Christiern

Hosni should help Abacha, and with the former's billions, they can buy a rocket ship and fly to the moon, a place where nothing is illegal and the view is beyond monetary value.

That the problem with JHS, Greg, they generally have a few items a first-time subscriber might want, but the closet is empty after that. I bet they have a revolving door membership.

GA Russell: "It appeared to me that they dealt mostly in old stock." You might find comfort in the fact that their cylinder stock ran out a couple of years ago.

Those changes (spelling, capitalization, å, etc.) came later, most of the old rules still applied when I left Denmark in 1954. The early Danish Capitols I bought had very cheap no-gold labels that often were bubbly and prone to tearing.

Thanks, again, John. I have made the correction.

Yes it does, but I am not buying the assertion that Santa Claus is Santa Barbara's brother. Thanks, John T., for the info re availability—I have added it to my review.

I know, same spelling, different Øs or Ös. Not a difference worth bothering with, is it?

Don't know how you feel about his music, but Stan Kenton was an intriguing man. There is a documentary in the wings—it will be out April 12, 2011. More here:

At this moment, I don't have the time it will take to go into details, but a good step towards improvement would have been to eliminate Crouch, the Marsalises and Margo Jefferson, none of whom contributed anything of substance. Less emphasis on Louis and Duke would also have been an improvement, the freed-up time could have been spent on performers who were either omitted or given cursory treatment. An honest approach would have taken care of some of these shortcomings and, in general, have made a huge difference—this was a dishonest, deliberately distorted series that played with the facts—not always by omission. A true, competent documentarian could have told the story of jazz in less time and for less money.

As I recall, some of those Granz films had dubbed in audio.

That's good news. I always report spam of any kind, and hope these crooks are put away forever. Unfortunately, there are always new spammers in the wings, but we should ll take the time to report—I've got it down to a science. I have also been particularly mindful of potential damage since I installed Windows on my Mac. An ongoing project requires me to use Windows, otherwise I would totally ignore it. Macs are just as open to spam, but less vulnerable to manipulation.

They were 16 rpm and I should have kept them when I sold my 18,000 vinyls to my late friend, Karl Emil Knudsen.

Not at all common, as far as jazz was concerned. I had a couple of Blue Notes, a few Commodores, the mentioned Waller Victor disc (with 2 California recordings, as I recall), a Sinatra/Duke coupling on Columbia, and some great Basie and Hines on the Danish Tono label. There were no 12" Prestige 78s, as I recall, but Bob Weinstock issued some 12" vinyl (including the MJQ) at a very slow speed. The frequency range left much to be desired, but not a bad sound—trouble was that few people had the turntable that could handle that speed. The Comet Norvos were issued in Denmark on 10" 78s, but they were mastered with some kind of (cutting edge?) variable groove process that gave them the same playing time as 12" discs.

Guess the lord guy, master scammer, made old Wilfred do it! I'm diplomat Wilfred Tawiah; I havebeen trying to reach you on your telephone about an hour now just toinform you about my successful arrival in Virginia Highlands AbingdonAirport with your two boxes of consignment worth 10. Million Dollarswhich I have been instructed by ECOWAS COURIER DELIVERY COMPANY to bedelivered to you. The Airport authority demanded for all the legal backup papers to prove to them that the fund is no way related with drugnor fraud money, I have presented the papers I handed to them and theyare very much pleased with the papers I presented but the only thingthat is still keeping me here is the airport delivery Tag which is notplaced on the boxes, one of the Airport Authority has advise that weget the delivery tag so that I can exit the airport immediately andmake my delivery successful .I try to reason with them and they statedthe delivery tag will cost us just $105 Dollars only to get the two tagplaced on the boxes as that tag will enable me Please try as much as you can to reachme on Phone below 804 490 6073 as I can not afford to spend more timehere due to other delivery I have to take care of in Bangkok.You candirect the tag fee to our Head Office as they will get it here for youand they are entitled to receive and make any payment to foreigncountries authority. Email me with below information to enable me knowyour arrangement for the $105. EMAIL.[agentemail6@gmail.com] Below is the informatoon where thepayment of $105 will be transfer to Federal Ministry of Finnace BeninRepublic where the Tag Deliver will be issue in your name. Receiver Obala Tony Mike. Country benin republic . Amount $ 105 US Dollars Text Question. Who is our saviour? Answer &.The Lord Jesus. SENDER NAME MTCN Email me the payment information assoon as you made the payment available to the name of Obala Tony Mikein Federal Ministry of Finnace. Regard Diplomat Wilferd

