Three exciting lectures, this year at All Balboa Weekend 2010.
Give those weary feet a rest and come hang out with me and my friends throughout the day on Sunday. History, expression, and the joy of music at All Balboa Weekend 2010. Read more →
10 Favorite Benny Goodman Tracks
In 1938, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. The concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City that year is described by critic Bruce Eder as “the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz’s ‘coming out’ party to the world of ‘respectable’ music”. It crowned Benny Goodman as the ‘King of Swing,’ and solidified his position in the annuls of history as one of the most important and influential musicians in history.
It is a recording from that concert, Swingtime In The Rockies, that is at the top of my 10 favorite Benny Goodman tracks of all time. But after the top spot, it gets pretty difficult to narrow down my next 9 favorite Benny Goodman tracks. So with a note of apprehention, I list out my 10 favorite songs from the King of Swing.
- Swingtime In The Rockies – Live at Carnegie Hall 1938
- St. Louis Blues – On The Air 37-38
- Bugle Call Rag – Chronological Classics 1936 Vol. 2
- Caprice Paganini XXIV – Chronological Classics 1941 Vol. 3
- Moonglow – Chronological Classics 1936 Vol. 2
- House Hop – Live at the Madhattan Room 1937
- All The Cats Join In – All The Cats Join In
- Roll ‘Em – On The Air 37-38
- Sweet Georgia Brown – The Complete RCA Victor Small Group Recordings
- Mazel – Benny Goodman ’45 & ’47
What are some of your favorite Benny Goodman tracks?
WordPress Admin Tools I Love
I love WordPress plugins. Not only for the website, but for the admin side of WordPress as well. There are several plugins out there that can improve the quality of the admin side, here are 6 of them that I use.
1. Fluency
I like the default admin screen, I think WordPress has done a great job in creating a friendly, pleasing UI. However, change is always good, that’s where Fluency comes in. It streamlines the admin navigation, turning the dropdown navigation into a flyout menu system. It might seem small, but I like the reduced vertical height of the flyout menus. Fluency also modifies the main panel of the admin screen: to me, it feels more streamlined, as if the fluff was removed and made modern, and the font change, albeit scarey at first, is rather nice once you settle in.
2. Post Ideas +
Based off of a deprecated plugin, Post Idea, Post Idea + moves the old plugin into the modern era, just by making it compatible with the newest versions of WordPress. What it does is pretty simple, it keeps a list of all the post ideas you have, and puts that list on the dashboard — simple. Somehow, I find myself coming up with post ideas at the most inopportune time. Times when I do not have an hour or so to craft a well thought out post. With Post Ideas +, I can jot down the post topic and then when I have time, come back to it and create the full post.
A lot of themes are including this plugin by default now since its so popular, but just in case you don’t have it, go get it immediately. The ability to examine the traffic to your website at such granular levels might sound overwhelming, but once you get a handle on the interface, it’s quite exciting to see who is coming to your site and where they are coming from. I have enjoyed the upgrades that the plugin has made, like, adding the ability to track outgoing links. They have also added a dashboard feature so you no longer have to login to google.com to retrieve some basic data. Excellent plugin.
This might not apply for everyone, but I was previously on a host where there was a database size limit. This simple plugin displays the total MB count of your database at the top of the admin page.
If you are building a WordPress blog/site for a customer, or yourself for that matter, and want to add a bit of personalization, this plugin is great. Custom Admin Branding allows you to simply change the login and header images on the admin side to anything you want. Customer brands, developer brands, blank for that matter. Simple and effective.
6.Cincopa
One of many many WordPress photo gallery plugins. At this point, I’m not sure that there is a superior plugin for photo galleries, but rather a plugin that does what YOU want. And for me, this plugin does what I want. Multiple layout options and configurations, based on a simple UI.