Dan Gould

Being from the Netherlands, Niko, I think you can't appreciate the significance of cockroaches in the southern climes of the United States. If Texas cockroaches are anything like Florida ... watch out. <green smilie here if you can't tell>

I've often skipped ahead ... so thanks for letting me know I can probably just start with Chapter 3. FWIW didn't the universally lauded Monk biography start with a veritable crapton of information about his ancestry, to a level of detail few people got anything out of?

Nice to see you here. Enjoy the musical B-Day.

Turned 60 last September. There is no plan to retire because there is no money and I do mean that literally. We operate at a deficit. My wife can't find a job that pays more and I fear she is about to be passed over for the one position that seemed the best possibility only a week ago. Our retirement plan consists of: my wife outliving me (I've maintaiined a life insurance policy, she let hers lapse and hasn't replaced) OR winning the lottery OR, me outliving my mother and her not outliving her assets. Given the above I am not sure why I made such an effort to achieve a level of fitness and general "health" in the last 23 months (down 90 pounds, normal BP and cholesterol and A1C) but I was tired of seeing myself at 275 and I figure "live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse": I can now achieve the last, at least. Being over 60 all my friends seem to speak of is our weight and whatever medical issue or test result comes down the pike. It's pretty boring frankly.

Without a doubt, the greatest Jomboy breakdown of all time. Also, RIP Davey Lopes.

1-5 to start the season, Crochet can't even help them, reverse image of the mf-ing Yankees and it really SUCKS to say NO BASEBALL til further notice on fucking April 2nd.

Getting a nice response on Percy's collaborations with trumpeter Jabbo Smith so here's another one

ABS made a big difference in Bosox game ... inning ending strikeout turned into inning-extending walk, followed immediately by two RBI singles that turned 1-0 game into 3-0 game. I was actually surprised that Cincinnati had challenges left in their half of the 9th, as the strikezone box suggested at least two bad strike calls by the ump. Did they hold off because none of them were strike 3 or on a 3 ball count? Chapman got 3 flyouts and I don't think he got to 3 balls. New world.

Hi Zakk, I applaud your effort to elevate Bickert and document his career ... I can't help you there but I have spent 5 years or so documenting and elevating tenorist Percy France so I can relate. Hopefully there are people here who can help - the one thing I can say is that FB and google were the key elements of my efforts regarding Percy. If you haven't already I would identify musicians who knew Bickert and try to find them on FB. I also found simple searches of "Percy France" brought up posts that led to information about him or Remembrances that I was able to add to the website. And on Google, image and text searches led to a lot of information about festivals and gigs. (And you won't run into the problem that "Percy France" was also an important city during WWII which led to many unhelpful hits!) The interwebs is a pretty remarkable thing. Good luck.

I would think Larry is important enough among journalists and writers that news like that would make it into social media. (Although it is true as you age that there are fewer people who know you IRL to pay tribute or make sure tribute is paid.)

It will be interesting to see how the East shakes out. I question whether the Red Sox have the offense to compete but they do have a lot of young stars and stars in the making that if they step forward, the offense has the potential to be just fine, and the pitching and run prevention should be very good.

Percy always strikes me as thoughtful and sincere.

No shipping notice, just found it in the mailbox. Oh happy day. OTOH I only now realize that one of the co-authors is a professor of Political Science. I really hope we do not get bogged down in contemporary "academic" topics.

Here's hoping, cause I am pretty sure I ordered after you did.

I am wondering that myself and I cannot find hide nor hair of the order I placed in November after your tip on their big sale. And I remember emailing someone because the Don Byas biography was a lagging shipment because its print-on-demand. But I don't have my order and I don't have the emails. So they better figure this out and send what I paid for or I will be quite upset.

hmmm hope I get mine soon and then I will have to decide ... set aside the Prestige book to read this first or continue on and then move on to the KD? I have barely cracked Listening to Prestige. Not that it doesn't strike me as something one could pick up and set down and read very piecemeal.

I thought that was a clear implication that there is OP and then there is Tatum, and there is also "look at what I can do" level.

Seems like a ton of chops, is it OP-level or Tatum-level or look-at-me level? When chops like those are used by a guy like Gene Harris, to dig into my bluesy-jazz / Jazzy-blues sweet spot, you have me at "hello". For wider historical range ... I tend to come down on "meh".

Fixed everywhere but the original post which seems to lack an edit option.

but isn't the tune recognized as Oop Bop Sh'Bam? Is there a different tune?

A true rarity here, not sure if it will get many hits or not but worth putting out there ... many years ago in the research that preceded the website, I heard from a female vocalist that Percy sang as well as playing tenor sax. I wondered if any recording would ever show up, and a small handful did between the Gaskin Papers and the Schaap archive. Here though, Percy scats with Dickey Myers, who Allen Lowe recorded with Joe Albany backing him, on Oop Bop Sh'Bam or what Allen called "Who Parked The Car". Be interested to know what people think (I say Dickey gets the best of him but both guys are having fun).