Chas, no disagreement about Lady Day. i was talking about her voice, which you agree was gone. and i agree she had other qualities--her last(i think) album Lady in Satin was superb-a masterpiece of emotion with her voice cracking all over the place. but as pure jazz singing, to me there was nothing to match her voice in the early 1940's. As far as the time thing, I have already done that test many times, and i think everyone should do that--it's very humbling. I use a lot of breaks in my renditions, and i have to be very cognizant of keeping the rhythm going in my foot or body movements, because if i don't, even on a 1-bar break I'll be off. Now that i've got the E60 with the v-link button updated to a control, i keep it set to arranger hold. since i rarely use the full backing, i use that for half my breaks now.. the bass or bass+guitar strum drops out but the drums continue-- it's more subtle than a full break and still effective--and of course i don't have to remember to keep body time. I have found over the years that i had to avoid working with piano players who did a lot of solo cocktail gigs, because every one of them developed major time problems. The ones that habitually foot-tapped suffered it to much lesser degree. The thing that has been the greatest boon to my sax playing, singing, and kb playing has been practicing with the arranger rhythm section. it has improved my time enormously..my time is so spectacularly better now that it amazes me (and embarrasses me that i must have sounded lousy a lot of the time years back when i tended to rush my phrasing)

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Miami Mo