Kalo

Give me the Boswells any day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Afn3Z-BWI

S'gonna be a pretty freaked out year!

Thelonious Monk's Blue Notes. Miles Davis's Blue Notes.

Tantalizing news. But godawful writing. Huh? Apparently, neither the writer nor editor knows what the word "seminal" means.

Just took a gander at their website and it doesn't look like they got too far, does it. My guess is that putting out the same titles that have been out on CD two or three times already didn't work out too well sales-wise.

Definitely! Thanks, Chris.

Maybe for next year...

Just finished Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era. Not bad at all, quite good actually, though not as good as I hoped (he's not the best prose stylist). I still plan on reading his book on Stephen Foster, though.

I love Dickens. It must be a trip to read your great, great grandfather's books, Chris! I was just saying to someone today how much I love old books where you can see the impress of the metal type on the pages. I wonder why the Dickens volumes your g. g. g. picked up in England appear to have been printed in Germany.

Sad news. I'm glad I got to hear him a number of years ago in Boston. His concert with Kenny Burrell was perhaps the most mellow evening of live music I've ever experienced. Something special.

I dig Terry on, among other records, Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder.

Ouch!

I'm partial to "Indian Summer."

I hope someone finishes that and releases it!

Damn! And only 65. Hyena was shaping up to be another interesting chapter in the quirky story.

Maybe that's where the phrase "close enough for jazz" comes from?

Willie "the Lion" Smith plays a stride version of Chopin's "Polonaise" on this album Music on My Mind available in the Jazz in Paris series. Lee Konitz interprets three pieces from Bartok's "Mikrokosmos" on his Milestone album Peacemeal. Also there's the excellent Lee Konitz & the Axis String Quartet Play French Impressionist Music from the 20th Century, arranged by Ohad Talmor.

A Great, Silly Grin: The British Satire Boom of the 1960s by Humphrey Carpenter.

Just considered as songs apart from the quality of performance and recording, the first three that come to mind for me are "Tatoo," "The Kids are Allright," and "Substitute." I'd have been very happy to have written any of those songs.

Desert island material!

I'd be curious to hear these. Was it Torme or Bennett who claimed that being "forced" to record contemporary hits by his record company literally made him vomit? "Mel Torme or Tony Bennett Retches Today's Hits!"

Actually kind of impressive.

Features the utterly fabulous and stupendous The Sleeping Lady and the Giant Who Watches Over Her. I love this session!

Been posted here before but here it comes again. This Rick Moranis parody perfectly captures the smarmy, clueless hipsterism of our Mel.