Christiern

The dog food also reminds me of one, although not a personal experience. Richard Lamparski, author of a series of books featuring interviews with has-beens, once did PR for a major film studio. Richard Roffman was a NYC-based PR man whose clients were notoriously beyond help, and Roffman was perhaps best known for free-loading. He would show up at press parties with an entourage, head straight for the food, and--from the looks of it--eat enough to carry him over to the next press party (I've actually seen this). One day, Lamparski decided to play a trick on Roffman. He was producing a press party which he knew Roffman would crash, so he had special hors d'oeuvres prepared and placed on trays aimed exclusively at Roffman's group: Milkbone bisquit halves generously adorned with Alpo and Ken-L Ration. "Hope you enjoyed the dog food," said Richard L to Richard R., as he and his party left.

So there you go...you owe your very existence to Kennedy!

I agree, it was truly cowardly inaction, and nothing will change that. Also, had he not been a Kennedy, he probably would not have gotten away with it--we have seen the same kind of privileges granted Bush for what might be termed cowardice (although a fundamental difference is that there was no death involved in his case). That said, I think his political career should be judged on its own merits. A single act of cowardice, no matter how apprehensible it is, cannot take away from the man the good work he has subsequently done in the Senate. Dan, you have to admit that your own political persuasion comes into play here, right? You don't like Kennedy or what he stands for, so it is a lot easier for you to blankly condemn him. Had one of your GOP favorites made a similar mistake, don't you think you would separate his or her dark past from what you might consider to be a meaningful present?

He never smiled when he told me how John Hammond fired Billie Holiday from the Basie band because she refused to be tagged as a blues singer. It was a story he told me at least twice. He also wasn't smiling at the first Ida Cox session when he and Roy Eldridge had a little friendly argument about whether or not Jabbo Smith was among the living. He was. Whitney Balliett, who was one of the many jazz writers covering the Cox sessions, captured the argument verbatim--it impressed me, because he didn't have a tape recorder. I had it all on the master tape.

The defense also had a jury consultant, but Marsha Clark ignored his advice.

" Johnny Cochran is not a sleazbag. He's a damn fine attorney you would be lucky to have defend you in a criminal trial." He's an ambulance-chasing sleazebag, IMO. Had the LAPD done its job, had the prosecuting attorneys not been so inept, and had the Defense not hired an expert to select a most-apt-to acquit jury, Cochran would have returned to obscurity and OJ would be where he belongs. I know that you strongly disagree with that, Rainy, so further discussion of this issue between us would probably quickly become a tiring waste of time.

No, Brad, I have not consider doing that. Although I have many photos taken by myself, the most interesting ones are not mine, I just own copies. Occasionally, I do lend photos out for publishing--the Columbia Hot 5/7 set is an example of that. Here's a letter Alberta Hunter received from Dick Campbell in Feb. 1945. He headed up the black USO shows, and the first one was headed by Alberta. She traveled extensively for the USO, in Europe as well as the Burma-China area, and--later--Korea. The photo shows her entertaining troops in Agra, India.

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Johnny Cochran is a despicable slime bag, but he was skillful. Of course he was helped along by the incredibly inept Marsha Clark and the fumbling LAPD. The jury, well, I hope those idiots can sleep at night. This was clearly a pre-determined outcome for most of them, and a dumber jury would be hard to find. The mere fact that OJ's declared efforts to find "the real killer" never materialized tells us a lot. If we are to believe him, there is a vicious killer on the loose--well, some of us saw him on Court TV last night. He gave a predictably unconvincing performance, but I had hoped for better questions from the interviewer. As for Furman, Marsha Clarke should have done her homework, but I really don't think he planted anything. Ito also bears some blame for this injustice--he was a publicity-seeking jerk. Well, it didn't get him very far, did it?

Here's Jack Johnson--I don't think I have seen any photos of him as clear as this one.

Here's the 1961 photo...

