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Thanks, king ubu! (big up for posting the LP liners!) I do think that the South African jazz section (built primarily by Nils Jacobson) over on All About Jazz is one of the single best resources I've come across anywhere - mainly due to the contributions by South African musicians who've worked hard on the history of jazz in SA. Timeline (from 19th c. til now) Article by Philip A. Songa - The Life and Times of South African Jazz Sathima Bea Benjamin - The Cape Town Jazz Scene and so on... I wish Gallo and other S. African labels were more widely available here in the US... even Stern's has difficulty in obtaining and stocking discs from SA.

Kippie Moeketsi - one of the arrangers for the original production - certainly is considered to be a jazz player in South Africa! There's a fine section on the history of S. african jazz on AAJ, including time lines, interviews with artists, and so on... you can Google it up quite easily. (One of the musicians interviewed is Sathima Bea Benjamin.) Are you familiar with artists like Johnny Dyani, Louis Moholo, et. al.? There's a very broad spectrum covered in S. africa under the label of "jazz," but I've recently seen some ill-founded criticisms of (believe it or not) Abdullah Ibrahim for supposedly not being a jazz musician/composer. To my mind, that's like saying that Maxine Sullivan wasn't a jazz singer because she covered "Loch Lomond," or that someone like Jerry Gonzalez doesn't play "real jazz," but.... to each his/her own, I guess! (Not meaning anyone in particular; only that labels are pretty fluid and often mean different things to different people.)

Kippie Moeketsi - one of the arrangers for the original production - certainly is considered to be a jazz player in South Africa! There's a fine section on the history of S. african jazz on AAJ, including time lines, interviews with artists, and so on... you can Google it up quite easily. (One of the musicians interviewed is Sathima Bea Benjamin.) Are you familiar with artists like Johnny Dyani, Louis Moholo, et. al.? There's a very broad spectrum covered in S. africa under the label of "jazz," but I've recently seen some ill-founded criticisms of (believe it or not) Abdullah Ibrahim for supposedly not being a jazz musician/composer. To my mind, that's like saying that Maxine Sullivan wasn't a jazz singer because she covered "Loch Lomond," or that someone like Jerry Gonzalez doesn't play "real jazz," but.... to each his/her own, I guess! (Not meaning anyone in particular; only that labels are pretty fluid and mean differnt things to different people.)

South African jazz sounds a good deal closer to pop music from a US perspective. Nonetheless, it's part of a continuum - very complex subject, really. A great site for more info. on all kinds of African music (includes archived radio programs that can be cued to specific tracks) is Afropop Worldwide. check their "country" menu for South Africa and go from there... Edited to add: the rest is here.

But you like a lot of Senegalese music, MG - and the traditional lutes from that country are fretless, so.... they're microtonal by default. (The point being that we've likely all encountered microtonal music of may kinds, but probably aren't aware of the label in connection with the music(s) per se.)

Looks like it's on Frikyiwa (just a wild guess, MG ).

Sandi, you truly have had an amazing life! And yes, I'm sure I'd have loved the whole scene - not just the Lighthouse. I like a lot of R&B and early R&R, and to have seen some of these folks back in the day (The Clovers, for example) must have been a real kick. Oh, and Gate was a fine swing/"hot"-style fiddler! I think - but would have to check to be sure - that he started his professional career playing fiddle.

I never thought to look before, but here it is! The Bunny Bread Jingle Almost sounds like Tennessee Ernie Ford. Well, almost. Hee hee, I feel about 35 years younger! Thanks! I think it could work as a rap, actually...! (I'm only half-joking about that.)

Nope - it's Gate. I put a pic of him with his fiddle up in post #230. (Same hat, though!)

