Allan Songer

They are late Vertical Conrwalls and do not have the Jensen alnico woofers, but I still think you shouldn't take a penny less than $900 for them. You might get more (but maybe less) on ebay.

Nonsense. The research which led to the Compact Disc began in the late 1960's, long before any oil shortage. The top brass at Phillips Corporation developed the CD as a replacement for the cassestte tape--the success of the cassette was their primary motivation to get the CD to market. Actually, the CD was somewhat of an AFTERTHOUGHT--Phillips engineers put most of their efforts into the FAILED "Laservision" project, from which was born the Compact Disc. Of course they hoped to carve into the LP market with the CD, much as the prerecorded cassette had in the 1970's, but never in their wildest dreams did they expect the "big bang" of 1984-86 when CD sales grew at an astronomical rate. The utter failure of the "Laservison" project had probably tempered their enthusiasm.

That's a fair statement..................The CD was designed to replace Records, that's fact.......too many resources needed to make vinyl, but there were some untruths about CD's too, like you can't scratch, or destroy them................yeah right !!!!!!!!! The CD was invented to replace the CASSETTE TAPE. Never in their wildest dreams did they think it would supplant the LP record as quickly as it did!

Dusting with the microfiber towel sounds good to me. You might want to polish a bit with Wenol once a year--but don't rub too hard!

The MC-30 is the best of the vintage MAC tube hi-fi amps, but $2600 is nuts! You should be able to scare up a REALLY nice pair for half of that--easily.

When in doubt:

I went to hear "Pet Sounds" at the Hollywood Bowl about 4-5 years ago. My wife was on line and happened to notice that tickets went on sale and we ended up in a front-row box seat, sitting about 20 feet from Brian WIlson--I have NEVER sat that close at the Bowl before or since. I'm not the biggest Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fan, but this was a great concert--big band with huge string section too. The band consisted of the members of a band I think were called "The Wondermints" or something like that and they were all really, really good musicians. Brian Wilson sat front and center playing the keyboards during the first set and the "Pet Sounds" set, but for the encore he strapped on a Fender Bass and was rocking out! He seemed 95% "all there" to me and his voice sounded fine. I'm glad you had a chance to hear this concert--it was cetainly one of the best Pop/Rock concerts I have ever been to!

Thanks, Guy. It kinda LOOKED like an EMT "junior" arm, but I had no idea it was any good!!! Well, then--I gues the advice would be to BUY the thing! I suppose this arm will work with an EMT or SPU cartridge?

I have never owned one, but it's supposed to have the same motor and drive mechanism as the TD-124, simplified (two speeds?). The platter isn't as heavy, etc. Should be a nice basis for an idler wheel project. It has what looks to be a somewhat crappy intregal tonearm, but you can ditch later if you need to!!! I'd like to find a TD-111--essentially a TD-135 with no arm--for a little idler wheel project for my office system! Price? I dunno. Maybe $250? TD-135: T TD-111:

All SET? Yeah? Let's go.

Harry James was great (sometimes). The Goodman band was great (most of the time). Artie Shaw was great (in a small fromat, mostly). The Dorseys and The Miller bands were big band pop orchestras--not really jazz at all.

Believe it or not, I have about 25-30 Louis Armstrong LPs. I love just about every kind of jazz you can name, whith the exception of the really crummy all-white big band "swing" bands IGlenn Miller, etc. YUCK). But the Armstrong that gets the MOST play from me is on COMPACT DISC: This JPS reissue of the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens is AMAZING. I have most of the tunes on LPs from the 50's and 60s, but this set was a revelation! I have to say--MAKE SURE YOU GET THIS SET, as the one from a few years earlier on Columbia is HIDEOUS!! http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Fives-Sevens-Louis-Armstrong/dp/B00001ZWLP/sr=8-1/qid=1169955447/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4407608-0873437?ie=UTF8&s=music This might be the best $30 anyone could ever spend on music. This is the motherlode, the seed from which all jazz has come from since. I never talk about this music here because I suppose I assume everyone who would be interested knows these records by heart!. In any case, I am afraid there would be little interest in these FANTASTIC recordings around here becasue there are lo-fi, many of them recorded before the use of MICROPHONES! As far as albums that were originally issued on LP, I like all of the Norman Ganz stuff, you know-- "Under the Stars," the Russell Garcia album, the one with Oscar Peterson, the two Ella records, etc. The Columbia records are even better, Ambassador Satch, Satchmo the Great, Live at Newport and the best of the lot,---Louis Armstrong plays Wc Handy. The Audio Fidelity LP is a killler too, especially that version of St James Infermary--WOW!

