I came across...

[marcello]

I like Bab's card.

Crazy!

[Chuck Nessa]

I would guess that they're staff announcers, Chuck.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[DukeCity]

RE: the business cards you posted: Wow, who knew that "song stylist" Jimmy Rushing was also a Mason?

Thanks for sharing all this stuff, Chris!

Edited October 14, 2008 by DukeCity

[AllenLowe]

can you get me that guy's phone number?

[Michael Weiss]

I found Chris Albertson in my filing cabinet.

[Adam]

You'll never guess what I came across in my living room this morning....

Allen Lowe!

Wow, did he come from under the sofa?

[kh1958]

I think I know where Amelia Airhart has been hiding.

[Free For All]

I think I know where Amelia Airhart has been hiding.

With Bill Kurtis, on the internet?

[AllenLowe]

even better, can I get HER phone number?

[AllenLowe]

I'm assuming she still looks like that -

[Hot Ptah]

I found Chris Albertson in my filing cabinet.

I bought a mint copy of that LP, still in its shrinkwrap, for 20 cents last week, at the Music Exchange liquidation sale in Kansas City. It was in a box with showtunes and Christmas records--such is the nature of this liquidation sale.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[Michael Weiss]

I found Chris Albertson in my filing cabinet.

I bought a mint copy of that LP, still in its shrinkwrap, for 20 cents last week, at the Music Exchange liquidation sale in Kansas City. It was in a box with showtunes and Christmas records--such is the nature of this liquidation sale.

I'll give you a quarter for it.

[Randy Twizzle]

Was the person you bought it from deaf?

While I have your attention, I came across this today. I have no recollection of such a club, much less becoming a member. What was it? Has anyone heard of this place? I'll have to mosey on down to 256 East 49th one of these days, to see if it awakens memories.

I did a Times search on the address and found this from 1968. Does this help at all?

[marcello]

Crazy!...as Babs would say.

[Christiern]

WHAT was a Philly station that played R&B and gospel in the AM and Jazz 24/7 on the FM. The AM staff was all black, the FM staff was all white. Dolly Banks, who owned the station would not allow blacks on the FM nor whites on the AM—she had a black dog named AM and a white dog named FM. Need I say more? Here's a full-page ad from the Philadelphia Daily News. It appeared shortly before I had enough of Miss B's racism and quite (telling her why). I was replaced by a guy named Joel Dorn.

[DukeCity]

Apropos failed jazz museums...

It's comforting to know that a group of jazz guys (especially Mr. Nickel) were such sticklers for parlimentary procedure. I'm envisioning a copy of Robert's Rules of Order sitting in the middle of the table at that meeting.

[Christiern]

Never pass up a photo-op, no matter how silly it is. Found this one in the August 25, 1973 issue of Cashbox. Whatever became of Joe Keyes?

[Hot Ptah]

Top of the Pops (or TOTP, as it became known) was a popular BBC TV show, but it was also a radio show 42 years ago. Rummaging as I do, I came across several TOTP audio tapes. The great thing about this sow, which featured all the day's pop stars, including the Beatles, was that they never played recordings. Instead, the artists were brought into a studio to recreate their own hits. My reel-to-reel no longer works, but I am getting a new one so that I can listen to and transfer some of the great stuff I have before it turns to mylar dust, or something. The tapes I found are from 1967.

I would imagine that recordings of pop groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones etc. recreating their hits in a studio in 1967 would be of widespread interest, and would be a big seller if commercially released.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

this is very interesting. i gather from this, you knew a lot of great pre-big band era jazz musicans, but in the later periods, like great musicans from the 20s, but now its like the 50s and they are older. Did these men and women tell you about the history of jazz, and what jazz was about for them, and how everything was in jazz back in the 20 and stuff like that? did you take that knowlege into the modern bebop era, and apply it in your modern bebop era related dealings?

i do not know who Alberta Hunter is, but seems like you were her friend and you helped her music. So she was recording with you at riverside, but john hammond came ripped her away and took her to columbia but she still liked you best as a person? is that what i gather from this- i hope im not misguided? your life is so much better than mine, i think every body on this board is in some fashion indebted to your insights on jazz.

DID YOUR CAREER IN RADIO PAVE THE WAY FOR ALL YOUR LATER ACCOMPLISHMENTS? HOW DID YOU GET TO THE POINT WHERE YOU COULD BE A WRITER FOR STEREO REVIEW AND PRODUCING ANY RECORD YOU WANTED. WHAT IS THE MISSING STEP, BETWEEN:

RADIO << ------------ >> BEING A WRITER FOR STEREO REVIEW OR PRODUCING ANY LP YOU WANTED

missing step

how many instances are there of you having to trace a musicans whereabous, like you heard about someone, and you went out and met them, and chilled with them and stuff, and tryed to get them back into music.

i heard back in the 50s people used to scour the south for rare Paramount blues 78s. Well did the same thing happen with people? How many instances were there of music lovers and people with a genuine interest in music, find people in other lines of work who have stopped making music, but are still awesome, and should therefore start making music again.

