Tom in RI

Was Peter Keepnews the editor/publisher? I remember sending in the dough to subscribe and they went out of business before I got a single issue, my timing was not good.

Email sent on: Blackman ,Cindy – Telepathy (Muse) $6 Brown ,Donald – Cartunes (Muse) * $4 Coker ,Dolo – California Hard (Xanadu) A.Pepper, B.Mitchell $6 D’Rivera – Paquito – Havana Café (Chesky) $5 8 Bold Souls – Sideshow (Arabesque) * $3 Either/Orchestra – Afro-Cubism (Accurate) wonderful * $5 Grismore/Scea – Of What (Accurate) Tim Hagans, Matt Wilson $3 Pepper ,Art – Live in Toronto 1977 (Naked City) $3 Quebec ,Ike – Soul Samba (blue Note) Conn $6 Ruiz ,Hilton – Manhattan Mambo (Telarc) $5 Vega ,Ray – Pa’Lante (Palmetto) $4

Sending pm on "Improvised Meditations & Excursions/Eastern Exposure" - John Lewis / Fred Kaz - (atco collectables) $8.00. Thanks.

Now its down to $17.99. I have my fingers crossed.

The most constructive thing in this thread, for me, was Sangery's link to Howard Wiley (although I find it a little amusing that he works in Lavay Smith's band who I enjoy personally but who would probably be excoriated for being too derivative here). Allen Lowe, nice Pres reference at the top of this page. Clementine, do you talk to people that way in person, if so, you must get into a lot of beefs.

Here's a quote from Preston Hubbard's website which speaks a bit to the nature of Hamilton Bates and the Blue Flames, there's also a picture of the band there, When I graduated high school, I worked in a warehouse to save money for RISD, where I had been accepted on partial scholarship and would later attend for two years with Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz, from the then not-yet-formed Talking Heads. I started the Blue Flames, a quartet, with my high school friend Scott Hamilton, who has gone on, after taking New York by storm, to be an international jazz star and Concord Jazz label's biggest selling artist. We began as an R&B band, but over a five year period metamorphosed into a straight up mainstream jazz band. Standards and ballads. We turned our backs on rock music, cut our hair off (it was not a fashionable thing to do then), and became total jazz Nazis. It was all good, though, because we were focused, and I really cut my teeth on that shit and got serious about the bass, especially the upright bass. We were thrilled and honored to back Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge for a week once, with Charlie Watts in attendance one night, and I even got to smoke weed with Roy in his hotel bathroom! I would later be lucky enough to play with many greats and idols of mine. Scott Hamilton guested on Roomful of Blues 1st lp. I saw him as part of a band backing Helen Humes in the mid 70's in Providence which I remember enjoying quite a bit. I last saw Hamilton playing with Roomful founder Duke Robillard at Chan's in Woonsocket, RI maybe 4-5 years ago. It took Scott a couple of tunes to get warmed up but it was a very enjoyable evening. I understand Larry doesn't care for Hamilton and I think his explanation why is quite articulate but I don't think its necessary to take it a step further and label his work as "wrong" just cause you don't like it.