Vinyl melts.

I definitely vote for the latter. Better not to have nothing than to have history rewritten by people who are cashing in on jazz. Remember, Burns blew a golden opportunity—it will be a long time before anything near that amount of money is allocated to the furtherance of jazz. I believe that Clint Eastwood is genuinely into jazz, but isn't that all the more reason for doing it right? I think it is. We would also have been better off without Ross' book.

The Internet refueled the gimme generation's greed—big time.

Thanks, Guy, I am glad to learn that.

Apropos "lifting," I don't think anyone can be faulted for basing their discography upon the work of colleagues who came before them. A search for wholly original discographies would not turn up much of value, but—however scanty they are—the seeds are there to be updated and built upon. That said, I fault discographers for not acknowledging their reliance on the work of predecessors. If Lord acknowledged Jepsen, Rabin (whose work he not only copied but also stopped dead in its tracks at the start of letter "G"), et al, I didn't see it. I have admiration for all the discographers, but my hero is Brian Rust.

The Driggs credit indicates an earlier reissue year than I thought. Harry Fein, BTW, was a Columbia engineer who (as Renfrew Dibble) put together wonderful LPs to give to friends who shared his love for pre-war jazz. He had a great collection, lots of cats, and a wonderful wife who could cook up a storm. To address your response more directly, each side of the groove contains the same recorded signal, but the extent of the wear (surface noise) varies, so we used the less worn side, feeding that signal into a mono whole, as it were.

When metal parts (from which vinyl test pressings were made) either were not available or in such bad condition as to be unusable, we used commercial pressings as a source. Some people took very good care of their 78s, so that worked out well. Sometimes my engineer (the sorely missed Larry Hiller) and I combined several pressings to come up with a clean track. We had stereo cartridges made with 78-type styli so that we could separate the signals found on each side of the groove. All 78s were not worn the same way, some old players were more unkind to one side or the other. I don't recall Frank doing the Ellington—it may well have been Michael Brooks or Nedra Olds-Neal. I think Driggs had been handed the pink slip by then. He was somewhat dishonest, one instance being when he changed the speed on a Henderson track and issued it as a rare alternate take!

Ditto when they pop up!

