Flute Fever by Jeremy Steig - on CD?

One of the landmark jazz flute records is the 1963 Columbia release of "Flute Fever" by Jeremy Steig (flute) with Denny Zeitlin (piano), Ben Tucker (bass) and Ben Riley (drums). I've long wished for this on CD (my LP is trashed!) and even talked with Denny on Saturday night after his concert about getting Columbia to re-release it as such. He agreed, adding, 'I love that record!'

In searching around on the net this morning, much to my surprise I discover that in 2003 the label Collectables apparently did just that:

In 2003, Collectables released Flute Fever/Monium, which contained two complete albums -- the classic Flute Fever (1963, originally released on Columbia) and Monium (1974, also originally released on Columbia) -- by Jeremy Steig on one compact disc. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

Unfortunately, I cannot find this CD for sale anywhere online. :-(
What I can find are lots and LOTS of mp3 download sites that have a digitized copy of the LP (I'm assuming Collectables did NOT stoop this low for their release, did they??), you can hear the needle scratches! (listen to the beginning of 'Oleo')
http://www.mp3fiesta.com/flute_fever_monium_album155869/

If you know of where I can get - or have this CD for sale - please let me know. Thanks!
-Bob

Gemeinhardt releases it's flute serial numbers - again

I just discovered that Gemeinhardt once again has posted their serial numbers. In my April 2006 post Lars Kirmser's: serial numbers, I mentioned that both Yamaha and Gemeinhardt hadn't made their serial numbers public. Then in September 2007, I was notified in the comments to my post that Gemeinhardt had just added a serial number link to their Home page (as a PDF file). However, the link to the file was subsequently pulled by Gemeinhardt from their Web site. Well, it's back!

From a brief look, it appears to be the same difficult to use PDF as before (except this time with an intro added to it and the prices removed). Here's the link:
http://www.gemeinhardt.com/main.taf?p=6,7

Hello Yamaha? Are you there?

Perl - Find and Replace script

The following Perl command is great for changing a string on multiple pages:
perl -i -pe 's/original text here/edited text here/g' *

For example:
perl -i -pe 's/red/blue/g' *

TapTheBeat on the iPhone!

I was listening to some latin jazz piped in a restaurant a couple of days ago and thought, "That's a great groove, I wonder what the tempo is? It'd be nice if I could tap that into my iPhone." Turns out, Masayuki Akamatsu thought the same thing and what's more, has made the app, uploaded it to the App Store and is giving it away for FREE!

AT&T iPhone 3G coverage - does your city have it?

Sebastopol, California does NOT have 3G. Earlier today, I couldn't get 3G in Petaluma or Rohnert Park either, just Edge. So far, the only place that I know of around here that has 3G is Santa Rosa. I called AT&T about being charged for a network I don't get and they said, "sorry, the iPhone 3G only has one plan." When I asked her about when 3G would be available in Sebastopol, Rohnert Park and Petaluma she said, "Don't expect it anytime soon."

UPDATE: I've just noticed here at home in Sebastopol that when I turn on Airplane Mode, then turn it off, the iPhone shows "Searching..." and then, 3G! However, it doesn't stay 3G for more than a few minutes and also there is only one bar for voice showing. It then changes to E and a couple of voice bars. I checked the speed when showing 3G on iNetwork and it came back 241 kbps, in other words, Edge.

UPDATE #2: I was just at the Santa Rosa Plaza Mall AT&T store inquiring more about the 3G speed test. While in the store I got 409.8 kbps (they've got a mini-tower in the back!). According to the guy I was talking to, I very well could be getting 3G in Sebastopol from a rogue tower because 241 kbps would be towards the top end of Edge speed and not likely with the poor reception I get there. So I turned off the 3G (to go back to Edge) and ran the speed test from the same location in the AT&T store and got 190.4 kbps, so perhaps he's right! :-)

Speeds Recap:
1258.1 kbps (WiFi in the Apple Store)
409.8 kbps (3G, AT&T store)
241 kbps (at home in Sebastopol, supposedly on 3G)
190.4 kbps (Edge, AT&T store)

I bought the iPhone 3G

Yesterday I decided to buy the 3G. Here were my primary reasons:
1.) supposed to have a much better phone
2.) 3G
3.) not sure how long the AT&T subsidized upgrade for first gen iPhone's will last. If I wait a couple of months, would AT&T still give me the phone for $199 or will I be looking at $399?

I got to the Santa Rosa Plaza mall around 8:00AM and was first in line. The next person didn't show up until around 9:20AM so I could have probably just shown up at 9:00AM and STILL have been first to go in when the Apple Store opened at 10:00AM. The checkout/activation process was quick and easy - I was out by 10:10AM.

The 3G does indeed seem to be a better phone. Now I'm at least able to stay inside my house and make calls that don't drop (like my first gen iPhone!) and the people I've called say the calls sound better too - yay! The 3G speed (though not available yet at my home) is a great improvement over the dial-up days of the Edge (would have been great if AT&T had offered it without the $10/month bump, but whatever). Also, I was able to pick up 3G briefly in downtown Sebastopol by Whole Foods even though technically it's not supposed to reach that far. 3G has definitely not made it to the outskirts of Sebastopol however. Hopefully soon.

All in all, I like it! :-)

iPhone - back from the dead

It took nearly four hours yesterday, most spent over at the Apple store, trying to get my first generation iPhone to work again after the 2.0 software upgrade. Nice having my $400 phone functional again -- thank you Apple.

Now that I've had a little time to play around with the new software, the mass email delete is a very welcome change. I'm surprised however at how faint the little check circles are -- what's wrong with having easy to see checkboxes like a typical email client such as Yahoo!?

The #1 issue for me however is the phone reception here at home in Sebastopol. With all the new 3G iPhones, AT&T does seem to be aggressively expanding their network of 3G cell towers in the area. I didn't realize it before, but each tower has about a seven mile radius. One tower that would be in my range was supposed to go live on July 6th, and another is scheduled for August 29th. If those towers make it so that the 3G signal is strong enough that I can actually use my iPhone at home like my land-line, then I'll most probably buy the new 3G iPhone. If not, I'll most likely stick with my reborn first generation iPhone (at least for a little while longer!).

iPhone down! :-(

The 2.0 update just killed my iPhone! Perfect. :-|
It's showing 'Emergency Call' and is absolutely 100% not working. Looks like I'll be heading over to the Apple Store on the worst day of the year after all.

iPhone 2.0 software download

I'm in the process of downloading/updating to the iPhone 2.0 software. I didn't bother to notice the time I started the download, but it must have been at least 10 minutes by now, maybe 20! That's a HUGE update. Looking forward to it!