Christiern

Michael Jackson relaxes in Bahrain as guest of royal family By ADNAN MALIK Associated Press Writer (AP) - MANAMA, Bahrain- Pop star Michael Jackson is vacationing as a guest of the royal family in the tiny Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, his first trip abroad since he was acquitted of child molestation charges. Jackson arrived alone in Bahrain on Wednesday night. Earlier officials close to the royal family had said he came with his three children. "He (Michael) is here to relax with friends, and we are proud and honored to welcome him," the king's son, Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, told The Associated Press. Sheik Abdulla is hosting Jackson. "Michael is very well, very happy and very relaxed here," said Sheik Abdulla. The prince flew from Europe with Jackson on a private plane. Sheik Abdulla, 30, said Jackson chose Bahrain, "because he heard so much, read and studied so much about Bahrain." His brother Jermaine knows the kingdom, which is the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The prince declined to reveal where Jackson was staying, but said: "Bahrain has a lot of beautiful places to offer." "He would love his privacy and we will do our best to maintain the privacy he has," Sheik Abdulla said. Jackson could be in one of several royal venues across the 33 island archipelago of Bahrain. Some royal retreats are sea-front resorts reachable only by a boat. Others are heavily guarded residences in the hilly desert terrain. Sheik Abdulla said Jackson's visit was strictly holiday. "There are no business talks, he is just here to relax," he said. Sheik Abdulla is a friend of Jackson's brother Jermaine, who has close links with Bahrain's royal circle. Jermaine was recently seen mingling with Bahrainis when he reviewed the track before the start of Bahrain's first Formula 3 race in December. In January, Jermaine and Sheik Abdulla announced plans to launch a charity theme song, "He who makes the skies gray," which was written by the prince. Bahrain has a relaxed social climate that is rare in the conservative Gulf. Women can swim and sunbathe at hotels and liquor is sold in bars, nightclubs and stores. Socializing between the sexes is unrestricted at air-conditioned malls, coffee shops and other public places. Linked to Saudi Arabia by the King Fahd Causeway, Bahrain has become a close-to-home escape in the region dominated by strict Islamic traditions. Westerners who work in the neighboring Gulf state - oil workers, diplomats and business people - use the island as a getaway. Jackson was found not guilty of child molestation in a California court on June 13.

Sorry, "rat," but I know of no knowledgeable person who has read Ross' book and not concurred with the assessments expressed in this thread. Ross Russell was a likable guy--it is his book that is being discussed here and it is his book that is universally criticized. Suggesting that anyone here harbors a dislike for Ross is the kind of nonsense we hear regularly from Wynton admirers who simply cannot fathom how anyone could find fault with his music without having some kind of hate agenda. Ross Russell's book is an interesting read, but it is too fictional to be taken seriously by scholars or Bird fans who seek the truth. One might say that the book is a Schaap-ized version of Charlie Parker's life (although Schaap wasn't around when it was written). Too bad, because Ross relationship with Bird was more than a passing acquaintance, and he had the distinct advantage of being able to speak directly to many who knew and worked with Bird. As for pointing out the fictionalized parts of the book, BM, it is really asking too much in this case, for this is a biography that is only loosely based on actual events and people.

Yes, he did have a copy, because he let me read the stories I mentioned. He had also written a play that included some of these incident. I think I have a copy of that manuscript in my catch-all closet. Bear in mind that Bill used his imagination a lot--for example, the well-known sentence that opens "Lady Sings the Blues" was his, not Billie's. Does the manuscript still exist? Who knows? Bill's first wife, the dreadful Maylie Dufty is long gone and so, of course, is Gloria Swanson. Bill was living in Florida when he died. Chuck, I'd love to hear what Donald has to say about Toby.

Thanks for the link, David. It looks as if Blackburn did not deal with Billie's Catholicism. Bill Dufty told me that she had tremendous inner conflict because of that. Apropos Bill Dufty, I spent a lot of time with him when he was married to Gloria Swanson, and we often spoke about Billie. He told me that Doubleday dropped at least a third of the original manuscript. They were afraid of lawsuits, so they eliminated a wonderful story about the time Billie served Charles Laughton as a guide to Harlem, another one, even more interesting, was about the time Hazel Scott talked Billie into appearing with her at FDR's White House--great stories. They were also afraid of Billie's intimate relationship with Tallulah Bankhead (I asked Tallulah about that, BTW, and she confirmed it). Bill also told me that the Doubleday editor assumed that Lou Levy was Jewish and that he would, therefore, sue (I know, I know, but that's what he told me). How sad it is that Linda's diligent research ended up in the hands of a writer who, essentially, seems to be clueless when it comes to the subject at hand. I can kick myself for having steered Toby Byron to this material, but--spilled milk, and all that...

My good friend, DEEP, just pointed out to me that, with Griffin's passing, the entire cast of Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert has relocated to Vermont.