By NATE CHINEN Published: February 21, 2008 Not quite a month ago the alto saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo had a major seizure while driving his elderly landlady to a store in Brooklyn. “I was convulsing all over the place,” he later wrote on his blog, “grabbing onto the steering wheel violently, biting my tongue and basically acting crazy.” Fortunately, the driver behind him recognized what was happening, and after quite a bit more drama — in the ambulance, Mr. D’Angelo apparently tore through the straps of his gurney and tried to strangle an emergency medical technician — he underwent testing that revealed a large tumor on his brain. Within days he was scheduled for surgery and had started writing about the experience at andrewdangelo.com. He was clear about the fact that he had no health insurance. The health of jazz, as a topic of conversation, has long inspired a lot of hand wringing among sympathetic parties. When the focus turns toward the health of jazz musicians, the discussion assumes a different, less abstract character: solicitous and supportive. Most people who play jazz for a living are accustomed to self-reliance. When that system fails, they lean on one another. “Since I’ve been on the scene, there have been benefits for musicians that were in need, unfortunately, because so many of us are,” the guitarist John Scofield said in the rear stairwell of the Village Vanguard on Monday night. Along with the tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, he was playing a benefit for the bassist Dennis Irwin, who has recently been struggling with a spinal tumor. “I’m lucky enough that I can afford health insurance,” Mr. Scofield continued, “but a lot of people can’t. On a jazz musician income they’re getting by from gig to gig, keeping the roof over their heads and feeding a family, and insurance doesn’t happen for them.” Mr. Irwin, the regular bassist with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and a seasoned sideman who has logged extensive time with Mr. Scofield and Mr. Lovano, is another uninsured musician. The sudden struggles of Mr. Irwin, 56, and Mr. D’Angelo, 41 — musicians equally beloved in different sectors of the New York jazz grid — have abruptly brought the issue of health care to the foreground within jazz circles. Their stories have resonated with musicians, who tend to absorb news of this sort with a tribal concern: jazz is a collaborative art, after all, even if its artists are the ultimate individualists. It may seem negligent that so many jazz musicians lack basic health-care coverage, but monthly fees through an organization like the Freelancers Union easily run to several hundred dollars, and these days many gigs in New York literally involve a tip jar. The Vanguard sets were a great success, financially as well as musically (it was Mr. Scofield’s first time performing with the orchestra, and he nailed it). There will be another, bigger chance to support Mr. Irwin on March 10, when Mr. Scofield and Mr. Lovano spearhead an A-list benefit concert in partnership with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Proceeds will go to the Jazz Foundation of America, a nonprofit organization that provides aid to jazz and blues musicians. Mr. Irwin, speaking this week from his Manhattan home, said he had just completed radiation treatments. His ordeal began in December with a mysterious back pain. The Jazz Foundation referred him to the Dizzy Gillespie Cancer Institute and Memorial Fund at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey, which regularly provides free treatment to jazz musicians. (Dr. Frank Forte, the institute’s director and a jazz guitarist, treated Gillespie there during the final months of his battle with pancreatic cancer in 1993.) The Jazz Foundation does considerably more than steer musicians toward services. Its mission also involves protecting musicians from eviction, malnutrition and other misfortunes. “We get 60 cases a week like this, each having its own urgency and desperation,” Wendy Oxenhorn, the executive director, said. Referring to Mr. Irwin, she added, “I’ve never seen an outpouring of so much for one musician.” If that’s true, Mr. D’Angelo runs a close second. “I knew that I was loved,” he said this week, “and I knew that this musical community was close. But I had no idea the compassion ran this deep, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.” Mr. D’Angelo is a key figure in Brooklyn’s underground jazz scene, and part of a peer group that includes the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, the drummer Jim Black and the saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed. He has a strong new album, “Skadra Degis,” on Mr. Speed’s label, Skirl, with Mr. Black and the bassist Trevor Dunn. Its release party had long been scheduled to take place Friday at the Tea Lounge in Park Slope. The gig is still on, but now it will be one of more than a dozen benefits for Mr. D’Angelo, spread across the United States and Europe. Mr. Black, Mr. Speed and Mr. Dunn will perform, as will the multireedist Oscar Noriega and the drummer Matt Wilson, two more of Mr. D’Angelo’s close compatriots. A separate benefit is scheduled for next Thursday at Barbès, also in Park Slope. Mr. D’Angelo has received financial support from both the Jazz Foundation and the MusiCares Foundation, a program of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. His operation was a success in the sense that most of the tumor was removed, with no adverse effects. But further analysis revealed that he has an especially serious form of brain cancer. “The doctor said that without treatment, I will live for five years,” he wrote last Friday, after receiving the news. “Seems dismal and I’m unwilling to accept it.” He is likely to begin radiation treatment shortly, having ruled out further surgery. Apart from the dramatic nature of their stories, Mr. Irwin and Mr. D’Angelo are sadly not exceptions. A few years ago, for instance, the tenor saxophonist Michael Blake had two operations for a ruptured appendix. Having no insurance, he chose Bellevue Hospital Center for its sliding-scale fee; he also received assistance from MusiCares. He still has no insurance, though he is obviously aware of the risks. (He just spent the weekend at Bellevue watching over Scott Harding, a prolific record producer and engineer who was critically injured in a car accident last week. Mr. Harding does not have insurance either.) The situation is the same for Mr. Speed, who has spent a lot of time visiting Mr. D’Angelo in hospitals lately. “A lot of my friends, myself included, don’t have insurance, which seems really idiotic, especially now,” he said. “But it’s also very expensive to get coverage.” It should be noted, too, that even musicians with health coverage encounter serious financial needs; this is one of the major areas of concern for the Jazz Foundation. The costs associated with an illness can go well beyond the literal costs of treatment, because a musician who is not working usually translates to a musician without an income. Last October the pianist George Cables, who does have private health insurance, had simultaneous transplant operations, receiving a new liver and kidney. While the procedures were covered, he has not been able to earn a living during his recovery. So he was fortunate to have two all-star tributes presented in his honor recently, in San Francisco and New York. He received about $12,000 from each, he said. But the money wasn’t the only benefit, so to speak. “One of the best things for me was how people came together, and expressed their concern, and expressed their support by coming and playing,” he said. “That was better than anything.” Benefits for Andrew D’Angelo: Friday at the Tea Lounge, 837 Union Street, near Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 789-2762, tealoungeny.com; Feb. 28 at Barbès, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com. Benefit for Dennis Irwin: March 10 at the Allen Room, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway, (212) 721-6500, jalc.org.

