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There is a 4K restoration of North by Northwest making the rounds. I wouldn't say it was advertised well here in Toronto. I found out about it completely by happenstance and saw it last night. It looks fantastic! I think there were only about 20 people in the theatre. Had this been playing over at TIFF as part of their regular showings, it would have sold out. I am hoping to see Cronenberg's The Shrouds soon when it gets a general release. I didn't attempt to watch it as part of the TIFF Festival. Has anyone seen Coppola's Megalopolis? It sounds like a complete mess, but maybe worth watching (once) as a fascinating trainwreck?

Just stumbled across this while looking up something else: https://shop.bluenote.com/products/blue-spirits-85-years-of-blue-note-records-2cd Looks like it is out Sept 20, though it may already be available for pre-order. It's a little more adventurous than a typical compilation, particularly Disc 2 (though this does contain one Norah Jones track...). I would have liked to see if they could have squeezed Andrew Hill and/or Bobby Hutcherson onto Disc 1 (and 'Ghetto Lights' from Dialogue might have been just the ticket)... I'm relatively unlikely to pick this up, but I will follow up on some of the music on CD2 that I am not as familiar with.

I don't think there is a separate thread for live rock shows, so I'll just stick this here. Squeeze has been actively touring North America, and they just played Massey Hall. The English Beat (or rather the original lead singer from The English Beat and a good supporting cast) opened. Squeeze are ridiculously tight, playing all the hits you would expect but actually taking them in (slightly) new directions and doing extended jams on about half of them. Probably the best rock concert I've seen this year. I'm very glad this rose well above the level of a Golden Oldies tour, at least in my view.

Kind of kicking myself that I went ahead and ordered a few things yesterday, thinking it was Bandcamp Friday. D'ohh! Oh well... Rob Mazurek's Skull Sessions https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/skull-sessions and A Night Walking Through Mirrors by Chicago / London Underground which features Rob Mazurek and Alexander Hawkins (not sure he still is lurking on the site but he formerly was a regular...) https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-night-walking-through-mirrors

I've seen this claim (that Here for a While is his third recording) but I think people are not counting Red Shift and probably not Tranquility where Neil is co-leader with Don Thompson (but still gets first billing). I've been streaming a lot of Zorn lately, but I just ordered Tomeka Reid's Old New off of Bandcamp, so I'm listening to that right now.

Looks like this came out yesterday! I should see if I can get in touch with Neil and have him bring a few along when he plays The Rex with Pat LaBarbera in mid Sept.

It still was saying Maintenance this evening, which does seem like an exceptionally long time to be down... This link does seem to work, however: https://www.tzadik.com/home_frame.php It does recommend ordering all these sets through DMG. At one point, there was very limited material from Tzadik on the various streaming services. It looks like quite a lot has been added about a year ago, including a nearly complete run of Book of Angels, but the Masada material is a bit spotty. It is possible to stream Masada Guitars (which is actually Masada Anniversary Vol 1.) and then Masada Anniversary Vols 2-5. Also, the New Masada Quartet is available, but quite a bit from the box set is left out. As far as I can tell, the individual volumes in these Bagatelle box sets is not available. No idea if it might be added at some later date. I'm tempted by some of the sets, but I think first I really should try to absorb all the other music on Tzadik which became available a while back.

I'm almost done with James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, his first novel. I should finish it tonight. After this, I'll alternate Cela's The Hive (NYRB), in a relatively new translation, and Ashby's Glass Houses, which is some sort of suspense-SF novel involving AI and a remote island. It sounds like it might have ripped off some plot points from Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. If I'm enjoying it, I'll stick it out, but I'm getting more quick to drop books these days, so we shall see.

I just watched this (in a theatre, no less!) for the first time since 1987. It wasn't until roughly 45 minutes in that we realized they were running it without subtitles, and it was too late at that point to fix it. There are probably only 3 or 4 scenes where they really were required, but it was still a bit annoying. On the one hand, it gets a little old watching his French pal go searching for him after Dex goes on one bender after another. On the other hand, seeing so many jazz legends captured at or near their prime was amazing. (I knew that Bobby Hutcherson was in the cast and enjoyed his performance in the club, but didn't realize he was also Ace, who always had a pot of something in his hand.) Dan Ackroyd said something along the same lines, that even if Blues Brothers didn't succeed as a movie (and I think it certainly did!) they managed to put an awful lot of great musicians on film.

I don't believe I ever heard of Call of the Gators before. Listening on iTunes now. 👍

I believe I have read 15 (though I can't recall if I actually read or only skimmed the Didion). One on the list I finished but regretted bothering with, and one I dropped with prejudice after only a chapter. There aren't that many left on the list that really feel like "must reads" to me other than Judt's Postwar.

