While cleaning up my backup CD shelf, I’ve found a very early version of my DoubleBassGuide website from 1997. Wow, this is more than ten years ago! I remember that back then, I used a HTML-editor called Page Spinner and Photoshop 2.5 with Mac OS 7 or 8 running on a Quadra 950 …
As far as I remember, Spam wasn’t invented yet at this time, either. Good old times 😉

Over 20 fire engines and 100 firefighters rushed to the Berlin Philharmonic after a fire broke out this afternoon. No one was injured, but instruments may be damaged by smoke, fire or water.
Links: www.spiegel.de

Denis Prosenc, amateur bassplayer and professional stone cutter from Germany, has come across this picture of NHØP’s gravestone. He explains: “A very beautiful gravestone. The material is probably marble from Portugal. The scroll and the letters are cut from the solid stone, and not cut separately and applied later. As well as the area below the letters; the names of other family mambers will be cut there later. The scroll was sanded with fine sandpaper, which makes the stone smoother and darker for better contrast. The gravestone is surrounded by beautiful, square stones. Of course, the planting is allowed to grow out of the joints. A very suitable and clear gravestone for the sympathic Dane.”

I’ve just realized that parts of my website are displayed without permission at a korean website. That’s really annoying, but has occassionally happend before.
But what makes me really angry is that this guy uses hotlinks (all the pictures are still loaded from my webserver), and, most barefaced, he publishes my content under Creative Commons: “You are free: to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work”. The same happened to Bob Gollihur’s link list, by the way. Really audacious.

Herbie Hancock’s new album “River: The Joni Letters” wins two Grammies: the “Best Contemporary Jazz Album GRAMMY” and the “Album of the Year GRAMMY”.

From the Verve press release: On “River: The Joni Letters”, Herbie Hancock aimed to dissect the lyrics of some of Joni Mitchell’s most famous songs. Instead of the instruments accompanying the lyrics, Hancock and producer Larry Klein arranged the music to interpret or express the emotions of the lyrics, all while keeping the melodies Mitchell fans know and love. This goal is most evident on “Both Sides Now,” one of four instrumental tracks on the record, which also features vocals by Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza, Leonard Cohen, and Mitchell.

Hancock first worked with Joni Mitchell on the iconic singer/songwriter’s Mingus record, an album comprised of collaborations between Mitchell and the great bassist and composer Charles Mingus. Together with Wayne Shorter, Hancock was part of a small group with which Mitchell tried to craft a new “conversational” approach to coupling lyrics with instrumental jazz.

Hancock and Klein worked for months, carefully reading through Joni’s lyrics and music, eventually paring their list down to thirteen songs that they hoped comprised a panoramic view of the poet’s work. They then assembled a group of the top musicians in the world, including the incomparable Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor sax, the brilliant bassist and composer Dave Holland, (a musical cohort of Hancock and Shorter’s who shares their adventurousness, as well as the Miles Davis imprimatur), drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (a recent member of Hancock’s band as well as having played extensively with Mitchell and Sting), and Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke, also a member of Hancock’s band.

“River – The Joni letters” at iTunes:

There’s also a free podcast from Herbie Hancock available: