chandra

I am curious if any of you visit http://www.jellyroll.com/ I happened to read this review of Ken Burns PBS Jazz special and I thought the views are probably in line with many at organissimo. http://www.jellyroll.com/2001/kenburnsjazz.html

I will have to vote for Ice cream. Now, for a dumb question, what is the difference between the two? Ice cream is made from unspoilt milk where as frozen yoghurt is made from spoilt milk, is that it?

Agreed that even for a rich player 1.3 million is a hit. But the part we have not gotten into here yet is: What is the probability of getting caught in the new process they have negotiated? Are there surprise, unannounced and random checks by a third party?

I concede a bit to you on the short term public shame part of it, but on the money side, for multi-millionnairre ball players, loss of 10 day or 30 day pay is nothing. Back to the public shame part, fans are quite forgiving. Play this scenario out for giggles: a top notch player gets caught and there is all this media frenzy over that, the player gives an explanation that he took a cough medicine and did not know it contained the prohibited substance, sits out the 10 day suspension. Yeah, there is a bit of short term shame in getting caught. Let us continue.... Play off time, seventh game, crucial stage, our man hits a home run and wins the game. Everything is forgotten and he is a hero. Several variations on this theme can be played out. My point: Fans don't hold any of these transgressions against their favourite players if they win games for their teams.

In my book, this process is very weak. If the goal is zero tolerance for steroid use, this penalty system has to be tighted up a lot to achieve that. May be a major public outcry and a decline in baseball popularity will get them in that direction. And there has to be public shame in getting caught. This kind of weak process is what happens when one has to negotiate the process with the entity you want to clean-up. ( I realize why they have to negotiate .... ). How does this compare with NFL?

I am not that sure about that. How does MLB's process compare to other leagues in U.S.A. and the Olympics, does anyone know? From what I read, the process may be adequate but the penalty is not damaging enough to discourage players from going the illegal steroid route. I am a bit suspicious when MLB has to negotiate with the Players Union to come up with this process.

This technique works for selecting text in this forum too... Try it. BTW, don't send the curses to silicon valley. Bill isn't there, he is a few hundred miles and couple of states up north.

What is the deal with Wal-Mart? Something specific to jazz or just its hugeness or its not-so-union-friendly attitude.

Yeah, I agree what you say about Arif Mardin. I don't even know what he did with Norah other than providing adult supervision and possibly have some major input on one song in her first album. Her second album does not reveal much Mardin influence. I heard a few cuts from the Dana Owens album at a late night talk radio station ( as bumps between segments ). It sounded very good. Especially, 'I put a spell on you'. I just finished reviewing a 5 CD box set on Blues music and this song sounded Blues to me. Is it? Actually, I was a bit taken aback by how good she can sing. I knew Queen Latifah from a silly sitcom and a few bad movies ( I have never heard her rap ), so this much quality out of her came out of nowhere for me. From what I read, every time she appears in public and sings, the sales of the album go up a lot. But she could not devote much time promoting the CD because she is busy filming her next movie. But expect much more press and high profile appearances late March onwards in support of this album.

As I was reading the thread, I thought, how come the posts are so male dominant, and then I saw Patricia's post. That gave it some balance, but still so skewed... I know it is all in jest but Patricia, I didn't see much smilees there, so I hope taste in music did not get in the way of relationship....

A friend gave me this CD to listen to. I made it through 4 songs before ejecting it in disgust. I gave my friend a burn of Ray Charles and Betty Carter and she has thanked me every day since. Ooch... You should have given track 5 a chance.. Fever with Natalie Cole. I thought that track was fun, playful and energetic and vintage Ray Charles...

I feel there are 5 or 6 top notch songs in that album and on that merit itself deserves the recognitionand sales. The 'contrafactual' argument 'what if he was not dead' bothers me. I read a few news stories mentioned a similar thing, some in sort of a lighter vein which is fine. I also hear people saying that this is demeaning to his life time of work. This usually bugs me if it comes from someone who has not really been that kind to Ray over the years or does not really otherwise care for his music. I don't know why it has to be the best of his 5 decade long career to have higher sales and grammy recognition. It is just good this year, compared to the competition. At some point, one also has to account for why this album sold more than any of his other albums. Better marketing, Starbucks alliance, you get a bit of mindshare from every one of his duet partners, bigger market due to higher population than when he did his acclaimed past works, etc. But most of the musical journalists forget to mention that there is some good music from Ray Charles here as well ( not all tracks, in some tracks it is easy to feel his failing health in his voice ). But giving this 'dead guy' hypothesis some weight, how consistent is this? Is there data to support this? One needs to look at positive correlation( a well knonwn musician who released a record in the year of his death gets Grammys and lot of sales ) and negavtive correlation( a well known musician who released a record in the year of his death does not get any grammys or recognition and no one cares). Are there such data points from the past? My feeling is this phenomenon is isolated to a few great legends...

may be she does yoga!!

Both Norah and the Green day Punk Rocker Billie Joe Armstrong got to sing the following lines: Jai guru deva om Nothing's gonna change my world The translation of the first line is: 'Salutations to the heavenly teacher' This coming out of a punk rocker is a coup in itself

Sweet picture: Billy Preston and Norah Jones

Interesting. We can make a market as they say in wall street My reaction was the opposite. For that song, with the original version still in my head, the soul and R&B treatment sounded out of place. Anyway that is in the neighborhood of nitpick, they all did it for a great cause and hope they generate millions of dollars.

I think Alicia Keys has a good voice and can sing very well but her vocal histrionics starts to bug me. That is what most everyone in American Idol does. If she does that in her own songs, that is one thing but on Beatles' 'Across the Universe' that they all sang for Tsunami Relief, she launched into such vocal gymnastics which was a bit jarring...

Fine Ass C. Shmoove First thing tomorrow, I am headin' to the pimp council for the name change!

Here are some pictures from the press... Is it orange or Saffron? Color means different things to different people. Saffron has a bit of spiritual connotation in my mind and Orange brings out a sense of flamboyancy in me. The close-up shot looks breathtakingly beautiful...

If that is all they are doing, it is very easy to circumvent by setting the system clock back.... Not that I am advocating it but meguesses there is something more..

Not owning does not appeal to me at all. But I can think of a rare situation if I am doing some type of research or something when I need access to a lot of music for a short period of time, then I can see subscribing to it. Hope Napster does not base their business plan on such sparodic usage. Actually, if they modify it a bit, they will be successful. Pay $15 or so to sample anything in their catalog. If you buy a song outright, you get a 50% discount of the usual per track cost up to $7.50 in savings. I think this will induce a lot of people to sign up for the chance to listen to a lot of songs and get half of that back when they buy stuff. Basically, use Napster To Go to drive the Napster business...

I was reading a music industry rag and the following quote caught my attention. Mr. Parker from Sony Music was quoted as saying in relation to their decision to sign John Mayer, "The market we're going for is discerning music buyers who know their music, and they want a quality album, whether it's from a new artist or a well-known singer". I guess, by saying this, he is tacitly admitting to the industry practice of selling crap to those who don't know their music

It used to be Google until the home page got hijacked by a nasty spyware or adware ( I wish I can unleash the plague on those scumbags and lowlives ), now it is back to Google.

I collect bad memories from the past and look through them every morning.. Time to pay someone to collect all that garbage

Guy: Please figure out why I lost so much money in the stock market, you may get a Nobel prize for that... Are you coming up with a new theory of your own? All the best,