Christiern

True, many compilations and "Best of..." albums are just another way for a label to get more mileage out of their catalog, but I think compilations are good for people who are starting out, need to hear a variety of some genre or artist, and don't have a collection that duplicates selections. There are also times when the compilation concept can serve as an excuse to issue material that otherwise might fall between the cracks (grooves?). When I was producing reissues for Columbia, I came across several recordings that had not been reissued (or even issued at all), because they did not naturally fit into any concept. That made me come up with "Stars of the Apollo," a 2-LP set featuring rare tracks by artists who had graced that historic stage. It is an eclectic blend of rarely or never before issued performances. I gave the art department an old Apollo ad and it worked well when stretched to fit the front and back of the LP sleeve. I did get some complaints from people who didn't grasp what I had in mind and, thus, wondered what it was all about, but the album did well and was also released as a 2-disc CD. Anyone here familiar with this set?

Where are cylinders when we need them?

Anything Ratliff writes about the music ought to be taken with a grain of salt and when he writes about Wynton and his people, a grain will no longer suffice.

I never liked Brokaw, but I think his story is funnier--and more believable.

I don't recall the Showboat lounge allowing amateur musicians on the bandstand, and certainly not when professionals were playing--I think this routine was a bit of a fantasy trip. That, of course, does not make it less funny, although the humor of this piece, IMO, was fleeting. I guess I'm one of the few white people who did not find Cosby's routines funny. A good friend of mine was a regular on the Huxtable series, so I sat through a few shows, but found myself wondering why this sitcom was successful. Different strokes, I guess.

It was originally posted yesterday.

Yes and he has also, on several occasions, treated musicians unprofessionally in public. This is really not a nice person.

In 1959-60, when I was a dj on an all-jazz station in Philly (WHAT-FM), I regularly received calls of complaints from "Bill", whenever I played pre-bop recordings (Armstrong's Hot Five, Bessie Smith, Fletcher Henderson, etc.). Bill would ask me when I was going to stop playing that "Mickey Mouse music," which he also sometimes called "Uncle Tom music." I was amazed that this guy couldn't hear the beauty of these recordings. Several months later, I had moved on to WNEW in NYC and Cosby came to the station to promote his first comedy album. It was only then that I discovered who "Bill" was. Not long after that, we went through the initial period of black awareness and broadcasters scrambled to air programs that they were not likely to have aired a year or two earlier. I heard Bill Cosby narrate one of these network programs, reading a script that mentioned the rich black musical heritage that had made fun of. Nothing "hip" about that, IMO.

Bill Barton: "For goodness sakes, it's a freaking discussion board on the Internet not international diplomacy (or lack thereof). Let it go and move on." Hear, hear.

I had 2 copies of that set. The discs were stolen from one of them, but the radio box and booklet remain. Felser, here's a photo that might help you generate interest.

Apropos Filemaker, I did not know that there is a PC version,but that's good. As some of you may know, I have for the past 3 years worked on interpreting (Gothic handwriting), translating (from old Danish), and entering into a Filemaker database 2-300 year old records of slaves and owners on St. Croix (which used to be Danish). The institution for which I am doing this uses PCs, but Filemaker allows me to save the files in the Excel format.

That must have been a valuable experience, Lon. I tried to track down records of my schooldays at Kent College, Canterbury (1946), but the school hasn't kept records going that far back. I did, however find the following on the amazing internet--it is the Alien Manifest for the SS Godafoss, a small ship on which I arrived in New York a month before Pearl Harbor. It's hard to read the small print here, but I am the "Gunnar Albertson" listed tenth from bottom. I never thought I'd find anything like that.

I used to keep my LPs in alphabetical order, but I found myself constantly having to shift them, so I finally decided that the only sensible way was to simply but them on the shelves in their order of arrival and then catalog the collection. When I sold my LPs (to Karl Knudsen) i had over 18,000. One problem with shelving them alphabetically by artist or composer is that not every issue is devoted to just one.

That's not you beating the Ambrosia drum?

