Ted O'Reilly

Wow, Peter, I'm surprised to hear that -- it was from you to John Norris to me that I started on Oz wines 20 years ago. I remember you choices at some dinners in Lewiston during the Artpark Jazz Festivals. I'm with you, though: I think success led to a lot of people jumping into th Oz wine biz, though there are still some Barossa Valley shirazes that are good drinking.

Thanks -- I'll check that out... Seeing "M Squad" on that cover reminds me that Benny Carter combined with Count Basie fot that theme -- a good Roulette release.

I was going to mention that one... I think the original productions are in the Hep 2000 series. Some go back quite a way: Jim Galloway did an LP in the early '80s that was re-released on CD twenty years later

Was there ever a 'sound track album' of music from the 1959 TV series Johnny Staccato (Television's Jazz Detective!) ? Elmer Bernstein's score, and on-screen appearances (at Staccato's hangout, Waldo's Cafe) by such as Shelly Manne, Red Norvo, Barney Kessel, et al. Only 27 episodes, all available on DVD. (The show was brilliantly lampooned by the wonderful SCTV crew). EDIT to add: Looks like Youtube has taken the SCTV down...can't find Vic Arpeggio anywhere.)

I don’t know if I met Miles or not...twice. One time it was at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto when, between sets, I introduced myself as a local jazz radio host. Miles said “Yeah” and turned around and walked away. Then backstage at the 1986 Playboy Jazz Festival while he was waiting to go onstage, I started towards him, and he turned around and walked away. I figure he remembered me from Toronto, right?

I wonder if the long medleys that Dave McKenna and Abullah Ibrahim would string together so artfully should be considered? I recorded Dave one time, where he played his way across the U.S., east to west, with such as Manahattan to Shenendoah to You've Come A Long Way To St. Louis: a complete 45 minute set. Abdullah could masterfully put together themes, too. At a Sackville session the late John Norris recorded him by saying "Play a whole (LP) side -- 18 or 19 minutes." The pianist mesmerized us with a dozen themes non-stop, clocking in at 18:28.

By co-incidence, got this in an email today... An old cowboy walks into the barbershop for a shave, telling the barber he can't get all his whiskers off because his cheeks are wrinkled from age. The barber gets a little wooden ball from a cup on the shelf, and tells the cowboy to put it inside his cheek to spread out the skin. When he's finished, the old cowboy says that's the best shave he's had for years, "But what would have happened if I had swallowed that little ball?" The barber replied "Just bring it back in a couple of days like everyone else."

Great music, and in every way but one qualifies. It isn't "live" by what seems to be meant by the topic no audience, no applause. (I know, I know....) Can't it be called "In Performance" or something, rather than "Live"? (In the same sense, Armstrong said something like "All music is Folk Music...I never heard a horse making music".) That's bugged me for years...other than Natalie Cole raiding her father's grave, music is "live". (Whoops, kinda leaves out 95% of what is called *music* these days --sorry!) It seems to me that if it ain't all played at the same time in the same room it *shouldn't* qualify as Jazz. No overdubs, no punch-ins, no fix-ups....etc. I guess I'm flexible on all that, and maybe it's a separate topic.

Just to clarify, does "I personally prefer Gene Harris, Junior Mance, Wynton Kelly among others" mean that you prefer their Blues playing or all their playing, over all the playing of Evans, not just his Blues playing?

EARly Wynn Edgar WINter BRYN TERfel

I think there have been a couple of issues of that. I hope you got the one with the 5 extra tracks -- three alts, two unissued.

That album, like almost all of Ed's recordings for Concord, remain unissued on CD. What a crying shame! The bassist on this recording, Steve Wallace, has started writing a wide-ranging blog (today, it his tomato sauce recipe!) where he muses on "Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera". http://wallacebass.com/ Steve has special insight into music, and is a keen (if modest) observer of what's happening on the bandstand, with the music AND the players. If any of you teach music, I'd have your students dip into Steve's jazz writing on that blog... Anyway, to this topic, here's his fine piece on Ed Bickert: http://wallacebass.com/?p=331 And as an extra free bonus gift at no charge, read this one, too: http://wallacebass.com/?m=201204

Ask any other guitarist about Ed. Or anyone who ever played with him. Or anyone who ever heard him, unless it was a 14-year-old garage band heavy metal rocker. In my 60+ years of listening, Ed Bickert is the most rewarding jazz guitarist I've ever heard. I've had the great joy of listening to him play hundreds and hundreds of times, and am proud to call him a friend.

Wow! 73 submissions, and no love for the Buck Clayton Jam Sessions produced for Columbia by George Avakian? The first jazz records, I'd say, to really use the LP and tape recording to break away from the 78 limits...in 1953, 1954! Not sessions that were "turn on the tape machine and let 'em blow", butr organized, with some lithe charts to encourage great soloists, some little riffs as springboards, and much love between players like Clayton, Hawkins, Urbie Green, Sir Charles, Freddie Green... The Hucklebuck, Robbins' Nest, Christopher Columbus, and the SHORT ones ran 10 - 15 minutes. Great stuff that I still take off the shelf and realize that Time Goes By, but I don't notice....

