Randy Twizzle

I once saw an early Hope TV special from 1950 or 51 where Brown's band was featured for a complete version of "I've got My Love to Keep Me Warm." I suppose in the early 50s a big band selection was still considered something viewers might be interested in, but in the 60s and 70s during those endless Bob Hope specials that many of us grew up with, big band music would have taken precious time away from those awful sketches. (Anybody remember the show with Mark Spitz and Bobby Fisher?)

Kelsey Grammer http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2670087?htv=12

This 1930 advice columnist offered thoughtful advice on tattooing

First I want to see proof that you own a hat.

I googled vintage mythical keyboard and the one of the results led to this: http://columns.ink19.com/outsight/Other911.html and on that page was this: "This indie film really works. It is an imaginative journey by a struggling keyboardist after his stolen mythical "Moletron" vintage synth. The extreme characters and extreme situations are buffered with song episodes and all of this rarely falls flat. While being a travelogue through hell for a distraught keyboardist, it is also a hallucinogenic musical with music episodes from Beck (as middle man to a Luddite destruction artist), Hank Williams III (gun-toting junkman) and Union 13. This film also includes music by the now deceased Elliot Smith. Beth Orton acts and sings and Future Pigeon is central to the story with its dub pop. Jazz drummer Billy Higgins helps create a Sun Ra-like space jazz scene. Also, do not miss the extensive footage that not only includes complete songs but the impressive Robosaurus car-toting prop. There are a couple of good character actors here you will recognize: Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs ("sweathog" Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington on the TV sitcom "Welcome Back Kotter") and Richard Edson (Stranger than Paradise, Do The Right Thing) and Gregg Henry (Body Double, Sharon's Secret). (3.5) " More on the DVD from Amazon.com

This sounds like the first DVD mentioned: "Diary of a Desperate Musician" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...9436598-3722516

Wow. Think of how many "Kind of Blue" reissues these guys have missed.

At least one Ricky Ford album on JFP is "Balaena"(JFP 005) recorded live at the Sunset Jazz Club in Paris on 6/30-31/99 with George Cables, Cecil McBee and Ed Thigpen.

I tried to walk out of Godfather III but my friends kept pulling me back in.

Too much laughter is not healthy

Though not really a swing/big band board, the Bix Beiderbecke forum can be a pretty lively place. http://www.network54.com/Forum/27140

This is from a January 1962 Earl Wilson column

From Jan. 26, 1959

That's true. I've been to several leftwing marches, rallies and teach-ins and they've all included speakers from the Republican Party, who are on hand to insure that tolerant liberals aren't made to feel uncomfortable just listening to one point of view.

..and owner of the 2nd funniest name in West Virginia.

Anything by Liza Minnelli. Death would then be a happy experience.

Steinbrenner had only 1 horse in the race, Bellamy Road. The trainer of Bellamy Road, Nick Zito also worked with 4 other horses none of whom were owned by Steinbrenner.

More like beating one's head against a brick wall, actually. I understand Clementine's points. He has mixed feelings about Francis Davis. On one hand he despises him, on the other he wishes Davis would drop dead.