My favorite Leo Parker is on the Chess lp "The Late Great Baritone" which has sessions from 51-53, good sessions and better fidelity than his dates from the '40's. I don't think this has been out on cd. Back to Back Baritones on Collectables is also worth getting, it can be had for cheap, although I never listen to the Sax Gill sides.

Extra value is what you get When you play Coronet!

If you have seen Roomful of Blues in the last 27 years chances are you saw Bob Enos play. http://www.projo.com/music/content/lb-enos...16.13e1d16.html

Co-founder of Jazz Festival dies at 93 01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 By Richard Salit Journal Staff Writer The Lorillards, Louis and Elaine, and George Wein, right, in 1954. The Lorillards founded the Newport Jazz Festival and hired Wein to organize it. Journal FILE PHOTO NEWPORT — Elaine Lorillard, who has been credited with founding the Newport Jazz Festival, died Sunday at a nursing home a few miles away from the grounds where the summer festival continues to thrive more than a half-century later. She was 93. While George Wein is often considered the festival’s founder, it was Lorillard and her former husband, Louis, who hired him to run it, according to histories of the jazz series. The festival was bittersweet for Lorillard. In a 1997 interview with The Providence Journal, she complained that Wein has described himself as the founder and that, despite its ability to attract big name sponsors, “I never saw a penny from that festival.” “I am proud of what I did, but it’s brought me great unhappiness,” she said. Lorillard, who was born in Maine, died at Heatherwood Nursing & Subacute Center, not far from her longtime home on Dennison Street. She had just moved to the nursing facility recently. “She died in her sleep,” said Christine Lorillard, a daughter-in-law, who is married to Lorillard’s son, Pierre. They live in Los Angeles. Lorillard’s only other surviving child is Edith “Didi” Cowley, of Newport. Lorillard never lost her passion for jazz or ceased seeing herself in relation to the festival. “She took pride in it. She talked about it all of the time,” said Christine Lorillard. “It was one of the highlights of her life.” Her house was adorned with festival memorabilia and plaques given to her commemorating her contribution to jazz. Among them was a White House invitation from 1993 when President Bill Clinton held a jazz concert to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the festival. She also held onto a copy of the original festival charter: The only names on it are the Lorillards and three lawyers. In a book called Newport Jazz Festival: The Illustrated History, author Burt Goldblatt quoted famed music producer John Hammond as saying, “As far as I’m concerned, Elaine Lorillard should have the whole credit for the concept of the Newport Jazz Festival.” Lorillard’s husband was a descendant of the original owner of The Breakers mansion and the founder of Lorillard Tobacco Co. In Louis Lorillard’s 1986 Providence Journal obituary, Elaine Lorillard traced the festival’s origin to “when I thought of the idea and he said he would back it.” Her husband hired Wein, of Boston, and cut him a check for $20,000 for expenses. The couple left town and returned for the festival. “We were absolutely floored by it,” she said. “We thought it was going to be just a local kind of thing, and people came from all over the world.” Lorillard divorced her husband and broke from the festival, eventually suing it in 1959. But she and Wein reconciled and in 1992 the two appeared on stage together on the festival’s opening night. In 1997, she was honored at the Jubile, Franco-Americain, in Woonsocket. She served on the board of directors of the festival and pushed the organization to feature jazz during its concert. In the early years of the Newport festival, musicians would hang around her house. She always remembered sax virtuoso Gerry Mulligan sleeping on her lawn during the festival. But it was the music as much as the players that she long revered. “She had an original collection of albums that she gave to us that she prized,” said Christine Lorillard. “And she was passing that on as a legacy to her son.” She said that the family will have a private memorial service at an undetermined date. rsalit@projo.com