My real argument is why should anyone get free stuff from people spending time and money to generate the "stuff". My argument has little to do with me. My passing along this info for free is another discussion. True, discographers spend an inordinate amount of time on their work, but they also "get stuff from people," not to mention that the bulk of most discographies is lifted from earlier works by other discographers. Something to be considered. While I'm at it, allow me to issue a caveat regarding the bio blurbs found in Walter Bruyninckx's discography. I don't know who writes these things, but they are terrible—so full of misinformation that they make Scott Yanow's stuff seem scholarly! Here's a sample of this sort of thing. Mind you, it is taken from a '90s edition, so there is no excuse for not having made corrections. BESSIE SMITH Singer. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, April 5, 1894 and died Clarksdale, Mississippi, September 26, 1937. Bessie came from a very poor family. She started singing when still in her teens. No, she hadn’t reached her teens when she started singing. It was Ma Rainey touring with her Rabbit Foot Minstrels and passing through Chattanooga who heard her singing and she took Bessie with her on tour. No, Ma Rainey was the singer with the Moses Stokes company, a show that also had Bessie’s brother, Clarence in the troupe. He arranged for Bessie to be hired as a dancer. Bessie worked several years in honky tonks znd tent shows. No, Bessie dis not work in honky tonks, or even tent shows. She worked in theaters in the South and along the Northeast coast, with various headliners. It was Frank Walker who heard her in Selma, Alabama and he sent pianist Clarence Williams to bring her to New York for a recording session. No, that Frank Walker story is one of the myths, long since shattered. Bessie was working in a Philadelphia club when Clarence Williams contacted her. Other sources say that Bessie was already in New York in 21 where she recorded for Emerson, but no evidence is found of any such recording. The success of Bessie's first recordings was quite sensational she was a direct hit with the black population and sold over 2 million records during her first recording year. From 24 on she was recognized as the greatest blues singer even surpassing Ma Rainey's fame as a blitz war. For her accompaniments Columbia brought the best known jazz musicians to the studio and some remarkable recordings were made up to 1930. Ma Rainey was never a bigger star than Bessie, so there was no “blitz war.” Ma had been around longer, but “fame” did not come to her until she started recording, which was when even greater fame came to Bessie. By that time there was a decline in the popularity of Bessie due to several events. The public looking for something new, the popularity of radio and film and Bessie's heavy drinking problems. Public taste did undergo a change, but Bessie knew that and she began transforming her act and repertoire to fit the new era. While the advent of talking pictures did affect the vaudeville business that Bessie worked in, it had nothing to do with a decline in her career. Neither did the advent of radio (around 1925)—in fact, Bessie appeared on radio in the 1920s and did rather well. Bessie was indeed a heavy drinker, but that, too was not why her career sagged. It was the Depression, which almost wiped out the record industry and forced Columbia to drop many of its artists, including Bessie. She could only get second roles as a singer in vaudeville tours and even had to sell cigarettes between the acts. Bessie began touring with much smaller companies, but they were her own. She also took a job at a club in Philadelphia (her hometown at that point), but she never had to resort to selling cigarettes—that was something Hammond and Paul Oliver concocted. In 33 John Hammond tried to bring Bessie back but without much success. John produced four Okeh sides with Bessie in 1933, but he was not making any attempt to “bring Bessie back.” Bessie went back to the south and lived in poverty, quite far away from the days she earned up to $ 2000 a week. After recording for John, Bessie went back to Philadelphia, where she lived, and continued working. She never lived in poverty after leaving Chattanooga. Yes, she now made less money, but she was not poor. Her lover, Richard Morgan, was a successful bootlegger, so they did alright. In 37 John Hammond wanted to try again and while on his way to the south, Bessie was involved in a car crash and refused admission in an hospital because of her color. By the time the ambulance had reached another hospital Bessie had bled to death. Hammond did not want to “try again” in 1937. He hadn’t tried in the first place. The only thing he did was to fuel the greatest myth surrounding Bessie: how she allegedly died. Bessie was in a car crash, but she was never taken to a white hospital—that story was absolute fabrication, given credence by Hammond (who knew better). Bessie died in Clarksdale Mississippi’s Afro-American hospital, not on her way to it. With her disappeared the greatest blues singer jazz will ever have known. She was rightly called "The Empress of the Blues". She simply was gifted with an exceptional voice. It all flowed naturally and she seemed to have no vocal limits. She possessed a variety of tonal inflexions that made her voice unique. Her voice was poignant and had a unique richness no other singer ever matched. Yet her singing was of a natural simplicity, a honest and pure reflexion of her own. Like in Van Gogh's paintings you can find in each of her songs some reflexions of her own life. Despite the poor quality of most of her recordings the powerful voice and pure beauty is all there, close your eyes and listen ! As you can see, I'm not just nitpicking, these are some serious distortions of the facts.

I have had at least one passport since I was 10. My current one runs out in 2012.

I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if this earthquake/tsunami had occurred March 10, 1943. Would it have shortened the war? Would Roosevelt have contemplated sending help? Has there ever been a natural catastrophe of this destructiveness in wartime?