johnlitweiler

Made some of the best friends of my life while working or hanging out in record stores.

An interesting discussion. Social reasons, yes and no for me. As a South Bend, IN boy I stumbled into jazz by hearing it on a 50,000-watt Chicago radio station (about 11 or 12 years old). Only one jazz-loving friend in high school, but at least fellow workers from the South joined me in liking blues and hillbilly music. In college, in a Chicago suburb, there were at last schoolmates who were also exploring jazz and blues and that's when my curiosities/interests really kicked into gear. Among Youtube's uses, it's great for rediscovering old pop music (Ah, yeah, that's why I liked that) and also test-driving music I'd avoided, for 1 reason or another, over the decades.

Thanks, folks. ROTFL?

Why did he miss those Cecil Taylor celebrations last year, the weekly nightclub shows in June and the anniversary concerts later in the summer?

My problem with Ozzie is simply that he was a lousy manager the last couple of years in Chicago. How could he put a .154-hitting DH into the lineup day after day when he had at least 2 guys hitting well over .100 better on the bench? He didn't even seem interested in his teams. Did Miami hire him to win games or to attract attention? Because making the news, getting quoted on TV, became his main skill a few years ago.

Isn't "Au Privave" Granz's or a Granz employee's phonetic misspelling of the song Charlie Parker said (out loud) he titled "Apres Vous"?

The samples are a pleasure to hear. Now break a leg next Friday.

Thanks for the heads-up, John. I ordered the (supposedly) last one.

New on my web site goodbaitbooks.com: the story "The Buddy Bolden Case." It tells the probable truth about what happened to Buddy Bolden in 1907 and why he didn't really die in an insane asylum 24 years later. I also put up some more photos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKcdWYvZB-E I heard a version of that quartet (I think a different drummer) at The Brown Shoe in Chicago. After a would-be virtuosic (IMO just show-off, rubber-bandy) solo by Scotty Holt, Jackie said pretty much to himself (I was close to the bandstand) "ridiculous shit." From that moment to this, I'm not sure in what sense he meant that. Hm. At the Brown Shoe on a Sunday in about 1965: McLean, Holt, piano, drums, and by the 2nd song or so, Wilbur Ware sat in and replaced Holt. Ware aroused some discomfort in Jackie but the music was still good. Could Larry and I have heard different sets on the same day? I wrote part of a Coda column about Hill-Mitchell-Ware-Barker ca. 1966 or 67. Konitz-Marsh-Eddie DeHaas-Wilbur Campbell were quite a quartet. Braxton with Kalaparusha, Jenkins, Charles Clark (bass), Barker. Best of all were Rollins-Walter Davis Jr.-Cecil McBee-Who was that drummer? for a week at the Jazz Showcase in 1972. Joe Segal said that Rollins week was the best live music he ever heard in his life and I feel similarly.

At least a thousand, maybe as many as twice that, NOT including hundreds of Chicago and New Orleans and Vision festival performances. Off and on I also reviewed for Chicago newspapers (Reader, Sun-Times, Tribune).

I believe Wall Street Journal has been subscription-only since they went online. Much more regional example - Chicago Sun-Times is about 20 per month. I found I don't really miss going there, though I used to read many of the articles. Their loss I guess. I don't know whether Robert Ebert's reviews count toward the 20 or not. It probably depends on how you try to access them. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ is free, Andrew Patner is also free at http://viewfromhere.typepad.com/ and the rest of the Sun-Times isn't. Too bad, we're missing some good reporting.

This is short notice, but: Tonight I'm returning to Zoundz! after a 4-month absence to play jazz records by Andy Kirk, Fletcher Henderson, Jodie Christian, Ornette Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, Kidd Jordan, etc. etc. That's WHPK-Chicago 88.5 FM 6:30 to 9 pm Chicago time and www.whpk.org six hours later London time. (The foot is healed, or almost, and I am no longer an invalid. Time to boogie now.)

It's good to know he's still performing. Thanks, Dan.

Nothing against Lovano, but so would I.

There are people like the group Polwechsel who push the silence-improvisation thing into obsessive silliness. On the other hand, the master of making musical lines out of sound and silence in tension is Roscoe Mitchell. For example, McIntyre's and Bowie's great solos in "Sound," Roscoe in some of the Nessa CD improvisations and later pieces like "A Lovely Day at the Point," etc.

And re Bobby Bare:

Gee, Steve Goodman even looks sorta like Bobby Bare.

When the original Velvet Lounge, on Indiana Avenue, closed a few years ago, Fred Anderson led weekly sets (advertised as fund-raisers, IIRC) at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase on Grand Avenue throughout January and, I believe, February too. The new Velvet Lounge, on Cermak Road, opened later that year.

The first two, Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith, are easy choices. For the third, Shirley Horn, but tomorrow I might like Chris Connor or Mildred Bailey or someone else just as much.

Pete, which Ford memoir was that? I've been surprised and disappointed in his occasional racism, in light of his customary sensitivity and humanity. For instance, the book where he visits Allen Tate in America and invents a defense of slavery.

"Owns" jazz? Who owns it? In my experience, mostly in Chicago, in the last few decades the small labels that have kept the music documented and the clubs and concert presenters that have presented the music are hardly villains out to make fortunes by stiffing musicians. Martin Williams in 1974 remarked that, after African-Americans, first Jewish and second Italian musicians were the most frequent backgrounds in jazz. Still true?

I've just reread "Somebody Blew Up America." In the 10-page poem there are seven lines about the specific conspiracy theory (Sharon, Israel knew about the plot, et c.) that stimulates most of the comments here in recent days. I don't see anti-white, anti-Semite,anti-Zionist lines. I do see a few lines of recurring sympathy for some (mostly vicious) Communists of the past. He also says Who killed the most niggers Who killed the most Jews Who killed the most Italians Who killed the most Irish Who killed the most Africans Who killed the most Japanese Who killed the most Latinos Who/ Who/ Who/ and later in the poem: Who put the Jews in ovens And who helped them do it Who said "America First" There's at least one more conspiracy theory in the poem, which I think is for the most part a potent verbal assault on the WHOs of history and of the present who could yet bring us World War III. I can think of some more crimes against humanity that need to be solved and prosecuted, but Baraka has made a start. As to his jazz criticism, the only critics I agree with are the Organissimo critics.

Yes. I still like the other 90% of that poem.

Baraka has stated that Israeli intelligence (traditionally more competent that the CIA) warned the Bush administration that the attack was coming, and the US ignored the warning. It's in the several-page note that follows the poem in his book.