tatifan

I noticed the other day that the always resourceful Philly phans had yet another fan group, this one for rookie pitcher Cole Hamels. The name should raise a smile from jazz fans.....the Cole Train!! Somehow I doubt any connection to Coltrane, but what the hey, maybe they'll start playing something of JC when he comes out to pitch....... Gotta hand it to those Philly folks for the number of fan groups.....sadly Sal's Pals (a bunch of guys, and even a few gals, with fake fu manchus!) is no more, with Sal Fasano's being traded. Strangely the team has done a better job hanging in the wild card fray AFTER trading Abreu, Lidle and Bell. Some more speed, some willing young guys, the odd story of Chris Coste, a career minor-leaguer tearing it up at the age of 33..........and those guys named Howard and Utley, and it's just enough to bring a long suffering Philly fan to the brink of hope.........surely to be dashed at the last moment once again, eh?

Dell's customer service IS terrorism, pure and simple. Took me several months of trying to call my designated agent back about a notebook spontaneously shutting down (his voice mail box was always full), until I emailed the guy. He said that was the preferred method of contact (and I'm supposed to figure this out?). Somehow, I got an actual service call to replace the motherboard. Now my keyboard it getting canttttankerous! At least my battery isn't on the list........even if it only lasts about 90 minutes on a charge!

A friend had a cello turned into a collection of twigs after Continental checked it. Insurance or not, it's not a good option, but buying that 2nd ticket is no fun either.

I got both of those BN covers books not so long ago at a Half Price Books in Houston, and I thought I had seen one of them recently. Might be worth contacting a few locations to see since it they were available in multiple copies at the time I picked them up.

It's certainly no substitute, but the tip of the iceberg is visible at http://www.ejazzlines.com or http://worldsrecords.com I find these are the best organized sites for new releases, among etailers. Any other nominations? Certainly, I hope jazzmatazz gets back on track!

Of course if you're dropping emusic files in there, the bit rate is their bit rate, so that's nothing to be concerned about unless you are ripping your own cds. Seems like their files can be anywhere from 35 MB per album to maybe 75 MB. I've got a couple of cds with around 12 albums from downloads, so what you said could be the running time.

I just looked in Windows Media Player (I have version 10), and if you click on "burn", and then click on "cd drive" on the right side, change it to "data cd", then you should be able to drag and drop files on the left window (burn list). Look at the bottom to see how much of your 700 mb you've used, then burn. I have no idea if the files will stay in their individual album folders (could be a mess with the order otherwise), but it's worth a try. Good luck! BTW, thanks Parkertown, for the tip on customizing the file names for downloads!

Does your cd player (or perhaps a dvd player connected to a audio system) play mp3 files? I used to use a burning program (like Nero or Roxio's Easy CD Creator and convert mp3 files to a regular audio cd), but now that I have a dvd player that plays mp3 files that saves LOTS of space (8 to 12 albums on on blank). Also my car cd player plays mp3 burned cds. You should be burning a "data" disc (in Nero, at least), and keep each album as a seperate folder, which you "drag" into the add files area. One thing on those emusic files: if you are making mp3 cds, you should edit the name of each track to get rid of the album and artist name at the beginning (but be sure to leave the track number, especially burning an mp3 cd, because you'll end up with the files in alphabetical order otherwise!), otherwise you'll probably not be able to see the title of the track displayed fully if you're playing back on a dvd player (so you can see the titles displayed on your tv). Also, emusic tends to create an artist folder and THEN the album folder itself inside that........I would go to the album folder and drag that (sometimes I rename the folder to include the artist and the album title) I don't recommend burning mp3 using the I-tunes burning software, since it seems to make one huge file out of multiple albums. I'll try and look at Windows Media player later and see if I can add anything...it's should be similar, I just don't know how it deals with folders with individual albums. Hopefully some of this helps! BTW, did you ever d-load that Art Pepper Village Vanguard set? Good luck!

I wrote this on May 15.........should have kept my mouth tightly closed for chrissakes!! Oh, and I'm living in Houston, so I don't have to worry about holding my breath until the Astros score a run while Clemens is on the mound.......right?

I had a funny experience with this set.......a friend had it, and I....cough...."xeroxed" it.........only to find it used for all of $80 a few months later! Needless to say, I snatched it up, despite having access to it!! For me, it's an essential set.....lots of goodies that probably won't be reissued. I kind of like the pre-computerized noise reduction sound too, it seems more honest, somehow.

Picked this up at Half Price Books (they have a number of these Xanadu cds), and I think this is the prize for me! Some of the remastering is suspect on this series (according to those who have the lps), but this one is ok to my ears....in any case this stuff is too gorgeous to miss.

As a long-suffering Phillies phan, I'm amazed at the tear they've been on over the past couple of weeks, after their trademark slow start. I'm sure the other shoe will fall sooner or later, but they seem be picking each other up amazingly.......especially after Aaron Rowand's amazing effort on the play on which he broke his nose. Lieber had a perfect game through 6 2/3rds the other day. No superstars really, but maybe some chemistry at work. Certainly the farm system has come through recently, with the likes of Howard and Utley........and Cole Hamels was thrilling in his pitching debut last week. Nice to see SOMEONE in that division give the Mets a run......it was starting to look like the NL West from last year!