He was probably tired--we recorded all day for 3 days, and the Lil Armstrong session at which this was taken, was particularly stressing. I had intended to do two sessions, each with Lil fronting a different group, but the amateur engineers a verging-on-bankruptcy Riverside saddled me with were late setting up. Because of that, I ended up doing one session with what almost amounted to two bands: two front lines collectively comprising 3 trumpets, 2 clarinets, and two trombones. Anyway, here's an ad for the Sunset Café, which was located at 35th and Calumet, and I will follow that up (in the subsequent post) with a photo Steve Schapiro took on that well-known corner, with the building that housed the Sunset seen in the background.

Here's another one from my Chicago sessions: trumpeter Leroi Nabors and Pops Foster (with Hines' trumpeter, Eddie Smith, in the background). You have probably never heard of Leroi Nabors, but he was a superb trumpeter who preferred to keep his day job as a biochemist. Howard McGhee told me that Andy Kirk always, when the band played Chicago, tried to persuade Leroi to join them. Leroi stayed put but he had his own band on the side.

In February of 1954, a tour called "Jazz Club USA" came to Copenhagen. The tour's member included Billie Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, and pianist Beryl Booker. Here are Beryl's bassist, Bonnie Wetzler, and drummer, Elaine Leighton, having Danish open-faced sandwiches (smørrebrød) with snaps (Aquavit) and beer. The place was Forsvarsbrødrenes Hus, where we had a jam session which, unfortunately, I did not record. We had one there on Nov. 11, 1953, and I did get that one on tape (Clifford Brown, Lionel Hampton, Gigi Gryce, Quincy Jones, and others)--sorry, no pictures from that one. That's Elaine on the right, Bonnie on the left:

That also struck me as odd. Wish the Chicago Defender had a similar site.

Here's the site It's called The Chicago Daily News Photographs 1902-1933. Great photos of Abe Lincoln, Jack Johnson, Enrico Caruso, Sophie Tucker... 55,000 in all. Some examples: Sophie Tucker, Otis Skinner (1929) - Caruso and friend, 1921 Jack Johnson in his car.

I use Toast Titanium 6 and I have received good results using the Spin Doctor application.

I also did the New Orleans: The Living Legends series for Riverside, at Les Jeunes Amis Hall, in the Quarter. Here's a photo from one of those sessions. That's Percy Humphrey on trumpet, Emanuel Sayles, banjo, and Louis James, bass. James, who was in his 80s, received a call from his mother during the session!

No, that hadn't occurred to me--even the ones I took myself. Here's one of Earl Hines that I like a lot--it was taken by Steve Schapiro in Chicago when I recorded Earl for Riverside's Chicago: The Living Legends series, Sept. 8, 1961 (that's Pops Foster on bass):

And finally, from this session, Junior Mance and George Tucker:

Here's George Coleman by himself (BTW these pictures were taken by Charlie Nadell):

Heres the date's pianist, Junior Mance:

Here are some photos from a Howard McGhee session I did December 8, 1961. Since I only can upload one image in each post, it will take several posts. BTW I did the session on my own and sold it--it appeared first on Fontana, then on Black Lion, Under Howard's name, as Sharp Edge The first one shows Howard and George Coleman:

A riveting book. Can't wait for the sequel.

I think the guy keeps a Thesaurus handy. He often uses synonyms in a strained way--I guess he is trying to show off, but it's often awkward. One dead giveaway is the fact that he frequently makes spelling mistakes--people who have impressive vocabularies generally know how to spell. Mainly, however, he seems to get childish delight from expressing opposite views, no matter how ludicrous they are--and they sure can be ludicrous. For example, his exaggerated, flaunting enthusiasm for Wynton, Crouch, Ratliff, et al, crosses the border of absurdity, IMO. However, cyberspace is full of trolls, and as I have said in a previous post, I think Heaney was way out of line when he tried to sabotage my Bessie Smith book on the Amazon site. I see that I am not the only one to have abandoned AAJ because of Heaney (who now, BTW, seems to have found the perfect companion in an equally offensive Wynton-is-the-greatest poster called Rob Damen. The two are made for each other. That's all I have to say about that. Hey, how about that Reagan guy!

On April 11, 1961, I brought blues singer Ida Cox into the Plaza Sound studio for the first of two sessions that became a Riverside album (Blues for Rampart Street). Here she is with Jo Jones. The other accompanyists were: Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Sammy Price, and Milt Hinton. Not a bad lineup.