vibes

RON MILES

HAMID DRAKE

FRED ANDERSON

I got home from the Iowa City Jazz Festival early this morning, and thought I'd share some digital photos I took at the show. Had a good time, heard some great music, and even met Rooster_Ties and got to chat with him for a couple minutes. Anyway, here are some photos: GERI ALLEN

Tony, that's pretty funny. Actually, a lot of his responses to the feedback he receives are pretty funny. Here's some more: Praise : Thank you for such a smooth transaction!!!! A pleasure to do business with Response by phoneloser-rbcp - If by "transaction" you mean "cock" then you're welcome, sir! Praise : Payment received. An asset to ebay. A PLEASURE! Response by phoneloser-rbcp - It was good for me too, baby... Praise : Received the CD very promptly!! Response by phoneloser-rbcp - Hope you enjoy the 1 good song on this CD. Praise : Thanks a million! Response by phoneloser-rbcp - Buyer is being misleading, only thanked me 2 times. Praise : Great seller! Would buy from again anytime! Response by phoneloser-rbcp - I have listed other items since this transaction, he never bought any of them. Praise : Thanks, just what the doctor ordered. Response by phoneloser-rbcp - I'm glad I could help, I hope the itching goes away. Praise : Quick shipment, great commincation Response by phoneloser-rbcp - TOO BAD I DIDN'T SELL YOU A DICTIONARY! HAHAHA! I KILL ME! Praise : GREAT !!!!!! I wish all sellers are like you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A+++++ Response by phoneloser-rbcp - What a racist thing to say!@#$&%@* Praise : Love the cd. Great price, quick delivery. Thanks! Response by phoneloser-rbcp - I had stolen the CD from K-mart, that's why I was able to sell it so cheap.

Dr. Strange. I was hoping for someone cool, like the Silver Surfer.

I am taking some time off from work. I don't go back until next Tuesday, which will be nice. On Saturday morning I'm driving down to Iowa City for the jazz festival, and will be driving back on Sunday night. The rest of the time, I haven't a clue what I'll do with myself. My wife is in Utah visiting her family, and won't be back until next Wednesday. I don't know anyone outside of work and never go anywhere with anyone except my wife, so the next few days will be very, very quiet.

Want to buy the Mosaic from me? It's not doing much for me. I've only listened to discs 1-2. The others are sealed, and the box and booklet are mint. $70, postpaid. Send me a PM if interested.

Adam, They were a bit slow in getting to me. I think it took them 4-5 days just to confirm the order, and then it took another 10-12 days for me to get the items. The Monk set didn't have a booklet with it, and was not in a box. The Pepper set was sealed, with booklet. Hope they get to you soon! I've only listened to the first disc of each set so far, but am really liking what I've heard so far.

Andrew's easily in my top five (which is actually only five people! ). One thing that puts him higher up on the list for me is his very memorable compositions. Albums like Judgment, Andrew!!!, and Point of Departure are great examples of this, and are some of my favorite albums that I can turn to in my jazz collection when I want something familiar. I'll be seeing Andrew this coming Sunday at the Iowa City Jazz Festival - can't wait!

I don't understand "Monk and Coltrane" as a good introduction to either artist. Both are demanding and distinct musicians and their one CD together is the last thing I would use to introduce them to a newbie. I merely mentioned that as a somewhat accessible CD. It swings, and it's not too out there for either of the two musicians. I've shared it with people and they like it. My experience with newcomers to jazz is that they just want to hear good songs in the beginning, and don't care so much about the individual artists. For good songs, I think Monk with Trane definitely fits the bill.

More good recommendations from Tony. Stan Getz is especially good for newcomers. "Jazz Samba" and the "Cool Velvet + Voices" comp are very good choices that I've successfully used. I've also found "Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane" to be good for newcomers to jazz. Another laid-back date that really swings is Milt Jackson/Wes Montgomery on "Bags and Wes." Grant Green's "Street of Dreams" might be good too, although I've found that for many people, warming up to the organ takes a while.

BILL EVANS

I try to make sure that I have as much available to me as possible at any given time. This means having mp3's and mp3-playing devices everywhere I go. I use a 20GB player for work and traveling. I have an mp3 CD player in the car. My computer has about 140GB of storage, and a third of this storage is currently being used to store mp3's. I also bought a DVD/SACD/mp3 player combo for my living room, so that I can listen to any format I have whenever I want. About 60% of my music collection is in mp3 format now, so I have lots to choose from wherever I am. Everything is encoded at 128k, so I am sacrificing some quality in order to have the quantity around, but since I'm not an audiophile and don't have audiophile equipment, the small sacrifice in sound quality isn't as noticeable to me. Oh, and I also have a standard CD player/clock radio for the shower, which is a nice way to squeeze in some extra listening time when I might not otherwise do so. I get "cravings" for a particular artist or instrument, so I just scroll through the list of albums, create a playlist and go with it. The only downside I can think of is that sometimes having mp3's is "too easy" - I get impatient for certain songs or albums, and thus kind of skip around rather than sit through whole albums or whatever. I listen to music 12-15 hours a day, so you'd think I'd be a little more patient. Oh well.

