BFrank

So did Led Zep's In Through the Out Door ... as did this album.

I'm a little concerned about the strings, as well. Are they unobtrusive, or do they dominate the sessions? After a quick look through the discography, it didn't appear that there were that many sets that weren't small group recordings.

This album literally came in a brown paper bag when first released.

His latest "Aint' Necessarily So" is a good place to start. Although actually recorded live in 1997, it's a great representation of his talents. "Shades of Bey" is solid, too.

Not so hard to find, I guess. Go figure. Even downloadable as MP3s!

[slightly different cover than what I have, but same album] Killer cut - "Samba de Rollins"!

Is that Peter Magadini's "Polyrhythm" album? If so, that's a great album! No doubt very hard to find, too.

I would say definitely a Zappa influence on most of these - the least being "Faces in Reflection", a relatively straight ahead album. "The Aura Will Prevail" has 2 FZ tunes: "Echidna's Arf" and "Uncle Remus". They are all definitely George Duke albums, though.

I have all of these on vinyl. I really enjoyed them when they came out. As he was with FZ at the time, there are a handful of cameo appearances, as well (under the name, "Obdewl'l X"). Never seen any of them on CD. While some of the tunes sound a little dated now, the music holds up better than a lot of other fusion of its day (as Helen pointed out).

Yes!

These were kind of fusion-y among Woody's 70's Herd.

Oh, that's right. Nice to know that humbuckers can be clean and bright, too. It's one of these, isn't it?

Emmy Lou?

I'll be seeing them in Berkeley in 2 weeks. A friend can't use her tix and offered them to me.

Yeah man, I'll bet it's nice. I love my Teles, although I'm not really playing them now. I really like the neck pup clean and they seem to have more treble and bass than a Strat. . Yeah......"clean"....that pretty much describes the Tele - neck OR bridge. I love it!

Have you heard it, Agg? I like "Blue Skies", but that was 20 years ago. Here's a review from today's NYT. June 9, 2008 Critics’ Choice New CDs CASSANDRA WILSON “Loverly” (Blue Note) When Cassandra Wilson made the all-standards album “Blue Skies” in 1988, such jazz tunes were a little more sacred than they are now. There was an innovation-versus-tradition argument in progress. Ms. Wilson was then an impossibly hip young singer making her name with a radical fringe that merged jazz improvisation with complicated funk (imagine that!). For her to record songs like “I’m Old Fashioned” and “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” — with a straight-ahead rhythm section, treating the songs with due respect and scat singing — amounted to decent frisson. It was a lovely record, too. Great songs are always in short supply, but in the very best jazz, material becomes negligible. The band takes over and does whatever it does, dominating over authorship. Many always knew this, but more know it now, and know it deeply. So “Loverly,” Ms. Wilson’s new record that is nearly all jazz standards, isn’t conceptually jarring. But it’s good to see how far she, and we, have come in 20 years. And for whatever reasons — don’t give the songs all the credit — it’s her best work in a long time. Back on “Blue Skies” you could hear Ms. Wilson assuming a crouch, meeting the demands of the songs. (She armed herself, too, with some of Betty Carter’s passionate phrasing. Good for you if you can do that.) Now she lets the songs come to her. Years of getting close to pop and touring with a hand drummer have accustomed her to finding a groove and a vamp first; the song can wait. And apart from the normatively swinging first and last songs of “Loverly” — “Lover Come Back to Me” and “A Sleepin’ Bee” — the song does wait. Ms. Wilson and her band, with piano (Jason Moran), guitar (Marvin Sewell), bass (Lonnie Plaxico or Reginald Veal), drums (Herlin Riley) and percussion (Lekan Babalola), figure out their rhythmic strategies up front, in a soup of barrelhouse piano, postmodernism, Cuban and African influences, folk and funk. It’s slow, chic and often extremely good. The song list includes Lerner and Loewe’s “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” from “My Fair Lady”; one original, an Afro-Cuban chant called “Arere”; “Dust My Broom,” representing blues; and “St. James Infirmary,” representing, I guess, where jazz, folk and pop met a long time before Ms. Wilson started making records. The rest are more like a jazz student’s idea of standards. There are two well-prepared duets, both killers: “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” with acoustic guitar, and “The Very Thought of You,” with acoustic bass. Much of the music transmits the feeling that the engineer pressed the record button in the middle of a jam session in which everyone was happily hanging behind the beat. Occasionally you hear some kind of clinking, maybe from Ms. Wilson’s bracelet; she gooses the rhythm section with grunts, the way she might on a gig, or wanders off microphone and sings a few lines to the walls. Naturalism is the idea, but this is a beautifully constructed record, from Mr. Moran’s blenderized, genre-defying piano solos to Ms. Wilson’s judicious phrasing, using the full range of her double-smoked voice. BEN RATLIFF

Rin's?

I highly recommend renting the film, Who Killed the Electric Car. Very insightful about the auto industry in general.

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's the MAN!

Yes, but you could also say that about all the yahoos in the US that kept buying the frigging SUVs and kept GM and Ford from making the tough decisions then -- and spewed out another few million tons of unnecessary emissions into the atmosphere. I'd say they all deserved what they are getting now, but of course this just puts Michigan in an even deeper hole. "...kept GM and Ford from making the tough decisions..." Say what? I thought corporate execs were paid the BIG buck just for that reason. If not, then what ARE they paid for? I guess short-sightedness is the name of their game.

It's just amazing that when asked to make more fuel efficient cars in the past, they big 3 always fought back by saying that it would cost too much money. Foresight is NOT their strong suit.

They just added the remastered Dead Can Dance catalog. I'm not a huge fan, but much of their stuff can be pretty interesting.

Twice in one year for you! Nice! I'm jealous, of course. HA! You're keeping track of me, Agg. We missed part of the set in March, anyway.

Just saw REM. Excellent show. Recommended if they come to your town.