johnlitweiler

Flutists play the flute. Flautists play the flaut. / Jesse Owens, the great runner, in later years was a disk jockey on an all-jazz station in Chicago. Once he played a record by Penis Newborn Jr.

David Izenzon, b. 1932, began studying how to play bass in 1956 (Feather-Gitler).

Too bad that ad isn't in color, Nessa's LP cover designs were xlnto! (as Hank Mobley might say).

Well, it was said that Monk, Barry Harris, Sadik Hakim, and 100 or so cats -- meow-type cats -- lived at her house in NJ and that she bought the uniforms that Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers wore.

See the web site http://www.suntimes.com/output/jazz/cst-ftr-sonny25.html -- as usual, the Chicago Sun-Times gets it right while the Tribune doesn't get it.

Not Lil Green's "Romance in the Dark," but Lil Green's "Why Don't You Do Right?" -- Peggy Lee approximates Lil Green.

Sorry to say, no. What happened there Sun.?

Lazaro, the Chicago Sun-Times review was severely truncated but as usual still more accurate than the Chicago Tribune review: http://www.suntimes.com/output/jazz/cst-ftr-grimes14.html Really, it was the Grimes-Anderson-Ra trio with interruptions by Marshall Allen. It was apparently the 2nd time Grimes and Anderson have played together, and they have great affinity. Especially since, with the loss of Malachi Favors, Anderson hasn't had a lot of really empathetic bassists to work with, this is a relationship that I hope will be pursued.

Truck Parham, a not always reliable source, played with Jimmie Lunceford in the 1940s and said that the whole band was Muslim.

How does this South Side baseballic affiliation affect your relationship with the other members of the mafia?

Boston Market began in Naperville, IL, years after I graduated from North Central College there. Naperville water comes from wells. That is GOOD. But then Boston Market moved headquarters to Aurora in Arapahoe county, CO, a suburb of Denver on a dry plain. That was BAD. When I was a boy, my father got a scholarship to Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, so my family spent a summer high up in Gunnison county, western CO, beside a rushing mountain river. CO's laws are such that a few years ago Arapahoe county tried to exersize its legal rights to drain away the water from that beautiful stream so that all the Arapahoe county residents could water their vast lawns. Fortunately, Crested Butte has lately become a popular resort town and, last I heard, the yuppies there able to out-legal the Arapahoe folks. But I have sworn to never eat Boston Market food or knowingly buy anything produced in Arapahoe county. / Some folks in Michigan have big heads. Big big heads. Indiana John

Yeah, I was there one time when a guy was selling some Hank Mobley Japanese lps. For some reason they didn't want the one with Donald Byrd and Lee Morgan, so I made the guy an offer on the spot. Let me repeat - JRM did not want it. Needless to say I learned a lesson that day ... I think (I later followed the guy down the street and bought good ole' 1540 from him on the corner) One day in 1965 when I worked at JRM, Koester was w/a customer and I was behind the counter when Wayne Jones came in, selling old LPs. Wayne approached me first, offered me the Cecil Taylor-Gigi Gryce Verve for a couple dollars, so I bought it -- Bob lost 10 years of his life while watching that transaction and mentally calculating how much he could have marked up the resale price (and Wayne, of course, knew very well what he was doing).

Enjoyable album, + good liner notes by LKart. / Yes, Jim DeJong runs the jaz dept. at Tower Records on North Clark St.

Is a company somewhere systematically reissuing MPS LPs on CDs?

When I interviewed David Sanborn for the Chicago Tribune in 1989, I asked him about any possible Roscoe influence -- David, an extemely nice guy, said none, but in his apprentice days in St. Louis he had been friends with fellow apprentices Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, etc. and had probably absorbed some of their ideas. / Sanborn was part of probably the most hilarious thing I've seen on TV in the last 20+ years. It was over the closing credits of a Night Music broadcast -- Screaming Jay Hawkins sang, very slowly and in a perfect William Warfield voice, the first strain of Old Man River; Sanborn and John Zorn then did a 2-alto sax freakout. It is probably on a Hawkins CD.

