sgcim

Besides being a great pianist/composer/radio host, she was an extraordinarily kind woman. My uncle worked at the same bank she used in LI, and gave her a tape I made of some of my tunes back in the 70s. She not only listened to it, but also wrote a very complimentary letter (that I still have), and offered to recommend me to Choice Records. I stupidly didn't take advantage of it, because I had a Jimmy Raney LP on Choice, and the sound was very bad, but will always remember her words of encouragement. RIP Marian. Thanks for the great music and interviews on Piano Jazz...

Thanks for the heads up- I nailed a good 14 hours of Cedar on cassette tape. The only stuff I didn't like was the shit with Abbey Lincoln...

Truly sad news. I remember catching him live at an outdoor concert in NY, and coming away with the impression that he was a very cool person, in addition to being a great pianist/composer. RIP,Cedar. Another of the few greats left, gone...

Aaron gave me a burned copy of the Bethlehem LP he made with Jimmy Raney and Hall Overton, so Fresh Sound probably put that one out. That sounds like the LP on the RAMA label ("Clarinet & Co."), not the Bethlehem LP which had Urbie Green, Danny Bank, Barry Galbraith, Clyde Lombardi and Osie Johnson. And yes - the RAMA LP was reissued by Fresh sound both on vinyl and CD. Otherwise, I agree with jazztrsin. Lots of obvious items there that have already been reissued a couple of times whereas others seem to be overlooked constantly. I never saw the vinyl, but you're probably right, because it was called "Clarinet & Co."

Aaron gave me a burned copy of the Bethlehem LP he made with Jimmy Raney and Hall Overton, so Fresh Sound probably put that one out.

What happens now? Some history and further speculation here, although from the general tone I'd say the author has an ax to grind: http://observer.com/2013/08/the-excruciating-demise-of-wbai/ The NY Observer was founded by a wealthy Wall St. person, as a rag for fellow Wall Streeters. To say that they are overjoyed by the recent events at BAI would be the understatement of the millenium. The fact that one of their own has been running NYC for the last 12 years has made them happy beyond belief. Ex-Organissimo member Christern was station manager at BAI in the 60s, and posts a lot on their Listeners' Forum recently. Here's a list of people that were laid off: The two hosts of "Wake Up Call, Felipe Luciano and Esther Alma Hugh Hamilton Earl Caldwell Robert Knight Linda Perry Sharan Louise Harper Jose Santiago rebecca Miles Cathy Davis Sidney Smith Ken Gale Jenniffer Sindow Yvonne Singh Andrea Sears Gracen Challenger

My fave symphony is Bernard Herrmann's "Symphony", conducted by the composer himself on Unicorn Records. It's so under-performed that it wasn't even heard during the composer's centennial recently. Abravnel and the Utah Symphony Orch. recorded it a few years back, but they only played one or two movements from it. My own symphony is perhaps the least known symphony in the history of mankind. I myself forgot that i wrote it until halfway into this post!

If the right singer is singing the right song with the right backing and the right arrangements, I could care less whether he or she can improvise or not. I suppose that some bass players or drummers are better improvisers than others, but I prefer the ones who can groove in a group setting. Well put. There's endless idiocy by non-musicians in regard to music, but the phrase, "It's the singer, not the song", made me want to kill anyone that used to say that...

Wow! That was great, especially the octave jumping at the end. In a perfect world, every woman would look and sing like EG. Just a few days ago on the way to a gig, either a trumpet plaey or sax player that used to do her and SL's show was telling a story about EG lecturing the band about how to play something, and SL came into the room and told her to shut the fuck up, and get the hell out of there. RIP EG

I went to this "sale" today. I was amazed to find only about 200 LPs (22,000? yeah, right...) there, and they were all old classical LPs that were pretty commonplace albums. I asked some stupid chick, "is this all there is?", and she bubbled over that they were going to add at least fifteen more boxes of LPs by noon tomorrow. Considering that they only had about 10-20 LPs in a box, I just shrugged my shoulders... Just more Manhattan bullshit hype. I should know by now...

