Christiern

Of course I knew you weren't implying that, Chuck--no informed person would, I just brought it up to stem off the misinformation that Blue Note fanatics like to toss around.

That's why he moved from Manhattan to Bergenfield, NJ. Having seen the all-star group that regularly occupied the reception area couch at Riverside, I understand why Bob relocated. BTW, before anyone brings up the tired myth, let us make it clear that Bob Weinstock did not seek out addicts to record. They were everywhere in those days--it was a big problem.

Whether one calls it supervising or producing, the bottom line is that Bob had the final say. If he didn't like a take he could call for another one. Personally, I think Bob's approach (i.e. to let the musicians make the musical decisions) is a good one, but there are times when one sees (hears) more clearly from the sidelines. I think it is a bad producer (supervisor, whatever) who dictates in the studio. Make suggestions, but never force a tune or an approach on the artist--that's how I feel about it. I have mentioned previously a time when Esmond asked me to write the notes for a Sylvia Syms album he had produced. Sylvia and I had lunch, during which she begged me to as ask Bob to let her do the session over again--she would do it gratis. Her dissatisfaction was caused by Esmond's insistence on choosing the bassist and some of the tunes. His choices were not ones with which she was comfortable. I felt her pain, but there was nothing I could do about it. Bob once told me that he left the studio and turned things over to Esmond because he was tired of producing. He was much happier sitting behind his desk, playing the stockmarket, amusing people with his Miles Davis impressions, and--of course--making the final decisions. Like Bill Grauer (and unlike Orrin) Bob was not ego-driven, again, like Bill, he truly loved the music and felt no need to be in the spotlight.

" I wonder if Bob thought that type of music needed a more "hands on" production style?" No

Not really, Monk inadvertently created that sound on October 15, 1952, when he placed on the piano a half-eaten liverwurst sandwich (on rye). Bassist Gary Mapp, gesticulating as he explained an idea he had for the next tune, "Melancholy Baby," knocked the sandwich into the piano. "You can kiss that one goodbye," said Art Blakey. "Ok, bye-ya," said Monk. With that, he started playing, but instead of "Melancholy," a new tune emerged, and it had a peculiar deli sound. They decided to call it "Bye-Ya," and Rudy, delighted with the sound, left the sandwich where it was. As time went on and the sandwich decomposed, new sounds emerged, but Rudy periodically ordered a new liverwurst on rye, had someone eat half of it, and restored the sound. I hope I have explained this correctly--time has a way of playing with one's memory.

No, Allen, that's not true. He said, "Hey, mother...., I ordered cheese on that!" Fortunately, Rudy always kept an assortment of well aged, imported cheeses in the control room.

When I left JC, I did not do so with a roundtrip ticket. Sorry, Rita, that door may be open, but JC is a place I never missed* nor intend to return to. The Big O is a very different matter, Jim, but sometimes we all need to get away for awhile and I refuse to be Goulded off the premises. * I do, however, miss some of the old JC regulars. I don't know if they are still onboard, but, besides you, these come to mind: Darryl T., Uli, JMJ, June, Lynn, Brian O, Ron Thorne ...

From the Shannon Pease piece: "Through his sales, he met a number of musicians and kicked off his own recording business in 1949, after the war. 'There was a ban on recording LPs because they were petroleum based,' said his son, James Weinstock of North Lauderdale. 'After the ban was lifted, artists wanted to record'." I guess most of us could have figured out that 1949 was "after the war." As for the ban on recording LPs, because they were petroleum-based, that's a new one. This is what happens when clueless journalists don't bother to look things up. In re Bob's early retirement, he had actually ceased his producing activity long before moving to Florida. He turned that job over to Esmond Edwards, the driver who transported musicians to and from New York to Rudy's Englewood Cliffs studio. Esmond was into the music and he had seen enough sessions to know what to do. Esmond was also black, which makes Bob's decision all the more commendable--there were not many non-white jazz producers in those days.