I have found that there is only one way to effectively cut down on search time, that is to maintain a database. Before computers, I kept a card file, but computer files are the true answer. When I started mine, I had a few thousand CDs, so it looked like a hopeless task and making slow progress is (to me, at least) psychologically discouraging. To solve that problem, I began by entering only the most vital info--this made my cataloging move briskly. Then I casually added information until I was completely à jour. Unfortunately, after all that work, thousands of CDs were stolen, so much of it was for nought. Still that's the way to go. Being a Mac person, I used Filemaker Plus for my cataloging. As you may be able to see from the following, my database became quite detailed. The beauty of it is that I can search on any full or partial data, or combinations.

Hope this is not disruptive, nut here are some photos I took in Perugia 24 years ago: notice the censor's little black patch! Park your Heineken before entering. Back to the music....

Thanks for the comments, Mike. Kelman has handled the forum very unprofessionally, IMO, but Mike R has also overreacted. Short-term banning is no solution, just a slap on the wrist that creates resentment or deepens one that already exists. Unfortunately, the Board also has some members who are chronic complainers and appear to see themselves as auxiliary forum police, and when their political bent is in the right direction--as it were--they have Mr. K's ears and impulses on their side. I said I was through with this topic, but (having impulses of my own ) I felt compelled to jump in with a response. Menace FYI: DEEP is alive and well. He chairs the Bernie Nierow branch of the HBMBAS (Henry Benson Memorial Blues Appreciation Society), which meets about 6 times a year.

I just returned from a lengthy trip to the forum from hell--lengthy, because I read, in full, the thread that discusses the problem. Very interesting, but also disturbing. It is something that I saw coming when a heavy-handed moderator decided to go after me, presumably because my political views are diametrically opposed to his (notice that none of the right-wing posters have been banned ). I met Mike Ricci many years ago, when he was starting the site. We had lunch and I was very impressed with his plans, so I told him that I would be glad to give him reviews and articles that I had written for Stereo Review and other publications over the years. He liked the idea, so I started uploading what became an archive, a part of the cornerstone for AAJ. Since then, Mike has given his site character and made it a useful, important resource. He is still developing new features, and yesterday he told me about some that are around the corner, including at least one that could benefit other jazz sites, as well. The way I see it, Mike is under enormous pressure with all that work (he is also in the middle of moving to a new home), but that is, of course, not an excuse for letting things get out of hand. Speaking only of the bulletin board, his biggest mistake, IMHO, has been his choice of moderators. These are people whose persona, ability to interact with an eclectic group of people, and sense of fairness is of utmost importance. They set the tone for the board (hence my earlier analogy to Michael's Pub), they are also put in a position of power, which is something not everyone can handle. This guy from Ottawa obviously can't, and I am neither the only one to be targeted nor the only one to notice his serial abuse. It appears that this guy's involvement with AAJ goes beyond the BBS and that he now will give up moderating the forum--that's a good sign. Clearly, AAJ has lost some of its most knowledgeable members, people like Chuck Nessa, MG, Bev, Lonson, Saundra, and others who love the music and stimulate thought, people who who shared their relevant experiences with fellow posters and answered many questions. Frivolous censorship does not sit well with independent thinkers. Free exchanges of ideas and thoughts can easily lead to an off path, but most such eruptions, if let alone, subside and let posting go on. There are also civil ways in which to settle differences, and barring posters--even short-term--is not the answer. It didn't work at AAJ, it only led to the present arguments and exodus. The Ottawa moderator is being very defensive but his arguments are an insult to intelligence. Some exiles will probably return, but I think much will depend on whether the atmosphere at AAJ can be made breathable. Let's hope this misguided bully's replacement is chosen with the care and foresight that was missing when he was handed the reins. I may be all wrong about this, but that's how I see it based on my own experience with this guy and what I just read in that thread. In the meantime, it's good to see y'all here and I hope you stay. My 2¢ worth and I'm through with this sorry topic.

Yes, I have seen him on C-Span--what he said made me shake my head more then once.

So, Andrea is a funky musician, no?