Over the weekend, I got through John Fante's West of Rome. Not too crazy about this, particularly when the narrator goes off on how terrible it will be if his son marries a Black woman and then, gasp, has children... In my view, Fante's work hasn't aged all that well. I also got about halfway through The Heptaméron by Marguerite de Navarre. This was directly inspired by The Decameron, and indeed aspires to be the French Decameron. Some of the stories are interesting, but there is a cruelty to many of the stories, which is largely, though not entirely, absent in The Decameron. I definitely prefer Boccaccio. Also dipping into Koestler's Darkness at Noon. This is translated from the recently recovered German manuscript, which was assumed to have been lost during the War.

Yeah, that's why I don't want to get in too deep. I'm already too much of a completist when it just doesn't make much sense*. But I'm intrigued enough to check it out (a bit). * BBC Radio 3 has switched its jazz format over to Round Midnight, which is a daily jazz show (previous shows were weekly), so trying to keep up with that is too much, and I am trying to not get bogged down with regrets... 😁 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001xmqv

Thanks for sharing. 👍 Will try to listen to a bit.

Saw most of the early set at The Rex. Tonight was Eric St. Laurent. I stayed through 1.5 sets of the main act - Dick Oatts (as) with Neil Swainson (b) and Brian Dickinson (p). An unexpected surprise was Virginia MacDonald on clarinet. (She is Kirk MacDonald's daughter.) It was a solid night. I wanted to make sure to drop off a copy of that Woody Shaw CD, Vim and Vigor, that came out on Timeless recently, as Neil features on it. Swainson will be back at The Rex in a couple of weeks backing Ryan Oliver, and I'll try to make it out at least one night.

I was supposed to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse but some people in the band got sick and several dates were cancelled. Interestingly, Steve Earle was in town on the same night, doing a solo show, and I managed to get tickets to see him instead. Some good stories interspersed with his set.

I always put this on when I was trying to get my son to go to bed (as a small child)...

With very, very rare exceptions when music is donated to a library, it just goes into the sale pile. I've had enormous trouble in the past few years donating valuable books to university libraries, i.e. things not in their collection but should be, and have basically given up. It truly was easier 10 or 15 years ago to donate massive collections of things. The one exception I am aware of here is the Merrill SF library will take donations of SF or fantasy books if not already in their collection. And the AGO Library will take art books. Those are pretty much the only exceptions I can think of. In 20 years' time, I really don't think most music stores will be buying collections the way Jazz Record Mart or Amoeba do (or did) in the past. And with shipping prices going the way they are going, I can't imagine burdening someone with trying to sell it piecemeal through discogs... If we downsize and move to a condo downtown or something when the last kid leaves the nest, I'll try to get rid of almost everything at that time. I barely listen to my physical collection at all anymore.

I'm listening to this on iTunes (as Joe Pass Capitol Vaults Jazz Series). 🤪 I'm not entirely sure why none of the tracks from Sounds Of Synanon (PJ-48) were included. Was this discussed somewhere previously? There are close to a dozen PD versions of Sounds Of Synanon floating around out there, but it seems a shame there doesn't seem to be a legitimate release (at least on iTunes).

It's usually buried under the options, i.e. do you want CD, vinyl or downloads only, and then there will be a link to subscribe. You can also contact JiB directly, and I found them to be pretty helpful.

I wish I had been more organized about this. One thing that I did was start making a list of how many of the "great" jazz artists I had seen at least once, but my memory isn't good enough for the side artists. Like I'm almost (but not 100%) certain I saw Stanley Cowell one time with the Cookers, but there's always that nagging feeling I'm getting something wrong.

In the end, I found this very disappointing, primarily because almost none of the characters acted in plausible ways. I'm actually disappointed in myself for not dropping it sooner, but I thought the post-COVID storyline would be more interesting. It was not... I've just started Rushdie's Victory City. Aside from a starting point that is magic realism on steriods, it's pretty interesting so far. It reminds me a fair bit of The Enchantress of Florence, so your feelings about that novel will probably be a good guide for this one.

Yeah, I think so. I don't see a place to put in the code. I think Greenleaf is having another sale through the weekend. I think I may get a few things on Cuneiform, like Out of the Blue by Raoul Bjorkenheim/eCsTaSy and Ghost Surveillance by Algernon (a band from Chicago, that appears to be defunct). It would be better to wait until the next Bandcamp Friday, but it's not until Sept apparently! So I'll probably just get them now.

Am back from day 1 of the Toronto Bach Festival where they did mostly Bach (and snuck in a Vivaldi piece), including Brandenburg Concerto #3. Great performances in a fairly intimate space. Tomorrow there is a noontime all-organ performance at St. Andrew's. And yes, Toccata and Fugue in D minor is on the program. I'm not sure I've ever heard it live on a church organ before. (It is played as part of Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale, which I just saw about a week ago, but I feel confident hearing it in person will be more inspiring...)

I've actually seen her in person a few times, though not doing Lulu. She performs in Toronto generally once a year. I have tickets to see her Nov. 28 where she'll be doing pieces by Messiaen, Scriabin and Zorn. Should be interesting and challenging in equal measure.