The week of new jazz

Listened to a few new albums (to me) on Rhapsody and the radio and would like to recommend them.

Mimi Fox, one of the most well-known bay area jazz guitarist and teacher, has a new album out, called "Standards, Old & New," in which she played all by herself, in the great solo guitar tradition of Joe Pass. The funny thing is my daughter saw me listening to this on my phone and got curious and listened to one of the track, "This Land is Your Land" but she doesn't think it sounded like the original at all. Well, if it's too much like the original, it's not jazz :)

Hiromi, another critically acclaimed female jazz musician (pianist), also has just release a new album "Move." I was really impressed by her previous two albums "Place to be" (solo piano) and "Voice" (which ironically featured no vocal) The compositions don't seem as strong on this latest one but the playing is exciting as usual.

I have listened to part of a track by Nate Najar many times ("Remembering Charlie Byrd") because it was used as the theme on No Idle Frets, a podcast dedicated to jazz guitar, which obviously is my favorite but sadly it was no longer updated since the end of last year. The track could be found on his latest album, "Blues for Night People." It caught my attention when the DJ played "Concierto De Aranjuez" from the album. That tune is adapted from one of the most famous classical guitar pieces.

Transferring Android Apps

This is one thing I like about Android: sometimes you have multiple devices but each of them has access to a different App store so you could get some Apps from one device but not the other. In this case you could still transfer your app from one device to another. Found this guide. ES File Manager is especially useful.

學者論學生

培正校友最推崇的數學家丘成桐近日上報，據報導，他在受訪時慨嘆，部分積極學運的大學生只重爭取權利，卻忽略讀書、做研究的本分，想法本末倒置。他同時警告，歐美青年對知識的追求遠勝本港大學生，若本港大學生繼續視抗爭為首要任務，根本無助社會進步，只會令本港人才質素漸走下坡，最終淪為二等城市。

如此批評當今的大學生，被網民攻擊是意料中事；事實上他這個論調的確有為建制護航之嫌，即使我推崇他的學術成就，也有這個感覺。


但想深一層，他不愧為擅長邏輯的數學家，如果大學生視抗爭為首要任務，學習則為其次，當然影響香港新一代畢業生的水平，這一點毋庸置疑，可謂立於不敗之地。

另一位學術界人士，中大講師邵力競撰文為丘成桐平反，也頗為值得討論。邵力競一方面為搞抗爭的學生說點好話：「香港會關心時事、獨立抗爭的青年應該還是比較會讀書的」，似乎不如丘成桐般擔心搞抗爭的學生荒廢學業；另一方面，他指出更嚴重的是學生態度之懶散：「完全不讀書的，恐怕更多，而丘老的話，就正正點出了這個現象，傷害了年輕人的感情。現實是，目前受納稅人資助的大學裏最盛行的風氣，是hea （無所用心）。」他比丘成桐更不客氣，批評的對象亦比後者廣泛！我相信多機會接觸學生的他，說的會是事實。

我雖然反對打擊學運，支持學生批判社會不公現象；但也認為大學生不能讓任何其他活動凌駕學習之上，一切都應在不影響求學問的情況下進行。