is that dvd on her life it says you wrote about her, is that hard to find? I would like to view that docu

---------------

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

how much did you immerse yourself in the rock scene though? like i saw you had a Procul Harum ticket stub in there. they are one of my favorite bands. did you just go to the concert just cause you got a ticket, or did you know they were an amazing band and it was going to be a great moment in music history.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

thirdly, i notice you have a lot of letters. each letter has its own little point or idea it is trying to get across. And some all connect, like that one guy a few pages back, who ended up mailing you those annoaymous [sic] letters: sounds like something that could happen on Organissimio! lol. so back in the day you used letters to communicate, and it traveled slower and you might receive news back from a letter you send out, weeks later, maybe even months?

[kh1958]

Top of the Pops (or TOTP, as it became known) was a popular BBC TV show, but it was also a radio show 42 years ago. Rummaging as I do, I came across several TOTP audio tapes. The great thing about this sow, which featured all the day's pop stars, including the Beatles, was that they never played recordings. Instead, the artists were brought into a studio to recreate their own hits. My reel-to-reel no longer works, but I am getting a new one so that I can listen to and transfer some of the great stuff I have before it turns to mylar dust, or something. The tapes I found are from 1967.

I would imagine that recordings of pop groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones etc. recreating their hits in a studio in 1967 would be of widespread interest, and would be a big seller if commercially released.

There have been Live at the BBC releases for the Beatles, Hendrix, Cream, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, The Yardbirds, and others. Are these a different cache of recordings?

Edited October 24, 2008 by kh1958

[Stereojack]

i do not know who Alberta Hunter is, but seems like you were her friend and you helped her music. So she was recording with you at riverside, but john hammond came ripped her away and took her to columbia but she still liked you best as a person?

I'll accept Chris' offer to answer this one. Alberta Hunter had been a star in the 1920's and 1930's. When Chris produced her for Riverside in 1962 she had long since left music. Her Columbia debut came 15 years later in 1977. I don't think one can blame John Hammond or Columbia for "ripping her away" 15 years later! I imagine that she enjoyed the major label attention at that late date in her life.

Sometimes it's possible to look the wrong way through the telescope. One time years ago I devoted a program to paying tribute to Norman Granz, and all of the great records he had produced. I got an indignant call from a listener who questioned why I would pay tribute to someone who had "all this power", as if he was a bad guy ripping off the musicians. I tried to explain to her that it was because of Granz that many great musicians were given opportunities to work and record that might not have happened without his efforts.

[Hot Ptah]

I found Chris Albertson in my filing cabinet.

I bought a mint copy of that LP, still in its shrinkwrap, for 20 cents last week, at the Music Exchange liquidation sale in Kansas City. It was in a box with showtunes and Christmas records--such is the nature of this liquidation sale.

I'll give you a quarter for it.

This is just one sad thing among many at the Music Exchange's liquidation sale in Kansas City. Once one of the nation's best music stores, with a truly staggering inventory and many rare jazz gems, now the Music Exchange is reduced to a bunch of totally disorganized cardboard boxes full of records in a dingy old warehouse, with nutty people clawing through them in the faint hope of finding a good album or two. The price is now down to $5 a box, which translates into about 8 cents an album.

Last weekend it took me three hours to fill two boxes. I must have looked through 100,000 albums to find 150 which were even marginally desirable, to keep or give away to friends. Still, even last weekend there were gems. I increased my Benny Goodman and Woody Herman collections considerably. And then there are the oddities, such as coming upon 15 copies together of David Liebman's "Drum Ode", sealed in the original shrinkwrap. It's a jazz record nerd/nut's dream.

One of the clerks at the Music Exchange, when it was still open, had a name for the kind of people who keep going back to this sale--"the pawers". He said that there are just some people with a deep need to paw through stacks of records.

Sorry, Chris, I did not mean to sidetrack your fascinating thread. And seeing your reviews from Stereo Review brought back memories of when I used to read them with great enjoyment when I was in middle school and high school.

Edited October 24, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[medjuck]

BTW, Alberta had lied about her age when she became a nurse, so when they retired her she was actually way past retirement age. It wasn't long before she called and told me she was bored and had to get back to work. Mabel Mercer suggested that she "go back on the road" and Charlie Bourgeois of George Wein's office suggested to Barney Josephson that he try her at the Cookery. She auditioned pianists at my apartment—Jimmy Rowles and Claude Hopkins among them, but ended up with a guy who played very well for her but stole all her money, jewelry, etc. when she died. It was a lot of money.

Here are a couple of photos. They show Alberta in the 1940s and in the '70s, when she was back singing (at the Cookery in Greenwich Village).

I saw Alberta Hunter at The Cookery. A friend who was with me wrote and published a poem about it. I also saw Mary-Lou Williams there. In both cases the by then elderly Barney Josephson introduced each set. It was a great club.

Edited October 25, 2008 by medjuck