After Thanksgiving, after spending all day watching people at the malls, after all that, I came home to find Thad Jones and Mel Lewis‘s great CD Consummation in my mail.

I first got exposed to Jones & Lewis back in high school, when our band director moved our jazz band from playing cheap-sounding arrangements of Windy and the like to the good stuff – Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Jones & Lewis and others. (Thanks, Bill!) We played at least four tunes from this collection and I loved all of them. I had the album (you know, black vinyl, about 12 inches in diameter, played on a turntable, historical relic!) but it went out in the trash along with the other four boxes of albums when we moved a few years ago.

Why I ever talked myself into putting them by the street for the trash man is beyond me. At any rate, I’ve had Consummation on my Amazon wish list for a while. The other day I noticed it was included in the Jazz Heritage Society’s “clearance” section, so I scarfed it up – for five bucks!

Anyway, for what it’s worth, I’m digging Dedication, It Only Happens Every Time, and Us all over again! Of course, the haunting melody of A Child Is Born is not really a Christmas song, but it should be.

BTW, anybody know where I can get a decent flugelhorn for cheap? Just wondering…