And what would you have done if you did catch it? From my original post: What I didn't mention is what we did to kill it. We didn't actually catch it. We saw it on top of a box outside our front door, so I grabbed some glass cleaner and sprayed it a few times. Then we got some matches and some other flammable stuff and then...Well, you get the idea.

As I have sometimes mentioned before, I was a Mormon missionary in Hong Kong for a couple years. For about 4 months, I lived on Lantau Island, which is the largest island in the Hong Kong region and the location of the new airport. Most of the time that I lived there, I had insomnia - I'd sleep a few hours, then wake up around 1-2am, stay up a few hours more, then go back to bed. I always read during these waking periods, and since I lived in a small village, it was always dead silent. Anyway, I was reading one night and I saw something jump off the counter and run towards a corner of the room. I had never seen any animal or insect move so fast. The thing totally freaked me out. It became a regular occurrence - at least a few times a week, this thing would run up the wall, or across the floor, or jump off the counter and run to a corner of the room. I finally saw it well enough to know it was a spider, 6-8 inches in diameter. And it moved so fast, I could never catch it. Towards the end of my stay, we finally caught one and killed it, and I also figured out that there wasn't just one in the apartment, because I kept seeing them. The one we killed was probably a little bit bigger than your average tarantula. Biggest damn spider I had ever seen, until... ...I was walking through a street market on Peng Chau, another of Hong Kong's outlying islands. The other missionaries and I stopped to buy some vegetables, and on the wall behind the lady at the stand was a spider that had legs that were 8-10 inches long each. It probably moved pretty slowly, because when we walked through the market about half an hour later, it was still there on the wall...and it didn't even phase the old lady at the stand. I hope I never see one of those again.

Got my first package today from Zweitausendeins: The Complete Thelonious Monk on Riverside and The Complete Art Pepper on Galaxy. I've never heard any of the music contained in either of these sets (and never heard Art Pepper before at all, to be honest), but the prices were hard to beat. 31 CD's plus shipping for $90. Thanks to everyone for alerting me to these bargains.

I never saw the first "Charlie's Angels" movie, but my wife did and seemed to like it. So, when I was offered free tickets to a sneak preview last night, I thought I'd be a nice husband and take her to it... This is the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Even my wife didn't like it, and she has remarkably low standards when it comes to movies. DO NOT SEE IT. DO NOT LET YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, LOVED ONES OR ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS MOVIE. No plot, horrible acting...not even the slutty clothes and quasi-lesbian innuendo (and there was a lot of it) could save this one. Trust me, you'd rather have rectal cancer than sit this 1 hour and 45 minutes of excruciating pain.

In spite of all the negative comments posted here, I just picked up the "Blue Train" SACD over lunch and am listening to it now. While it is bright (as most of RVG's remasters seem to be), I like it. The extra detail, especially with the bass and cymbals, is very welcome. RVG has done a lot worse than this one. My opinion of this SACD might be different if I had a high-end or even mid-range system, but all I have is a Sony 755 DVD/SACD combo player hooked up to a Cambridge Soundworks Dolby Digital 5.1 system (made for computers). In a word, it's shitty, but it gets the job done. In any case, I think I'll stick with this version over the previous versions I have, just for the extra detail in the sound.

Definitely going to get the Vince Guaraldi. I listen to this album all the time, no matter what time of year it is. Great music, very laid back.

YUMMY

Horace Silver - Song For My Father Lionel Hampton/Oscar Peterson - The Complete Quartets/Quintets on Verve Stone Temple Pilots - Shangri-La Dee Da, No.4, Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop Alice in Chains - Sap, Jar of Flies, Alice in Chains McCoy Tyner - Expansions Paul Desmond/Jim Hall - Easy Living, Glad To Be Unhappy

Welcome to the board, Greg.

Alice in Chains and Soundgarden were both great bands that I miss. The fairly recent death of AIC vocalist Layne Staley came as a major blow to me (but not a surprise). I would love to see Soundgarden get back together. I much prefer them to Chris Cornell's current band, Audioslave. Also really like Tool, A Perfect Circle, 311, Godsmack, etc.

Up - any help would be appreciated. :rsmile: