I’ve been working my way through Ethan Iverson’s interviews of Wynton Marsalis and his discussion of the Young Lions, including the Marsalis brothers and Kenny Kirkland, who hit the jazz scene in the 1980s. The two BET videos below feature Kenny Kirkland and his trio, and includes a brief interview conducted by the show’s host, Ramsey Lewis:
Continue reading ‘Kenny Kirkland Trio on BET (YouTube)’(0)Monthly Archive for December, 2008
Gotta love the NY tabloids. The Jets are finished, so someone’s gotta be shot in the head. Eric Mangini? You’re outta here! Brett Favre? You’re … OK until we see who we can get to replace you. But the people who created this debacle? The owner? The nice thing about being an owner is you can’t be fired until you run the business into the ground.
I’ve been rooting for Jets since they were the Titans. I remember Emerson Boozer, Matt Snell, Johnny Sample, Gerry Philbin and, of course, Joe Willy Namath. Of course, I remember all the other disappointments. But I’m a Jet fan. A Wayne Chrebet Jet fan. A Chad Pennington Jet fan.
This year I rooted for Chad and Chad won. I hope the Jets will get back to being Jets so I can root for them again. What do they have to do? Well, start by picking a quarterback who can be counted on to not throw interceptions in December (or January) when everything’s on the line. Chad’s not good enough? OK. But for chrissakes, go find someone who is actually better than Chad. You know, better than the guy who should, by all rights, be the NFL’s MVP this season.
Using an iPhone helped convert me into a Google Reader fiend in 2008. Both the standard and mobile versions are speedy and have excellent user interfaces, and keeping everything in sync is easy since it’s all kept in the cloud. Moreover, Google keeps improving both versions. Reader is so good my wife uses it all the time, and I could never adequately explain how to use NetNewsWire (which is still an excellent app).
There is one thing I wish Reader could do: let me create a search-based “smart tag” to filter my incoming feeds and collect stuff meeting my search criteria in a folder or tag I could read first (or mark it read so I never see it in the first place).
Gmail already does this as do Apple Mail, Outlook and other email apps. Reader features search, so why not save the searches and use them to filter incoming items? not apply that idea to RSS?
During the campaign this might have been used to filter out all articles containing references to a certain VP candidate. If search allowed us to access feed metadata, you might filter the DailyKos feed to show you articles by Markos himself right away (Reader doesn’t currently access all of the metadata like “author”)[1].
NNW does have smart searches to filter feeds, but I used it rarely. With the number of RSS subscriptions going up and using Reader via iphone while on the go, this one bit of functionality would be a great addition!
1 Update (1/2/09): This morning I realized it is possible to create a “Kos-only” feed by filtering the dailykos.com feed using Yahoo Pipes:
Letters to Herbie, by pianist John Beasley, presents a number of well-known Hebie Hancock songs in a fresh light, with a little help from Christian McBride on bass and Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums. I especially love “ 4 A.M.,” with McBride channeling Jaco Pastorius’ original performance, and “Eye of the Hurricane,” but it’s all good! I think it’s also one of the best jazz recordings of 2008.
The CD also contains “Bedtime Voyage,” an interesting combination of Herbie’s “Tell Me a Bedtime Story” and “Maiden Voyage.” The YouTube video below features a version recorded in April 2008 by Beasley with Trevor Ware on bass and Bill Wysaske on drums:
The election is over (well except in Minnesota). Obama’s campaign made history in any number of ways, including the campaign’s strong design sense and the amount of freedom given to volunteers. Design for Obama ties those two elements together.
Campaigns, politics and, governing are normally all about control:
- Control of the message
- Control of the image
- Control of time and money
- Control of everything!
The Obama campaign clearly mastered the “give up control to get control” concept. If you want to win, you have to give up a lot of control while still maintaining control. Interesting concept.
This approach wouldn’t have been successful without a compelling candidate, a compelling message, superb communications strategy, a disciplined team, and a whole lot of trust. That so many people could independently create designs that support, and rarely seem to conflict with, the campaign’s themes is an extraordinary achievement!
Here’s a nice review by Leroy Downs, aka The Jazzcat.
Wayne Shorter
![Brian Blade [d], Danilo Perez [p], Wayne Shorter and John Patitucci [b]](http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/GRandolph1964/WayneShorter6.jpg "Brian Blade [d], Danilo Perez [p], Wayne Shorter and John Patitucci [b]")
Brian Blade [d], Danilo Perez [p], Wayne Shorter[ts, ss] and John Patitucci [b])
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Destination Out presents Herbie Hancock’s Nobu:
“a burbling slice of bubble funk — the would-be intro for the 70s spy show of our imaginations. Here is Herbie at his most adventurous and forward-thinking (electric edition). Not the full-blown hip-shake of Flood’s ‘Chameleon,’ but a crispier, more upright skitter across the Arpiverse. It is astonishingly undated. Or at least not easily datable.”
Now to wait for Santa…
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