Scotty Moore John Ore Les Paul

Jimmy and Doug Raney play Stolen Moments on a Steeplechase release of the same name.

As to times on lps, the longest at the time of its release was a Todd Rundgren lp that, if memory serves, had sides of 38 and 37 minutes. A jazz release that stands out in this regard is the Milt Jackson reissue on Savoy, Second Nature, with 4 sides over 25 minutes each.

I am not sure I follow this, are you saying its best to buy from the ignorant? I have mixed emotions if that's the case as my heirs will, in all likelihood, be disposing of my music. While no one will get rich from my collection I wouldn't want my children taken advantage of. I am curious as to what arrangements people have made for disposing of their records and cd's. If I were to die shortly my wife knows who to call to get a reasonable amount for my stuff. However, he's older than I am and I expect that I will need to get a Plan B at some point. I like to think that my kids would keep a few of my lp's but neither shows any interest in the format (at least my son tolerates jazz and blues well, though).

I imagine that's the Chris Byars from the Small's label: http://www.smallsrecords.com/art-byars.htm

I have only recently (in the last few years) started listening to Brazillian music, primarily through Adventure Music releases. This week I picked up the Joyce disc Astronauta, her tribute to Elis. Great stuff with Rene Rosnes and Mugrew Miller guesting on a few cuts (Joe Lovano, too). Are any of the Elis discs mentioned similar to this one?

I have the film on VHS, it can be a little arty in spots. There is not much in the way of Wardell in action, one clip is repeated quite a bit in the film. However, there is a lot of oral history and I am glad I bought it for that reason.

Billy Harper's Destiny is Yours, which was the 1st disc with Harper as leader that I picked up on.

Email sent.

I was in Boston a few weeks ago with my wife and daughter daughter picking up a cello for my daughter at Rayburn Music (it could be so much worse, it could have been a trumpet, or even worse, drums). While there I heard a guy helping a clarinet player adjust his instrument, it was Emilio Lyons.

Someone should grab the Edwards/Person disc, Horn to Horn. A very nice session and generally listed online for more than $11.

If you like the Tab Smith's you will probably also like the Paul Bascomb, United Sessions. I'd also like to second Ken's (KH1958) recommendation for Robert Ward's New Role Soul. I also would like to recommend blues guitarist Dave Specter's Speculatin', Blues Spoken Here, and last year's Dave Spector and Steve Freund release, Is What It Is. Funny, even though I am a big Ronnie Earl fan, I didn't care for Specter's release with Earl.

I love the session with King Curtis, Oliver Nelson and Jimmy Forrest together.

