GloriousBlues

Sipiagin is fantastic. I have all but his most recent CDs, and I recommend every one of them. He's done gorgeous Russian traditional tunes (Novgorod Bells on Images) tricky jazz covers (Metheny's Missouri Uncompromised on Steppin Zone) and plenty of his own compositions. He always gets great sidemen for his records (Potter, Kikoski, Adam Rogers, etc.). And he can blow a great solo over the trickiest changes and time signatures.

No. Baseball is all about athletic ability: throwing, hitting, running, strength, etc. But figuring out which baseball players are best--and more importantly which ones are likely to perform best in the future--is done most accurately with statistics. Scouts who judge players based on their athletic ability don't generally judge players as well as nerds with computers and lots of data.

AxeJeeves. For some reason I thought it was a funny name.

My local store still has some jazz. I picked up 6 discs yesterday. Joel Harrison - Free Country & So Long 2nd Street. Mostly moody, mellow jazzy takes on country songs. Features David Binney. Diego Urcola - Viva. Latin Jazz. The first track, Tango Azul, has a fantastic odd rhythm. Jason Moran - Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer - Memporophilia Slow Poke - Redmeption. Has Michael Blake on tenor, who has made some great recordings in the past. Can't wait to listen to this. All for just over 30 bucks.

A good day is one that starts when my best friend wakes me up with a face full of kisses.

There are no bad seats at Yoshi's. The worst I've ever had was stting at a table in the front row, a little too close to the band for my taste.

I suppose you didn't just let your glance flash down to the bottom to see who was responsible for that trot, did you? MG Sorry, I should've given credit to the authors for the very unique assemblage of words. It was written by Philippe Carles (Jazz Magazine), English translation by Gerard Rouy.

The worst liner notes ever are on Fly Away Little Bird by Giuffre/Bley/Swallow. They begin like this..... Same and other, or, paraphrasing Lampedusa, change everything not that nothing changes (and maybe the reverse, too-up to a dizziness of sets of mirrors). Or : always closer (to the theme sometimes) to go further, or so far (from every premeditated melody) to come near one another in the triangle field... I've tried to read this garbage several times, but couldn't ever get through the first page.

I like those guys a lot. Feast of Wire is a fantastic recording, and once I put it on it's tough to stop playing it. I've only seen them live once. They opened for Ozomatli and Los Lonely Boys on a tour last year, and Calexico wasn't as impressive as the other 2 bands. That may be just because their music is so subdued compared with Ozo.

Sorry for steering the conversation toward jazz, but last year I picked up an outstanding CD that has a track written for Barney! The tune is called Purple Friggin' Dinosaur, and it's on the CD One Stone Two Birds by The Sofferman Perspective. Brooke Sofferman, the drummer, dedicated the tune to his least favorite PBS show. It's a great CD, featuring Jerry Bergonzi on sax and Norm Zocher playing guitar.

Those new arrivals are fantastic. Thanks for pointing that out. Part of my last $4.99 order arrived today: The complete Jack Johnson sessions.

I don't understand this girl. She's a Catholic apparently, which would mean she accepts the church teachings about resurrections. She accepts their belief that you have to eat crackers to avoid hell. She accepts talking snakes, parting seas, and pregnant virgins. Why can't she accept that she's not allowed at her Catholic school after getting knocked up?

My weekend highlights..... Gary Bartz - Libra/Another Earth Von Freeman - The Improviser Matthew Shipp - Prism Miles Davis - Complete In A Silent Way

Sad to see the end of the $4.99 deal. I'm planning to order all the box sets they have that are on my wishlist before before they jack up the prices to (gasp) $5.99. I ordered the Complete In A Silent Way yesterday.

Great story.