Christiern

And Jazz Corner now has Stanley Crouch being very defensive re "Mr. Marsalis," and embracing troll Rob Damen, who has a crush on all things Marsalis that equals Heaney's. Check it out!

A big THANK YOU! for all the good wishes, Claude's funny PhotoShop-op, Catesta's mouth-watering Italian spread, AfricaBrass' surprising revelation, Maren's equally surprising Icelandic touch, and the Organissimo community spirit! I am touched by you all as I moveOn to my eighties. .

Your first daughter must be the greatest birthday gift you ever received. Happy birthday to both of you! Chris

The "disgrace" would apply if Max--being someone who has made an immeasurable contribution to America's cultural scene--had been left to spend the rest of his life in less than comfortable/dignified surroundings. It looks as if that is not the case, so we can all relax. I agree that no one suffering bad health ought to have that compounded by callous treatment. Unfortunately, that happens all the time, mainly because costs are so high, but also because relatives and "friends" have other priorities. If Max's case receives more visibility than that of the lesser person, it is perhaps because one feels that a certain reimbursement (for lack of a better word) is in order from those whose life and careers he enriched with his music.

Let us hope that what Lois heard is true. I have no reason to doubt her. BTW, the reason Lois inquired into this matter last night is because I told her what I had heard and asked her if she knew anything. She told me she would inquire at last night's event--she did, and the news is good.

I said: "I don't know why Max's kids did what they did--perhaps they did not see any other way--24/7 nursing care is rather expensive." To which Dan responded: "Now Chris tells us that "all of Max's children signed papers to have him committed to this home" and simply ignores the likelihood that Max's children are doing what they feel is best. I don't know what you are trying to do here, Dan, but it sure looks like you are trying--for some inexplicable reason--start an argument.

Well, attacking is admittedly too harsh a word, but I sense some resentment in all that questioning. I heard some sad news and passed in on to people who would be interested. Dan seems to be implying that I am spreading a false rumor. Hey, that's "berigan's" dept.

Dan, I was told that all of Max's children signed papers to have him committed to this home. I don't know why you are attacking me on this, I am but the messenger. You can be sure that I would not have said anything if I didn't believe that it is so. Like everyone else here, I wish it weren't. There are apparently people close to Max who believe that there is a more dignified solution, people who are doing something about it--we should be grateful for that. I don't know why Max's kids did what they did--perhaps they did not see any other way--24/7 nursing care is rather expensive.

I did not mean to be an alarmist, I was merely sharing what I heard, and only because it came from reliable sources. Dan, if what I heard is correct, I think it is a disgrace, even if Max is not in touch with reality. Obviously, I am not alone here, for--as I understand it--there is a move afoot to bring him home and give him the care he needs in more dignified surroundings. Clem, I was asked to spread the word, so if this is not public knowledge, I think it soon will be. BTW, I am told that Stanley Crouch is involved, so it would not surprise me if he devotes his column to Max this coming week.

Sad to report that Max Roach has been committed to a Brooklyn home by his children. From what I hear (from reliable sources), he is confined to a very small room without television or anything that might make it more bearable for him. He is, from what I understand suffering from Altzheimer's or dementia, but this treatment is outrageous and now some people are getting together to raise funds and give him a more dignified place--preferably to bring him home.

