7/4

Game culture, yes more geeky than Jazz geekness.

Nothing but the best!

here man, check out this bug powder...

And then there's....

Ah...I love sushi....well, shashmi (no rice, just the fish). Also big on soft shell crabs too. And the saki....

And what did we do to deserve this!

I think I'd be ready for a nap too!

You mean that you don't also own that classic jazz album, "The Cream of Clapton"?!

Rock on Tiffany!

What Chuck said.

It's like saying the Spice Girls are essential to the history of rock because they sold a lot of records.

They're not jazz. Kenny G. isn't either.

Why don't we leave the fathers of happy jazz (aka smooth) out of this?

explain? (asking seriously!) Birdland isn't fusion!

I'd worry about getting my forehead caught on a telephone wire or bridge.

June 28, 2004 JVC JAZZ FESTIVAL REVIEW Lineup of Legendary Names in a Nascent Quartet By BEN RATLIFF A new quartet of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland and Brian Blade played at Carnegie Hall on Friday. As a measure of how strongly the serious jazz audience feels about this turn of events, Bill Cosby came out before them and simply said their names, to a general roaring. When they finished, the audience responded with a standing ovation that was longer and more vociferous than any other I experienced this year at the JVC Jazz Festival. What happened in between? Older compositions, sometimes played unrecognizably. A lot of free, open playing. A strong dollop of each player's individual trademarked sound. (Just convened this summer, the group is still not more than the sum of its parts.) Some juicy, poetic satori and some spacey grandiosity. Mr. Hancock and Mr. Shorter are herbieandwayne: the dyad that goes back to Miles Davis's great second quintet during the 1960's. As such they helped create the most lasting and widely influential group sound in jazz. They have reunited before, even at Carnegie Hall, where they played piano and soprano-saxophone duets in 1999. Mr. Holland has been around them: when the Miles Davis group started to change rapidly in the late 1960's, he joined it as the bassist on the album "In a Silent Way," and is now a composer and bandleader near the top of the heap. Mr. Blade, at least a quarter century younger than anyone in the group, plays drums with Mr. Shorter's current quartet, which has become one of the great collective communications in jazz. While the crowd might have been oriented around herbieandwayne, the quartet seemed oriented around Mr. Shorter and Mr. Blade. It was their interaction — pushing each other with short, rhythmic gestures that drew Mr. Shorter out of silence and into brusque engagement on tenor saxophone — that produced the biggest rise in energy. And though the set sounded most related to music played in the past by Mr. Hancock and Mr. Shorter, Mr. Blade seemed the binding glue. His sense of structure and dynamics — and his responses to stimuli from all sides — saved the music from becoming aimless and glib. He built up grooves and then destabilized them; he played featherweight sounds with brushes; at climaxes he raised his sticks, carefully picked his spot, and brought them down brutally. Mr. Holland, with strong rhythm and sound, deserves credit too. But his solid, repetitive vamping, perfect in the watchwork intricacy of his own band, felt odd in this loose quartet, which accommodates a much greater degree of personal, soloistic expression. The liquid set took a while to gain momentum. It included several long solo-piano introductions, excursions in the bright lower register of Mr. Hancock's Fazioli piano, with some Ravelesque chords. And there were some long group sequences rooted in a single chord, or in no determinate key. But there were themes, too, some of them run together, including Mr. Shorter's "Footprints" and Mr. Hancock's "Empyrean Isles." The group was getting back to some of the glories of jazz in the last 40 years, but the compositions were just vehicles. What these musicians are after — and I hope I get to see them together again — is a principle of motion, instability, constant invention.

wtf: THE COMPUTER IS WINKING AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M GONNA HAVE TO STOP DRINKING!

Playing the Tal Farlow model Gibson.

I would concur, based on the shape of the cutaway, the tailpiece, and the one "speed" knob in view. It's pre 1957 vintage for sure (tailpiece became more ornate on the 57 models among other things). My guess would be 49-53 era. I wish I could see the pickup(s) that would really help. Additionally, you can see part of the f-hole below the pickguard. It's hollow. The only thing I don't know, is if dots or trapezoid fret board markers were used on 49-53 vintage 175's. Seems like a question for Jim R. Any idea when that picture was taken? Whatever it is, it looks awfully small in Tal's hands. He had huge hands. Just for my own information: What are the qualities that jazz guitarists look for in a guitar? What would Farlow look for in a guitar? Tone & playability. Tone: gotta sound good! Playability: it's gotta feel right! One thing about Tal, since he had huge hands, he could play some unique chord voicings because he could reach those notes.