blog select with comment count

The following sql works great when the field for my main blog message is type nvarchar but doesn't work for text which I need to convert to.

select
a.id, b.textField
count(b.a_id) as myCount
from a left join b on a.id = b.a_id
group by a.id, b.textField

What other methods could i use to get "myCount" within one sql statement?

Thanks in advance, JeffHere is more information:

using sql server 2000 (from asp.net) the following sql works great when the "textForm" field is of type nvarchar but doesn't work for the text type.

I don't believe nvarchar will work for my needs since it is limited to 8000 (4000 due to double storage). I believe I will need to use the text type.

select bm.message_id,
bm.title,
bm.display_date,
bm.message,
count(bc.comment_id) as commentCount
from blog_messages as bm LEFT JOIN blog_comments as bc
on bm.message_id = bc.message_id
where bm.active_flag = 1
group by bm.message_id, bm.title, bm.display_date, bm.message
order by display_date DESC

The purpose of the select statement is to display a list of blog entries that includes the number of comments on each entry. An example of this in cold fusion is found at
http://www.camdenfamily.com/morpheus/blog/

With my limited knowledge of the asp.net repeater control, I'm not sure how to integrate 2 select statements (1st for blog content, 2nd for comment count). It seems the fastest way to get all of the information I want is to use a stored procedure using either a temp table or a cursor to compile all of the data together. However this method may forcee me to select the count from table b for each record of table a which could be time consuming.

Is there any way to achieve this goal with one select using the union statement or another type of join?

Although this might be a better sql question, I am also wondering about alternative asp.net solutions including repeaters with 2 or more select statements or using an array or list.|||How about something like:

select a.id,
b.textField,
myCount = (select count(*) from b where a_id = a.id)
from a

You might need to include a COALESCE function around the correlated subquery to check for NULL and send back a zero.|||it worked! thanks!

select bm.message_id,
bm.title,
bm.display_date,
bm.message,
commentCount = (select count('x')
from blog_comments as bc
where bc.message_id = bm.message_id)
from blog_messages as bm
where bm.active_flag = 1
order by bm.display_date DESC