Christiern

I am guilt-ridden! Haven't felt this bad since I bought one of Rev. Moon's WACOM tablets or, more recently, discovered what's behind Domino's Pizza. But I never voted for Bush!

I have never even seen a Wal•Mart store--this is my only dealing with them.

I received mine today, and it is GREAT! Beautifully packaged, it comes with a 125-page, New Yorker-sized, book of highlights and there is a thorough tutorial at http://archive.newyorker.com. While I wish there was a word-for-word search capability, the one they have makes it rather easy to find things. When I entered Whitney Balliett and my name, it brought up relevant articles I had not been aware of. It covers 1925 to 2005, but each year a new disc will be released, making it possible to keep up to date. At Wal-Mart, with tax and shipping, it came to $66.86, which is a real bargain, IMO.

Air force payout cures Santa woes The Danish air force has admitted causing the death of Rudolph the reindeer and has paid compensation to Father Christmas. Olovi Nikkanoff, one of Denmark's professional Santa Clauses, says his reindeer died of shock as fighter planes flew low overhead. The air force admitted liability and paid him 31,175 kroner (£2,850). "We're more than happy to pay if it means children around the world will get their presents," a spokesman said. Mr Nikkanoff said he was devastated in February when he discovered his reindeer's body. The animal had been grazing happily, he said, when two Danish F-16s thundered overhead. He complained to the air force, which ordered an investigation. "We got a letter from Santa complaining about his reindeer's death and looked into it seriously," air force spokesman Captain Morten Jensen told Associated Press. Flight data showed the jets had been in the area at the time, and a vet concluded that their deafening roar had caused Rudolph to have heart failure. Mr Nikkanoff feared he would have only one reindeer to pull his sleigh this Christmas. But after the air force's decision he declared himself happy with the payout and said he was looking forward to this year's festive season with a new animal on his team.

i wonder where are the archives from people like jerry newman (minton´s), bob andrews (west coast), boris rose (ny radio) and timme rosenkrantz (jam sessions) are now located?? anybody knows something about that? are there any discographies avaiable about that historical recordings? I don't know what eventually happened to Boris Rose's enormous collection of acetates and tapes, but in September of 2001 (that fateful week) when Karl Knudsen (Storyville) was staying with me, he was in touch with Boris's estate (either his widow or daughter) and the collection was still an un-catalogued mess., As I recall, the apartment had to be vacated in 2001, so I think the object at that time was to somehow move everything (tons of airchecks) safely. When I was with Riverside, in 1960, Bill Grauer sent me to Boris's apartment in search of Fats Navarro material, so I have a good idea of how hopeless that task must have been 40 years later! As for Timme (my old roommate) I think his recordings are well preserved in Denmark, thanks to the work of trumpeter-turned-archivist Arnvid Meyer. When we shared an apartment, Timme had but a few of his recordings around, but there was great stuff there. I remember especially some Don Byas and Sir Charles Thompson sessions, the latter very informal and from Brooklyn.

I haven't seen the film yet, but all this talk of Dylan's nastiness brings to mind what he did for an artist like Victoria Spivey, a blues singer whose career was, basically, over. I used her on a couple of Prestige sessions (reuniting her with Lonnie Johnson), which gave her a modicum of re-attention. Dylan took note, obviously liked what he heard, and insisted that a photograph of him with Victoria be prominent on the back cover (it just about was the back cover) of his next album. At Dylan's request, Victoria was not identified, which, predictably, resulted in the press demanding to know who the mystery lady was. I admired the way Dylan manipulated it so that the press would take interest. Victoria subsequently lent her name to a small label started by dyed-in-the-wool jazz collector Lenny Kunstadt out of his Collyer Brothers-like Brooklyn apartment and he appeared on her first release, as "Big Boy Grunt." I did not see a lot of Dylan, but I had a few personal encounters with him--at Columbia as well as at WBAI--and he was never less than friendly and down-to-earth.

He posted on JC yesterday and is apparently alive and well in New Orleans.

Scorcese's blues series was also a great disappointment, IMO.

