[A] I am now officially and more or less completely recovered from prostate aquablation, a notoriously slow-healing procedure for old men with enlarged prostates which as I understand it is seldom cancer-related and definitely isn't in my case.

[A] I'm not familiar with these, but a cursory glance suggests the Davis releases are archival and the Coltrane for completists (which I'm not). Instead let me recommend you investigate alto saxophonist and de facto inventor of bebop Charlie Parker, aka Bird, who seems to have gotten lost in the historical shuffle. Made his crucial breakthrough in the '40s. Check him out in the CG and you'll find two full A's and two A plusses. I've been playing Now's the Time around here a lot recently and it never gets tired.

[A] I paid more attention to the Dead live than most critics, but as the Deadhead subculture became a mass cult the physical strain became too much. Note however that I covered a Dead concert in Jersey that I wrote up in the Newsday offices in Nassau County and then drove further east on Long Island to join Carola on Shelter Island, where I made our romance official and surprised her by showing her my copy after we got out of bed. At that point I don't think she'd ever read a word I'd written. Pretty sure we saw them together at the Academy soon enough. Please also note that the review in question praises a 1990 live show for its "mesh of the tight and the shambolic that on their best nights rendered their music responsive and interactive"—there were good nights, not as many as there once were, but this was one. Parsing the exact moment when the good nights might have begun to dry up isn't worth my time, and probably not yours.

[A] I don't review every album on release; in this case, a collection made an impression many years after it appeared, and I reviewed it in the April 2024 Consumer Guide. So the half a century thing made sense in context. As for the A shelves, one problem with being known for grading things is that people get literalistic about it. Please allow me to use the term "A shelves" the way any normal person would—the shelves where I keep the important stuff as opposed to "housing only albums graded A." Credence, for example, was one of those major bands whose catalogue included a B and B+, but at a certain moment in history I wanted to keep it all in one place. Haven't played them in years though bet they'd sound pretty OK if I did.

[A] I liked these sets in 1982 (ahem: "the finest major-label reissue anthologies since Atlantic's long-lost History of Rhythm & Blues"). I see no reason I wouldn't like them now. That said, for better or worse I play very little vinyl. CDs keep me busy enough unless I'm doing research or Carola or a visitor puts in a request. If the label were to send me the CDs in the mail I'd probably revisit them. But that is highly unlikely these days.

[A] Monk's Misterioso, The Beatles' Second Album, The Rolling Stones Now, something picked blind from my two dozen or so Armstrong CDs, maybe the longtime Bob and Carola fave Manfred Mann's Earth Band (although obviously that's not a timeless classic except for us who played it plenty when we were becoming a couple and the guys who made the record).