medjuck

There are, of course, the original duets with Blanton on RCA as well as a couple of duets and solos on CBS which iirc are in the Mosaic small groups box. Great stuff.

I'll wager you'll enjoy it once it reels you in. These were a great series of books to read. . . real and grim and with their own pace and "lighting." They get better and better. One of the few serie i've read where our attitude to the characters changes from book to book. Two good films made about Beck: The Laughing Policeman (American with Walter Mathau as Beck). And Man on the Roof (Swedish based on IIRC The Abonible Man).

At the Miles Davis museum exhibit they displayed several Savoy and Dial albums. IIRC the Dial were for colleactions of Bird 78s but the Savoy for various boppers and just titled Be Bop vol 1 etc. and advertised Bird as well as "Izzy Goldberg"-- I guess because Dizzy was under contract elsewhere. (RCA?) I remember that most of the 78s my parents owned were in albums but never thought jazz albums were that common. Was I wrong? Were whole sessions ever released as albums?

Saw it in Montreal today (it ends tomorrow). I know it's been in Paris but don't know if it's traveling anywhere else. If it is and you get a chance to see it I recommend it highly. You won't learn anything you didn't know before but it's very extensive and has a lot of photos and films I'd never seen before as well as original manuscripts of arrangements and letters between Miles and Columbia. Would take a couple of hours to really cover the whole installation.

Yeah but Prez's clarinet solo on Blue and Sentimental overshadows his tenor solo.

Welcome back!

Thanks. That's available used on Amazon for $35 but I think I have every other cut on the cd so I'll just keep looking.

Anyone seen our remastering hero, Doug Pomeroy singing alongside with Pres' solo while tuning the transfer of "One O'Clock Jump" recorded at Rhode Island Swing Festival? For about 70 years the thought was these recordings were lost forever... Also, that solo on "Tea For Two" is great and intense as anything Pres recorded commercial in those years - comparable to "Lady Be Good", or another live WNEW broadcast from 1938. ("I Know That You Know")... Is that "I Know That You Know" available?

I'd read somewhere that there's a lot of Benny Goodman in the collection and was thinking that that might mean some more Charlie Christian. Sure enough this last article says there are sessions with C.G.

I just remembered a story my Dad telling me about my early music appreciation. Apparently I loved the drinking song from The Student Prince ("Drink, drink, drink..."). As soon as he'd finished playing the disc I'd start saying "play it again Daddy, play it again". I expect it was a few more years before I heard any EKE.

I hope I live long enough to see (or should I say hear) this material released. The only disappointment for me was the Hawkins. Their write up of it made me expect something more. It didn't sound that different to me than many of his other versions. And what's "modal" about it? It's great of course, just not what was advertised. BTW Anyone know who's backing Berigan?

I was watching a tv show called Rubicon last night (it's on right after Mad Men on the same network) and in a scene in an upscale bar the background music is Scott LaFaro's "Gloria's Step"! It's a spy show and they managed to segue into a suspenseful vamp.

Maybe they can sell it through Andorra. That may be a crime but it's also a crime for this not to be made public.

I keep looking for a hat like that. Most porkpie hats seem to have narrow brims.

I've had the same experience:there's a DVD of Ellington in Montreal from the same venue and same week as one of the times I saw him. However the other occasion was more interesting: It was EKE's birthday and the club was full of well wishers most of whom seemed old to me (they were probably a lot younger than I am now). They began throwing out requests for swing standards made famous by other bands. I thought this was very uncool but maybe they were aware of his "Will The Big Bands Ever Come Back" and I wasn't. The result was amazing. Duke would play a chorus with just the rhythm section, then one or two horns would join in for a chorus and then then whole band would begin improvising (as far as I could tell) background riff till they reached a final full band out chorus! I was stunned.

I probably saw the Ellington band on tv in the '50s but my first real awareness was when the Columbia Record Club sent me The Nutcracker Suite. After that I bought Ellington Indigoes. Loved them both so I began collecting older releases. An RCA Lp called (IIRC) "In a Mellowtone" contained 12 cuts from the Blanton-Webster years and that blew me away. So I started collecting as much earlier material as I could. I love playing old broadcasts when I'm on long trips both in the car and on airplanes. I actually got to see the band twice in 1964. A great experience.

I really liked the old couple in the hall at the end of the show. I wonder if this was the actor: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-music-man-20100816,0,5301372.story

He was still working until fairly recently. I know he did a portrait of Sharon Robinson (L. Cohen back-up singer) this year. Best present I ever got was a portfolio of his called "In Remembrance".

I remember not going to Scott's to see Cecil Taylor on a double bill with Joan Armatrading (what a strange pairing) in the early '70s because it was too expensive. Five pounds would have been more than I could afford then. (I was just remembering this because Armatrading played a small theater her last week. My wife went and said it was great.)

Does anyone here know anything about the production of the Vitaphone film short based on James P. Johnson's "Yamekraw"? It's included in a very good 6 DVD collection called "Warner Bros. Big Band Jazz and Swing" but that contains no annotation except the titles of the films. There is a review of "Yamekraw" on IMDB that says Johnson was not paid for the music but no other information about the film's production.

All of her records are worth owing but her last one "Abbey Sings Abbey" is a killer-- all about life, regret, love and mortality. I think Tranemonk nailed it: there was no one like her and there probably never will be.

I liked the Hajdu book but think he's not one to let nuance get in the way of a good story. Elllington certainly didn't try to hide Stayhorn's contributions. If you listen to almost any of the many concert recordings of the orchestra you'll hear Duke introducing every Strayhorn composition with a reference to its author.

I've always had a soft spot for it because my sister gave it to me for a birthday present when it was new and I was hardly into jazz yet. Have no idea why she picked it and after 50 years I doubt if she remembers. IIRC one of teh songs is based on a riff he first used in one of the numbers he recorded with the Count Basie band.

Why does the camera pan over to a Savoy album? Were these sides included in it?

Happy B'day and many more!