October 16, 2004 Ex-Inmate's Suit Offers View Into Sexual Slavery in Prisons By ADAM LIPTAK AUSTIN, Tex., Oct. 12 - The inmates at the Allred Unit, a tough Texas prison, mostly go by names like Monster, Diablo and Animal. They gave Roderick Johnson, a black gay man with a gentle manner, a different sort of name when he arrived there in September 2000. They called him Coco. Under the protocols of the prison gangs at Allred, gay prisoners must take women's names. Then they are assigned to one of the gangs. "The Crips already had a homosexual that was with them," Mr. Johnson explained. "The Gangster Disciples, from what I understand, hadn't had a homosexual under them in a while. So that's why I was automatically, like, given to them." According to court papers and his own detailed account, the Gangster Disciples and then other gangs treated Mr. Johnson as a sex slave. They bought and sold him, and they rented him out. Some sex acts cost $5, others $10. Last month, a federal appeals court allowed a civil rights lawsuit that Mr. Johnson has filed against prison officials to go to trial. The ruling, the first to acknowledge the equal protection rights of homosexuals abused in prison, said the evidence in the case was "horrific." "I was forced into oral sex and anal sex on a daily basis," said Mr. Johnson, who has been living in a boarding house here since his release in December. "Not for a month or two. For, like, 18 months." The phenomenon of sexual slavery in prison has only recently emerged from the shadows. Prison rape, in general, has received sporadic notice over the years and sustained attention more recently, with the passage last year of a federal law that aims to eliminate it. But there has never been a comprehensive study of incarcerated gay men subjected to sexual abuse. Discussing any form of prison rape is difficult. It makes many people uncomfortable. Some find it amusing. "It has been the subject of mockery and almost sadistic glee," said Margaret Winter, associate director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "But Roderick is a human being who doesn't deserve this, not in a civilized society." The civil liberties union represents Mr. Johnson in his lawsuit, which will go to trial next summer. Sipping a beer in the courtyard of a hotel this week, Mr. Johnson displayed the affable good nature of the restaurant manager and car salesman he used to be. He is a compact, trim man - 5 feet, 9 inches, 170 pounds - who dresses neatly, talks easily and has bright, expressive eyes. "I'm the first person in my family to get a taste of prison," he said, with more than a little shame. His crimes were relatively minor and all nonviolent - burglary, a bad check, cocaine possession - but they were enough to send him to Allred, a maximum security prison 250 miles north of here, on the Oklahoma border. According to state prison records, Allred ranked second among the more than 70 Texas prisons in the number of sexual assaults in the two years ended in August 2003. It reported 50 out of 635, with the Telford unit in Bowie County first, with 59. Mr. Johnson's suit says he begged prison officials to move him to a unit called safekeeping, where white and Hispanic homosexuals, former gang members and convicted police officers lived. He asked seven times, in writing. The officials did nothing, saying Mr. Johnson's claims could not be corroborated. At prison hearings, Mr. Johnson said, officials would take pleasure in his plight. They suggested that he was enjoying the rapes, he said. Mr. Johnson said they told him he had two choices. One was to fight. The other was to engage in sex. The officials deny they mishandled the complaints and the ugly comments attributed to them. Carl Reynolds, the general counsel of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which runs the Texas prisons, said Mr. Johnson's complaints were properly handled. "These allegations were investigated by the internal affairs branch of our agency," he said. "There seems to have been a lot of doubt about his motives and his ability to present evidence." He added that the problem of prison rape is real and that Texas is committed to solving it. The new federal law, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, says that, by a conservative estimate, 13 percent of inmates in the United States are sexually assaulted in prison. The law calls for research into the problem by the Justice Department, which will recommend policy changes based on the studies. A 