soapbox

In case you’ve never been to a Whole Foods, their real specialty is produce. You’ve never seen as good of a grocery store, plus you have organic and conventional options for most things. I’m not exactly sure where 16″ 5 lb. cauliflower fit into the “natural” side of things, but I’ll let it go for the moment.

The other thing though that I love about Whole Foods is the fact that they sell dry aged beef. You walk over to the meat department and they have a cooler in the back where you can see the meat aging.

That’s too good of a thing to pass up, so checking out saw us buying $40 worth of fruits and vegetables, a $20 steak, and about $10 of breads and cheese doodles.

There’s nothing like a really good steak with garlic mashed potatoes. Mmmmm.

I’ve been meaning to have a steak party for a while, but the lack of good steaks was holding me back. I guess there’s no excuse now.

The Whole Foods Market by our house opened this week and it’s official. I could live here. (Ignore the fact that I pretty much do live here.)

I have a nice warm house, a yard that’s nicely leaf-free (after an afternoon of raking), and a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe’s nearby. What else could I need?

Umm, a job.

Seein’ as how this here is my 100th post to the Soapbox, I thought I’d elevate the sexy a bit and make sure this one was a step above my usual quality. This one goes out to Nathaniel, since I still need to loan him some CD’s of some quality jazz.

To that end, I’d like to take some blog space to provide y’all with some of my recommendations for influential jazz artists worth giving a listen. Keep in mind that these are the opinions of an enthusiast (not an expert), that the categorical boundaries are blurry at best, and that most of the artists listed do not squarely fit into any one particular category (but they’ve been listed under a moderately appropriate one anyways). Given that, here’s what is guaranteed to be an incomplete and vaguely chornological list, but it’s not a bad starting point for those interested in finding out more:

Early Small Combo (Dixieland) Jazz = Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Jelly Roll Morton, Eddie Condon, Sidney Bichet

Swing/Big Band = Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Lunceford, Lionel Hampton, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn

Bebop = Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, (early) Miles Davis, Max Roach, Ray Brown, Thelonius Monk, Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson

Cool = Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, (middle) Miles Davis

Hard Bop = Cannonball Adderly, Nat Adderly, Art Blakey, the Jazz Messengers, Sonny Rollins

Afro-Cuban & Latin Jazz = Stan Kenton, Dizzy Gillespie (particularly his big band works), Arturo Sandoval

Modern = John Coltrane, (late) Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington (”Money Jungle” album, in particular), Wes Montgomery,
Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson, Shirley Horn

Free Jazz = Ornette Coleman, Sun-Ra

Jazz-Rock/Post-Modern/Fusion = Chase, Don Byas, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Weather Report, Pat Methaney

One final note: the artists listed above are, for the most part, historical, but there are those of younger generations who still carry the torches of these eariler movements. Wynton Marsalis, for instance, is quite the accomplished traditionalist, and steadfastly continues performing in the styles of Early Small Combo and Swing era jazz.

Dang, man. This one’s just messed up.

I mean, everyone’s entitled to their freedom of speech and expression, but something about this one just ain’t right. Children’s services department: y’all payin’ attention to this one?

I swear, this kind of crap puts me in a mood to listen to some quality civils rights movement music, like the tune listed above. Damn shame about what happened to Sam Cooke.

Oh yeah, don’t forget my earlier post about the follies of other white supremacists.

From the looks of things, the federal prosecutor who’s jumping all over the Bushies in this CIA-leak case is a rare example of the stand-up sort of public servant . I’m just glad to see him doing his job investigating this mess, no holds-barred style. More pit bull lawyers, less Harriet Miers. Maybe we should look at Fitzie for that Supreme Court opening?

Also, in spite of the self-guided implosion of the ID folks in the Pennsylvania case, there’s still a serious erosion of scientific literacy and legitimacy, as far as the general public opinion goes. Not sure where we should be pointing the fingers on this one, but it’ll only get worse if we refuse to acknowledge it. The floor is open to ideas, so take a minute away from the physics/astronomy you weren’t really working on anyways and devote some brainpower to this one; maybe we’ll come up with something.