Louis Armstrong is the single most important American musician and performer of the 20th Century. And he's probably the finest male jazz vocalist. Plus he revoultionized trumpet playing. Do yourself a favor and dig a little deeper--you will be rewarded and will thank me.

Craig-- Did you get the box today?

I do most of my listening between about 8 and 11 in the evenings, but I often get up way before dawn on the weekends and have been know to start spinning records at 4-4:30 AM and I have to tell you that all alone downstairs with a cup of fresh coffee at 4:30 AM on a Sunday morning, the hi-fi sounds it's absolute best . . .

OK. Here are two off the top of my head I think you'll appreciate! Here is a local LA player who I get out to hear as often as I can (including a gig in a Mexican Restaurant in Whittier): http://cdbaby.com/cd/4west And another local LA tenor man who flat-out COOKS. Straight ahead and SWINGING! http://cdbaby.com/cd/rickeywoodard ENJOY!!!!

OK, I looked all over YouTube and tried to find the BEST example of what you guys call "random horn blowing" and came up with this short clip of Marshall Allen on alto with the Sun Ra Arkestra, probably from the mid-1970s. Personally, I LOVE this stuff, but I can really understand why it tends to have (ahem!) limited appeal: But you know what? This band is probably the closest thing to a "jam band" in that most of the members worked and LIVED toghether for years and years and years and they practiced and rehearsed about 5-6 hours per day, EVERY day for decades. It took YEARS for Marshall Allen to get to this point. And you know what? During this same performance this band would have delivered straight-ahead Fletcher Hendersonesque swing charts with Allen playing sweet, "standard" solos. This was truly an amazing band.

No. This is a PERFECT example of four musicians "on the same page, flying." There were very few working groups in the history of jazz who were so tightly bound--they are NOT "doing their own thing without any relationship to each other."

Weather Report is not "smooth jazz." Their music is usually lumped into the genre called "jazz fusion." That you call soloing a "self serving tangent" really says it all. Wow.

Now THAT was FUN!! Thanks!

You mean like this: which makes a LOT more sense to me than this:

Fair enough. But what you've mostly proved is than one can be intelligent, educated AND incapable of understaning something all at once! I know that this is very much true for me in that I have given many hours sitting through opera after opera over a 15 year period and I for the most part DO NOT ENJOY the experience very much. I am not talking about 2-3 Operas over these 15 years--more like 2-3 per year. I have studied, listened and tried (mostly due to the obvious passion for all things opera that a good freind and colleague has shown over the years) and I JUST DON'T GET IT. And I fear that this is because I am intellectually or emotionally unable to CONNECT with the music Wagner might well have been a genius, but the man just can't hold a candle to Charlie Parker in my book!! So, I do think that anyone who can't appreciate jazz just doesn't have the proper receptors, which is probably true for your wife--just as I do not have the proper receptors for opera. But calling bebop "porno soudtrack music" is a bit much. Now Dave Koz or Kenny G on the other hand . . . .

If you really mean this then I can honestly say I feel as sorry for you as I have felt for anyone for any reason I have ever encoutered on an Internet Forum. Jazz is about witnessing artists create and respond to one another ON THE SPOT. A great jazz musician walks onto the bandstand and can be told the name of one of HUNDREDS of tunes, decide on the key and the BAM! off they go--creating and communicating both with each other and with the audience. It's amazing--there is NOTHING like listening to a group of musicians who are all on the same page, flying. And if it's an original tune they've never seen before, a half sheet of music will set them off as well. No other form of Western musical expression can come close, at least for me. I see that a few of you have mentioned Zappa, The Grateful Dead and other "jam bands," but this is REALLY not the same thing--these guys played with each other for YEARS AND YEARS and communication was EASY since they were forever covering the same ground they had been over TOGETHER hundreds of times--yes no "jam" was the same, but you get what I mean. I still don't understand the term "random horn blowing" unless you're talking about late Coltrane the REALLY free ESP-Disc or Sun Ra stuff. Personally, I LOVE this music but I CAN understand why some might be afraid of it. As far as Steely Dan goes, the late great Bill Perkins, one of my all time favorite tenor players, was the "first call" sax man for just about all of their studio efforts. The offered him the gig to go on a world tour a COUPLE of times and he told me even though the money was GREAT, the thought of standing up night after night playing a solo over the same 16 of 24 bars during the same songs would have driven him INSANE.

My first concert was Deep Purple at the International Amphitheater in the Union Stock Yards. Early 70's? Don't remember a thing:) My first concert was The Rolling Stones at the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles in 1971. My big sister smoked me out that evening. I still remember most of it!!