Bill Nelson

If you start knocking back beers at 2:30 pm, you'll be juiced when the game starts at 4:07 pm. Maybe there's a 90-minute pre-game show on your local channel?

Get this cut-out from 1973 which Atlantic over-pressed and dumped. It's even better than Atlantic's previous 'Soul Makossa' and findable at $8-10.

Perhaps Shawn has dis-invited you to his Birthday Party due to a prior tiff.

Two years ago, the Atlanta Braves got a hip new organist. Braves hitters have got their usual musical 'themes' but opponents are fair game for inside jokes. When a Phillies player had been hit by a pitch, the tune for his next at-bat was 'All Blues'.

If your Willis album still has lipstick on the cover, then "you got some 'splainin' to do".

Their pronouncement the Jazztet CD was no longer fit for free access by the public didn't go far enough. The Library could've placed it with other 'rejects' on their paved parking lot and had it crushed by a bulldozer. By selling it instead, they raised some money. And this sample of culture is safely in the British home of a Forum member. What a long, strange trip it's been.

"For the remainder, it will be divulged on a 'need to know' basis." "If I told you the whole story, I'd have to kill you." "Shut up", he explained.

The following premise of this published book, provided by mjzee, somehow fills me with inertia: "For every song by a jazz composer there is one by a Broadway or Hollywood songwriter."

My copy of Reys' 'Cool Voice' was in a batch of minty vocal LPs which Nic Barber had just brought in thru the rear door of his record shop in Marietta, GA (next to Rocco's Pub). Even though I'd never heard of her, the cover photo of Rita standing behind Blakey's drum cases was all it took. "This Reys album goes for something...so I'll have to get $18 for it." From the same collection I got a Julie London ('Around Midnight' with her 'stems' as clock hands) and a Mel Torme on Bethlehem ('Sings Astaire').

Frank Sinatra Jr. might've had an open date to play the The Angry Gull on the St. Johns. ("Just a stone's throw from the pulp mill. Call ahead for a tour.") Instead, he was held over at the Ramada Express in Bradenton.

Spot on. That's the part I DON'T GET. Consider how the slightest bump will slice your inner sleeves. The only advantage mentioned is for quick retrieval of a single LP if you leave 'em boxed for awhile.

Your question about a possible 2nd Jap pressing is PERFECT for the SH Forum. They'd fall over their keys speculating who remastered your disc and from which source. If you write them, include the code etched in the aluminum just outside the center spindle. Once they decipher the secret code, we'll know if it's a 1st or 2nd pressing...and more!

"I'll take 'What Is a Leading Cause of Death' for $500, Alex."

All the news that's fit to print out. And the reader is patronized as a confused wife or girlfriend -- wrangling a gift for that difficult, hard-to-fit, dilettante hipster. And if she comes up short? "Oh the horror, the horror."

During the 'golden era' of the LP, Mercury certainly issued smart, laminated jackets with some of the most eye-catching graphics and photo subjects. Too bad their actual recordings rarely matched the sizzle -- at least with Mercury's early stereo releases. For 'Rhythm Meets Rugolo' (SR-60119), as TTK wrote, two mikes seem to be placed in the left and right corners of a cavernous studio. On record playback, the channels get wide separation (hard left and hard right) and yet all the instruments seem distant. Even the piano (left channel) rings with the studio wall echo. The overall image gets centered better in Patti Page with the Rugolo All Stars 'In the Land of Hi-fi' (SR-80000), though Rugolo's charts never shined brighter than for June Christy's 'Something Cool'. The stereo Capitol re-recording of 1960 has a more natural balance of voice and instruments, with a warm bass in the center. While we're talking about Pete Rugolo on Mercury, they finally got the recording right on 'Percussion At Work' (SR-80003). The track 'One Plus Four' is a favorite, with brass and reeds call-and-responding amid alternating time signatures.

As 'Duck' was doing a three-night stand with Stax buds Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd at Tokyo's Blue Note -- I can surmise he played the final Saturday set, retired to his hotel, went to bed and died in his sleep. When it came for his 'check-out time', Duck went out in class. Here's the May 10-12 gig: http://www.bluenote.co.jp/jp/artist/stax/

Regarding TOCJ-9348, the 24-bit remaster from 2001: I've played tracks 4-7 and then once again. Listening intently, I couldn't detect the 'bell rattle', but wished someone had answered that damn phone.

And I've got TOCJ-9348 (mono) from 2001. Is it because of the 24-bit remaster by 'mad scientist', Dr. Van Gelder? (It sounds right to my ears.)

Here's TOP doing 'Squib Cakes' on Letterman -- back when Paul Shaffer still had hair. (Before Shaffer's band got lazy doing warmed-over Booker T & the MG's hits every night.)

If you want to follow Joe Albany's 'track' record (pun intended) read his daughter's autobiography: 'Low Down' (junk, jazz, and other fairy tales from childhood), Amy (A.J.) Albany, Bloomsbury, 2003. Unless 'horse' tranquilizers is another pun, there's no mention by her of when daddy went out to score.

"CREVICE... now there's a perfectly disgusting word!" Stephen Fry as General Melchett in 'Black Adder Goes Forth', during WWI.

RE: Hartford -- How can we order advance tickets? General or reserved admission?

Back to Addison Farmer -- from Down Beat, April 11, 1963: "Following his doctor's orders, bassist Addison Farmer had taken a prescribed anti-depressant tablet the evening of February 19. Later he complained of feeling especially drowsy and swallowed an energy tablet, sold without prescrption in drug stores. The combined effect of the two medications produced a fever that ultimately reached 106 degrees. Farmer was taken to New York City's Knickerbocker Hospital, where he was treated, but the fever did not abate. On Feb. 20 the bassist died of the fever produced by the accidental combination." BTW, 1963 was the Grim Reaper for another bassist: Curtis Counce, 37, heart attack, July 31.

This vast LP score means you'll have to use a special 'long form' when doing your taxes for 2012.

Tunes Most Disliked at Piano Bars: 'Over the Rainbow' and 'A Child is Born'. Their circular melodies are so cloying -- I'd confess to any crime if you promise to stop playing them NOW.