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I did a reasonable amount of shopping at Sam's in 93-94 on my first stint in Toronto, though on a student budget! Then hit it for the last time in '97 or '98 on a visit. If my memory hasn't completely failed me, Sam's was one of the merchants that pushed for liberalized Sunday shopping rules.

Agreed. No question a lot of mistakes have been made by "the authorities" and the science has continued to evolve (along with the virus, to our detriment). I get that. It's frustrating, and I don't agree with some particular restrictions. But then there is just coming across as an arrogant guy who is so much smarter and in the know than the scientific community. He may not personally be an anti-vaccer but he sounds just like one. And we all decide what is a line too far to support or even listen to for a particular artist, and this, for me, is going too far during a dangerous time. So he is off my listening list forever.

A fair bit of snow in Toronto this morning. It was dry and reasonably light but there was still a lot to shovel...

There was just a long article Clayton Johnston, starting with a discussion of how he was singled out for dancing interracially on a TV program in Buffalo, but then talking about a strong jazz career. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2021/02/14/more-than-60-years-ago-a-black-teen-from-malvern-ci-was-told-to-stop-dancing-with-a-white-girl-on-a-buffalo-tv-show-toronto-exploded.html (May be behind paywall...) "He [Johnston] recorded tracks with jazz icons Sadik Hakim and Pepper Adams for Expo 67. A year later, Johnston became the drummer for Duke Edward’s band, the Young Ones. Johnston secured a regular afternoon gig on Yonge Street at the Zanzibar and in the evening played in the pit band for the musical Godspell under musical director Paul Shaffer. ... If it were up to [Don] Thompson, the public would be more familiar with the name Clayton Johnston. He has hours of recordings of Johnston performances in the vault. “Clayton was really good people and a really good musician. He got lost in the shuffle.” I assume Don Thompson is in regular touch with Cory Weeds, but it would be nice if some of this unissued music could come out, up here at least. As a side note, when the Toronto reference library reopens, I should be able to listen to the LP (Sun Song) as it is in the collection, but sourcing a copy in the wild looks to be a real challenge...

The Chan Centre concert is starting right now. Turns out this is a recording done in Mexico in 2019! There seemed to be huge technical difficulties with the DSO streaming of Carter/Davis and they pushed it back to 8:30 and then it never started at all (at least for me). I'm going to write tomorrow and see what the story is and whether they will try streaming it again.

Village Vanguard this weekend: DAYNA STEPHENS QUARTET FEBRUARY 12 ‑ FEBRUARY 14 DAYNA STEPHENS – SAXOPHONES AARON PARKS – PIANO BEN STREET – BASS JAIMEO BROWN – DRUMS $10 Streams on Friday & Saturday at 8pm Eastern Will likely tune in Sat. If I read the email correctly, this is the last streaming session (as they try to return to in-person shows) but there will be some repeats apparently made available.

I definitely prefer Nik Bärtsch as part of Ronin (generally not that interested in solo piano), but I'll give it a listen.

RIP. Oh wow. Was not expecting this news at all. Saw him once in trio format with Avashai Cohen on bass at Lincoln Center. Massive sound/miking problems unfortunately, which I guess they finally worked through.

Of course if it was carried out in Japan, the machine would be likely be air-conditioned...

This seems like it would result in very warped records in the summer. Was this really a "thing" or more of a short-term publicity stunt?

This one of course from the 2nd Jazz Icons box - https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Icons-Charles-Mingus-Live/dp/B000TNJIJM/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mingus+64&qid=1612941536&sr=8-1

Apparently they send everything to Sweden first...

This looks interesting. I have heard a few projects involving Brooklyn Rider. Of course, 7 pm PT is 10 pm here (Eastern), so I should also be able to see the Regina Carter/Xavier Davis concert at 8 Eastern - https://www.dso.org/events-and-tickets/events/2021-digital/wave2/regina-carter-and-xavier-davis

Maybe in the old days, but not anymore.

Surprisingly reasonable (after the shock of Amazon.co.uk base shipping). Now again, that was to a Commonwealth country... Anyway, I wouldn't hesitate to order directly from them again.

