mjzee

A recent discussion can be found here.

Didn't he do the original Dave Mason release on Blue Thumb, "Alone Together," with the extreme fold-out cover?

Wow, Tom Wilkes. I do remember his work. He and his partner (Barry Feinstein?) at Camouflage. They always did great work. RIP.

I pretty much only listen to mp3's these days. It's because of location and ease of use. I listen to them while at the computer at home, in my car stereo, and on an iPod while at work or in the kitchen. Given my lifestyle and things I need to do, I don't have the luxury of just sitting in front of a stereo for an hour or so, and it would probably drive me out of my mind anyway. And ease of use: I can call up any track on any album, and not root through stacks of CDs or LPs (yes, I'm digitizing all of those). And I pretty much only listen to music using the shuffle feature, where I get great juxtapositions and variety.

Me too. "Kicks" was the first record I ever bought, and "Midnight Ride" was the first album. It was only when I was in my twenties did I realize "Kicks" was about drugs. I thought Drake Levin left before the others. On the cover of "Greatest Hits," he was replaced by some short guy.

Got it today, in great condition. Amazingly, it's still on Best Buy's website at that price!

Wow, what a task. Sony/Columbia has always been one of the premier labels, and now it also includes RCA. So choosing 10 is like throwing stones in the ocean, it won't even make a blip. Having said that... I was never much of a fan of Blood On The Tracks. Try two of his more obscure albums from the mid-80's: Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove. Actually, I was never much of a Springsteen or Kate Bush fan either. Perhaps my opinions won't be so relevant to you! And, of course, I don't know what you already own. HAVING SAID ALL THAT... Mingus Ah Um Mingus Dynasty Miles: Agharta, Pangaea, Get Up With It Alberta Hunter - Remember My Name Donald Byrd/Gigi Gryce Arthur Blythe - Lenox Ave Breakdown The Ken Burns Jazz series is great for the individual artists Do they have the Bud Powell RCAs? Chantal Kreviazuk - Under These Rocks and Stones (if you like Kate Bush...) Dexter Gordon - Live At Carnegie Hall (great late Dex, including duels with Johnny Griffin) Don Byas/Bud Powell - A Tribute To Cannonball CTI's! Lambert, Hendricks and Ross Shakti with John McLaughlin Mahavishnu Orch: Between Nothingness and Eternity Monk Live at the It Club ...to name a few

I sympathize on the shipping issue. I was considering placing an order with HMV in England, because they have many Blue Note titles at £3.99, but they wanted £50 for shipping!

Yes. I'd suggest an uninterruptible power supply/surge protector (I use something like this: APC, which you can also keep your computer plugged into) and a backup solution (such as a second EHD) that you can unplug and keep somewhere else, like in a closet. Considering how much you probably originally paid for your music collection, these are small investments to protect them.

Thanks for the tip. Between the Concord sale and the other sale, I snagged some good titles (15 in all). Two interesting titles: The Greatest Jazz Concert In The World, 3 CDs, $5.98 J.J. Johnson - The Trombone Master (listed as Robert Johnson under Blues)

Depending on the size of your music collection, I'd get either a 500gb or 1tb hard drive. Make sure you get a good brand: Maxtor, Western Digital, LaCie are good choices. Cruise the Amazon user comments for good feedback. To organize your music collection, I would use iTunes. Under Preferences/Advanced..., make sure "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is checked, and, in the same window, Change the iTunes Music folder location to your new USB external drive. Then set iTunes to work. It will find all the music on your computer, move it to the USB drive, and show it in iTunes. For more info, see "Adding content on your computer to iTunes" here: iTunes support Don't forget to also find a backup solution, whether a second hard drive or other.

Got word today that mine shipped.

I thought Seeline sounded familiar... Sexiest Music Videos Seeline sounds like just another censor to me.

Is this it?

I own the Jack Johnson box, but downloaded "Go Ahead John" (from Amazon @ 99 cents) because the box only has the straight sessions, not the "Teo-ized" version, which is truly manic.

I hate to be the killjoy, but what does that say when it's big news that one of the all-time greats of the so-called American Art Form sells a whopping 3,126 copies in mail-order. Truly sad. I think it says 1) the economy's bad, and 2) perhaps many people have this material elsewhere.

I just found a store near my workplace that sells used vinyl. I bought all of the following for $25 total: Okeh Jazz (2 discs, sealed; Arnett Cobb, Little Johnny Griffin, Red Rodney, Ahmad Jamal, Wild Bill Davis, Mary Ann McCall) Kate & Anna McGarrigle Jeff Lorber - Soft Space (Inner City) Miles Davis/Tadd Dameron in Paris Ralph Towner/Gary Burton - Matchbook (sealed) The Blasters

That last period was not his finest hour. Lotta editing required, I think. But it's cause his chops were in the shitter. Branford Marsalis was trash-talking Miles from that period on his old wild-and-crazy website and I got bugged and called him on it b/c I felt it was disrespectful to a guy that helped launch him early on. (just like Miles himself calling Bird a greedly MF---it's just not classy to me) 'He didn't want cats to hear him", he said, meaning he was hiding behind the Harmon, etc. I gotta admit in retrospect Bran was right. Miles just was weak, musically and chops-wise. Trumpet is brutal after a layoff. I thought Star People was the strongest. It's a good blues record. He definitely got it together for that one. Enough dissin late Miles! OK--Please listen to the track, Ursula, from that record "The Man With The Horn" and tell me Miles wasn't still with some of his charms... Don't get me wrong - I'm totally with you! I was fortunate enough to have an 8th row seat to Miles' comeback concert at Avery Fisher (part of We Want Miles), and it was great. He was really on, and had a great band too. But Star People kinda bored me, and when I last saw him, at the Pier in NYC sometime in the mid-80's, I just found nothing compelling about the music or the performance. But I still come back to We Want Miles with great pleasure.

And then I'll want a second one done.

I do like Nickel Creek, have one of their albums, and I like that they sound like fresh-faced kids. Another fave is Alison Krause, who I think produced the Nickel Creek album.

In the course of posting the Financial Times review of the recent Jan Garbarek/Hilliard Ensemble concert, I came across this book. If this hasn't been mentioned elsewhere, some might find it interesting: Horizons Touched: The Music of ECM

St Paul’s was fuller than Christmas Day, and scarcely less reverential. Joint appearances in London for the Norwegian saxophonist and the crystalline vocal quartet are rare; this was only their third visit to St Paul’s since the 1994 release of their best-seller Officium. The mood was set with a moment of silence and a prayer from a deacon. The ensemble entered from the back of the cathedral singing a Latin introit. Black-suited with shirts in descending monochromes, they might have been priests themselves. More here: Garbarek

Amen. Well written. And I'll add something: if it weren't for the revenues from Keith Jarrett releases, ECM wouldn't have the money to release these.

Wal-Mart still seems to have it: On The Corner box

I agree. Listen to "On The Corner." If this is supposed to be a funk album, what's with that one percussionist resolutely playing off time? What's with the mix, not only being murky but bringing exactly the wrong instruments to the fore? Hell, where are the words? "Ooh, baby, I want to funk with you," etc. It was when I heard "The Man With The Horn": "He's the man, he's the man, he's the man, he's the man with the horrrrrrnnn..." that I went "uh oh."