medjuck

I really enjoyed this. Didn't know a lot of it (e.g. that he was a fairly popular singer.) Loved the many interview clips with him.

Allen: Sure hope you get better man!

I did buy the Woideck book and really can't find any early references to Bird's importance. Dizzy seems to be accepted as the most important bopper. Leonard FEather does refer to him as the best new alto player somewhere around '45 (I'll check the date later). By '49 in Feather's Be-bop book he does make clear that Bird is the most important person in modern jazz but even in this book Dizzy gets more attention. (There's a picture of him as the frontispiece and he writes the introduction.)

When the Criterion Collection group was still in a big loft in Santa Monica I used to hang out there and one day noted that they were playing Coltrane for all to hear. When I mentioned it someone said, yes they'd decided to play only non-controversial music! (Admittedly I think they were playing The Gentle Side of cd.)

Night Float!!! What's that? It's not on my copy of the original release which would more properly be labeled a Mike Zwerin record.

Thomas Pynchon cribs from this in the epigraph to Against the Day though he makes it a bit more poetic: "It's always night or they wouldn't need light.-- Thelonious Monk"

Etta James singing Sail Away!!! Didn't know about that. Gotta get it.

I'm surprised that Tijuana Moods isn't on more people's top 3 list.

I perhaps should have inferred it from what's been written so far but which cds do you think are the most improved stereo versions? (Buying the complete set just seems too indulgent for me.)

Wired magazine online just published a story about someone offering the complete Beatles catalogue for download cheap. You can also stream it for free. I'm listening to Beatles for sale. You guys were right. It's great. BTW Everyone presumes that this is illegal but it's sure blatant. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/bea...ne-on-bluebeat/

Mine substitutes for the last 3, Long and Winding Road, I Was on Georgia Time and TAke Me Home Country Roads. It looks like Concord used only things from the Charles estate and nothing from Atlantic. Is yours on Rhino? Now if they'd only rerelease Ray singing RAndy Newman's Sail Away.

I'd like to see the complete Shelly Mann art the Blackhawk in chronological order a la Bill Evans at the Vanguard. It would only be 5 cds or maybe could fit onto 3 cds for a select.

I'll forgive them a lot because they reissued "The Genius Hits the Road" with seven interesting extra tracks from other sessions (about which they don't seem to have much information). I bought the Lp when it was new nearly 50 years ago and it was the first Lp I ever had stolen! It might have been available as a cd briefly before this but I was never able to find it. My wife walked by as I was playing Mississippi Mud and commented "He makes everything sound better doesn't he?" Actually one of the extra tracks is a version of The Long and Winding Road that has a string arrangement so bad even Ray can't cut through it. Makes Phil Specter's arrangement seem austere.

Me too.

Happy B'day and many more!!!!

Martin Williams makes a similar observation about Bird-- though of course one would never describe Bird as infantile. He writes of Bird's approach to music contrasting it with his personal life: ".....perhaps in that life he did live the negative side of his self-determined musical persona. What saves one from the ultimate, implicit self-destruction of heedlessness is ... knowing the consequences and effects of one's actions, and taking responsibility for them. In any case, heedlessness was not a part of Charlie Parker's music." I'm sure there are musical geniuses who are also geniuses at living an orderly life, but none come to mind immediately.

When Jack Chambers had his Miles bio re-published in one volume the new publisher (Scarecrow I think) wouldn't allow him to revise it (it does need revision) because they wanted to use the original type-setting. He only got to write a new introduction which dealt mainly with the last years of Miles's life.

Are you Canadian, "eh"? Yes, even the 2nd edition of the Monk discography doesn't seem to distinguish between the 2 pianists. On the other hand I have a Don Byas cd entitled Midnight at Minton's that has 2 tracks presumably with Monk that aren't in the Monk discography: "Uptown" and "Body and Soul". Is there a source for the correct discography of early bootlegged Monk? (Or maybe the book under discussion which I'm about to order has one.) Kelley's book doesn't have a discography, just a list of selected recordings. Anyone have a suggestion as to where I might find the correct information?

Yes, even the 2nd edition of the Monk discography doesn't seem to distinguish between the 2 pianists. On the other hand I have a Don Byas cd entitled Midnight at Minton's that has 2 tracks presumably with Monk that aren't in the Monk discography: "Uptown" and "Body and Soul". Is there a source for the correct discography of early bootlegged Monk? (Or maybe the book under discussion which I'm about to order has one.)

In his "Inside Be-Bop" ("Written by America's No.1 authority on Be-Bop" it says on the cover of the 1949 edition I found somewhere) Leonard Feather quotes Kenny Clark as saying Bud Powell "used to do all the things Monk wanted to do but couldn't. Bud had more technique; Monk was a teacher, a creator rather than a soloist." Feather was never exactly a Monk fan.

Are there any extant recordings from Minton's or Monroe's that display Monk's uniqueness. I've always been surprised that on the recordings I've heard that claim to haves Monk on piano I've been unable to recognize anything very "Monkish".

And many more!!!

I suspect that Miles and Troupe used the Chambers book to prod Miles into remembering things. At times Miles complains about mistakes in bios and used examples found in Chambers but at other times virtually quotes him. Chambers wrote a funny review of teh autobiography in which he said something like "sometimes Miles sounds like this, sometimes like that and sometimes like me."

Don't know - the LP "Julie is her name" (Liberty 3006 mono) came out in Jan 1956. Liberty only started up in 1955, which is when the LP was recorded, I expect. (I don't have a Liberty singles discography.) Were there earlier versions, I wonder? And who's Arthur Hamilton (the writer)? MG My memory (not always accurate) is that it was on the hit parade at least a few months before I saw the film (which I think came out in late '56. I saw it on New year's eve). According to AMG the Lp was 1955. (Not that they're always accurate.) They also say that the composer was an old schoolmate of London's. The song The Girl Can't Help It was written by Bobby Troupe the composer of Route '66. He and London were married, though I don't know if they were at the time. Maybe that's how they met. Previously she was married to Jack Webb!

I just got here Thursday. Or I would have. I'd like to see the studio.