Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath - Bremen to Bridgewater
⭐️⭐️

A double live album recorded in 1971 and 1975, and released in 2004. It’s overlong, and frankly the playing is frequently quite sloppy.

Favorites: “Kongi’s Theme”
“Sonia”

“Untitled Original” (the first one)

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

McGregor was a South African bandleader and pianist who sought to meld traditional African music with modern jazz, often with great results.

Favorites: “Andromeda”
“MRA”
“Union Special”

Least fave: “Night Poem”

As it is, I have a hard time listening through all my Christmas albums between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I don’t really own that many.

Roll ‘Em: 103 Rompin’ Boogie Woogie Classics
⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have currently misplaced 3 of 4 discs in this boxed set. But 💯 for detailed chronological tracklist, with dates & personnel.

Favorites: Albert Ammons ”Suitcase Blues”
Professor Longhair “Boogie Woogie”

Least fave: Cecil Gant Trio “Screwy Boogie”

The Carla Bley Big Band Goes to Church
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Favorites: “Exaltation/Religious Experience/Major”
“Who Will Rescue You?”

Least fave: “One Way” - nice, but repetitive

Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard, Steve Swallow - Songs With Legs
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m a sucker for the drumless jazz trio.

Favorites: “Misterioso”
“The Lord Is Listenin’ to Ya, Hallelujah!” - Shephard’s sax tone is much more reverent than Gary Valente’s trombone

Least fave: “Crazy With You” (pretty but bland)

The Very Big Carla Bley Band
⭐️⭐️⭐️

A welcome return to form after all that dreadful smooth jazz.

Favorites: “Who Will Rescue You?”
“All Fall Down”

Least Favorite: “United States”—it is good, but meandering

Paging @mdaware.org

As someone who has trained hundreds of people how to use computers and basic productivity software, it physically angers me that Microsoft would change a culturally understood interface to freshen up appearances for marketing sake. Changes confuse people.

The bubble cannot burst fast enough. Even if it takes the rest of the world down with it, it'll be worth it to kill this stultifying technology before it consumes an entire generation.

It's such a terrible thing to teach kids. You don't ever need to learn be good at anything, you don't ever need to think harder than your first instinct, you don't ever need to *try*: the magic box will do it. And if it's not right, you just ask it again.

GenAI is literally harming children's ability to think, to communicate, to create, because the lesson of ChatGPT and all these abominations is that you only need to have a vague notion of what you want to be given a finished product.

That the process of physically creating a thing is just drudge work that can be outsourced to automation. That an idea is enough to justify its own existence. Well, ideas aren't special, I'm afraid. They're the language of your thoughts. Not all of them can or should be made real.

Generative AI is based on the faulty premise that your first idea - the half-formed pondering that signals only the beginning of a long, possibly fruitless journey - is already good enough to exist. That it requires nothing but actualisation to be complete.

Any creator will tell you that it's the process, the *work* of creating something, that determines its final form. Your "idea" might be for one thing, but in the *making* of it, you get a thousand new ideas that change it into something else.

You’re not a real Texan unless you’ve eaten homemade tacos or tamales that a coworker’s aunt/cousin/Abuelita is selling to earn a little extra money