medjuck

So do I have this right: a contra bass is even bigger and lower sounding than a bass saxophone and there's even a bigger, lower sub-contra bass?

OK After 40 years I misremembered: it wasn't Bill Challis who remembered "Cloudy"-- it was band leader Charlie Davis. And she only uses the shot of Bix running once-- at the beginning of the film. This is a restoration and doesn't add any footage to the original. The music track consists chiefly of Bis solos which is a treat.

I saw this film in (I think) 1981 when it was at the now defunct Filmex film festival. IIRC at one point Bill Challis says he knows an unrecorded Box piano piece and asks the interviewer if she wants him to play it. At which point the audience of the film began shouting out "Yes, play it!" When she made the film the only known extant film of Bix was a brief, silent shot that (IIRC) she slowed down and used a couple of times. After her film came out a sound newsreel was found of the Whitman band in which Bix stands up and takes a solo. IIRC there are 2 takes or 2 angles of it. I always thought it was a shame it wasn't found in time to be included in the film so I'm curious as to whether she's now incorporated it. I'll try to watch it before the password expires tomorrow.

Where did you find the downloads?

I think there are some things online of Miles with Prince. Not the best work of either.

Does the revised film include the Bix footage that was found after she originally released the film?

Ditto. And I got to see him at a rock festival a couple of years ago.

Watched "The Fugitive Kind" last night. Got a sense of how exciting Brando must have seemed in the '50s. Also music by Kenyon Hopkins.

Volume 2, which is just from 1938 is available too.

Complete Mildred Bailey on Columbia available on Spotify.

When it comes to Basie I'm a moldy fig: the older, the better. I especially like the air shots from the late '30s. However I do recommend the 5 cd box set "From the Crescendo, 1958."

Just finished reading the complete published (in book form) works of Frank Conroy-- a total of 5 books, four of which are pretty short. "Stop Time": a rather disturbing memoir. "Body and Soul": One of the best novels about music I've read. "Mid Air": A collection of short stories. "Time and Tide": a book about Nantucket, part of the "Crown Journeys Series". "Dog's Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On": a collection of articles and essays several about music and musicians in which we learn that Conroy sometimes supported himself as a piano player who jammed with (amongst others) Mingus, Paul Desmond and Charlie Watts. He writes that after Mingus had "...once again sat in with me. "What's going on, Charlie? You're the best bassist in the world and I'm a putzer." "You are," he said expansively, "an authentic primitive. That is true." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "But you swing." He does indeed.

Who wrote them?

I remember McLuhan saying (never seen it in print) that prIvacy was a 19th Century invention: it didn't exist before and hasn't since.

Why? (I always think everything in Maine should be compared to the neighbouring province New Brunswick, where I'm from. )

The one I owe is the Columbia. Worth getting for Lost in the Stars alone.

The Tony Bennett record with Basie is great. (There's probably more than one, but I only own one.)

This was a really helpful post. One quibble: weren't any of the Mulligan or Shankar releases big sellers?

Whose version? Prestige held off releasing most of them until the Columbia promotion machine kicked in-- the last of of them didn't appear till 5 years after it was recorded.

How are these holding up a year later?

Help! I seem to have blown through my second set of computer speakers in this decade. Any one have any suggestions for replacements? They'll sit on my desk and shouldn't be more than about 8 inches square. Are there good Bluetooth speakers? It would be nice to get rid of some wires. Also, how many watts do I need for reasonable sound? (You can see I don't know much.)

Hey, where you been for the last 12 years?

Robin Kelly (who I presume wasn't there) quotes some less than generous reviews, but I heard this when it was on Wolfgang's vault and I thought Monk sounded good. Maybe not essential but definitely worth listening to. Actually mhatta (who he?) put it very well in 2009.

The guy who wrote this article managed to be wrong about almost everything.

Just skimmed a book about him which seems to say he played with Don Byas! Long before he played rock'n'roll "In Denmark, Watts would sit at an unfamiliar kit behind fast US saxophonist Don Byas..."