Ken Dryden

It would be a long list: Art Farmer, Horace Parlan, Johnny Griffin, Ben Webster, Kenny Drew and Oscar Pettiford are among the many who moved to Europe. Sir Charles Thompson moved to Japan.

There is also an Emily Remler broadcast from Jazz at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, likely recorded in 1988 or 1989 and aired in 1990. It features her solo, playing duets and with a trio.

There was both a VHS and DVD of the documentary. Somewhere in my digital photo files I have a photo of Jean Bach, who was instrumental in getting this film made, standing in front of a poster of the famous photo.

What was that 1964 tour like? It must have been rather eventful with Johnny Coles getting ill. Yeah, it was quite a scene. That was in Paris, when he fell back. Hazel Scott, Bud Powell and his wife, they were standing behind the stage watching us. When Johnny fell, they went out and called the ambulance and got him to the hospital right away. Never forget that. I am thinking of starting a Substack blog to feature interviews I've done over the past 37 years, with the idea of publishing a book. Progress is going well, but editing is time consuming, removing "you know" and repeated words that would get tiresome reading. Of course the interviewer needs editing, too...

Jaki Byard described what happened when Johnny Coles collapsed that night in my interview with him in 1990.

Archive.org allowed me to upload a BBC broadcast sent to me years ago, a live set by guitarists Martin Taylor and Louis Stewart. It was sent to me in jumbled order with gaps between tracks. I've tried to clean it up as best as I could, but it was obviously recorded over the air or is source from a third or fourth generation tape. I have tried to remove the duplicate track with a typo, but I keep getting an error message from Archive.org. Check it out and see what you think. https://archive.org/details/1.-martin-taylor-louis-stewart-BBC-London-3-24-1985

I think they are still having issues, as I have been unable to upload any shows since the attack, even since they seemed to have gotten back on line.

This is an upcoming RSD release, great music!

I have owned copies of the two broadcasts for years, but this set has over an hour of extra music not aired. Hopefully the label is interested in releasing the show featuring Emily Remler with Larry Coryell, presuming they can obtain the rights from Coryell’s estate.

I don't think I ever got to hear Roy Haynes in person, but I do remember what a snappy dresser he was when he attended IAJE. He was a fun interview and I've got lots of his recordings as a leader and sideman.

My 1994 interview with Art Farmer, followed by this CD:

The Welsh pianist Dill Jones and Claude Hopkins tend to be overlooked.

I already had this music on a couple of European CDs and a Japanese LP reissue, but it is nice to get it in its original form.

I miss the Frito Bandito, at one time, the erasers included with six packs of chips were collector’s items.

Before moving in retirement, you have to put together a list of what is important to you both. For example: Cost of living, access to medical care and specialists, housing affordability and options, crime, local government, taxes, local laws (some busybody cities and HOAs try to limit your number of pets, even if they are kept indoors). My sister told me recently that a home they were considering purchasing in the Asheville, North Carolina metropolitan area was in a subdivision with an HOA. It had a limit of four pets, period. When she talked to a representative and he asked, "How many do you own?" her response was "None of your business." I think they owned 6 or 7 cats and 2 dogs at that time. An example of excessive busybody, greedy local regulations in Chattanooga: All persons owning, keeping or maintaining more than seven (7) dogs, seven (7) cats, or a combined total of seven (7) dogs and cats shall be required to obtain a multiple-pet license and pay an additional fee for each dog or cat in excess of seven (7), at the following rates: Fifty dollars ($50.00) for each dog or cat in excess of seven (7) and up to and including ten (10) dogs or cats; One hundred dollars ($100.00) for each dog or cat in excess of ten (10) and up to and including twenty (20) dogs or cats; and Two hundred dollars ($200.00) for each dog or cat in excess of twenty (20) dogs or cats. We have owned three homes in the metropolitan area, none have been in the city limits, though we have never had more than 6 cats at once. You have to rank which factors are knock outs for cities under consideration.

It is interesting that the famous John Coltrane sextet with Eric Dolphy and Wes Montgomery set at Monterey in 1961 is listed as rejected. Did tapes ever exist? Zev Feldman has long been trying to find them, though he isn’t sure that this set was recorded.

I still have the last series of texts that I exchanged with Claire Daly. Somehow I can’t delete them, even though the last message was a year ago. i couldn’t access the NYT obit, did the writer contact Joel Forrester? If not, he may have been harder to reach if he is still living and working in France.

I am in the process of transcribing my 1997 Michel Petrucciani interview. He was so full of enthusiasm, it was a pity that he died at 36. i got that email and requested a copy.

I bought a CD reissue in 2021 , I will have to give it another listen.

This 2 CD set won't be released until December 8, 2024, but my copy arrived today. While I have had long had recordings of the broadcast versions of these two shows, aired on the old APR series Four Queens Jazz Night From Las Vegas, each CD adds music that was never aired, around 60 minutes worth. These decades old tape reels held up nicely, as do Emily's performances.

I was unaware Claire had been battling cancer. A couple of times I met her for lunch while visiting NYC, she recommended great restaurants that I would have never found on my own. She was an important baritone saxophonist and she will be missed. She must have been ill when she was working on Vuvu For Frances.

AKA Jack the Dripper…

Very whimsical, indeed. I wrote a similar article titled "How to Spot Potential Turkeys" years ago, which was published in some now defunct magazine (Planet Jazz?) and online. I am not even sure where the magazine is. I think All About Jazz lost the article in one of their crashes in the early years. My biggest challenge is getting excited about CDs by musicians I've never heard of doing all original material who seem straight out of Berklee or some other jazz program. I did have an odd situation with a publicist that began sending me a lot of these type of CDs and I noticed names of well known musicians mentioned in the press releases that were consistently misspelled. When I emailed her about it, her response was, "Well, that's the way my artists spelled them." I told her it was part of her job, just like when I write liner notes, I check the spelling of every name, make sure the song title is as published and the correct composers and lyricists are credited. Inevitably one or more mistake or omission is included in the information sent to me.

I will have to admit it is a nice perk to get promo copies sent to me due to writing about jazz and broadcasting a radio show, but I still spend a significant amount every year. I am thinking about thinning out some things that I may be unlikely to return to in the future, but I need to start setting time aside each week to do that. If I ever overrun the current music library, my wife has informed me that shelves of music elsewhere in the house are not acceptable. There is no room to add any more shelving in my library, besides, the added weight, since it is over the garage, might not be a great idea.

A strong pass, I love Lee Morgan but this set is overpriced with a lot of filler.