Sorry I missed last week. Couldn't be avoided ... just ran out of steam by Friday (after returning from Kansas). Well, without much more ado, let's Take Five:

• Bret Primack, the Jazz Video Guy notes that one part of Blue Note Records' 70th Anniversary was the creation of the Blue Note 7, a septet featuring Nicholas Payton, Steve Wilson, Ravi Coltrane, Bill Charlap, Peter Washington and Lewis Nash playing new workings of classic BN repertoire. Before a concert in Tucson, the group allowed Jazz Video Guy to make a video of them performing Wilson's arrangement of Thelonious Monk's Criss Cross.
• I don't know if you've tried the virtual world Second Life. I have an avatar (while not female or some weird cross between a hippo and aardvark, he doesn't look anything like me, of course), who is sitting on a bench on the Thomson Reuters (my employer) island waiting for me to drop in and take him somewhere else. Although it has already taken place, I was intrigued by this Virtual Jazz Festival site announcing a virtual Toronto Jazz Festival last May. Not sure it actually happened...but I wish I had been able to attend (or my avatar, that is...).
• Take some classes on jazz from the nation's museum, the Smithsonian on their jazz site.
• I unfortunately missed saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa when he appeared with his Indo-Pak Coalition at the Bop Shop Atrium this year. He recently wrote a guest post on the Destination...Out blog offering insights into his art and serving as primer on Indian music. Throughout the post are peppered some of the music that influenced Rudresh's music and life. For those not familiar with Rudresh’s recordings, the post has some tunes of his at the end.
• Jazz Backstory is a blog with a collection of writing based on the blogger's position as Jazz Archive Director at Hamilton College, a position he has held since 1995. The Archive has collected individual videotaped interviews with about 300 musicians, writers, producers and spouses all intimately involved in the jazz world. Jazz Backstory shares writings based on those interviews. Here's a post relating to the recently-passed saxophonist Gerry Niewood.

So take five and explore. Let me know what you think in the comments ....There will be five more next week.