Try this, Rita. Kevin is a regular on the Steve Hoffman BBS, his last visit was today. http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sendmess...ilmember&u=3940 Guess I'm not the only one to abandon JC, eh?

Bob was one of the most interesting people I worked for, a congenial man who never stood in the way of my ideas. I first met him in 1959 when I brought him a tape of Lonnie Johnson and Elmer Snowden. These were recordings I had made at my Philadelphia apartment and tried to interest Columbia and Riverside in (Orrin Keepnews and John Hammond were present at the informal session). Bob immediately said, "Go ahead, do it." I eventually accepted a job at Prestige, in Bergenfield, and it was indeed a memorable experience. We did not often see Bob, for he was very much involved in playing the stock market and pretty much stayed in his office, but I regularly found a memo from him on my desk. I wish I had kept these memos, for, more often than not, they appointed me to a new position. Thus I was, at various times, a Producer, Head of Publicity, Advertising Director, etc. Just having those new business cards printed cost a small fortune! The funny thing was that only my title changed--I continued doing the same things, drawing the same salary, etc. I can't say that I will miss Bob, because it has been so many years since I last saw him, but we were in touch a couple of times, and each sent the other a "hello" whenever the opportunity arose. I am truly sorry to see Bob go and I only hope that he went peacefully and consoled by the knowledge that he had made a major contribution to the music.