2001 Human Rights Watch report on prison rape touched on the subject of sexual slavery. "Six Texas inmates, separately and independently, gave Human Rights Watch firsthand accounts of being forced into this type of sexual slavery, having been 'sold' or 'rented' out to other inmates," the report said. Those inmates, and other Texas prisoners, told the group that sexual slavery "is commonplace in the system's most dangerous prison units." The group said it also "collected personal testimonies form inmates in Illinois, Michigan, California and Arkansas who have survived situations of sexual slavery." State prison systems elsewhere in the country told Human Rights Watch that prison rapes were relatively rare. Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wisconsin reported fewer than 10 cases annually. Arizona, New York and North Carolina reported 10 to 50. Mr. Johnson filed his lawsuit in Federal District Court in Wichita Falls, Tex., in April 2002, seeking protection and monetary damages. His claims were spelled out in legal papers and a 300 pages of sworn testimony and a series of interviews. Early in Mr. Johnson's time at Allred, a member of the Gangster Disciples claimed Mr. Johnson as a sort of wife. The gang member forced Mr. Johnson to make his bed, clean his cell and cook food for him on a small electric unit known as a hot pot. He also forced Mr. Johnson to have sex with him. Mr. Johnson was later sold to the Bloods and then to other gangs, he said. Once, a bidding war broke out. He was told he was worth $100 in the open market. "They would prostitute you out, sell you for $5 or $10 of commissary," he said, referring to credit at the prison store. "Or cigarettes. Or cash money." Once, Mr. Johnson was raped by eight men, one after the other, he said in the suit. He was raped in cells and stairwells, he said, but the showers were the worst. "It's like throwing a piece of meat to a pack of wolves," he said. Throughout, he was called Coco. The other prisoners used feminine pronouns - she, her - when they talked about him. "If you are homosexual," Mr. Johnson said, "you are considered a female among these men and you will take on the name of a female. You do not go by the name Roderick because that's considered disrespecting any man that's on the facility." Gang members humiliated Mr. Johnson and other inmates for sport,in scenes reminiscent of the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. On March 17, 2002, according to Mr. Johnson's court filings, members of a gang called the Mexican Mafia forced him and a mentally ill man known as Alazar to masturbate each other in the shower. They repeatedly forced Alazar to insert his finger into Mr. Johnson's anus and then to lick his own finger. Thinking back on his ordeal in prison, Mr. Johnson said: "It broke my spirit. It broke my pride." He grew up in a large farming family in Marshall, in northeast Texas. His cousin, Sharon Bailey, recalled, "We all went to church together, with my mother driving me, Roderick and his sister to Sunday school each week." He joined the Navy at 17, visiting Thailand, Singapore and Japan on the U.S.S. Alamo. His troubles started after he was discharged, he said, when he burglarized a neighbor's house in Marshall in 1992. He had fallen under the sway of a boyfriend who ran with a bad crowd, he said. The crime earned him a 90-day sentence and 10 years of probation. After serving his sentence, he went on to hold a series of decent jobs, but drug use and the resulting probation violations put him back in prison. A Texas prison, he said, is no place for a gay man. "You've got rednecks here in Texas who run these prison systems," Mr. Johnson said. "A black man suffering, especially a gay black man suffering, is right up their alley." At a deposition in 2002, a lawyer for the prison officials, Deven Desai, questioned Mr. Johnson's religious faith, an issue with no obvious connection to legal claims in the suit. "How do you as a Christian man balance your homosexuality with your Christianity?" Mr. Desai asked. "I really don't feel that I'm any different from anyone else who serves God," Mr. Johnson answered. The doctors say he has post-traumatic stress disorder, and he receives disability payments from Social Security. He shares a room in a private boarding house for former prisoners, hard by the highway. He takes antidepressants and goes to counseling to get through the days. The nights, he said, are harder. "I'm trying to keep my sanity," he said.

