Joe

Robin Harris Bebe Don Beebe

Any opinions of the Nelson / Lou Donaldson collaboration recorded for Argo (ROUGH HOUSE BLUES)?

Yes, the recent Steve Jansen release, SLOPE, is very fine indeed. He has a new one out, apparently: TENDER EXTINCTION. http://www.stevejansen.com/ Trivia everyone here may already know: Jansen is Sylvian's biological brother, real name Stephen Batt. Sylvian was born David Batt.

I highly recommend RAIN TREE CROW, a "reunion" LP of sorts that was advertised as the product of improvisation within the studio. Not sure how much truth there is in this advertising, but the results are often memorable in a late-period Talk Talk kinda way. Also worth hearing: Sylvian's 90s collaborations with Robert Fripp.

Perry White J. Jonah Jameson Roger Ailes

Junior Cook Steve Potts Jimmy Witherspoon

There's also that Newman record on Mercury (AT COUNT BASIE'S) that features Nelson on the front line. So this was more or less or very briefly a working band [?]

William Frederick Kohler Willie Masters Brackett Omensetter

VALVE NO. 10 with Frank Lowe is a favorite. Really, all of his Soul Note recordings are worth a listen; after VALVE NO. 10 I'd single out RAINBOW GLADIATOR with Charles Tyler, the Stuff Smith tribute with Sun Ra and John Ore, and the LIVE AT CARLOS I date.

Vis-a-vis Nelson's approach to improvisation, that NOCTURNE date is very revealing, IMO. The title track is "through-composed," Strayhorn meets Debussy, and is as much a study of articulation, subtle timbral variation and vibrato as it is anything else. Probably a little less of that Trane influence / processing going on here as well. Check out the "build" on Nelson's solo on "Azur Te"...

Clare Quilty Henry Orient Chance / Chauncey Gardiner

Sad news. Powerful and inventive player.

I would have loved to have heard the post-Max, early 60s Tommy of with the Wayne Shorter of the same era.

God bless Tommy Turrentine.

For any reader: Crepuscule W/ Nellie is a novel of many subjects: a marriage, the artist’s lot, jazz as both American history and American aesthetic. But it is also a novel about race, and was always conceived of as such. As I learned more and more about what it means to be a novelist by putting hours in the book’s woodshed, I was surprised to discover that one of the ways in which Crepuscule W/ Nellie was most about race was by virtue of the authorial choices (and assumptions) exercised in its composition. “Problematic” is one of those terms that suffers from being as widely circulated as it is, but it is still the best bit of vocabulary I have at my disposal in terms of thinking about the whys and hows of my own position with regard to the African-American lives on which Crepuscule W/ Nellie ’s improvisations are based. The book is open to suspicion, and those suspicions aren’t alone, nor are they unhealthy – as I trust the afterword my editor, Janice Lee, asked me to write for the book attests. Because some readers may benefit from encountering this content before reading the novel itself, I’ve decided to go ahead and make a PDF of the afterword freely available via my website. As noted in those pages: “Maybe my last and therefore most abundant hope is that this novel may lend an ear to what could have been, some ‘new past’ therefore more apt to inspire a reinvention of our present. In short, that this novel may listen as much as it babbles, warbles, and squalls out of its multiple mouthinesses.” [http://jrmilazzo.tumblr.com/post/144197098402/crepuscule-w-nellie-is-a-novel-of-many-subjects]

Mr. Coffee Joe DiMaggio Mrs. Robinson

News from my alma mater. Wadada to receive a honorary doctorate in the arts. http://blog.calarts.edu/2016/05/10/calarts-to-honor-wadada-leo-smith-and-don-cheadle-at-graduation/

Big John Little John Little Johnny Jewel

Bamm-Bamm Pebbles Schleprock

Trixie Belden Tricky Dick Nixon Checkers

Beast Boy Negative Man The Chief

WALL-E Wooly Willy Arthur Wellesley

Deacon Jones Preacher Roe Priest Holmes

I can think of few artists more deserving of such recognition. And I'm sure he will make the best use of that recognition as well.

Fred Fisher Princess Leia Organa Jar Jar Binks