January 14, 2006 Students on a field trip Friday walked past the gravesite of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the King Center in Atlanta. The King family has disagreed on the center's future. Disarray at Center for Dr. King Casts Pall on Family and Legacy By SHAILA DEWAN Bernice A. King and her brother Martin Luther King III faced reporters in Atlanta on Dec. 30, vowing to fight a possible sale of the King Center. ATLANTA, Jan. 13 - Over the years, the city that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called home has grown accustomed to stagnation and disrepair at the institution established in his name by Coretta Scott King in 1968, even as it has paid her sons six-figure salaries. But now as Mrs. King is recovering from a stroke that left her partly paralyzed and unable to speak, problems at the nonprofit institution, the King Center, have become so bad that some family members are pushing to sell its buildings. That proposal and a myriad other difficulties - including a federal investigation into the center's use of taxpayer money and an estimate by the National Park Service that the complex of buildings needs $11 million in repairs - have deepened a rift among Dr. King's four children, two of whom vehemently oppose a sale, and further reduced the center's standing. "The center really had the potential to be a nonviolent change agent," said Mtamanika Youngblood, who recently stepped down as executive director of the community development organization for Sweet Auburn, the King Center's neighborhood. "That opportunity may be gone." The Rev. Joseph Lowery, among Dr. King's top lieutenants, said that he had not taken sides in the family dispute but that he worried about its toll on Mrs. King, who long ago relinquished leadership of the center to her sons. Mr. Lowery said that when he visited Mrs. King recently, she insisted on walking without assistance. "When she got to the sofa she almost collapsed," he said. "And this can't help her." Originally envisioned as a "living memorial" to Dr. King, the center does not offer much to visitors. Three small permanent exhibitions are tucked away on a second floor. The ecumenical chapel is customarily locked. Kingfest, an annual cultural event, was discontinued years ago. Of the activities surrounding Martin Luther King Day on Monday - a symposium on human rights, a youth conference, film screenings, a march - the King Center is involved in only three, a board member said, including a fund-raiser for the center and a signing for a new book by one daughter, Yolanda King, "Embracing Your Power in 30 Days." Last month, the center's board, controlled by Dr. King's younger son, Dexter Scott King, announced it was considering the sale of the King Center complex, which has been appraised at $11 million, to the National Park Service. Martin Luther King III, the elder son, and his sister Bernice soon called a news conference in protest. "Bernice and I stand to differ with those who would sell our father's legacy and barter our mother's vision, whether it is for 30 pieces of silver or $30 million," Martin King said, adding that the sale of "irreplaceable assets of the African-American community" undermines its pride and cultural capital. Acknowledging that the board, which until recently had been made up almost entirely of family members, had been "remiss" in its oversight and programming, Mr. King said the solution was to strengthen and diversify the board. Bernice King said government ownership would result in a loss of ideological independence. None of the four King children responded to requests for interviews. and the center did not answer repeated requests for information. In a brief phone conversation, a center spokesman said he could not provide a list of the board members because he did not know who they were. One member, Dr. King's sister, Christine King Farris, spoke briefly to a reporter but declined to comment on the family's disagreement. Asked about the center's programs, Ms. Farris said, "We've done a lot, we've done training and publications and so forth, we've done quite a bit." Mr. Lowery said he sympathized with both sides in the disagreement. On the one hand, he said, the center has been saddled with the expense of caring for its building and grounds, which include an administration building, a public building, a reflection pool and Dr. King's crypt. On the other hand, he said, it was reasonable for the Kings to hesitate before selling the property to a federal government that spied on their father and sought to destabilize the civil rights movement. To the children, the legacy of Dr. King has provided both a source of pride and the burden of high expectations and scrutiny, Mr. Lowery added. "I don't have any problem with the family making money," he said. "I'd like to see them rich. As long as they didn't neglect the other part." In earlier years, there might have been considerable public resistance to selling the King Center complex. But now, many think it is the right move for the organization and could allow it to refocus on programs. "Do we let the King Center fall apart just for the sake of holding on?" asked Tyrone Brooks, the head of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials. The center, originally called the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, was founded by Mrs. King after her husband's assassination. She raised $8 million to build the current complex in 1981. Its mission statement calls for building "a national and international network of organizations" that promote "the Beloved Community that Dr. King envisioned." The complex is within the boundaries of the national King historic site, which encompasses a section of Auburn Avenue that includes Dr. King's birth home; Ebenezer Baptist Church, where three generations of Kings served as pastors; and a visitor's center run by the National Park Service. The district is one of the South's most popular tourist sites, with 600,000 visitors a year. For years, the Park Service, which also gives tours of the church and home, has been eager to buy the King Center's physical property, in part because of visitor complaints about the center's condition, and in part to expand its exhibition space and gain access to the center's rarely used auditorium. The terms of a sale would probably allow the King Center to continue to occupy part of the complex. Public attention focused on the aging King Center almost a year ago, when The Atlanta Journal Constitution began a series of investigative articles about its finances. The articles revealed that the King Center needed repairs and ended most years with a deficit, yet paid Dexter King almost $180,000 and Martin King $150,000 in salaries and had given millions to a for-profit company run by Dexter King. Center officials told the newspaper that the company, Intellectual Properties Management, was a contractor that provided many of the center's employees. The articles prompted an investigation into the center's finances by the Interior Department, which had recently increased the center's annual stipend to $1 million from $500,000, and at about the same time the Education Department began investigating the center's use of grant money given to develop a civil rights curriculum, Park Service officials said. At the close of the last fiscal year, the board members voted to take the chairmanship from Dexter and give it to his brother Martin, who then had the King Center's locks changed. A month later, the locks were changed again, amid reports that Dexter King had regained control, appointed eight additional board members and installed his cousin, Isaac Scott Farris, as president. At the news conference last month, Martin King called the new board "an unconstitutional arrangement." Dexter King's entrepreneurial spirit has generated controversy since the moment he first took control of the King Center board in 1994 as his mother's designated successor. He battled the Park Service over land where he wanted to build an interactive, for-profit museum, disbanded the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commission because it was a fund-raising competitor and licensed his father's image to cellular phone companies for commercials. Dexter King, who has always been clear about the fact that he does not consider himself a civil rights leader, said he was trying to reach a new audience through projects like an MTV biography of Dr. King. At the same time, the King Center discontinued its nonviolence training seminars and symposiums. Critics, including the civil rights leaders Hosea Williams and the Rev. Joseph Roberts, the recently retired pastor of Ebenezer, complained that the King Center had failed to take the lead on contemporary issues like poverty, voting rights and the Iraq war. Scholars said access to the center's archives, a trove of civil rights-era documents, was restricted. "To think that these folks have multimillion-dollar budgets - what do they do with them?" said Bob Holmes, a state representative and director of the Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy at Clark-Atlanta University. "I ask my grad students, 'Can you name any activity you've been involved in or you know about that the King Center does?' And they can't."