The ghosts of New Orleans By Bob Dylan MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2005 One of the passages in Bob Dylan's "Chronicles, Volume One" is about time he spent in New Orleans in the late 1980s. It was written before the city was devastated by the storm Katrina. The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time. The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is. There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside. Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts. A great place to record. It has to be - or so I thought. (Excerpted from ''Chronicles, Volume One'' by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 2004 by Bob Dylan.)

I could kick myself for not knowing exactly where they are, but, some 40 years ago, I had the original acetate discs for all the Newman recordings we know of. I carefully transferred them to 15 i.p.s. full-track tape, played most of them on the air, and--as I recall--gave them back to the person who brought them to me. I can't recall who that was, but it was someone with direct connection to Jerry Newman (who was no longer with us, of course). As to what happened to my tapes, I think they are in Denmark. I shipped many of my tapes to Karl Knudsen (Storyville), not for release but to have them carefully indexed and--when needed--dubbed onto new tape.

As Stewart-Williams & Co., Rex Stewart and Cootie Williams co-led an interesting cast on a 1959 Warner Bros. album called "Porgy and Bess Revisited." It is an instrumental album on which roles are assigned to different players. The cast: Cootie Williams (Porgy); Rex Stewart (Sportin' Life); Hilton Jefferson (Bess); Pinky Williams (Jake); Lawrence Brown (Serena and Clara); and a splendid supporting cast that included Barry Galbraith, Ernie Royal, Buddy Weed, Urbie Green, and Sonny Russo. The album was arranged and conducted by Jim Timmens, who gave a similar treatment to "Show Boat" and Gilbert and Sullivan. Please excuse me if this album has already been mentioned.

I rarely drink martinis nowadays, but I used to like them with a little more vermouth than most Americans use. If I want to drink gin straight, I drink it straight. BTW, I also like an occasional glass of vermouth.

I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like: My heart's on fire, but my love is icy cold, My heart's on fire, but my love is icy cold, Well I'm goin' right to his place and get him told I'll fix him if it's twenty years from now I'll fix him if it's twenty years from now I'll have him (bellowin'?) just like a cow I was born in Georgia, my ways are underground I was born in Georgia, my ways are underground If you mistreat me, I'll hunt you like a hound Just saw Stereojack's post--looks like we're on the same track.

You are absolutely right, Chuck, but with a clown like "Dr." George Butler in place and set on pushing Wynton beyond all reason, Woody's future at the label was bleak.

Here's one more photo of Fortunatus Ricard. Left to right: Leon Washington, Red Saunders, Walter Cole, Junie C. Cobb, Ricard, and Harlen Floyd. The session, BTW, was at The Birdhouse, Chicago.

Something I always looked forward to--even more than the cartoons--were the samples of poor editing in other publications. They were often hilarious and The New Yorker was one of the few publications that could reprint them without becoming the pot calling the kettle black.

I took these pre-Basie photos of Ricard (note my blurry style ) on September 8, 1961, when I produced a session (album) of Junie Cobb's band for my Riverside "Living Legends" series. The trombonist is Harlen Floyd (with his back to the camera on the second photo) and the man in focus (how did I ever do that?) is Darnell Howard. The drummer for this session was Red Saunders, with whom I believe Fortunatus was playing at the time.

I just ordered it from Wal*Mart (thanks for the tip, Michael),

Technically, Norman Granz's recordings were notoriously bad in those days. The label was widely criticized for this. Here's an excerpt from a NYT piece by John Hammond. Similar criticism was voiced by John S. Wilson. I must say that I was impressed by the sound Malcolm Addey created for the Mosaic set; the "mushy sound and distortion" are no longer in evidence, but there is little one can do with an off mic solo. The worst of these appears on a take that was originally rejected--probably for that reason.

Here's an off-beat little film about taking from the rich and giving to the....well Shoplifting

Thanks, BM -- I feel much better now. Mind you, I am not against drag queens, but they are known to be somewhat behind when it comes to percussive prowess.

Been wondering for awhile, gotta ask: Bright Moments, is that a DQD (drag queen drummer) in your avatar?

Ditto\\Perhaps it's the curse of the bamboozler * *Bill Gates, of course

Allen, the Bolden d recording will, alone, be worth whatever price you put on the set.

I second the praise for Morton's General recordings--music simply does not get more gripping than "Mamie's Blues." As for Wynton's appearance in this thread--I cannot think of anyone who has molested Morton's music more.