Grrrr.

Atlantic Jazz Legends: 20 cd box for $34.99 from an Amazon Reseller

Thoroughly enjoying disc 3 of the Basement Tapes box (disc 2 was a bit of a wasteland, but disc 3 is allllllllll right). These tracks and that sound are part of my DNA; The Great White Wonder was the first Dylan album I bought, at age 14. I'm struck again by the quality of the accompaniment; Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson are otherworldly. The liner notes make clear something I never connected before: that there's no drummer on most of these tracks. Sure doesn't sound like it; simply incredible. Also nice to have the veneer of noise, dust and fog removed from the familiar tracks.

Review of Peter Gabriel biography in WSJ: The Prog Prince

It would be nice, but not sure I can make it there. Hoping they'll show a video in theaters or on DVD.

Ervin Drake, a prolific songwriter who wrote the words and music of “It Was a Very Good Year,” an introspective ballad that helped define the autumn of Frank Sinatra’s career, and the lyrics for “Good Morning Heartache,” a song that Billie Holiday made a mournful jazz standard, died Jan. 15 at his home in Great Neck, N.Y. He was 95. Washington Post

Grateful Dead Original Members To Perform Together Again One Last Time

See this very recent thread: I bought the Steve Lehman and Anna Webber titles based on the recommendations.

Jazz Stars Gather for Memorial to bassist Charlie Haden - WSJ

Much of the credit for the relaxed cinéma vérité camerawork of “The Sound of Jazz” belongs to Robert Herridge, a producer of TV dramas and a tireless champion of the performing arts. Four of his late-’50s TV jazz programs—“The Sound of Jazz,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Jazz From Sixty-One” and “The Sound of Miles Davis”—will be screened at New York’s Paley Center for Media on Jan. 17 and 18. Watching them in crisp black-and-white from start to finish reveals much about jazz’s struggle for high-culture acceptance in the 1950s and Herridge’s passion for preserving and promoting the music. Full article here: Filming Sonic Emotion - WSJ

I dunno; the writer failed to sway me. Even if what he writes is correct, his sneering tone makes me think his mind has preconceived notions. Take this for example: "The CD-quality standard—which Young and HRA proponents say isn't sufficient—wasn't adopted randomly. It's not a number plucked out of thin air. It's based on sampling theory and the actual limits of human hearing. To the human ear, audio sampled above 44.1 kHz/16-bit is inaudibly different." But I remember reading that within a few years of the CD's introduction, people thought 16-bit was inadequate. That's why even vinyl remasterings in the '90's touted 20- and 24-bit mastering.

Interview with Maxine Gordon 2013

Cool! Thanks!

Hmmm... Chunky? Almond Joy? I still miss Bonomo's Turkish Taffy. While not chocolate-coated, they did have a chocolate-flavored.

I found this article helpful: An Overview of Audio File Formats Supported by iTunes What is the best quality file format that can do all the following: be played in iTunes, played on an iPod, and sent from iTunes via an Airport Extreme to a stereo? My guess, from lower to higher sound quality: 320 kbps MP3 AAC (which seems to only go up to 256 kbps) (is this also known as .m4a?) Apple Lossless (is this a different .m4a?) WAV AIFF