Apple's new software, Aperture, is a step in the digital darkroom direction.

They are expensive, but high-quality digital cameras are to be had. I see the demise of film cameras as a natural development. For years, there were people who bemoaned the obsolescence of 78 rpm discs (some still do, I think), but digital recording has overcome its initial negatives. In the end, it probably boils down to a nostalgia factor and the inherent resistance to change that handicaps some of us.

Oops! I posted the very same obit here, yesterday.

For a three-year period, in the 1960s, I flew from New York to London and California, every month. Never had a problem--also no problem on the helicopter to Kennedy (from atop the then PanAm building. A few years earlier, however, my wife and I flew from New York to Copenhagen, via Reykjavík and Oslo. Coming in for a landing in Iceland that morning, the wheels of the plane--a Douglas prop job (C-54)--struck a fence. It gave us quite a jolt and obviously caused some damage, because they were unable to get the gear down for Oslo. So, we skipped Norway and flew in circles until most of the fuel was used up. Then we were told to prepare for a belly landing, remove all sharp objects, bury our head in a pillow, and brace ourselves. We were told that this sort of thing happens and that it usually works out fine. In the meantime, they gave us drink after drink; my wife was too scared to drink, so I had doubles, and felt no pain when we finally made a remarkably smooth landing. We thought we were in Copenhagen, but it turned out to be Hamburg! In a way, it was a great experience, because we got to know fellow passengers who we otherwise wouldn't have spoken to. They put us all up in a hotel, and when an elderly couple from Vermont announced that they might have more liquor from the duty-free shop than Danish customs officers would accept, everybody brought out their booze and we spent the night getting drunk. Years later, I mentioned this flight to a pilot from that airline. "Were you on that flight? Well, we don't do that anymore." Except for a press junket over which I had no control, I have avoided that airline since.