JAZZ Greatness that's hard to find Charles Gayle's trio recorded one of the best CDs of 2006. So where is it? By Steve Greenlee, Globe Staff | April 8, 2007 Six seconds of drum roll, a saxophone's shriek, a fast-thumping bass, and the trio is off. Charles Gayle is blowing mad phrases out of his little white alto saxophone, Gerald Benson is walking up and down the neck of his bass, and Michael Wimberly is letting loose on his kit at breakneck speed. Someone is moaning along with the notes. There's just the hint of melody, but the music invigorates and lifts the soul. This is "Cherokee" like you've never heard it -- 5 minutes and 47 seconds of tension, anguish, and adrenaline. Before the hour is up, the trio will have turned the lovely standard "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" into 14 minutes of free jazz, ruminated beautifully on the old standby "What's New," conjured a hurricane out of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," brought out a few of Gayle's own fire-and-brimstone compositions, and ended it all with Albert Ayler's "Ghosts," as if to remind us who the group's forebears are. "It was cold that night," Gayle recalls in a phone interview from his home in New York. "People came in early to eat dinner. I thought, 'Maybe these people are here to eat dinner and they'll leave.' But nobody left. I had my special white saxophone, and I took it out, and it was magic. There was something in the air that night. The people, they were enthusiastic before we even got into it. We played whatever we played, and they just went crazy." The date was Feb. 12, 2006. The place was a tiny jazz club in Stockholm. The concert was recorded, and the result is the Charles Gayle Trio's "Live at Glenn Miller Café," released last June on the Swedish label Ayler Records. It may have been the best jazz record of 2006, and most of us missed it. Finding it is nearly impossible. Good luck searching Borders or Amazon.com. Gayle, 68, has been a significant figure in jazz only since the late 1980s. His music is fiery and wholly improvisation based, the stark cries of his sax invoke Ayler and Coltrane, and his message can be overtly religious. He mostly performs his own works -- songs with titles like "O Father," "Repent," and "Jesus Christ and Scripture" -- and he's been known to go on 45-minute improvisations. He's been homeless at times, and he occasionally performs in grease paint, under the name Streets the Clown. His tenor sax has been recorded prolifically, but he recently switched to a softer alto, and he is also an interesting pianist. His 1991 album, "Touchin' on Trane," is considered an essential document of free jazz. Yet most people -- even many jazz fans -- have never heard of him. His style of music can be an acquired taste, harsh on the ears. He's not heard on jazz radio, and he's recorded only for out-of-the-mainstream labels such as FMP, Black Saint, Silkheart, and Knitting Factory Works. Few stores stock such labels, and even many of the bigger Web-based outlets fail to carry them, so aficionados are left to scour obscure jazz websites and online auctions. To understand why it is all but impossible to get your hands on what may be the best jazz record of last year, it helps to know a little about the economics behind such CDs. And the economics are this simple: A disc like Gayle's would sell maybe a copy or two in any given city. So why in the world would a record store -- especially a chain like Barnes & Noble or FYE -- bother to carry it? "The chain stores basically are pushing numbers. They're run by computers that tell them what to order and how many to buy," says Bob Rusch , CEO of North Country Distributors, which handles 1,300 independent labels, including Ayler Records and the "Live at Glenn Miller Café" disc. "We're basically a distributor that specializes in unpopular music that most stores will not handle. There is a market out there, but it's diffuse." Jan Ström , the head of Ayler Records, said he presses anywhere from 100 to 3,000 copies of each album he produces. The trick is getting them to stores where they might sell -- places like Downtown Music Gallery in New York, whose Web store is a haven for fans of outsider jazz. "Every year I go around to the record shops in what they call the home of jazz -- New York -- and I have great difficulty finding any of my CDs there," Ström says. "You have all these young people who become purchasing managers, and they hardly know who John Coltrane is, so how can you expect them to buy one of your CDs by Henry Grimes or Charles Gayle?" This may sound discouraging, but some people think the jazz business is ahead of pop and rock in this regard. Digital downloading is rocking the industry, and music blogs are giving wide exposure to indie bands and labels. It could be a return to the past, when all labels were independents trying to make a small profit selling a few records. "The ability to make a couple of million dollars off of a single recording artist is long gone," says Phil Freeman , author of the free-jazz guide "New York Is Now." "Big record companies have to learn to adjust their expectations. The indie labels came into the marketplace with their expectations already adjusted." A label like Ayler Records knows it's going to sell only 1,000 copies of a particular CD, so it makes only 1,000 copies. None of this does anything to help a gifted musician like Gayle, whose music -- especially his stunning recording from the Glenn Miller Café -- deserves a wider audience. But he gets it. He understands that the music he has chosen to make will never make him wealthy, and he sympathizes with the people who put out his records. The small labels put all their money into recording and producing a CD, he points out, leaving nothing for advertising and marketing. It is almost as though they assume the people who enjoy this music will seek it out and find it. For Gayle, that seems to be reward enough. "I'm amazed people even listen to me," he says. Steve Greenlee can be reached at greenlee@globe.com.