Here's another use for cellphone cameras from today's NY Daily News. It's the best subway pervert vs feisty Catholic schoolgirls story that I've read this year. A subway pervert was caught in a flash yesterday by feisty Catholic schoolgirls armed with a cell phone camera in Queens, cops and witnesses said. The suspect sicko flashed the teens twice last week as they rode the F train toward their high school in Jamaica Estates. He got away - but made the mistake of lurking inside the 179th St. station yesterday just as the girls stepped off the train at 7:30 a.m. Terrified, but determined to get the creep arrested, one of the girls snapped his photo with her cell phone and ran to NYPD Officer Vincent Tieniber for help, police sources said. "The cop looked at the picture, ran down to the platform and spots the guy getting on a train," a high-ranking police source said. "He grabs him and takes him upstairs where the girl IDs him," the source said. "A little bit of new-age policing." The alleged pervert, 57-year-old vagrant Wilfredo Ponte, was wearing the same brown pants, short-sleeved button-down burgundy shirt, silver jacket and black shoes he had on Monday morning, police sources said. He wore the same ensemble last night when he was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court and held on $3,000 bond. Although police say he told a detective, "Maybe I did it, maybe I didn't," his Legal Aid attorney said Ponte is no flasher. Lawyer Joseph DiFlumeri said, "Mr. Ponte adamantly denies the allegations in the complaint. He's frustrated, he's upset that he's being accused of this." The girls' principal at Mary Louis Academy, Sister Kathleen McKinney, said she was proud of her plucky students. "Our girls wanted him arrested," she said. "They didn't want him doing this to anyone else. They were willing to do what they did to stop him." A token booth clerk who helped the freshmen from nearby Mary Louis Academy praised them for staying calm and taking the photo. "The girls came running up. They were really upset, but one had gotten the guy's picture, and wanted him stopped," said the clerk, who asked not to be named. "For a grown man to be exposing himself to children at 7:30 in the morning, it's terrible," the clerk said. "That girl deserves a lot of credit for getting him off the street." Ponte was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and public lewdness. Ponte is apparently homeless - the address he gave cops turned out to be a Bronx bridal shop where one of his longtime friends works. "He liked little girls," said the friend, Eva Santana, who described Ponte as a homeless man who often visited E&E Bridal on Westchester Ave. "He liked to see the girls go by," she said. "We used to say, 'Get married, get an apartment.' But he wouldn't do it. He needed help. We told him every day, but he didn't want it." Ponte targeted the girls because he was attracted by their freshman uniforms - baby blue shirts and gray skirts, a police source said. Ponte's arrest brought some comfort to the parents and students, even as some of the girls remained shaken. "I'm in a really bad state of mind," one of the teens said yesterday through her apartment door. "She's scared," said her mother. "She's only 14."

Last week I heard my 21 year old nephew ask his mother "Who was WC Fields?"

I remember reading that at one point in his career Mudcat Grant got into a fight with a redneck bullpen coach who took issue with Grant's rendition of the opening line of the national anthem: "This land ain't so free, I can't go to Mississippi."

From the NY Times By PETER KEEPNEWS Published: April 30, 2005 Jimmy Woode, a bassist who spent five years with Duke Ellington but was best known as one of the leading figures on the European jazz scene, died on Saturday at his home in Lindenwold, N.J. He was 78. He died of postoperative complications after surgery for a stomach aneurism, his daughter Deirdre Woode said. Mr. Woode spent almost his entire career in Europe after moving to Sweden in 1960. He adapted so comfortably to his surroundings, Ms. Woode said, that he eventually began pronouncing his last name "Woody" because Europeans tended to pronounce the silent "e." More important, Mr. Woode - who lived in Sweden, Germany, Austria and Switzerland before moving back to the United States in 2001 - became a fixture of a jazz community that in the 1960's and 1970's was still dominated by American expatriates. He worked with many of them, notably the pianist Bud Powell and the saxophonists Don Byas and Johnny Griffin. Most important, he was a charter member of Europe's most successful jazz orchestra, the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, remaining with it from its inception in 1960 until it disbanded in 1973. James Bryant Woode II was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 23, 1926. He studied both piano and bass and began playing professionally at 16. In the early and middle 50's, while living in Boston, he worked regularly at two local nightclubs, Storyville and the Hi Hat, accompanying Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and many others. What was supposed to be a two-week engagement substituting for Ellington's regular bassist at Storyville in 1955 turned into an eventful five-year stint. Ellington's career was at a low ebb when Mr. Woode joined, but a year later Ellington's rousing performance at the Newport Jazz Festival led to a triumphant comeback. Mr. Woode left the Ellington organization and the United States at the same time, but he remained closely identified with Ellington. He frequently gave talks about his years with the band, and last year he participated in a reunion of former Ellington sidemen at Claremont College in California, taking part in group discussions and jam sessions. Mr. Woode was married and widowed twice. In addition to Ms. Woode, of Santa Barbara, Calif., and Florence, he is survived by two other daughters, Shawnn Monteiro of Providence, R.I., and Anne Frederickson of Stockholm; a son, Patrick Bergmans, of Berlin; two sisters, Ruth Fullard of Camden, N.J., and Edwina Reese of South Ozone Park, N.Y.; four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.