Barak, this is the kind of self-promotion that shame should never enter into. Good for you! Chris

I think NYC residents are more inclined to think in terms of neighborhoods where they lived. I could say a lot about my neighborhood, which is a wonderful, eclectic racial mix, but I have very little of interest to say about my street, Central Park West--except, perhaps, that Bela Bartok died while living on it.

In 1940, the War was on, the Nazis invaded Denmark and, in May, the British occupied Iceland. A seasonal visit to Christiansø was out of the question, so Baldvin, my mother’s second husband, arranged for me to spend the summer on a farm owned by his relatives. It took almost two days to get there from Reykjavík, first by a small ship, then by car through dirt roads, and finally on horseback. Life on the farm was at first boring, but I grew used to it. There were other children on the farm, but I was the only one who had been on the “outside,” as they called it. I spent much of my time at the foot of a mountain where the cows grazed and I learned to create my own toys. The kids would collect sheep bones, polish them to a bright shine and dip them in dye that was used to color sheepskin rugs. Each bone represented a different animal: a sheep’s jaw became a cow when turned upside down and anchored in the ground, a small leg bone became a sheep, and so on. We then build little farm houses, created small rivers, traded “livestock,” etc. It was a wonderful exercise in creative thinking, and it has stood me in good stead. That summer, Baldvin came to the farm for a visit, essentially to tell me, with tears in his eyes, that my mother had asked for a divorce. I, too, saw that as bad news. When I returned to Reykjavík, my mother had taken an apartment of her own, probably with financial help from Baldvin, whose office supply store had made him very wealthy. I still spent as much time as I could with Baldvin, much of it in his store, but I also continued in school. Baldvin again arranged for me to spend the summer on the farm, and I was there when my mother called on the phone and asked me if I wanted to go to New York with my father for a year. Having seen a few American movies and many pictures from there in magazines, my impression was of a land where everybody was rich, kids rode around in the backs of limousines, etc. Remember, the New York World’s Fair was a favorite subject of articles, so there were ample photos of clean, futuristic cities and happy people. I didn’t think twice before I agreed to go. My parents were married in Copenhagen in 1931, a big affair where the best man was Crown Prince Knud (who was dating my Aunt Flavie at the time), and there were more medals on tuxedoed chests than anyone ever threw over the White House fence. The young couple (my mother was 17) took off for Marseilles for their honeymoon, but my mother did not see much of my father while they were there. She returned to Denmark and, then, Iceland, alone and pregnant. I came along, punctually, 9 months and 3 days after the wedding. So, when I returned to Reykjavík from the farm in 1941, I met my father for the first time. He had recently arrived from Italy with his mistress, Stella, and her daughter, Kanda, by a previous marriage to an English Lord, or so it was said. On October 18, 1941, Baldvin threw a 10th birthday party for me. Exactly a week later, I boarded the S/S Godafoss, a small Icelandic freighter, with my father, Stella, Kanda, and an Icelandic maid named Adda. I was excited to be going to America and the fact that I would be back in a year made parting from my mother easier. My parents had a contract that limited my stay in the U.S. to a year. So we left Reykjavík on October 23, as part of convoy HX-156. My ship carried 31 passengers in small, creaky cabins, but we only slept during the day, spending our nights in the upstairs lounge, wearing our life vests. We were six days out to sea when U-boats first attacked the convoy. The crew immediately commanded us to the life boats, a precautionary measure. Fortunately, there never came a call to lower the boats, but they gave us a commanding view of the drama that was taking place. I vividly recall seeing U.S. destroyers hooting and dropping depth charges that shook our ship in a frightening way, but it seemed to scare the adults more than it did us kids. The submarines followed our convoy for five days and, according to newspaper accounts, over 70 depth charges were dropped, but no U-boat was hit. The Germans had better luck. They struck an American Navy tanker, Salinas, creating a frightening display that we all watched like fireworks on a Fourth of July. I believe some of it was caught on film because there were three press photographers among the passengers (Pathé News, Fox Movietone, and Life magazine), and I vaguely recall seeing something in Life and in a newsreel theater. One U.S. destroyer, the Reuben James, turned around to come to the aid of the Salinas, but it was a fatal move that resulted in the Reuben James also being torpedoed by U-boat U-556. It went down, killing about 100 sailors. It was the first U.S. combatant sunk by deliberate action in WWII, a war that the U.S. had yet to enter officially. We weren't safe until we reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the remainder of the trip to New York was uneventful, but none of us were prepared for the scene that greeted us there. A horde of loud-mouthed, gum-chewing reporters and photographers came aboard. They looked exactly like the ones I had seen in Hollywood movies, even to the hats pulled down in the back. I recall posing for photos with Kanda, our little heads together, smiling through the hole of a lifesaver. Woody Guthrie wrote a song called "The Sinking of the Reuben James," but it is only recently that I realized I had been a witness to that historic tragedy. The next street on which I lived would be West 72nd in NYC—the Hotel Raleigh. To be continued? Here's my 10th birthday party