"...these chaps were musicians with day jobs, not the other way 'round!" Right you are.... Wouldn't it be nice if (jazz) musicians' days jobs were playing jazz music? Most jazz players I know make very little of their income actually playing jazz, even if they can make a living (of some sort) working in pit bands, little studio gigs, in a band backing a visiting star, etc. Or, if you're a trombonist, delivering pizza. (Sorry, bad old joke. You may change it to violist if you want.)

"I enjoy those I've heard so far from the "Jazz Live Trio" sub-series a lot, too - these guys were technicians or something at the radio studio but jammed in their spartime, one of them being drummer Peter Schmidlin, who is the founder and head of TCB Records." King Ubu, I think the "Jazz Live Trio" is actually the name of the house rhythm section for an on-going radio series on Swiss Radio. They were all full-time musicians, not technicians. The trio was quite stable for the 15 years of the series -- Klaus Koenig, piano; Peter Frei, bass and Peter Schmidlin or Alex Bally on drums. The guest list was quite deep, and wide-ranging, if you look at the series catalogue. The TCB website says: The live concerts at the radio studio in Zurich started in 1969 and took place regularly until 1984 and documented the intense situation in Jazz in Switzerland in this period.

Ah, that's who that is! If we're speaking about the spot where the person is on a tour bus (I think it is) talking on the phone... Not knowing ANYthing about pop music, I thought it was some actress, 'cause there's a voiceover doing the talking, saying how hard songwriting is. The onscreen person is just preening and walking and using the phone. That's Ms. Stefani, eh? Only heard the name before, never the music. I gotta get out more often.

I'll go along with that, Mike. Someone who was a very big fan of McFarland's was another great arranger, Rob McConnell. He had lots of McFarland's albums, and if one was playing in the background while you chatted with him, Rob could suddenly jump in with something like "Did you hear that! How did he make that work?!?" and run over to the piano to find just what McFarland had done. I think it's because they were both mostly self-taught as arrangers, and didn't always do what was 'right and proper'. Sort of like Ellington in that respect.

Kamiblue, how is it there are two spellings: "Charlie" and "Charley"? The first is the most common, to the degree that the second would be considered a mis-spelling in Parker's case...

John Farrell, their ex pitching coach. Ummm, aren't you forgetting his time with the Blue Jays, the only managing experience he has? Or does only BoSox time count?

There's a great performance recording of George Lewis that could be hard to find. Over the years I've had both Japanese (King) and German (Telefunken) versions on LP. The Japanese CD version I've had since about 1990 is on Paddle Wheel (a King label) 240E 6846. May have been reissued since then... It's Lewis with Punch Miller (tpt), Louis Nelson (tbn), Joe Robichaux (pno), Emanuel Sayles (bjo), "Papa" John Joseph (bss) and Joe Watkins (dms). Fourteen tracks (all the expected tunes) recorded with a lovely natural ambiance at Kosei-Nenkin Kaikan Hall in Tokyo on Aug.21, 1963. I always think of them as Old Men, but most were just in their early 60s at the time.

I suppose it still is, but the Star is suffering in the same way almost all print sources are. It's my paper of choice in Toronto, with the Globe & Mail a close second. Now, if you want a BAD paper, that'd be the Sun...

Not a Black paper. I believe he is completely out of the biz, save for an interest in The Catholic Herald, a UK Roman Catholic newspaper. According to Wikipedia: "The Catholic Herald is now owned by Sir Rocco Forte and Lord Black of Crossharbour, the latter a convert." Black is currently "on leave" from the House of Lords, and having given up his Canadian citizenship in order to accept the peerage, a citizen of the UK. I believe that being a foreigner to Canada, he would not be able to own much of any Canadian media. I think.... Back to the lede: the writer has been much more (shall we say) extravagant than that, in the past. Personally, I can't quite understand how The Star (a very family-oriented mainstream wishy-washy leftish/centrist paper) keeps her on.

I've heard back from Nichols' biographer Mark Miller, and I don't think he'll mind me taking this from his message: "I've no knowledge of the church concert. More interesting on the Nichols front is the discovery, as I understand it, of a large number of his compositions that were previously thought lost in a flood. I haven't investigated, but the Herbie Nichols Project (Frank Kimbrough et al.) played one or more in a recent concert."

If you do find out any more info about that, I would love to know. That would be amazing if a recording of Nichols performance existed. Thanks for posting that. Mark Miller's deeply-researched book "Herbie Nichols -- A Jazzist's Life" seems to have no reference to that possibility. Bertrand: any suggestion of a date for that event? (I'll have to ask Mark if he ever heard of it).