I've heard Von play Avalon. Sorry I couldn't hear him play it again on Sunday. / Kalaparush and the Light tonight at the Cultural Center. Re Dave Douglas last night, see tomorrow's Sun-Times. Usually I just admire his playing, this was one of the times I quite liked it. Lester Bowie would have approved of everything except maybe the Bowie tribute piece. / Henry Grimes w/Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, Avreeayl Ra at Hot House on March 11-12.

On the other hand, for half a season at the end of his playing career Canseco came out of nowhere and became a useful DH for the Chicago White Sox. gratefully, JL

Charles Tyler -- wonderful lyrical thematic improviser, very intense. He attacked themes like a starving carnivore. The Nessa LP "Saga of the Outlaws" is terrific, there's also a great but short "Saga" on Charles's Silkheart CD w/the Brus Trio. He was a hell of a baritone player, too, and near the end of his life he played some lovely tenor sax, too. / Mario Schiano has his moments, though he's also recorded a lot of throwaway stuff.

After the Dixie Chicks' dust-up with Bush supporters, it seems something like my patriotic duty to appreciate their music.

After the Dixie Chicks' dust-up with Bush supporters, it seems something like my patriotic duty to appreciate their music.

Yes, they are. When a book about jazz is new, the distributor's sales force aparently flogs it just once to the bookstores. By the time the stores want to reorder, the sales force mainly cares about selling a newer batch of titles. Having listened to horror stories about the jazz recording business for the last 40+ years (and having worked in record stores for a few minutes), and also having dealt with book publishers, I can report that the recording industry is a model of efficiency, competence, and honest dealings compared to the book publishing business. / Chuck's comments on ESP-Dial reminded me that, awhile ago, I was in communication with both Stollman and Ross Russell -- Russell was writing a biography of Raymond Chandler at the time. Anyone know how far he got & what happened to his Chandler work?

The Jenkins encyclopedia seems promising, I'd love to see it. Along with the Greenwood edition in the US, maybe he is also getting it published by an English-language publisher in another country -- a less expensive publisher, that is. It happens. For example, the Max Harrison et al. books that originated with Greenwood eventually were republished less expensively elsewhere.

Kinda doubt that was their slogan, but the Randy's disc jockey, Gene Nobles, used to read that line about the petroleum jelly at 11:30 every night. Another favorite was the Ernie's Record Shop commercial that included "And when you order these great blues records, please specify if you want them on 78 or 45 rpm. Remember, folks, 45 rpm are the little records with the big hole in the middle." This was around 1957-58, very late for 78s.

It was well known that Baby Face Willette was murdered in prison in Joliet, IL. (A drug conviction.) Willette's mother raised hell, demanded an investigation, but nothing ever came of it. When Leonard Bukowski still had his record shop on 53rd St. here in Chicago, one of the regular customers was the son of a cop -- he sd Baby Face was murdered over a drug deal. I neither believe nor disbelieve that story. / Ajaramu once told me that Baby Face was so frustrated w/the producer at the Behind The 8-Ball session that he cried and had to drink a fifth of liquor to get through the session. But "Song of the Universe" is a terrific piece.

Captain John Handy of New Orleans (no relation to the San Francisco-based J.H.) should be heard. There's at least one GHB or Jazzology album under his name and he plays on some Kid Thomas dates. Swings like mad. / Far as I know, Absholom has only recorded smooth-jazz, and that only for an obscure Israeli label or labels -- maybe it's his own label. Too bad. Nessa and I heard him when he was 18 or so years old, and he was a promising free player back then. / The Glyn Paque solos are on the King Oliver BMG CD. Earl Fouche is on all 8 Sam Morgan sides from 1928. Some of the 8 seem to have been reissued piecemeal on CD. All 8 are on the Columbia boxed set The Sound Of New Orleans. Around 5 years ago, there was some hope that those old Frank Driggs boxes for Columbia -- The Sound Of New Orleans, The Sound Of Chicago, The Sound Of New York, Fletcher Henderson. etc. -- might appear on CD. Haven't seen them yet.