Dan Gould

Donald Harrison: Real Life Stories Antonio Hart: For the First Time For Cannonball and Woody Johnny Hartman: Songs From the Heart Greg Hatza: Greg Hatza Organization Hampton Hawes: The Sermon Coleman Hawkins: Father Bean Jammin The blues Hawk Swings The Hawk in Hi-Fi Plays The Blues at the Opera House Soul Louis Hayes: Ichi-Ban (with Junior Cook) Cannonball Legacy Band At Large Quintessential Tubby Hayes: New York Sessions Introducing Tubbs Roy Haynes: True or False Cracklin' People David Hazeltine: Blues Quarters, Volume 1 4 Flights Up Classic Trio Volume 1 Classic Trio Volume 2 A World For Her How It Is Manhattan Autumn Classic Truio Meets Eric Alexander Good-Hearted People Jimmy Heath: Triple Threat Eddie Henderson: Reemergence Joe Henderson: Mode for Joe In 'n Out Lush Life Page One Our Thing Jon Hendricks; A Good Git Together Vincent Herring: Days of Wine and Roses Simple Pleasures Folklore Evidence Dawnbird

Up again for some more signups!

Up, since the December issue with part 2 of the interview landed in my mail box yesterday.

I guess this proves that you have to be "of a certain age" to know about What's Happening let alone know that the Doobie's appeared on an episode. Leaves me wondering whether Aric knows that Bob Newhart played a psychologist before he was an inn keeper.

I think you've got enough of the hard bop Blue Note era. I'd give him a taste of swing era stuff, Ben Webster or Hawkins or Young. A vocalist would be a good idea, too, like some Joe Williams, or maybe Joe and Basie to give a taste of big band jazz too.

What surprised me was reading very recently, in passing, something that said that in five years, or maybe 10, Walmart won't "buy" anything that it is stocking. There'll be no inventory. Everything will be "owned" by the distributors/producers until the moment its pulled from the shelf and run through the check-out scanner and paid for. The suppliers say this isn't what they want, but its what Walmart is heading towards, and what can they do? To me, the big threat is the cultural impact. The stocking only of CDs that don't carry a parental warning. Not stocking Maxim or magazines of that type. Its the application of their own corporate sense of morality on such a wide scale that it will have a measurable impact on what gets sold in what quantity.

Jim, Its the difference between your 40-something self and being 18; or being in your 20s and having spent your entire adulthood getting everything you ever wanted. I'm sure your son will learn the lesson about discretion/valor, but at that age, is it really realistic to expect him to understand and agree? Sure, you'd prefer not to find out that he's got a broken jaw because of a bar fight, but sometimes for a lesson has to be learned, not lectured. Which brings me to another question/point (not aimed at Jim exclusively): How did your dad/parents deal with issues of fighting, or being challenged to fight? I'll always remember my father's approach: Avoid a fight if at all possible, but if you don't have a choice in the matter, don't mess around, don't wrestle or slap-hit. If there's an opening, punch him in the face as hard as you can. Kick the shit out of him so he knows not to mess with you again. I remember the last fight I was in, in high school. We're walking in from the athletic fields, and two bully/punks ran up behind me and kind of jumped on my shoulders, gave me a shove. I didn't go down, but I wasn't going to back down either, and went right after one of them. Didn't pussy foot around, threw one punch that missed and another that landed on the top of his head. By then the gym teacher saw what was happening and yelled, and the punks kept moving toward the building, telling me they were going to kick my ass. I guess I had a choice-I could have hung with the teacher but I wasn't going to be called a pussy, so I kept walking and when I got to the locker room, there was the guy I had hit, waiting for me. But despite the fact that I'd damaged his manhood, he was ready for a wrestling match. I was ready to fight. Got him in the ribs and the side of the face, and again the teacher broke it up. I won on points-and he didn't fuck with me again.

I just turned on Sportcenter to catch this. Absolutely stunning. Should Artest have walked away after being hit with the cup? Maybe. The thing is, though, you have a near fight on the court, players are gonna be amped up-even if they are taking a break and stretching out on the scorer's table I actually do agree with the idea that the thrown cup is a form of assault. The problem with going into the stands is, if the dude's on his back, there's no way in hell he saw the dude who threw it, so he's just trying to beat up whoever he finds, not the guy who threw it. Random observations: Did you notice the guy who threw his arm around Artest and tried to calm him down when he went into the stands? Hysterical ... and pathetic, because the guy starts out as a peacemaker, he's got his arm around him, you can see he's saying "take it easy" or "calm down" or whatever, but when his nice words don't calm the savage beast, its like a lightbulb went off over the guy's head and he said, "f*ck it, why try to bring it under control, he's right here, let me pepper his face with a few punches while I've got the chance!" F-ing moron who is the first fan arrested for assault, in my opinion. And what about the fans who got on the court and challenged players? One of them approached Artest and got a straight right for his trouble. In my opinion, there's no way Artest gets accused of assault on that one. A riot is breaking out, a fan is somewhere he's not supposed to be, and he approaches, screaming at you? That's clear self-defense (perhaps a bit on the pre-emptive side, for all you Bush fans out there) BUT, the other Pacer player who came out of nowhere and clocked the same guy-he might be reasonably charged because he wasn't challenged or threatened. Kind of like that Yankee outfielder who hopped the fence to get some cheap shots in on that Red Sox groundskeeper. Bottom line, its absolutely true that nothing good ever comes from heading into the stands. But the Detroit fans demonstrated just how classless they are in the way things kept going. Just as Artest could exercise some self-control by not going after anyone, the fans can exercise some self-control by not throwing things, not going on the court, not rabbit punching people, etc., etc., etc.