Well, it's *supposed* to be guitarist/violinist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, but - I love your Chuck Berry story! (Though a bit scary there, what with the manhandling and all...) Edit: Here's another shot of Gate -

I'd love to hear the jingle, Quincy. I've got a pet rabbit (she lives in my living room and gets a lot of free-run time), and the Bunny Bread slogan ("That's what I said!") reminds me of her, because she's got quite an attitude. (Though she's also very sweet.) I'd never heard of Bunny Bread until I ran across the song on Emusic - there seem to be a lot of zydeco songs about food (Beau Joque's "Give 'Em Corn Bread" was a big hit back in the 90s), so maybe this is an "answer" to someone else's song? One thing's for sure: it's got a terrific groove!

Glad you liked it so much, Sandi - thought you'd get a laugh! Believe me, I needed to create that post!

I finished this last week - the setting is pretty amazing (surreal yet very real), although I did get a bit frustrated with the ending... Has anyone else read it? I really don't want to say more, as there are too many potential spoilers involved.

Hi, Lon! [waves wildly from bleachers] Sandi, I never heard this story about Lester, or about how you knew Mingus, either. Feels like old times!

'Tis true! And Bill, I seem to recall you posting over on AAJ, quite a while back.

Ah ... my apologies. Never quite sure how closely anyone outside the U.S. pays attention to all this madness. I think they just ship that party affiliation information directly off to robo-call centers and direct mail marketers. All very annoying. Which really doesn't explain why I kept getting mailings from one party only while living in the Commonwealth of VA.... since all they ask there is that you register, without declaring a party affiliation. Canvassers are allowed to do things outside polling places there that make elections kind of amusing, though.

Doo wah!!!?????? What's the point of having a vote if, in registering, you have to say which party you support? And what an intrusion into personal privacy!!!! Some things about America simply astound me (I'm limp as a glove) MG Just in the primaries MG, where party members are picking their party's presidential candidate. And certain states have "open" primaries, where anyone can vote either party. In Florida we have a closed primary. Dems vote for their preferred Dem candidate. Repubs for theirs. Independents don't get to vote. The idea is (I think) to prevent sabotage from the opposition, where they gang up and vote for your party's least viable candidate. All true, though that doesn't mean that it makes sense - never has to me!

OMG!!! :rlol At one time I did a part-time band instrument rental gig, so this... is priceless!

Ditto here, though it's been a while since I last listened to him. Time to go digging in the stacks, I guess! (For Tadd Dameron, too.)

Do you really think so, Bev? Because the primaries/caucuses/whatever have always had me completely baffled. It's incredibly hard to keep track of what goes on in even a handful of states - for me, at least - and different states have wildly divergent laws (customs, too). For example: in primaries in Pennsylvania, you can only vote for one of your party's candidates. (i.e., if your voter reg. card says "Democrat," that's it for you.) But in Virginia, you don't register for a party affiliation, you literally just register to vote.... and so on, down the line. Somehow the Electoral College is easier for me to understand, strange though that might seem.

This might sound a bit weird, but I honestly don't remember - one of the reasons being that our family didn't get a color TV set until I'd been in college for a while. (And most TVs at school were also b&w.) All that to say: probably yes. I really liked all of the panelists, and I got a kick out of trying to guess who was real and who was fake.

No kidding! I was somewhat addicted to "To Tell the Truth" in the 60s - and 70s, too.

But then there's this... Look, no advertising on the panelists' desk!

I've never heard him live, but hope to some day - he's such a melodic player, and is so very good at doing "Latin" rhythms on set. One of my favorite cuts by him is with Tommy Flanagan, from Flanagan's Jazzpar prize disc - "Tin Tin Deo." He's also superb at color and accent work, and (if I'm hearing him right) seems to have an incredibly light, deft touch.

Me, too! Thanks for the welcome, all - and yeah, I'm thinking of grabbing a lot of the posts from that Brazilian thread and re-posting them here, somehow or other... Spinning in Air is my blog, yes! Please feel free to drop by - hope you enjoy it. and Bev - aww, shucks! [blushes and looks at feet]