Sad news: Phil Elwood has passed away, followingsurgery that he was expected to survive. Phil was a mainstay on the San Francisco jazz scene, a person I always felt privileged to know. Here's the SF Chronicle's obit:. PHIL ELWOOD: 1926-2006 Beloved Bay Area jazz and blues critic - Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic Wednesday, January 11, 2006 Phil Elwood, one of the best friends jazz and blues ever had, died Tuesday of heart failure, only four weeks after the death of his beloved wife, Audrey. He was 79. As a critic for half a century, Elwood pursued a lifelong love affair with the music that began in the living room of the Berkeley home of Depression-era photographer Dorthea Lange, when he first heard a record by Louis Armstrong as a high school student. "I wish I could go back and stand in that living room again," he said two years ago. "I'd remember exactly how it felt." Elwood covered jazz, rock, blues and comedy, the entire panorama of nightlife, for the San Francisco Examiner beginning in 1965. He continued his career at The Chronicle after the two papers merged in 2000 and retired in 2002. He was an endless fount of jazz lore, an unflagging enthusiast of the music and a world-class raconteur blessed with an extraordinary memory. He was also one of the first people to broadcast jazz on the FM dial. His weekly radio program, "Jazz Archive," began in 1952, when very few people even owned FM radios. His show continued on Berkeley's KPFA until 1996. "Talk about old school," said rock musician Huey Lewis, "he was a music lover. Imagine that. He actually loved the music. They don't make 'em like that anymore." "Phil was the quintessential jazz critic,'' said jazz great Jon Hendricks, who lived in the Bay Area for many years and rubbed shoulders with Elwood at clubs and festivals around the country and the world. "Most jazz critics love the music, but Phil knew the music as well as loved it. He and Ralph Gleason hung in the clubs, hung with the cats. They were part of the scene just like the musicians. Phil loved it all, from Bunk Johnson to Louis to Bird, up through Coltrane and into the avant-garde. He was the complete critic.'' George Shearing, the great jazz pianist who knew Elwood for half a century, said: "We lost a very capable and musically savvy writer in Phil Elwood. He knew his craft and he knew his music. But beyond that, he was my friend, whose wit, loyalty and kindness knew no bounds.'' "Phil was an awfully good man," said rock musician Boz Scaggs. "It was always nice running into him at shows, mostly jazz and blues for us. I could always count on him for the historical perspective and some funny stories." Elwood was born March 19, 1926, and raised in Berkeley, where his father was an agriculture professor at the University of California. He first saw Count Basie in 1939 from the balcony of Sweet's Ballroom in Oakland while he was still attending Berkeley High School. He used to ride his bicycle around to Oakland thrift stores and spend his paper route money buying old jazz 78s by King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and others. Those discs were the beginnings of a legendary jazz record collection, which he stored in a serpentine basement in his North Berkeley home. He also had an entirely separate career teaching American history to high school and college students throughout the East Bay, rising early to go to class after meeting post-midnight Examiner deadlines covering some nightclub show or rock concert. He also taught a famous history of jazz class at Laney College in Oakland that, over the years, was attended by many aspiring musicians and critics. "I remember him coming into his Monday night jazz history class at Laney College in the mid-'70s," said Chronicle jazz writer Jesse Hamlin, "with a funky old record player and a old briefcase stuffed with scratchy albums, most without their jackets. He'd just start riffing and reminiscing and playing records, never referring to notes, for 90 minutes at a stretch. That music was in his veins." "Phil was always there," said jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, "He was the person on the scene. He didn't call somebody to ask what happened; he was right there to watch and hear for himself. Everything he wrote was his own personal experience. Even if he didn't write about it, he'd be there. He liked a lot of different musicians, and he was very proud to be part of the music world and proud of the people around him, and he made you feel proud to be part of it. It didn't matter whether he gave you a good review or a bad review, what mattered was Phil was there." Over the course of his distinguished career, Elwood covered anything that moved on stage. In his 2002 farewell column for The Chronicle, he noted the breadth of acts he covered in just his first weeks on the job. "I reviewed Stan Kenton one night and Lena Horne the next," Elwood wrote. "I heard Charlie Byrd at El Matador, and Tom Lehrer at the hungry i; also Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton, Denny Zeitlin. Kay Starr, the Mills Brothers, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Bushkin and bassist Vernon Alley, and Duke Ellington at Basin Street West. My first seven weeks (21 reviews or features in print) ended Aug. 31 with a Beatles show at the Cow Palace that afternoon and Judy Garland at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos that night." One of his most famous reviews came when he caught an unknown opening act at a long defunct San Francisco nightclub called the Matrix and gave the young Bruce Springsteen -- appearing with his rock group Steel Mill -- his first major review. After his retirement from The Chronicle, Elwood continued to write a column for the Web site Jazz West. In 2002, he received the Beacon Award from the San Francisco Jazz Festival and was the subject of a tribute concert, underwritten by See's Candies. He is survived by his sons, Peter and Josh, both of Berkeley, and Benjamin of St. Paul, Minn.; his daughter Lis of Sierra City; and six grandchildren. No services are planned. Chronicle staff writer Jesse Hamlin contributed to this report.

Her marriage to Flash was a big mistake, IMHO.