Blackburn's new bio (which I have yet to read) probably uses more of Linda's research than Clarke's, but I am told (by knowledgeable friends (who have read it) that it contains a lot of interesting material from Linda's interviews but that the problem is Blackburn's unfamiliarity with the subject. She apparently makes many mistaken assumptions. That said, I have to point out that Linda Kuehl herself was dealing with a similar problem. Other than liking it immensely, she did not know much about jazz when she started the project, but she learned as much as one can in that relatively short period of time.

I had a friend, years ago, who came back from Vietnam somewhat messed up, mentally. He ended up joining the Scientology cult and it was amazing to see the papers they gave him. When he decided that he had had enough (he felt less messed up when he compared himself to them), they sent him an incredible dishonorable discharge. I will never understand how intelligent people can fall for that crap--didn't it all begin as a joke or a dare by Mother Hubbard?

From what I saw of this interview on TV, it was a bit on the bizarre side, but I must confess that I rather enjoyed seeing media air-head, Matt Lauer, read publicly.

I don't have any USB problems on my old iMac, either.

It sounds like Dave has the so-called bondi blue iMac, which was the first one. If so, just one generation will make a big difference. What works on the rest of the G3 iMacs often will not always run on the bondi blue. I have a couple of those here--one gathers dust, the other has 9.2 installed and is used for simple tasks. Mine really needs more memory. Before you install OS 9.2--which you should--you do have to perform a firmware upgrade.

I also have this (a 2-disc set), which--as British comedy shows go over here--is fairly recent and totally outrageous.

One of my neighborhood 99¢ stores had DVDs for that price. I picked up a few old TV shows there, including The Loretta Young Show (3 episodes); You Bet Your Life (several shows); Mr. and Mrs. North (3 episodes w. Barbara Briton and Richard Denning); Sherlock Holmes (3 1954-55 episodes with Ronald Howard in the title role). I also picked up tons of cartoons, including the Superman cartoons I used to see at Saturday Matinees during WWII, and a couple of full-length animated films: Gulliver's Travels (Max Fleischer) and one of my favorites, Animal Farm

I haven't been to one of those in many years. Collectors are great, they help to preserve the music I love, but get a large group of them together and you might think you're in a nut house! That said, I'm sure record collectors are no different from other's who suffer from the must-have itch. I was kinda sorta like that almost 60 years ago when I first started scouring Copenhagen second-hand shops for tantalizing 78s.

Sorry to have misinterpreted you post, Kevin. Chris

Thank you, Colin, for hanging in there--I'm glad this thread finally got back on track. Also hope we don't lose you to Steve Hoffman, which is an interesting thread and--I find--not at all full of what some people call "trolls." Still, this is the place to be, IMO.

I never forced a tune on an artist, but I did occasionally make suggestions--i always worked closely with the leader of the date and made sure that he or she was comfortable with the choice. If the artist suggested a tune that I saw as a misfit in the planned album, I suggested alternatives, but always ended up with a program that the artist was comfortable with. In New Orleans, where I was recording older artists who had built up repertoires over a number of years, I only once came up with a suggestion--I asked Jim Robinson if he would do "Bogalusa Strut," which he had recorded with Sam Morgan's Jazz Band in 1927. Other than having played it so many years ago, he didn't remember the tune, so I brought a tape of it with me to our second session. We placed two speakers behind the band and played the tape with our recorder running. The result was extraordinary--they listened carefully, then George Guesnon began to pick chords on his banjo, Slow Drag Pavageau entered on his bass, Jim hit a few probing notes on his trombone and, suddenly, the band burst out and played the hell out of the song, morphing that tinny old mono sound into full stereo. When I got back to New York and started editing the sessions for release, I wanted to include that version, but Columbia would not give us permission to use the original "Bogalusa." BTW, that tape is in my Fibber McGee closet, somewhere, but Fantasy must also have it. As for selecting musicians, that depended on the situation. Howard McGhee selected his own group (actually a Miles group without Miles), I am guilty of teaming Roy Eldridge and Bud Freeman up for an Elmer Snowden date, and I'm sure I also picked Jo Jones for that one--Ray Bryant and his brother, Tommy, were natural choices, because Elmer had been their mentor back in Philly. Anyway, Elmer and I were in complete accord. Ida Cox had been away from the music business for so long that she left it completely up to me (Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Sammy Price, Milt Hinton, and Jo Jones seemed like a nice band, and she loved it). On another Snowden date, Elmer picked all the sidemen and When I recorded Dick Wellstood, I had already assembled a band of Fats Waller alumni (Herman Autry, Gene Sedric, Milt Hinton, and Zutty Singleton) so it was a matter of asking Dick if he would "sit in" for Waller. He loved the idea. So, the answer is really that I picked the sidemen when it seemed prudent, either because the leader (who I had, of course, selected) left it to me or when I had a certain album concept in mind. Apropos the importance of not saddling artists with incompatible musicians, I was once assigned to write liner notes for a Sylvia Syms Prestige album, so Sylvia and I had lunch. She begged me to tell Bob Weinstock that she was unhappy with the accompaniment and would gladly redo the sessions gratis. Esmond Edwards had made the mistake of selecting her accompaniment--this was a particularly foolish thing to do since Sylvia, like most singers, had a regular pianist and bassist with whom she was comfortable. The original session was released. More often than not, I would ask for another take, but there were also times when the artist felt that he/she could do it better. Such decisions were usually the fulfillment of mutual wishes. I usually made that decision. In the case of the Riverside "Living Legends" series, I made all such decisions. In cases where there were alternate takes, the decision had almost always been made in the studio--the take that made everyone happy was the one that was issued. So, in a sense, that makes it a joint decision. Reissue producers have included alternate takes for some of my sessions, and I don't like that--we discarded takes for a good reason: we were not happy with them. In my case, the programming rarely followed the recording order. It was good practice to make the opening track an attention-catching one, and that is a practice I followed. I never had an artist complain over which track was used or where it was placed. I hope that answers your questions as far as my work is concerned. I look forward to reading how Chuck and others approached this task.

