BFrank

For me the timing was perfect. My printer died yesterday and I was about to order a new one but decided to wait ... and today it was $25 cheaper! Even better, Best Buy also dropped their price by $25, so I bought from them because I could pick it up today.

Freddy Cole on Sunday at SFJAZZ.

Pleased he's still active. Saw him a looong time ago - with Max Roach in the 60s and Woody Shaw in the 70s. I'm jealous - have never seen him. I REALLY would have liked to see the Strata East reunion in London earlier this year! STRATA EAST LIVE SOUNDS SUBLIME AT BARBICAN

Stanley Cowell. Still active and his new album "Juneteenth" just got a nice mini-review in the NY Times.

A nice collection of photographs taken by jazz legend Les McCann, 1960-80. Worth checking out. Invitation to Openness: The Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann 1960-1980

The more I listen to this album, the more I hear Deep Purple, especially with the B3. Good live video:

And some interesting photos. Each one that "dates back to the early '60s and was made for designer Reid Miles for possible album art use."

Yes - that, too.

Bobby Hutcherson Select, disk 2

Tacolicious!

Yes, I've been pimping them for a couple years now. Great band with an above average vocalist. They have a new album coming out later this year called Love, Fear and the Time Machine. Thanks, Shawn. Will keep an eye out for it. How do their other albums match up with this?

Looking at eBay, there are two copies of the NKC set on CD with respective BINs of $899 and $999 and a sealed LP set with an opening bid of $750 and a $1500 BIN. But if you look at the completed listings, all of the recently sold copies of the CD set (at least the ones with visible prices - there are a couple of "best offer accepted" ones) are between $300-400. That would seem to indicate that the real market value is a lot closer to $300-400 than $600-700, significantly less than it was just a couple of years ago. Exactly. Asking prices mean nothing. Take any given "common" title on ebay, and look at the range of asking prices there, and compare those to the asking prices on Amazon and Half, and it's all over the place. What has meaning is what people are actually paying for the item (which can be found on ebay, but not the other sites), not what some occasionally deluded sellers may be asking for it. Yes - when it comes to ebay, you definitely need to look at "Completed" prices, not "Asking" prices. People ask all sorts of crazy prices for many reasons. Usually just wishful thinking.

Well................OK, then. But I still think they were a lousy format. I'm fine with CDs and would never buy vinyl again. Mainly because I have no room for LPs or shelf space for a turntable, but also because I don't miss having to turn over (or change) an album every 20 minutes. I worked both retail and wholesale through the '80s and the cassette sales were completely dominated by the "hot 100". In all other sections of the music biz vinyl killed. In the catalog stores, vinyl outsold cassettes at least 10 to 1. For indie music it was about the same. Thanks, Chuck. That explains it. I've never been a "hot 100" kinda guy.

Well................OK, then. But I still think they were a lousy format. I'm fine with CDs and would never buy vinyl again. Mainly because I have no room for LPs or shelf space for a turntable, but also because I don't miss having to turn over (or change) an album every 20 minutes.

Typical SF summer weather - 68 degrees, wind out of the West and foggy/cloudy. In other words: PERFECT!

Are we talking pre-recorded cassettes, or blank cassettes? I found 'pre-recorded' generally to be cheaply made and quickly worn out and would be surprised if they really outsold vinyl. I rarely bought them, that's for sure. There were 'high quality' blank cassettes from Maxell and others that supposedly had great qualities and if you had an audiophile deck then they were decent. And obviously, if you wanted to make a mix tape then they were the only option. But bottom line was that skinny tape didn't hold up well with repeated use, especially if it was used in boomboxes, cheap car stereos or Walkmen.

Cassettes are bought by today's youths, students and such, who are driving 20-25 year old cars with tape radios. This was related to me the other week by a record store owner, who says he sells at least one pre-recorded tape a day. I figured it had to be something like that. I've been seeing up and coming Indie bands selling their music on cassettes lately.

What I don't get is a renewed interest in cassettes! They were a terrible format to begin with for any number of reasons. Why bring them back?

Interesting seeing that list of sold Mosaics on ebay. It seems that the relative value of sets has held up (e.g. Thad/Mel still high, Curtis Fuller still low) even though the prices have dropped.

Television at the Fillmore tonight.

I think it's that demand for CDs has dropped a LOT in the past 5 years or so. As Homefromtheforest said, I've noticed that trade-in value at Amoeba is much less than it used to be, too. It's almost not worth taking them in anymore, actually. About 5 years ago I did a major purge and sold a few hundred LPs to them. The buyer told me that they were much more interested in vinyl than CDs.

Pre-1983* is great. Close to the Edge is a great place to start. *Trevor Rabin replaced Steve Howe in the band that year, it's all downhill after Drama (1980). I would say start chronologically with The Yes Album, then Fragile and Close to the Edge. Their 3 best, IMO.

This was posted by Ron Thorne over on the Jazztalk.net site: ++++++++++++++++++++ I'm sorry to have to share this very sad news with our members. David will be sorely missed by his many fans and friends here and around the world. The following is from another site, posted by Gloria Avner, who also is the artist responsible for the lovely portrait of David. Sincere condolences to Gloria and David's family. ___________________ Gloria Avner here. Nearly six years ago, David Gitin and I restarted a relationship begun as teens. It survived a 42 year hiatus. Yes, it's a a good story. I am sorry to tell you, dear poets, musicians, artists, students, old friends of David's, that he left us last night. The Gary Peacock Trio took him to the stars. The best news is that he is free from pain now and was able to reunite with his beautiful daughter and granddaughter after 5 years away in his last 5 days. He rallied when he saw Diana Victoria Lal and Nico Wilbur, these two shining beings, and his face lit with love. Know that he put together that last book (with the help of gifted and generous George Mattingly) with the intent that it be a gift for you. Rest in peace, David. We miss you already.

I like both versions, and am totally OK with electric piano when played tastefully (which it is IMO). Agreed about someone reissuing Mark Murphy's Muse catalog!