duaneiac

Your choice of dance partners . . .

Chris Brubeck reported on his Facebook page that drummer Randy Jones passed away on Monday. Mr. Jones had once been in Maynard Ferguson's band, but will perhaps be best remembered as the drummer in the Dave Brubeck Quartet for some 35 years, up until the time when Dave Brubeck retired from performing. Mr. Jones was the longest serving member of any version of the DBQ. May he Rest In Peace.

I guess Leon Redbone doesn't get discussed here much. The following was posted to his website a year ago and no mention of it has been made here. Leon Redbone, the legendary folk/jazz/roots performer has retired from both public appearances and recording. A spokesman for the artist noted, “We share the sadness and disappointment sure to be experienced by his many fans and friends and hope they understand that his health has been a matter of concern for some time. It has become too challenging for him to continue the full range of professional activities.” A Long Way Home, a collection of solo performances, both live and studio, dating from 1972, documenting the dawn of Redbone’s professional career, will be released by Nashville’s Third Man Records as a double album in the near future.

The still not dead yet Jack Sheldon appeared with Gordon Goodwin's band in Anaheim earlier this month:

A movie based on the events of the murder (or rather, "justifiable homicide") of Lana Turner's "boyfriend" Johnny Stompanato by her daughter Cheryl Crane. The names and details are all altered to avoid lawsuits, but every one must have known what this movie (and the Harold Robbins novel it was adapted from) was about. Very tawdry and melodramatic, but Bette Davis and Susan Hayward chew the glitzy scenery with gusto. A pre-Mannix Mike Connors and a pre-has-been Joey Heatherton also starred.

Drummer/singer Dave Tull recorded a CD of his compositions. Here's a couple of samples

The first name that came to my mind is Louis Bellson. When Duke Ellington respected a musician's composing talents enough to include their work in the band's book, that's a high compliment. While with the Ellington band, Mr. Bellson was featured on two of his most famous compositions, "Skin Deep" and "The Hawk Talks". He continued to compose for both big band and small groups throughout the years and even did an album of sacred music. Here's one of my favorites of his --

Season Six still manages to be "literally" LOL funny for me!

Deepdiscount.com currently has this for $38.99 and if you order 3 items you can get an additional 10% off each with the code "Poseidon" (in addition to free shipping).

I would agree with your sentiment and go one step further -- I'd say no athlete in any sport in the past 50 years comes even remotely close to having the level of social or cultural significance as Muhammad Ali. Although many men held the title before him, I think Ali truly was the very first Heavyweight Champion of the WORLD. At his peak, he was probably the most recognizable human on the planet, a hero to millions, myself included. And on top of everything else, when it came to being a celebrity "singer", he wasn't that bad.

I would agree with your sentiment and go one step further -- I'd say no athlete in any sport in the past 50 years comes even remotely close to having the level of social or cultural significance as Muhammad Ali. Although many men held the title before him, I think Ali truly was the very first Heavyweight Champion of the WORLD. At his peak, he was probably the most recognizable human on the planet, a hero to millions, myself included. And on top of everything else, when it came to being a celebrity "singer", he wasn't that bad.

Perhaps a tad longer than it needed to be, but the scenes of the robbery being carried out are quite compelling. A good cast and Peter Ustinov did a fine job in his Oscar winning performance. Some movies make one wonder, "What were they thinking?". Here, it was quite obvious what they were thinking after the smash success Disney had with Mary Poppins -- "Lets make a spectacular musical fantasy about another character from a series of British children's books!" -- but the whole endeavor went horribly wrong. To make a good movie musical requires 1) a score with a number of catchy, memorable tunes, and 2) performers who can sing those tunes. Doctor Dolittle was severely hampered from the outset by having neither of those elements. I recall seeing this movie as a kid and not liking it too much then -- and that was back in the long-gone days when a 7 year old kid was still unsophisticated pretty easily entertained. There was just so much wrong with this, from a script that wanders around with no real story or destination in mind, Rex Harrison always looking as though he would rather be anywhere else (and in the scene where he had to "sing" a love song to a seal, who could blame him?), Anthony Newley's horrible bellowing of Leslie Bricusse's third-rate songs, an obvious lack of appreciation for the spirit of the source material. This was a beautifully filmed, bloated, soulless, crass and extremely expensive miscarriage. At least it did inspire me to read a couple of the books a few years later, so it wasn't a total loss on me as a kid.

I just posted that point as a clarification, so no need for an apology. Goodness knows I have made my share of errors in my posts. For all I know, "I Didn't Know About You" may be a Billy Strayhorn number.

The song is not "I Didn't Know About You" (the Duke Ellington song), but "I Don't Know Enough About You", a Peggy Lee composition. Either way, it is misidentified on the Amazon page as "I Know A Little Bit About A Lot of Things".

Outside of Looney Tunes, the old Beany & Cecil cartoons were my favorites as a kid. No coincidence that Bob Clampett was involved in both, I suppose. Here's a classic one full of beatnik jazz and the voice of Lord Buckley himself (allegedly).

I would love to see them reissued in a series of boxed sets, but I can understand the challenge in doing so. While jazz fans might welcome reissues of the discs by the more familiar names in the series (Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Marian McPartland, etc.) they may not be interested in some of the less well known, but certainly worthwhile, pianists included in the series. There was a good deal of valuable music recorded in that series and some of the releases I would rank among the top albums of each individual performer's discography. The Maybeck recordings by George Cables, Jessica Williams, Sir Roland Hanna, Jaki Byard, Ralph Sutton and Ralph Sutton & Dick Hyman together all come to mind

A fairly good documentary about The Goon Show including interviews with the 3 men most associated with it Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. There's even an interview with the man who was the inspiration for the voice of Bluebottle (and he really did talk like that!).

Her final recordings from 1994-95. A 1994 recording.