And what the heck, Cage won't be around for the reviews when it's all over! Being an organ, at least one can put a couple of bricks on the appropriate keys when it's time to grab a sandwich! It would be pretty hard for a performer to say he has that piece in his repertoire, eh? I guess there are probably a few repeat signs in that one!

Anyone a fan of Dogfish Head? They're a wonderful microbrewer from my home state, Delaware. http://www.dogfish.com/brewings/Year_Round_Beers/3/index.htm

That's funny, same happened to me with those exact speakers a few years ago! Boston Acoustics themselves actually had replacements, and shipped them out for pretty cheap. Still running strong today in my 2nd system!

Seconded! After suffering through several awful sounding Documents releases, this was a pleasure to discover. Back in the LP era, the Yazoo Joe Venuti compilation turned me on to that era of "New York" jazz, in general. It's still a good start for a bennining collector.

Ah, I see, that's a whole new world indeed. I've done a bit of dabbling in that area, but one has to virtually untrain one's ears to a whole musical upbringing (which is the whole point, I guess). Certainly food for thought. Personally, I have trouble adjusting to a lower A than 440, when instruments are tuned to emulate the lower pitch used at the time. Perfect pitch can be helpful, but also a nightmare........

I played the cello growing up, and dealt with (with varying degrees of success) what was in tune playing with the piano (assuming IT is "in tune"), and with like and differing families of instruments, orchestras, etc. I work as a pianist for Lynn Harrell's studio at Rice Univ., and have seen his amazing ear for subtle intonational adjustments in action. He can demonstrate how playing a note with a different coloration and intensity can completely change the perception of intonation, and how it depending on the musical context, a repeated pitch in a work can (and often should) be adjusted based on harmonic context. I can't even begin to do justice (in this description) to his knowledge and effective use of it, both in his own performing and in teaching.

When I think someone is out of tune, it's not that this note is flat and this is sharp, but if there's a overall tendency to play everything sharp or flat. I used to find Miles Davis fairly consistently under what I hear as the pitch, or the pitch of the piano and/or other players. Strangely, I don't hear this as much now. I guess it's a certainly coloration of the sound that makes it sound right. On the other hand, there's an early Hank Mobley Blue Note session (in the Mosaic box, but I need to refresh my memory on which one), where it sounds to me like Mobley never tuned his instrument to the piano. It's odd, because I think his intonation is pretty centered compared to many. I do find McLean on the sharp side as an overall tendency, and I guess I'm not the only one. Is it right for him? You bet! I'm a (classical) pianist by profession, and I play with MANY string players who tune a bit sharp to the piano. Some are aware of it, many just want that extra brightness and brilliance to the overall sound. Perhaps we're not talking a large amount, but few of them tune on the LOW side of the pitch. One wrinkle in this is that tuning a stringed instument in EXACT perfect 5ths will make the lowest string FLAT to a piano, because of the tempered piano tuning. Perhaps some of this is due to the fact that orchestras tend to tune a cent or two sharp of the A=440 "standard", and they get used to this. Overall, I find that wind players tend to tune a bit lower, and their intonation tends to settle beneath the piano pitch. I know this some of this is OT, but I'm just trying to show that lots of factors besides simple bending of scalar tones and expressive use of "blue" notes in jazz, and one's overall setup of the instrument in relation to one's musical collaborators has a big influence in what comes out.

I guess it's not an answer, but interestingly, the famous 1903 Columbia Records Grand Opera series has spoken introductions ("Madame" so and so, "Colooombia records"!). I don't recall many other examples of this practice that late into flat disc releases. As far as I remember, this series sold quite well.

Great deal, thanks! Picked up the Miles "Seven Steps" set too!

Of most things, yes. Of Norman Lebrecht, ANY amount makes one sick!

Nat King Cole Mosaic for $80 at Half Price Books about a year ago!

Wow, not that I doubted there were lots of Mildred Bailey fans, but that IS a lot of MB fans who forked over the big bucks for the set!

Norman Lebrecht is a writer for those who are pissed off at not understanding the pinnacles of musical literature, or the great performers who bring it to life, and would like to be spoonfed some inside "dirt" written by someone else who's pissed off, but supposedly "in the know"; in this case that someone is posing as a actual "critic" writing for major publications. He pisses on great conductors (try "The Maestro Myth" if you want to learn absolutely NOTHING about what makes one conductor great and another mediocre!), and now a great composer in this rant which has nothing whatsoever to say, as usual. He is hired to write this crap because newpapers/publishers know that muckracking CRAP sells much better than thoughtful essays, which is truly a shame. What happens when Joe Blow goes to Borders, wants to learn something about conductors, and somehow ends up buying Lebrecht's piece of cow dung? If he laps up the crap, he'll spout hateful nonesense about what idiots conductors are, and how everyone knows they are all overpaid charlatans. In reality all they've learned about is big Norm himself, who can only ape himself.....the original unevolved ape-turned-music-"cirtic"!