Actually a 4 Blu-Ray set of Fellini films - https://cultfilms.co.uk/product/federico-fellini-four-films/ No question Criterion has better extras and has the edge in terms of transfers but this looks fine to me so far. 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Juliet of the Spirits and I Vitelloni currently for 18 pounds! Note that this is Region B! Based on what Cult Films has the UK (and EU???) rights to, it looks like it is a new incarnation of Mr. Bongo Films.

Sonic Boom in Toronto is doing curbside pickup plus other delivery options for GTA. https://www.sonicboommusic.com/collections/jazz/Vinyl Now at the moment it doesn't look.like they list used LPs on website (and I know they aren't buying used vinyl right now). So I only order very, very sparingly.

Sometimes you just get lucky. I've had good experience ordering directly from the UK from BFI and now Cult Films. The shipping prices were reasonable, and I think in both cases actual shipping time was under a week.

Maybe there was some discount for 1 or 2 CDs, but I'm sure I didn't pay $28 for shipping. No question smaller merchants are getting squeezed. My cousin just mailed a book from Brooklyn to Canada, and it cost him $20! That is by far the most outrageous I've seen (and I think he was screwed by USPS). Still, if this becomes the new normal, I won't order anything from the States going forward. And so our worlds become that much smaller and closed off...

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the shipping from Amazon.co.jp was. They were using DHL and it usually made it to Canada in a couple of days. I don't order from Japan often (and try not to even look most of the time so there is less temptation), but it wasn't really a hassle. On very rare occasions the shipping from the UK to Canada is a bit cheaper than to the US (I guess the Commonwealth connection ), and certainly a lot of UK (and EU) vendors won't bother anymore with shipping to Canada, but once in a while there are still deals to be had (probably because vendors have forgotten to update previously set foreign shipping rates...). That said, I certainly order less than I used to and have mostly gone digital, and this is probably overall a good thing. Certainly my children will agree if there is even less junk/stuff around for them to have to deal with...

I assume it doesn't matter if it is released or still pre-released in terms of getting paid, but there are Bandcamp Fridays that bracket the release date (April 16) of All Knavery & Collusion. Upcoming Bandcamp Fridays are - March 5th, April 2nd, and May 7th.

Was tipped off to a number of very interesting projects on Bandcamp last Friday. Most of which I bought, but a few I'm just streaming for now. The Puerto Rican guitarist, Gabriel Vicens's The Way We Are Created caught my attention - https://gabrielvicens.bandcamp.com/album/the-way-we-are-created You can order all three of his current recordings as a package deal, which I took advantage of. UK drummer/percussionist Will Glaser has released the third album of his Climbing in Circles project on Ubuntu Music. https://willglaser.bandcamp.com/album/climbing-in-circles I spent a little time poking around on the Ubuntu site and ran across the Chet Baker Live in London sets from 1983 (but the recordings were not actually cleaned up and issued until 2016). These probably have been discussed here previously, but they are new to me and are quite fine. https://chetbaker.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-london https://chetbaker.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-london-volume-ii

I believe it is because those Bastards are so skilled at separating you from your money, but maybe someone has a different etymology.

Exploring some of the bonus features in the Monty Python Blu-ray set. On the Season 4 disc, there are some commercials that the Pythons did including a 25 minute industrial film for Birds Eye Peas! This was shot during Season 3 so it has John in it. It really is not that far different from a full-length show but with a very narrow focus on making peas "younger." As far as I know, no one has interviewed anyone from Birds Eye Peas to see if they got what they thought they were getting. Other random thoughts - the Most Awful Family in Britain sketch from "Party Political Broadcast" seems very much the template for The Young Ones. Maybe the next time through watching The Young Ones I will feel that it is somewhat derivative. Also watching The Oscar Wilde skit from Season 3 I misremembered that as being from Black Adder.

Hemingway's The Torrents of Spring. What an odd book. It is deliberately written as a parody of the style of some of Hemingway's fellow writers in Paris. Sherwood Anderson is name checked in the introduction, and my understanding is that Hemingway was also poking at Ford Madox Ford as well. Does it really stand on its own (like a Flann O'Brien comic novel)? No, not particularly. Would I read this a second time? Certainly not. Once is enough. Still reading lots of poetry for a project. Mostly starting with the New York School (Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Kenneth Koch, etc.) but also Kenneth Rexroth and David Ignatow. Then working backwards and forwards. Will probably be getting back to Don Quixote after a long layoff later this week.