During his 1933 visit to Copenhagen, Louis appeared in a Danish feature film, København-Kalundborg. He performed 3 numbers, accompanied by a big band: "I Cover the Waterfront", "Dinah," and "Tiger Rag." Fortunately, the Danish film people decided to shoot it live rather than have Louis dub in his vocal--as was often done in those days.

All Paramount recordings from the 1920s had abominable sound. When the label joined the competition in switching to "electrical" recording ,it was suggested that Paramount had done little more than light a bulb in the studio. It's really a shame that Ma Rainey never recorded under optimal conditions. As for the Mezzrow-Bechet King Jazz sides, they have been remastered for another release by Storyville. I am getting ready to work on the notes.

"How do you know he 'left', if it was in the politix forum and you "don't" look at it?" Good question 7/4 Gould: "Albertson is no doubt sick of preaching to the choir and continuously starts topics in the Miscellaneous Forum which are obviously political in nature and I keep calling him on it." Not really, Dan. For one thing, it is impossible to preach to the choir on something as far-reaching as the internet. Apart from that, I sense some kind of paranoia here--the fact is that I do not "continuously" start political topics outside of the dreaded political forum, and you flatter yourself if you think my two alleged exceptions were for your benefit. Am I the only one here who sees how silly this mole hill mountain is?

Thank you, Dan. If that's what a fool is, I'm glad to be one.

I am SHOCKED, do you hear me, Conrad? SHOCKED and OUTRAGED that you would put this in anything but the covert "political" forum! Think of Dan's heart--have you no compassion? If he sees this, he will have a hissy fit, for sure--or is the mention of Adolph Hitler more acceptable than that of George W. Bush? For the sake of decency and a certain poster's health, will someone in power please move this thread out of the way before it is detected by the Florida sensor (censor?)

EDITORIAL January 5, 2006 The Sago Mine Disaster In the long history of coal mine tragedies in Appalachia, few have borne the compound misery suffered in Sago, W.Va., where a dozen families were plunged from exultation to furious grief by a false report that their loved ones had survived a deadly mine explosion on Monday. After realizing the calamitous mistake, mining company officials took three hours to confirm the error and tell the truth to the dead miners' families, further devastating the community. Survivors are left with the apology of the company officials and rescuers who eagerly rushed the false word forth. But government investigators must waste no time in ascertaining the actual cause of the blast, for the Sago mine was already notorious for its long list of safety violations and fines. The mine, with more than 270 safety citations in the last two years, is the latest example of how workers' risks are balanced against company profits in an industry with pervasive political clout and patronage inroads in government regulatory agencies. Many of the Sago citations were serious enough to potentially set off accidental explosions and shaft collapses, and more than a dozen involved violations that mine operators knew about but failed to correct, according to government records. Sadly, in the way mines are often run, the $24,000 in fines paid by the Sago managers last year constituted little more than the cost of doing business. In the Appalachian routine, miners balking at risky conditions down below can quickly forfeit their livelihood if they have no union protection. Political figures from both parties have long defended and profited from ties to the coal industry. Whether or not that was a factor in the Sago mine's history, the Bush administration's cramming of important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring about general safety in the mines. Steven Griles, a mining lobbyist before being appointed deputy secretary of the interior, devoted four years to rolling back mine regulations and then went back to lobbying for the industry. Just as Hurricane Katrina forced Americans to look at the face of lingering poverty and racism, this mining tragedy should focus us all on another forgotten, mistreated corner of society. The Sago mine disaster is far more than a story of cruel miscommunication. The dozen dead miners deserve to be memorialized with fresh scrutiny of the state of mine safety regulation and a resurrection of political leadership willing to look beyond Big Coal to the interests of those who risk their lives in the mines.

Having a melodramatic New Year's Eve celebration with old friends ......

Conrad, it may come as a surprise to you, but I regularly tune in to Hannity and O'Reilly, jst to keep up with that side. My mind is quite capable of filtering, so checking out the opposition is not something I have to fear. Glad to see that you keep it ajar.