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It is confusing -- quite a few (though not all) of the other Buckner and Tate and even Lafitte sessions were reissued, and often on the Definitive Sessions (which is great from my perspective), but I'm not seeing these Midnight Slows recordings reissued in any form. I may be wrong of course, but I might end up ordering a few. I just wish shipping LPs wasn't so crazy expensive these days. ☹️

Highjacking this thread a bit. It seems to me that a fair bit of material on Black and Blue label has been available at iTunes and elsewhere as the Black and Blue Definitive Sessions, but there seems to be a lot still unavailable (though often available on CD -- go figure). I'm probably going to pick up Stéphane Grappelli/Hank Jones London Meeting and am deciding on a few others. Anyway, I am trying to understand the Midnight Slows series, there are nine or so volumes, and they certainly look like they are compilations but then only one line-up is ever listed, so maybe not? This is Midnight Slows Vol. 2 (It surely doesn't help matters that Midnight Slows Vol. 1 and 2 seem to be identical!)

I saw that Fresh Sounds has a new 2-fer of Luis Rivera - Filet of Soul and Las Vegas. https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/luis-rivera-albums/57469-filet-of-soul-las-vegas-2-lp-on-1-cd.html I'm not familiar with either of these and wondering if people had opinions, particularly on Las Vegas, which apparently features Barney Kessel! Archive.org does have Filet of Soul and some tracks sounded pretty good and others were a bit cheesy. I'm worried that the Las Vegas will fall more into the latter category, so I thought I would try to more digging before ordering a copy (esp. as shipping to Canada is still quite high...). Thanks in advance.

Long day at the movies today. The Revue (in Toronto) was showing Linklater's Before Trilogy all in one day. I decided to take the plunge. Very interesting. I think of all of them, I liked the second, Before Sunset, the best.

It was Bandcamp Friday, so I picked up a few things that I had been eying, mostly world music: Ayinde Bakare And His Orchestra – Live The Highlife, Dar Disku by Dar Disku, Mosawi Swiri by Maalem Houssam Guinia, Flashpoints and Undercurrents by John Surman and Emily Remler Cookin' at the Queens. Will consider Berne/Rainey Yikes Too! for next Bandcamp Friday.

In a couple of weeks, Mark Eisenman, Mike Murley, Neil Swainson and Terry Clarke take over the Rex for 4 days (Feb 12-15). I hope to make it twice. Then in early March there is the Women in Space festival in Toronto: https://www.womenfromspace.com/index.html#section-one . Lots of interesting stuff but the most interesting by far (to me) is Myra Melford's Fire and Water Trio with Ingrid Laubrock and Lesley Mok. Working out the details, but it looks like this will be 9:30 or 10 pm on March 9. I should be able to make it.

Saw The Last Showgirl this weekend. Generally very good, though the main storyline is quite depressing. Jamie Lee Curtis is game for anything... Apparently, this was shot in 18 days, which seems just wild to me.

I saw Yi Yi for the first time on Sunday. Quite a great film, but I wasn't prepared for the length. About 90 minutes in, and I realized this story had a long way to go... 😉 FYI, I saw that Amazon.com has a great deal on a couple of Eric Rohmer Blu-ray sets (50% off). Not sure how long it will last. I didn't need one of them, but got tales of 4 seasons or whatever it is called.

Been watching movies from my teen years (more or less) that I never caught on first go-around for one reason or another. I'm making an effort to see them in the theatre. Toronto isn't quite as amazing for movies as it was in the 90s, but it's still pretty good between TIFF Lightbox, The Revue, The Fox, The Paradise, and Carlton. Once in a blue moon HotDocs shows a non-documentary movies. Friday was Withnail and I at the Revue (totally packed house) and today was Mermaids at TIFF.

Just wrapping up the 3rd (of 7) novellas that make up Mutis's Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll (NYRB). I had read these first three not long after the English translations came out, but then never got around to the rest. But NYRB published all of them in one volume, which I have finally gotten around to reading. The remaining stories will all be new to me. I'm also wrapping up Alice Munro's Runaway. I wanted to make sure I had read the first half of the collection before watching Almodovar's Julieta, as the film is based on 3 of her stories.

I'm in a sort of similar bind. UPS and FedEx absolutely refuse to deliver to P.O. Boxes. But if you are mailing a passport to the US for renewal, they only give you a P.O. Box. Well, as you may or may not have heard Canada Post workers were on strike for 3 weeks and they were forced back to work (and are seriously unhappy about that). Due to the backlog, they simply refused to accept mail to the States for another week or so. (Apparently, Canada Post can mail to P.O. boxes...) The FedEx folks said I was completely out of luck. UPS looked up the street address and hopefully the passport will get to the right place, but I have serious doubts. 🥺

The End is bizarre. It's probably 15-20 minutes too long, and I didn't like the musical aspect of it. If all the songs had been stripped out it would have been much more powerful. So I guess I'm saying I thought the director's vision was naff.

Apparently a few people here caught Tolliver at the London Jazz Fest. Jealous... Anyway, this episode of BBC Round Midnight (on BBC Radio 3) with him being interviewed and introducing tracks he either played on or inspired his music is available for just under two weeks. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0024xv8

Lots of Tilda Swinton this month. She (and Julianne Moore) are in Almodovar's The Room Next Door. I'm seeing that towards the end of Dec. at TIFF Lightbox. Then next week, I see her in Joshua Oppenheimer's The End (also at TIFF). It's a post-apocalyptic tale about a wealthy family living in a salt mine when an outsider arrives. And it's a musical! It sounded too bizarre to pass up.

A lot of short stories this Dec.: Lucia Berlin - A Manual for Cleaning Women Joy Williams - Taking Care Alice Munro - Runaway