There are parts of this atypical funky cd that sound like Chick Corea and Return to Forever were joining Walter Becker and Donald Fagen on stage on the Ipanema beach as twilight falls. And even moments that sound as if they were recorded at 4 a.m. in a basement Montmartre joint. Ed Motta wears many hats, but the funky Rio fusion ones he wears for this recording fit him very well. Sort of the unpretentious black sheep cousin of the Morelebaum2/Sakamota cds. I love Ed Motta's music.

Bill Evans on piano, Eddie Costa (also an excellent pianist) on vibes. . . it hardly gets better than this.

I'm also a big fan of this excellent modern session by Bobby Gordon honoring Pee Wee and his music. Think I'll put this on next.

That Wardell Gray material is so good. It's so sad we lost him so young!

Pre rehab SRV. I saw him in concert for the second time in this time frame, his playing wasn't as good as it had been. I then saw him after he cleaned up, much better.

Been listening to 'seventies and beyond jazz today, as opposed to the forties and fifteis material I was listening to yesterday.

I don't always like a lot of this stuff, but there's a place for it in my listening world!

Right now, Herbie Hancock and VSOP, Live Under the Sky, the expanded US release.

A little Sarah Brightman, this particular recording mastered in 24-bit/100kHz, which seems like an odd rate to me, but sure sounds great:

It's late in the AM so right now:

The Japanese RVG lp facsimile version. Funny that this still hasn't appeared on cd in the US because of the title (at the artist's request).

I'm out in the garage working on some stupid old British motorcycle that should be rusting in a junkyard somewhere. Joseph Lucas is the prince of darkness.
I listening to Robert Earl Keen on my Garage system (Onkyo, NHT, Velodyne)
I can't believe how crappy it sounds now that my Decware stuff is fully run in. I just wish my ZDAC was here.

The RVG remastered Deluxe Edition

I'm beginning to think this is the best release of the year so far for me. Allen Lowe is a denizen of a jazz bulletin board that I haunt and quite a goofball in posts. He's an excellent pop culture historian, having written an excellent history of jazz and one of blues and one of rock, and he's a jazz alto player and guitarist who has released some offbeat recordings in the past.

This one is a blues three cd set that has him in great company with blues and jazz players, and they approach the blues in many open-ended ways,  adding a sort of Ornette Coleman "harmelodic" approach to much of it. It's wild and whacky and very enjoyable and challenging as well. My one gripe with the proceeds is that he seems to use a drummer who is playing drums off a low-fi drum machine. That doesn't quite work for me, though it does make the sound and feel of the recordings different, which was the intent I'm sure. I have an electronic (Roland) and an acoustic (Sonor) drum kit, and I just wish either type of kit was used as the clarity of the drumming would be so much better, not to mention the swing. (But I think Allen Lowe was particularly going for an entirely different texture, he sure got one).

Anyway, anyone who loves the blues and is feeling adventurous, check this out, it's not that expensive. I got mine directly from Allen Lowe for 25 bucks including shipping.

This is what I am playing on Tuesday 8/2/11!

Awesome, another August birthday! I share the same "day" with Louis Armstrong and Barak Obama, which is very cool times two, and I'm the exact same age as . . .Billy Bob Thorton. More's the pity there. . . not a favorite.

Thanks Don!

Just got back from seeing Cowboys and Aliens with my girlfriend and enjoying a little music (and rectifier tube rolling, will and Greg got me into that) before we go out to dinner.

I've fallen in love with this album, produced by Prince, and with some of the greatest electric bass grooves on the planet.

A boss that loves Warren Zevon. I now have an extra criteria for my next workplace. Hope I find a boss like you soon.

Disc 2

I'm really starting to like this. He reminds me a lot of James McMurtry. I must like the "Texas" thing.

Wow Good I Love U. baby!

Doesn't do much for me. I heard it way too much in the 'eighties and I didn't start out liking it, hearing it everywhere didn't help.

Right now, I've been listening to this box set, fantastic music I've loved since the 'seventies.

Just can't believe how I still find new things within.

Yes times change, we change, music changes.

I never liked the Eagles though, and probably never will. They represented a sort of slick music that I just never could relate to. At the time I was collecting all the Jimi Hendrix bootlegs I could find and discovering the jazz of Ellington, Armstrong and Parker, and the Eagles just seemed like a bunch of white boys with big belt buckles rolling in money and girls. They didn't have soul. I needed soul in my music. And they were so popular, I just sort of resented how popular they were and being (in my opinion) so empty.

I'm sure that's a very inaccurate assessment, but it's the one that "felt" and it colored how I felt about that music.

Just got back from dinner with my girlfriend and I've got the Miles Davis box set going again. Can't get that one out of the player today!

Right now:


Johnny Hodges's solo on the "Star-crossed lovers" is heartbreakingly good.

I sure do play a lot of Zevon.