Strictly speaking, this should go into the Political forum, but I wanted to post it here because of the references to Alex Ross (see purple text). Hope it's ok.--CA Welcoming Obama To Reality BY JOHN McWHORTER January 31, 2008 Strong Black Woman. Say it loud, "I'm black and I'm proud." So why the sense of injury over the Clintons aiming slime at Barack Obama? Mind you, it's been a moderate dollop. We've heard so much about how the Clinton machine would "get" him. So: he worked with a slum lord? His record on Iraq is a "fairy tale?" His embrace by black voters in South Carolina won't take him any further than Jesse Jackson got? Compared to the Swift-boating affair against John Kerry, this is water balloons. And yet wise folk are telling us that part of the reason Mr. Obama copped so much of the black vote in South Carolina is indignation at the Clintons' abuse. The white punditocracy is similarly harrumphing over Mr. Obama meeting sharp elbows. But aren't we supposing that this grown man in his fifth decade of life is curiously delicate? Haven't our elections been permeated with mud since, well, forever? Summer 1884: Grover Cleveland is governor of New York, running for president on the Democratic ticket, his appeal based on not being a Washington insider — i.e., untainted, like a certain someone. His Republican opponent, James Blaine, had dirty hands and everyone knew it: there were certain letters, on the back of one "Burn this letter" was written — but the letter remained distinctly unburned. Blaine's guys fought dirty. They dug up that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. Cleveland's response to his "peeps": "Tell the truth." They did, and Cleveland became president. He wasn't surprised that what we would today call "The Blaine Machine" did everything they could to try to defeat him. Yet there is an element of surprise, a tincture of dismay, in how many view the sliming of Mr. Obama. If Grover Cleveland or John Kerry got slimed, what do you expect? But if Mr. Obama gets slimed, well. There is a tacit sense that decent people would make an exception for him. Otherwise, why would so many think of it as news that the Clintons or anyone else would get nasty in trying to push past him? Let's face facts: People see this commonplace phenomenon as news because of a tacit idea that as a black man, Mr. Obama should be treated with kid gloves. Lawrence Bobo, professor of sociology at Harvard, gives it away comparing the Clintons' attacks on Mr. Obama to, specifically, the Willie Horton ad and the 2000 vote count. That is, events traditionally classified as "racist" — as if Republicans have not sought to best Democrats in ways disconnected to race. Upon which the Swift-boat thing is germane. Mr. Bobo appends that to his list, too — but misses that the guiding theme is not racism but hardball. Welcome to reality: being judged by the content of our character means that we black people will not be exempt from hardball. We should not be seduced by the fantasy that we must pretend to be fragile. I have been reminded of this in Alex Ross' survey of 20th century classical music "The Rest is Noise," anointed by the Times as one of last year's 10 best books. Mr. Ross takes us from Mahler through to John Adams, including Elliott Carter, this week being celebrated at Julliard. But even in a chronicle of music only a rarefied elite care about, Mr. Ross feels a duty to "acknowledge" black musicians who have nothing genuine to do with what the book is about. So he must drag in Duke Ellington as a "classical composer," who would "follow Gershwin in uniting jazz and classical procedures," but "in his own way." Yes — but in a "way" that was not classical music at all. Ellington was a jazz composer. He wrote short pieces united by titular themes. His works like "Black, Brown and Beige" and the "Far East Suite" do not take one or two musical themes and morph them meanderingly in various keys for 20 minutes in the way that is the definition of classical music. The genius of Ellington was in the harmonic and improvisational richness within the short pieces. It was an art I love deeply: I have more Ellington in my CD collection than of any other jazz composer. However, genuflectively saluting Ellington in a book about music like Milton Babbitt's is like Julia Child dutifully including a few Thai recipes in a book about French cuisine. The Thais will be just fine knowing that Pad Kee Mow is splendid — and maybe even better than chicken cordon bleu. Just as Mr. Obama, an adult despite Maureen Dowd's terming him "Obambi," will be just fine getting heckled. If we pretend otherwise, we diminish him just as Ms. Dowd does. If he's strong, black, and proud, he can take being dissed — and the rest, to take a page from Mr. Ross, is noise. Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and weekly columnist for The New York Sun. His latest book is "Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America."

Just found this new site (ever developing, they say) that gives you the lowdown on what's happening in your neighborhood: crimes, restaurant violations, building violations, etc. It only covers New York City, Chicago and San Francisco, so far, but inquiring minds should welcome it. The door is: everyblock.com

Garvin Bushell handled that instrument well, too.

Welcome to you, Roger.

Bill or Phil?