Ken Dryden

I just saw an old Laurel & Hardy short, about the two of them competing to marry a widowed heiress. It was a scream!

The painting is by Bob Haggart. Marian McPartland told me that Haggart painted a portrait of her late husband, Jimmy McPartland, then shipped it to her. He died around the time it arrived . He also drew this illustration.

A nice 1991 studio date.

It would be nice to see all of Jaki Byard's Prestige output as a leader or solo pianist in one package. I have a few unissued tracks from the Lennie's sessions that were never issued, though some of them are multiple rehearsal takes of "King David," a tune evidently not performed that night. I understand that Mosaic may think since the material has been reissued on CD (minus "Hello, Young Lovers," which was omitted from that messed up compilation of Solo Piano and Jaki Byard With Strings), that Byard fans have been able to acquire most of the music, though I think all of his Prestige albums are out of print.

Archive.org discovered they were hacked and took most of their website offline last week. More details can be found here: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/archive-org-a-repository-storing-the-entire-history-of-the-internet-has-been-hacked/

That is one of my favorite films, I get a kick out of James Mason’s final line. I took my fiancee to see it when it was released.

I will be airing a tribute to Terry Gibbs as he celebrates his 100th birthday this Sunday, October 13th at wutc.org. Archive.org is offline so I don’t have files for download or streaming uploaded, but I can Dropbox files to anyone interested.

Is this Delmark's doing after they acquired Sackville following John Norris's death?

This is only a 2 CD set, not a boxed set, but it is a new copy from Dusty Groove at a very low price of $0.99:

It seems like I just bought this set from either Dusty Groove or Jazz Messengers a year or so ago. Never stand still or the jazz release you want may disappear from print.

One of the treasures I have is a framed copy of the Great Day in Harlem photo with a signed note from Marian McPartland. I feel fortunate that I was able to interview a few of the people who were in it, including Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Sonny Rollins, Gerry Mulligan, Milt Hinton, Horace Silver and Marian McPartland.

My cousin and her husband are evacuating their island home in Tampa Bay tomorrow. I can't even imagine what a 15 foot storm surge would be like. I remember riding around a desolate part of New Orleans the summer after Katrina hit and seeing the numerous vacant or destroyed homes, plus the high water mark on a statue in front of a church. My cousin and her brother grew up in a small 1940s house a few blocks from Tampa Bay.

I can’t imagine enduring two hurricanes so close together. Be safe, Dan, hope you have a generator.

I enjoyed Norah Jones in her two guest appearances on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, her own recordings just weren't that interesting, as none of the songs grabbed me.

I've done this type of show at least once before. It will include songs by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, David Gates, The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, Elton John and Frank Zappa. A couple of the mashups are a scream. https://archive.org/details/timeless-jazz-10-6-2024

Doug Ramsey's birthday is today, October 3, like mine. He is exactly twenty years older than me. I miss his Rifftides blog.

Lots of interesting titles, but the ones I like I already own and there are a lot of them in my collection.

I just sampled the upcoming CD online and the recording is far better than that dreadful Art Blakey set LP with Andy Bey. Good separation between the instruments, maybe a touch overmodulated in spots.

August works for me.

I talked to my cousin in Tampa. One foot of water from the storm surge into their home on a manmade island in Tampa Bay. Her husband prevented further damage by parking his Tesla on the firth floor of a parking garage before the storm, but two other island residents didn’t prepare and their Teslas caught fire. My sister lives west of Asheville on a hilltop and they lost power and cellphone service, though they installed a permanent generator several years ago and have power. She said the damage was minor but I haven’t gotten details. The videos of washed out roads and bridges, along with floating houses are heartbreaking.

Somehow I think that Blue Note has higher standards than the label that issued the pathetic Art Blakey LP, it wasn't anything like the Jazz Messengers, that was complete false advertising by that label. I returned that crappy LP for its several skips and dreadful sound.

Is Mark Elf still active? I remember running into him at IAJE yearly and I knew he had a health scare awhile back.

We got rain from Helene’s outer edge but it was no big deal. Asheville didn’t fare as well.

I miss churches with pipe organs and great acoustics.