Its way too early to even begin to guess how K-Mart/Sears will compete with Walmart. But Rat's assertions are pretty ludicrous on their face: Walmart STARTED in the hinterlands. For many years now, they've moved very aggressively into the suburbs where the middle and upper middle classes are. And they get a lot of their dollars already. "Thus"? Walmart leveraged their big boxes to apply the same concepts to food shopping. It had nothing to do with being "poorly positioned to get" the market share of the middle and upper middle classes. You make it sound as if they were in a weak position and just trying to find some new way to hang on. Yeah, a company that's a bigger economy than a lot of countries is just going to be a grocery store chain.

I think you may be on to something. I always felt that this may be a reason why they're not as popular today. The interesting thing to consider is that through almost all of the CD era, Gene Harris was one of the best selling artist Concord Records had. Did none of the people buying his Concord albums know his history? Or did they not care about his past, they were happy to hear him in the present?

This is an excellent album, in the tradition but very nice:

Well Brad, guess you should have posted these two bits of news separately as hardly anyone cares about the main thrust of the announcement. I'm surprised at any plan to reissue Sounds albums on BN as I think you told me that Michael said the Sounds don't sell. So its certainly disappointing if there may be a single BN issue and no Mosaic of any sort. Hopefully if there will only be one, they'll reissue a really superlative album like Moods.

Jim, its ridiculous that you have to do all this sleuthing yourself but its fortunate that you have a working theory and hopefully you can consult with the experts who can confirm or rule out your suspicion. Continued luck, perseverence and strength to you both.

You must like hot weather or the University of Miami Hurricanes.

The guy has got an email link in the review, why don't you ask him?

Worse yet when they don't know your size and brand. Nothing worse than too-tight briefs...especially when one is accustomed to boxers. I've heard of displaying the ugly nicknack or wearing the ugly shirt when the relatives come over, but that's ridiculous!

And extra thanks, cause my email was forwarded to Mrs. Gene Harris herself and she responded to let me know that Elegant Soul: The Music and Life of Gene Harris will be published in the spring of 2005 by Caxton Publishing.

Neurotic people booking more and more 50 minute hours well into the New Year?

Not exactly-for one thing, you have to register to access some aspects of the data base. They also originally optimized the new site for viewing only with IE, ignoring the millions of users who use a different browser. Initially, even with IE, the site had no functionality for me, though I guess that subsequent tweaks took care of that.

If only Gene were still alive ... But thanks for bringing this up, I'd stumbled across the website a year ago, and noticed there was an excerpt from a book Gene's wife was writing about her years with him. It still says that it will be published in 2004 but I don't think that's the case, so I've sent an email to the contact person listed on the site, hopefully I can get an update-I'd certainly buy the book, if she's found a publisher.

Marcus is in ... now at least we can have a degree of anonymity!

It was taken from a Blue Note website CD review. Which CD I am not sure but I want to say it was Norah's.

Do you mean to say that contrary to everything I've ever read about Kind of Blue, its not (aside from "Freddie Freeloader" which Wynton Kelly plays on anyway) the breakthrough modal album? Dan, As John L mentions, Kind of Blue was recorded several months after Evans's departure from the band. During Evans's tenure in Davis's working group, the group had a similar live repertoire to that when Garland was in the group. The "jazz track" studio session with Evans didn't include any modal pieces. It's definitely plausible that Miles hired Evans because he had a different approach to the piano than Garland. But there's absolutely no recorded evidence that he did so because "Evans was into the modal thing." Guy I'll direct you to what I posted simultaneously to your posting.

Be that as it may, Kind of Blue was not the very first time anyone played modes. Whether it wasn't documented at a recording session until after Evans had actually left the band says absolutely nothing about whether or not Miles had been moving in a modal direction for some time before. And if he brought Evans back specifically for that recording, it says everything you need to know about how Miles felt about Evans modal playing.

Marcus: Don't miss this thread: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=14678