Great, just as I had hoped, the memories are being stirred and the recollections are pouring forth. Don't stop if you have more to tell--continue what yo started. Here's another segment from me: The small tower on Frederiksø was built in 1685--it is now a museum. Here are two views and an interior. I did not spend the WWII years on Christiansø, but rather in Reykjavík and New York (P.S. 101, Forest Hills), and I will share some of that in my next post. I returned to the island in 1945, and found, to my delight, that it had not changed at all--the same people were doing the same things, the dinners were still something to look forward to and the food was still delicious, if somewhat altered by wartime rationing. At 14, I enjoyed the conversation all the more, and I listened with great interest to stories of how things had been during the Nazi occupation. A door at the harbor end of the street served as the island's bulletin board. On it was a telegram from Sweden, sent by one of the two Nazi officers who had been stationed on Christiansø during the war; he was thanking the island's residents for have helped him escape to Sweden. During the war years, guns and ammunition were regularly smuggled to the Danish underground via Christiansø. Swedish and Danish fishing boats would rendezvous and transfer the weapons from boat to boat at sea. They were always in wooden crates, the kind herring was shipped in, and it was commonly believed that the two resident Nazis simply looked the other way, perhaps because they valued their soft assignment. Anyway, my grandfather told me that they were friendly guys and that there was never any problem on the island. As you can see in the photo below, there is a narrow passageway behind the inner row of house where my grandparents lived. Since they were on the ground floor, anyone walking behind the houses passed right by my grandparents' windows, one of which held a battery operated radio. My grandfather recalled that, one day--when, as usual, he was tuned in to the BBC--one of the Nazis tapped gently on the window and politely asked if the radio could be turned down a little." The islands' resident doctor (this was a government position), was also a poet and writer who periodically contributed to a Copenhagen newspapers. Dr. Foss decided to celebrate his first post-war birthday with a garden party to which the entire population was invited. Denmark has its own version of dougnuts, they are called æbleskiver, which translates into apple slices, but has nothing to do with apples, nor slices. They are actually balls of deep fried dough, about the size of a golf ball, and quite tasty. The war had made it impossible to get vegetable oil, which the preparation of æbleskiver calls for, so the doctor's wife decided to fry hundreds of them in paraffin oil. Unfortunately, paraffin oil generates severe, uncontrollable diarrhea! You guessed it, practically the entire population was afflicted, including the doctor. Apropos Dr. Foss, there was a big post-war event on Christiansø over which he presided, along with the main island's governor and our Mr. Jacobsen. The occasion was the opening of the island's first public toilet, a real single seater, replete with water tank and chain. The inauguration ceremony was recorded for broadcast by the Danish Radio and Dr. Voss had written a poem for the occasion, which he delivered with much gesticulation, tongue in cheek. Then the Mr. Jacobsen''s little daughter stepped forward, made a curtsy in front of the Governor, and extended in his direction a red silk pillow on which a shiny pair of scissors flashed in the sun. As Christiansø's resident artist/musician, Mr. Køje, gave his accordion a hearty squeeze, the Governor of Bornholm approached the ribbon and smiled at the cameras, scissors in hand. At least half of the islands' population and a group of fortunate tourists then saw him perform a dramatic snip, step inside, and ceremoniously pull the chain. The sound of the flush was sweet music to everyone's ears, bringing forth a salvo of applause, bravos, and other approvals. Christiansø was entering the twentieth century. Here is a depiction of a 1808 attack on Christiansø by the Royal British Navy So, that was a lengthy glimpse of a street I grew up on. My next post will deal with my eventful 1941 trip to the U.S. I'll leave you with photo taken in the 1940s aboard a visiting ship. That's Mr. Jacobsen on the left, standing next to my grandfather. I'm not sure who the ribboned gentleman is.

