I have been avoiding saying how hot the 1998 Miss M Painting DVD is � if you are teetering wondering whether its worth 9.99 or whatever � just get it. Lots of Hejira and she uses Miles style muted trumpet when Benny Goodman used to come through the trees on clarinet . Possibly some songs you wont have heard. The other guitarist has what looks to me like a red Jazzmaster. He also plays pedal steel and lap steel. She comes across as v funny and v bright � the stuff about Plato. The band is �on� too. They do hot version of M Gaye�s Trouble Man � Guy Called G is on this way. Mailed Paul W about it.

I have also just got the Massie Hall concert with Herbie Hancock, M Brecker plus Patitucci Blade and Hargrove which is a homage to Miles and Trane. Indeed it is � in the sense of pushing it as far as they can. Also Mama Too Tight which is Archie Shepp in 1966 doing homage to James Brown. On the ball then. Everyone on. Blade is on the Painting DVD � what a life!.

The Fold is hard � even though its quite structured. I read a PhD thesis yesterday which links Deleuze to the evolution of Techno. Good idea in principle. It made me think that there should be a Bloor-Popper test on this sort of thing. In which spirit there is one to be written on the relationship between James Jamerson and Miss M�s thumb. It should source the DVDs. Hope Ricardo puts his Riley lecture up. Robin mailed about Cello Song and 3 Hours.

I knocked off a vid for NYC0303 part 2 � part 1 is up on KK on the Dhorn section. The vid seems to be about constraints, ageing � the ascent to old age.

Here�s a view of Miss M and Nr B in 1998:

We stopped into Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. As I looked through the "New Releases" section, I heard someone say "Hello, Wally!" behind me, turned around and there was Brian Blade. We hugged and I asked him how he was enjoying the tour. He told me he was having a great time, and committed to a conversation about his reflections on the tour when he gets home to upstate New York.

Later, at the urging of my photographer, we decided to go to the catering area at the Pond in time to have dinner. I figured that since this was the last of the seven shows, it wouldn't be pushing my welcome to do so. We drove to Anaheim, found the Arrowhead Pond and made our way to the catering room, where we dished out our dinners and sat down at the end of one of a trio of long tables. Karl pointed me to the beverages, which were in a cooler on the wall behind the first table. I went over and picked out a soda, and as I turned back to the table I noticed Brian Kennedy sitting at the end of the first table. Sitting across from him was Joni with her hair pinned up, looking beautiful. I continued to my table and sat down with my back to Joni's table, happy to be a part of Joni's travelling community and glad to be able to casually eat dinner in the same room as Joni and rest of the crew. Joni finished her meal, talking as she ate. She stopped to chat briefly with Larry Klein before leaving the room.

My seat in the venue was in the 14th row, but unfortunately there was a loudmouth almost directly behind me who didn't seem to be able to shut his mouth for a moment. I leaned forward away from him and enjoyed Joni's show despite this annoying disturbance.

Joni gave a great performance, with highlights being her renditions of "Black Crow," "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," and "The Magdalene Laundries."
Joni graciously cut one song, "Moon at the Window", from her set, going directly from "Magdalene Laundries" to the encore song, "Woodstock."
Joni's setlist was:
Night Ride Home
The Crazy Cries of Love
Harry's House
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Just Like This Train
Black Crow
Amelia
Hejira ("I thought I heard ol' blue eyes crooning through the snowy trees...")
Big Yellow Taxi
Facelift
Sex Kills
The Magdalene Laundries
Woodstock

We decided to watch Dylan's set from the right side of the stage, where a small group of people were standing. I again ran into Brain Blade, standing behind him for a few songs. One of Dylan's roadies came over a short time later and asked us all to move to the other side of the stage; Dylan was about to leave and the area had to be cleared for him. As we were leaving, Brian tapped me on the shoulder and indicated that I should follow him and his friends to the backstage area. When we got there, he stopped and introduced me to a female friend of his who said "I'm such a big fan of your website." I was very flattered by her kindness and said "Oh, you're very sweet."

My friends and I then walked to the left side of the stage and watched the remainder of Dylan's set from that vantage point.
As the show ended and the lights came up, I noticed Greg Liesz, Joni's pedal-steel guitar player, hanging around at the edge of the backstage area. I walked up to introduce myself, and he said "Oh, everyone's been asking me if I'd met Wally yet." We talked about his work on Joni's albums Taming the Tiger and Turbulent Indigo, as well as his work with k.d. lang on Absolute Torch and Twang. Greg promised to have an official conversation with me for JM.com (BTW, I also got a promise from Larry Klein). My friend Jim told him that because of his placement on the stage and the lighting, neither he nor Karl had been able to get a good shot of him, so Greg posed for one right then and there.

We hung out backstage for a bit longer as everybody was packing up and I talked with a few roadies, who all seemed to know about the website. One guy who had visited the JMHP commented on the fact that the reviews from the JM Internet Community which he'd read had been more right-on about the shows than the reviews he'd seen in newspapers.

With that, we left the venue of the last of the seven shows on the Dylan/Mitchell/Morrison tour. I suppose there's always a slight letdown mixed in with the euphoria as a peak experience like this one winds to a conclusion. As we sped down I-5 toward LA on the "Night Ride Home" to our hotel, I finally had a few quiet moments to consider the tour experience as a whole; all in all, the tour was a bit tiring, but genuinely exciting.

Meanwhile P Townshend says:
"I am listening to Joni Mitchells' CD called Travelogue. It is a revisit to her career with full orchestra. It is, quite simply, a quantum masterpiece. Joni is at the peak of her powers. Even her paintings seem to me to be especially revelatory gathered as they are in the sleeve. Someone told me last night, after The Who's show at Madison Square Garden, that she plans no more recording. If she never made another record, this one will stand as a testament not only to her work, but to the greatness of American Orchestral music. I hear Oliver Nelson, Aaron Copland, Edgar Meyer and even Thomas Newman in this work. But her arranger, under the guidance of her ex- husband Larry Klein - who could do nothing more to express his ongoing love and respect - is Vince Mendoza. This guy knows how to score, and someone certainly knows how to fix the right music

Yes esp O Nelson.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and

�Guerin, well-known as one of the most frequently recorded drummers of all time, has been heard with everyone from Joni to Frank Zappa, Frank Sinatra to The Byrds, as well as on seemingly countless movie soundtracks and commercials. The drummer-producer's best known work is probably as a member of the popular jazz-informed group LA Express (Joni did the cover art for one of their four albums). Beginning with Court and Spark, Joni worked with LA Express through much of the seventies. During this time they recorded and toured extensively, performing some of her most praised (and best-selling) work; Guerin shared songwriting credits with Joni on the title song for The Hissing of Summer Lawns. He died suddenly on January 14 in Los Angeles from heart failure, aged 64. �