Ken Dryden

Today I interviewed pianist Helen Sung for a Hot House feature in July. She will be leading a big band with a number of well known artists at William Paterson on July 11.

I don't care as long as a stoner doesn't run into me after a few too many tokes. I still remember the drunk driver who just missed hitting me head on in 1978, after he sideswiped me and crashed into a telephone pole, he breathed Jack Daniels in my face when he came to. I had a strong desire to pull him out of the truck and beat the living daylights out of him.

Someone at MPS ran across my review of Two Originals and that’s what led me to getting the liner notes assignment.

Agreed. One of my biggest pet peeves with Fantasy is when they would combine two LPs on one CD then omit a track. The biggest mistake was their compilation of Jaki Byard’s Solo and With Strings. Not only did they omit a favorite track from the former, “Hello, Young Lovers,” but they intermingled the tracks from the two LPs, screwing up the original sequencing badly and making for an odd listening experience.

MPS is reissuing it. I wrote the new liner notes for it and I believe they are including the original liner notes as well. It was a nice surprise to get contacted by them out of the blue, as I don’t write a lot of liner notes. It will be available on both LP and CD.

After the Braves came back from deficits in all three games to sweep them, they had a nice comeback against the Nationals last night as well.

He still sounds youthful as ever. I interviewed him a few months ago, the first time in around 3 decades. He’s the kind of artist that would be fun to talk to over an extended period.

Please hold these titles for me, I will pay upon confirmation of availability: Bernie Senensky Re-Action (Unity) - 5 Barney Wilen & Philppe Petit Flashback (Paris Jazz Corner) - 10

Funny!

Great small ball by the Yankees against the Dodgers tonight, two runners on third base ran on contact and scored easily on infield groundouts. This is the game I should have watched! https://www.mlb.com/braves/video/eddie-rosario-hits-a-grand-slam-8-to-right-center-field-michael-harris-ii?t=grand-slams

Automatically on my want list! Maybe someone can find the Monterey tapes of John Coltrane leading a sextet with Eric Dolphy and Wes Montgomery.

Ordered on Monday, along with the Michel Petrucciani.

Two musicians I’ve interviewed had nothing but good things to say about Benny Goodman: Ken Peplowski and Bucky Puzzarelli. Of course, I didn’t discuss Goodman with every former sideman whom I interviewed.

Bill Crow has long been a talented writer. His long essay “To Russia Without Love” should be required reading, if you haven’t read it, you can find it posted on his website. I hope he gets another book published, I am sure he has enough stories for one.

I’ve read that this box set was done via needle drop and isn’t very good quality. I saw it in a store and passed.

There was a brilliant article about how Tina Turner responded to 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace series of stupid questions during an interview for a show segment, but were not used. Perhaps the dumbest one was Wallace asking her if she “Deserved all this…” Her response was priceless, “I deserve more.” Any successful artist or business owner can tell about the sacrifices and rough times experienced while building wealth during a long career or growth of a business. I still remember my father’s seven day work weeks and suffering for hours with migraine headaches in the early years of the engineering firm that he founded in 1968.

One of the things about collecting baseball cards when all seven series were individually published and issued during the season was noting how well Topps predicted the final roster for each team. Inevitably they would guess wrong on a few, especially for catchers, requiring them to add a note about the transaction on the back of the card. Poor old Merritt Ranew always seemed to be optioned to triple A in May, while other third string players would be released unconditionally and never spend another day on the field unless they entered coaching.

Denny Zeitlin has discussed time he spent one summer toward the end of his medical training talking about music at length with Russell in his NYC home. As I remember, the Five Spot album sounds like a studio recreation of a live gig, as the piano is remarkably in tune for the Five Spot.

Not at the moment, as the official release date is June 30th. I was sent the full download and will get the 3 CD when they have copies made. My review will appear on All About Jazz.

It seems odd that Frank Zappa never got around to issuing this music, although some compositions appeared in truncated form or alternate versions around 1970. Many Zappa fans will be familiar with this brief post Hot Rats band with Sugar Cane Harris, Ian Underwood, Max Bennett and Aynsley Dunbar. The session definitely has a bluesy air and most of the music sounds in finished form, aside from one breakdown. This band is known to long time Zappa fans who own the bootleg Hot Rats at the Olympic and this studio session doesn't disappoint, featuring extended workouts of "Chunga's Revenge:" and the burning instrumental "Twinkle Tits." I'd rather see more projects like this versus a box of build reels or yet another set of live music from the mid-1970s .

Bassist Bob Haggart was a painter. One of his last portraits was of trumpeter Jimmy McPartland. According to Marian, he died not long after shipping it to her, possibly while it was in transit.

I will have to admit that I find Jones unlistenable, especially her version of "Dat Dere." Her voice grates on my nerves.

It used to be a huge headache when IAJE was held in Long Beach. Performances were frequently interrupted by some jerk who didn't mute his/her cellphone or pager. I don't remember that happening in Toronto, New York City or New Orleans.

JazzTimes A-Wastin’…

Glad I haven’t run out of money, shelf space or time yet…