Christiern

Many great albums named in this thread, but Jim's first recommendation blows them all away: It defines the art of this genre, IMO.

Wishing you a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Looks like you got the best birthday gift of all--and I'm not talking about the check from mom, P.S. Of course I made up an elaborate birthday post for you, but--like the fool I am--I placed itin the political forum.

This was on the subway wall at my station, about 30 years ago: "I am black, with 12 inches" Under which someone had scrawled: "I am green, with envy"

This has been dicussed here before. As I stated in that thread, I don't expect much from Peter's book, although I respect him as a writer on other subjects. The problem is that tackling this subject presents him with a dilemma: does he write the truth and thus debunk his father's accounts or does he preserve his father's self-congratulatory image and give us another skewed look at Monk? I hope he opts for the former but fear it will be the latter. As far as I know, Robin Kelley's book is still in the works and I base my positive expectations strictly on my own conversations with him. In other words, I have good reason to be skeptical when it comes to Peter's book and, so far, no reason to feel the same about Robin's.

I thought they were a perfect match. My heart does not go out to Clive Davis--he should have protected his investment better.

Be very careful not to drive over a lizard fellow with a cockney accent!

I wondered about that, too, Harold.

I thought that would be obvious. Liner notes tend not to criticize the performer--ergo, if one has reservations about the music on the record, one should decline the assignment. On the other hand, if one isn't exactly rolling in dough... Remember, too, that most liner notes written 40-50 years ago were little more than shallow blurbs, often written by disc jockeys whose knowledge of jazz came mainly from reading silly notes written by other disc jockeys who, in turn.... well, you get the picture.

Found this hand-out in my closet--it's from 1946. Here are both sides.

Liner notes, not reviews.

Dmitry, where did you find a side view?

Yes, Larry, and I was not the only one--we all had nom de plumes to avoid embarrassment. If I recall correctly, Dan Morgenstern was "Michael Morgan" and Ira had one, too, but it escapes me. Jim, there were only about half a dozen--Byrdie Green comes to mind.

I used to do a radio show in NYC as "Uncle Chris." David Amram still addresses me as such. When I didn't like the music but needed the money, I used to write liner notes as Fred Nurdley. If there happened to be a good track on the album, Fred would write that he played it for Chris Albertson, who said this about that...

While his family certainly has my sympathy, I cannot muster up same for Irwin, he always struck me as a sensation-seeking boor. And he is being given far too much attention by a sensation-seeking media.

We are boith correct, actually: I found a history from which I have extracted the following: In the 1880s Bensinger added another product line, bowling pins and bowling balls. Taverns had begun installing lanes, interest seemed to be growing, and Bensinger was determined to be ready for this new market. He actively promoted bowling as a participatory sport and helped to standardize the game. Bensinger also was instrumental in organizing the American Bowling Congress. Although the company continued to expand its markets and product lines, bowling was to become the financial backbone of the firm. Throughout this growth and expansion, Brunswick remained a family firm. John Brunswick's surviving son, Benedict Brunswick, and Julius Balke, Jr., were Brunswick executives, and Bensinger's son, Benjamin Bensinger, worked first as a clerk, then as a salesman, and was rapidly moving his way up in the company. In 1904, upon the death of his father, Benjamin Bensinger became the president of Brunswick-Balke-Collender, at age 36. The firm had several sales offices, and manufacturing plants in Chicago, Cincinnati, Dubuque, and New York, and in 1906 Bensinger opened a large manufacturing plant in Muskegon, Michigan. The Muskegon plant, which grew to over one million square feet in the 1940s, became the cornerstone of the firm's manufacturing, producing such products as mineralite (hard rubber) bowling balls. Prohibition Era (1920--33) Forced Diversification In the 1910s the temperance movement threatened not only the fixtures and bar business but also billiards and bowling. In 1912, in anticipation of Prohibition--which started in 1920--Brunswick suspended its bar-fixtures operations, which accounted for one-fourth of annual sales, and sought to replace it with automobile tires and the world's first hard-rubber toilet seats. Rubber products best utilized the firm's existing facilities. By 1921 the Muskegon plant was producing 2,000 tires a day. Then the price of rubber tripled in 1922, Brunswick sold its tire line to B.F. Goodrich, who began to manufacture tires under the Brunswick name as the Brunswick Tire Company. Brunswick also began to manufacture wood piano cases and phonograph cabinets. Edison Phonograph was the principal buyer of Brunswick's cabinets. The demand for phonographs was so strong that Bensinger decided that Brunswick should manufacture its own line of phonographs. By 1916 the Muskegon plant was producing Brunswick phonographs and putting them on the market for $150--40 percent less than comparable models. In 1922 it also began producing records under its own label. Jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Benny Goodman and classical artists such as Irene Pavlovska and Leopold Godowsky all recorded on the Brunswick label. In 1925 Brunswick teamed up with General Electric to manufacture an all-electric phonograph called the Panatrope, which came equipped with or without a radio. In 1930 Brunswick sold the Brunswick Panatrope & Radio Corporation to Warner Brothers for $10 million.