That story was recounted in the book about Ornette's appearance at the Five Spot in 1959. I forget the title and author. There were many negative reactions from prominent jazz musicians to Ornette's music recounted in that book. Even in "Notes and Tones" by AT, many musicians that were interviewed still had negative opinions about "Freedom music" in the 1970s.

Curse those album cover threads!

I'll always remember him for beating the shit out of Ornette Coleman in the kitchen at the Five Spot, because he hated OC's music, and then following OC home, and beating the shit out of him again in front of his apartment.

WNET played the documentary "Radio Unnameable" last night, concerning radio station WBAI, and the Bob Fass show. Christern was station manager back when Fass started doing his midnight show in the early 1960s, and commented on WBAI and Fass' career.

The pop stuff of today has gotten so bad today because everything is a drum machine or electronic drums. That's my main problem with it. We just played a big band concert, and as I was walking through the crowd, I heard two guys in their late thirties talking about how the music their kids listen to today is literally making them sick. They went on and on about how they're afraid they're going to do something violent to their kids if they play it in their houses...

I listened to her album in 2010 "Saturn Sings", and I couldn't believe anyone would actually put out a record like that. Maybe someone said something to her, because her recent stuff on youtube is much better.

I still remember sitting in a movie theater when the beautiful theme heard at 3:24 to 4:16 was used in the climax of the movie "Alien". I wonder if that was Jerry Goldsmith's idea, or someone else's? A NY radio DJ played the score from "Alien" on the air, and played Hanson's great theme, and said,"Look at what a genius Jerry was, listen to that melody at the climax!" I called him on the air and said, "Jerry didn't write that beautiful theme- it's from Howard Hanson's Second Symphony. Jerry's a hack- he couldn't write music like that in his best wet dream." That didn't go over too well with the show's host...

That Jake Feinberg does some wild interviews. I haven't heard the Bob Rose interview (I remember he was doing some shows back in the 70s and 80s when I used to do them), but thanks for the link. I just spent an hour and 23 minutes listening to the John Wilmeth interview. He was a fellow NYC music teacher until Bloomberg closed his high school TWICE, and then he decided to retire. Here's a guy who played with Mike Nock, Michael Bloomfield, Al Haig, Billy Harper, Woody Shaw, Jerry Garcia, Bobby Hutcherson, and countless others, and they were making him teach three Art classes. Bloomberg has single-handedly destroyed the NYC school system. It's amazing what happens when you get white people scared enough to re-elect the thirteenth wealthiest man in the world three times.

Yeah, Carlton deserves it for ripping off Johnny Smith's tune "Jaguar" for his tune "Strikes Twice". Even the Ventures paid JS for "Walk, Don't Run".

Takashi Miike "MPD Psycho"- Netflix has all six episodes. Miike da man-san!

Dankworth did some good film scores, also. The Cleo/Dankworth team produced some great music, until they started to do pop/rock BS in the 70s. I still watch "All Night Long" every time it's on TV. Dankworth did all the writing for that film. Cleo does a great job on her Sondheim LP, but I don't know if JD did the charts for it.

I just read another music article by Nate Chinen that really bugged me, and I asked someone who NC was. They replied that he was probably the gardening columnist before he got assigned to cover music. When you become too knowlegeable about your subject to be able to relate to the average reader, they move you to another section. Look at what happened to Frank Rich...

Percy Brice is still playing. A few friends of mine get together with him on Lon Guyland every week. God Bless him!

I missed the Cecil show, but they hit a new low after that when the KCR DJ played Jaki Byard playing "When Sunny Gets Blue" and the DJ said it was Booker Ervin on tenor, Richard Williams on trumpet, and Jaki on piano. Actually, the cut had no piano, and it was Jaki playing alto sax with just a bass player and drummer! Then he played an Eric Dolphy solo alto saxophone cut, and said it was Dolphy on bass clarinet, and Richard Davis on bass, playing the song "Alone Together", which may be on the album, but definitely wasn't the song he played. This is the only radio station in NYC that plays (some) jazz?

There's a lot of wild quotes from that book. I think the most famous was:"The only way a caucasian musician could swing is from the end of a rope!"