A few weeks ago, SinginSumo, one of Jazz Corner's assets, started a thread in which he encouraged his fellow posters to share childhood memories. He called it On the Street Where You Lived. At last count, it has yielded 71 posts, including many delightful ones (some of you may have seen it). I hope it gets a new life over there, but it will have to be without further input from me (suffice it to say that, just as management brings to any establishment its good or bad vibes, so it is with a bbs). It occurred to me that Organissimo (where the vibes are warm) might yield some interesting shares if this thread found a second life here. So here it is (hopefully with SinginSumo’s blessings). I have copied and slightly upgraded my own posts before porting them to the big “O”--the place to be. So here, to kick this thread off, is my initial JC post: As a child, I lived on many streets, having grown in different parts of the world, mainly in Reykjavík (Iceland), Copenhagen, and New York, but the place that generated my fondest memories is a small pair of islands in the Baltic Sea, Christiansø and Frederiksø. My maternal grandparents moved there in the late 1930s when my grandfather retired. He had gone to sea at the age of 12 (in 1886) and served as an officer of the Royal Danish Navy before becoming Harbor Master on the island of Crete. When the political situation there forced him to return to Denmark, he became a ship’s captain in the Royal merchant marine, a position he held throughout WWI and for a few years thereafter. When it did not look as if Denmark would offer enough of an adventure, grandfather took the family--including my 9-year-old mother, her sister and three brothers--to explore a new life in Santo Domingo. It turned out to be a bad move, for everything that could go wrong, did. It was on to the next island: grandfather accepted a position to head the LLoyd insurance company’s office in Iceland. One of my uncles, Torben, remain in the Domincan Republic, where he had a decent, albeit menial job in a sugar refinery. He still lives there and, at age 97 rarely misses a day of work in a company he founded. My grandfather’s decision to move to Reykjavík accounts for my being half Icelandic. By the late 1930s, when my grandparents returned to Denmark, my mother had married and, within a year, divorced my father. She had also remarried in order for me to have a father, and Baldvin became as close to a real father as I ever had. I was now about five years old and my grandparents were living on yet another island, which brings me back to Christiansø. Christiansø is the larger of two islands that make up Erteholmene (the pea islets), the smaller one being Frederiksø. The short space between the islands forms the harbor, across which there is a short walking bridge. To give you an idea of their size, one can walk around the larger island at a fairly leisurely pace in about twenty minutes--not along the coast line, but inside the wide granite wall that hugs it and protected the islands for three centuries. This was a fortress back in the days when such was needed, and what makes it so attractive today is that it has virtually not changed in all those years. While modernization of interiors is permitted, all exteriors must pretty much retain their 17th and 18th century look. A crude map of the islands. I spent much time on Christiansø with my grandparents in the years that led up to WWII. They lived on what was simply called, "the street" (#7 on the map). This was a block-long stretch flanked by two long, yellow 2-story buildings that had housed military personnel from 1684 to 1855. Here is "the street," where I lived. The building on the right is the warehouse. The people are pesky tourists--we were glad to see them leave the island on the 3 o'clock boat. After the war, I came back and attended the island's school (#12 on the map). This is the my one-classroom school. It now has electricity. The islands now have electricity and real flush toilets, but in my day we used kerosene lamps and outhouses. Only the doctor's house, the inn, and the official residence had any semblance of modern convenience--the latter two even had a telephone and inside flush toilet. That toilet made it a joy to visit the official residence, where lighthouse keeper-police chief-customs manager Jacobsen and his wife lived. This panoramic view, taken from the smaller island, Frederiksø, will give you some idea of the environment. You can see the two rows of yellow houses where we lived. The large white house is the official residence where Mr. Jakobsen lived. I will continue this in my next post to this thread after seeing some input from others who are willing to take a similar retro trip. In the meantime, I leave you with a photo of me seated on the steps to my grandparents' apartment on "the street," in 1938.

I seem to be the only one in the seventh category--where I will remain for another seven years.

Is that one for real? Picasso's signature was very different from the scribbling here... As far as I know, it is real--drawn on a napkin.

A rather well-known artist's rendering of a rather well-known drummer. Ok, so he had a problem spelling the name...

I was never aware of there being any deliberate effort to alter the nature of a Moodsville album from that of, say, somebody's ballad album. If there ever was an instruction from Bob Weinstock to do so, it must have flown off my desk--a desk that saw its share of memos!

I really don't think there was any serious marketing decision involved in the creation of the Bluesville, Swingville, Moodsville, etc. series. Remember, these were not stand-alone subsidiary labels--it was always Prestige Moodsville, Prestige Swingville, etc. I don't recall if the pricing was different--if so, that may have been a factor. As a dj when these first came out, and later as a Prestige employee, I never thought of them as anything but Prestige albums with a series name. Sometimes I think that consumers/collectors make more out of such details than the facts call for. When I produced a session, it was a Prestige session--whether it came out on Prestige, Prestige Bluesville or Prestige Swingville, made no difference.

I also saw the episode when it first aired. What struck me as odd was that they had Jo Jones on trumpet and Roy on drums!

Never mind the jackhammers, she should be worried about the effect of having such an idiotic mother.

A former neighbor whom I had known for 20 years. I let him stay in my apartment while I was out of town, and he apparently made many trips past my doormen. I didn't know about his problem. BTW he also took about 100 DVDs, but none of my audio or computer equipment. Insured?? No insurance, Wolff. Yes, Connoisseur, life does indeed go on.