Willie the Lion was quite a character. Once when I was getting ready to produce a session with him, we needed to put together a band. After telling me that he could only work with musicians who were born under the Sagitarius sign, he invited me to his second apartment in Harlem (the one his wife was never to visit)--we spent at least two hours leafing through the Encyclopedia of Jazz looking for musicians with the right birthday!

Are you glad that you left to see McClakin or are you glad that you went to see Lew? Nice picture, may I e-mail it to Lew?

I know that Lew has some fans who frequent the Big "O," so I thought I'd pass this on: The LEW TABACKIN QUARTET -- feat. Benny Green, John Weber, Mark Taylor, will be appearing July 8th and 9th at "The Kitano," 66 Park Ave. (at 38th)--tel 212-885-7119. Sets 8:00 and 9:45.

I don't have the book or CD so I don't know what to look for, but if you give me what information you have (titles would help)...

Ratliff is, in my opinion, the worst jazz writer the New York Times has had. I know for a fact that the Times is receiving letters of complaint from professionals in this business--I hope they take a good look at Ratliff's work, which has been outrageously pro LC, not to mention uninformed. This piece might just be the last straw.

"The eBay seller from Kansas City is also trying to get $25,000 with a well-know Charlie Parker/Miles photo copyrighted by Duncan Schiedt: E-bay should be hipped to this crook.

$20,000 is a totally unrealistic asking price for this photo.

Good point. Check new thread title.

Thursday June 16 2005 'Beijing's bitch' By Guardian Unlimited / World news 02:36pm News that Microsoft had joined forces with the Chinese government to ban words such as "democracy", "human rights" and "freedom" from its weblog service, MSN Spaces, had set “the blogosphere a-buzzin’," remarked Tim Bray at his Ongoing blog. Bray was not alone, writes Toby Manhire, in condemning the US company for agreeing to "be Beijing’s bitch to buy some bloggers". Roger L. Simon, too, was aghast to see Microsoft "playing footsie with [a] fascist regime". Bill Gates had revealed himself to be "a moral weakling". That said, Simon could not "imagine any self-respecting blogger would even consider using MSN Spaces while this policy continues. That would be cooperating with totalitarianism, obviously the antithesis of what we are trying to do." But Beau Monday thought that the Chinese would have little difficulty circumventing the portal restrictions, "even if they have to use the word 'cabbage' when they mean 'democracy'. No democratic movement in the history of mankind has ever stalled just because the word 'democracy' could not be uttered". MSN’s explanation — that it "abides by the laws, regulations and norms of each country in which it operates" — won little sympathy. "The mark of a great company is one that is not afraid to turn away business if it violates their sense of ethics," argued Yohn Yunker at Corante. "When American-based companies assist a government in banning the use of words like 'freedom' and 'democracy' these companies have become part of the problem and not part of the solution. This isn't localisation; this is capitulation." For Mark Desrosiers at New Patriot the episode underscored "how unfettered markets have no concern whatsoever with spreading democracy. A major American company will eagerly kowtow even to the most repressive crypto-communist nationalist regimes — and broadcast its own humiliation in the blogosphere — so long as there is profit to be extracted." Mr. Brightside warmed to that theme at his Day in the Life blog. "Microsoft's decision, and indeed modern China as a whole, shows that there is nothing incompatible between capitalism and totalitarianism," he said. "The cold war myth of 'capitalism leads to democracy' is again proven false." Microsoft employee Robert Scoble offered a rare defence of the MSN move at Scobleizer. Americans, he argued, have "absolutely no business forcing the Chinese into a position they don't believe in." When he visited China — "about seven years ago" — he met with government officials, students and academics. "They explained their anti-free-speech stance to me and I understand it. I don't agree with it … but it's not my place to make their laws. It certainly is not my right to force their hand with business power." What did Rebecca McKinnion, who has worked in China as a journalist for nine years, think of that? It was "the biggest pile of horseshit about China I’ve come across in quite some time", she declared at RConversation. "In my experience, most Chinese, like all other human beings I've ever met, would very much like to have freedom of speech." In any case, she continued, "declining to collaborate with this system is not 'forcing the Chinese into a position they don't believe in'. Declining to collaborate would be the only way to show that your stated belief in free speech is more than empty words."