The size of the box is the only clue you need.

No surprise there.

The Superman Drawing episode is the first of three covered by this week's program. Paramount is also on tap for tonight.

The Brunswick company actually manufactured bowling balls. I think there is a correlation between the material used for bowling balls and that which was used for 78 rpm records. That is certainly why the Scranton button factory went into the record-pressing business and ended up owning labels like Banner. I guess it was a natural diversification. That picture's clatity, BTW, is not due to computer enhancement, it's from an original print.

Apropos Ma Rainey, she only recorded for one label, Paramount (owned by the Wisconsin Chair Co.). This week, a segment of the PBS series, "History Detectives," deals with the search for Paramount metal masters.--CA LOST MUSICAL TREASURE AIRED: Season 4, Episode 11 THE DETECTIVE: Tukufu Zuberi THE PLACE: Port Washington, Long Island THE CASE: A man in Port Washington, Wisconsin who owns a pair of metal "masters" that were used to press shellac records in the 1920s and 30s has a hunch they could represent surviving fragments of a lost moment in American musical history. The contributor’s great uncle was the master sound engineer for one of the more peculiar recording enterprises in the United States, Paramount Records. He worked for the Wisconsin Chair Company, which, among other things, manufactured phonograph cabinets. The company’s salesmen were savvy to the broad spectrum of musical talent at the time and established a tandem recording label, ultimately bringing some of the best blues artists from the Mississippi Delta to Wisconsin to record in the factory. History Detectives travels to Wisconsin and New York to determine the significance of these metal masters and to explore how one company captured the regionally and culturally diverse music played around the nation in the 20s and 30s. Here's a 1923 photo of Ma Rainey and her Wildcats Jazz Band: David Nelson, cornet; Al Wynn, trombone;Eddie Pollack, alto sax; Thomas A. Dorsey, piano; Gabriel Washington, drums. P.S. For those of you whose interest does not include very early jazz and blues, I might point out that Thomas A. Dorsey wrote many gospel songs, including Take My Hand, Precious Lord, and was also known as "Georgia Tom" when he recorded his less sacred songs, such as "Tight Like That."

I started a thread listing people whose birthday is not today. After 7 weeks, it is still loading.

He had become a bit too sure of himself--as someone pointed out, this was likely to happen eventually. Sad for his family.

Those were paintings, not cartoons, and they were printed on a separate insert--easily discarded. Ditto Time-Life letter. Sorry Chewy: Complaint invalid.

That's pure cockney. Roddy didn't speak like that, but I suppose he could have if called upon to do so.

Of the celebrity spots, Charo is my favorite, but why have you not included the cockney gecko? I think those ads are brilliant and better than all the others. Always hated the cavemen.