gvopedz

The Smithsonian has placed some of its images (including images related to jazz) on an open access website https://www.si.edu/openaccess

I once walked into the Tower Records in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and chuckled when I saw a selection only about a foot wide of country music CDs. At the Tower Records in Austin, Texas, I always saw a display of country music CDs that was about 6-8 feet wide.

I hope this weblink works: https://youtu.be/bt-Z0cZhm70

For those who do not already know: “This collection assembles all four historic debut concerts by the legendary guitarist in their original performance sequence.” https://www.jimihendrix.com/fr/music/jimi-hendrix-songs-for-groovy-children/

The treatment room in the office of my dentist has a speaker on the ceiling that lets you hear classic rock. Sure enough, while waiting for the anesthesia to take effect in my mouth, the song selection coming out of the speaker included Pink Floyd’s “I…have become…comfortably numb.”

Something I have suspected for a long time – “At $21, the cheapest seats in Heinz Hall, Downtown, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, are high up in the Gallery, high at the top of the balcony where the air is thin and the stage is but a distant splotch of color and motion. And believe it or not, these are also the best of the hall’s 2,675 seats…” https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/music/2019/10/14/Heinz-Hall-best-worst-seats-orchestra-concert-pittsburgh-symphony-acoustics/stories/201910070104

Wasn't the Piece for Clarinet.../Mobiles recorded in 1960? In 1959, I believe there was also a Sonny Stitt Plays Jimmy Giuffre Arrangements album.

The woman was “just feet away and directly in front of the star,” according to: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/09/29/review-star-violinist-remains-unruffled-after.html I’ve heard of concert halls where the sweat of people on stage can land on people sitting on the first row.

An audience member in the front row of a performance by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, performing with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was recording Mutter on her phone. With the phone such a few feet from her face, Mutter stopped the performance and asked the woman to stop. Instead of stopping, the woman attempted to engage Mutter in a conversation… https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2019/09/30/audience-member-escorted-out-anne-sophie-mutter-performance/3821790002/

Perhaps the piano was out of tune intentionally.

I had a chance to check the archives of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Three weeks of shows were scheduled in New York. A reviewer for the Los Angeles shows wrote: "Recruited in America, the musicians - including the inevitable accordionist - succeeded in capturing a thoroughly Continental jazz flavor."

Has anyone ever heard of French singer Yves Montand being backed by Jimmy Giuffre on clarinet, Jim Hall on guitar, Bob Castella on piano, Al McKibbon on bass, Mel Lewis on drums, Tommy Shepherd on trombone, and Frank Moracco on accordion, for a few shows in Los Angeles in November 1959?

I bought the Legacy edition of the first Santana album when it was released and the liner notes say “Interestingly, the band opted not to perform ‘Evil Ways’,” at Woodstock. Maybe the liner notes have been corrected in reissues of the Legacy edition.

Speaking of the original Woodstock album: …Two of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tracks, “Wooden Ships” and “Sea of Madness,” came from a Fillmore East show shortly after the festival, since Neil Young was reportedly happy with the recordings. Arlo Guthrie’s mic gave out during “Coming Into Los Angeles,” so the version heard on Woodstock was taken from a show at the Troubadour in Los Angeles…. …The crowd chanting Country Joe McDonald’s “The ‘Fish’ Cheer” (“Gimme an F. . . . Gimme a U…”) weren’t loud enough, so under Blackstead’s direction, a gaggle of studio employees shouted along in the studio. The same went for the famous “Rain Chant,” a clatter of pots and pans that was also concocted in the studio. “There is a ton of fake stuff,” says producer Andy Zax, who sorted through the tapes for an upcoming, unadulterated Woodstock box. “To one degree or another, the Woodstock soundtrack record is a pretty fraudulent artifact. But a lot of it was defensible. There were technical reasons or artist preferences.” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/triumph-tragedy-woodstock-album-producer-eric-blackstead-849575/

For those who do not already know, there is a Woodstock commemorative stamp that will be put on sale on August 8, 2019 http://www.stampnewsnow.com/uspsnewissues.html

I would buy the 38 CDs if released in a cardboard box with cardboard sleeves at a much lower price.

Rising numbers of younger fans spark a UK jazz renaissance: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jul/29/rising-numbers-of-younger-fans-spark-a-uk-jazz-renaissance

Throughout the last 10 years or more, I have several times given as a gift the 2001 Impulse CD John Coltrane Spiritual.

I also heard that Santana put on a great show at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest.

On May 6, a blogger named Aslan Sagutdinov was arrested for holding a blank poster in a public square in Uralsk, Kazakhstan… The blankness of the poster is comparable to the statement that John Cage made in his famous work 4’33” (1952) when he allowed the listeners to interpret a perceived silence. https://hyperallergic.com/500658/man-arrested-in-kazakhstan/

the Woodstock 50 team announced that it has enlisted the help of Oppenheimer & Co. to complete financing for the three-day event to take place in August. https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/woodstock-50-is-back-on-maybe.html

If we include violence on jazz musicians, there's also Anita O'Day's description of being raped (in her memoir High Times Hard Times, p. 172). You can read the description in Google Books.

Someone needs to write a biography of Jimmy Giuffre.

If you stop in Austin, check out Waterloo Records. Every time I go there, I get the impression that the vinyl section has expanded.

Did Gustav Mahler take the A Train? Most likely, he took the Ninth Avenue Line, which is now defunct, but went to Harlem like the song popularized decades later by Duke Ellington. During his New York years (1908–11), Mahler is reported to have missed his 72nd Street stop and didn’t know it until he hit 140th Street. https://www.wqxr.org/story/gustav-mahler-take-a-train-new-york-philharmonic/