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I’m sorry, this just might be even funnier:

OK, so last night I’m sitting on my couch listening to music and working on some writing. I know that the Academy Awards telecast is on but I’ve only seen a single film this year, the indie coolness of Once. Honestly, it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen. This of course means that it will be ignored by Hollywood.

All of a sudden, a gmail message pops up from a good friend of mine, imploring me to turn on the telecast. I can’t find the remote controls for the tube/box thing so I do nothing. Stupid!

As it turns out, the voters did the right things and gave the best song Oscar to Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova for “Falling Slowly.” Totally amazing.

What you see below is the the award announcement and speeches. Kudos to Jon Stewart for bringing Marketa back out after the commercial break, since she was rudely cut off by the orchestra.

I am still in shock.

Gary Kamiya of Salon.com wrote a cool opinion piece about the relationship between jazz and rock. For me, the most interesting bit was just that his experiences paralleled mine so much.

The Lounge Lizards were chosen for today because they have that very same quality that Kamiya says forms the crucial overlap: a sense of drama.

I have been listening to this CD nearly every day for several weeks. Leo Tardin’s piano-based group fuses jazz, classical, hip-hop, and even a tiny bit of 1970’s art rock.

It’s just too much fun, I tell ya.

Three names: Vernon Reid, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, G. Calvin Weston.

That’s just about all you need to know.

This is some serious, in-the-pocket, heavy duty funk. Careful now, don’t hurt yourself!

We’re right smack in the middle of February. Now, I was never all that good at earth science when I was a little kid so bear with me. If we do a little math, we discover that the winter of 2007/08 has lasted for almost nine months so far.

OK, maybe not.

I don’t have a lot of piano/trumpet recordings in my collection. Hmmm…maybe this is the first one.

Anyway, Rava and Bollani have made some very, very romantic music here. It’s perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Music does need you…more than you know.

That’s no new-agey wordplay right there. If you don’t believe me, check out my review of jazz guitarist Ryan Blotnick’s new album.

I just happened to be having breakfast with a friend of mine this morning. This gave me the urge to yak a little about one of my favorite slices of Americana: The Diner.

Martin Sexton, besides being a phenomenally great folk singer, just happened to produce a very cool diner song.

P.S. I had dinner at a different diner this evening.

Things have really been humming along over at jazz.com. What has also been humming along is my mailbox. Several times a week packages show up with one if not several new CDs for review consideration.

There are just not enough hours in the day!

What’s been bugging me is that some of the material is quite good, yet won’t get a full review because I can only do so many. This is especially bothersome when the artist is on an independent label…or no label at all.

So I decided to pick a handful of them every other week or so and present mini-reviews of each under the new moniker of The Jazz Tasting Menu.

This is a photo of the pile of CDs that are trying to bury me: