Dub Modal

Man, RIP to a legend. Can only wish I got to see him live. Damn.

Pretty much that whole section on "Competition and Insecurity" and having his compositions recorded is another chapter in the more things change, the more they stay the same. That trick Lion pulled on Parlan and others is essentially the racket of distribution. A buddy of mine who started a brewery business ran into this same thing with conglomerate distributors. You can make a great product, but if you don't play ball then you get frozen out. Reactionaries love them some fairy tales about unfettered "capitalism" but have a ten mile-wide blind spot when it comes to unscrupulous business practices. Also, I can't find anything relating to Southeastern College unless it's the community college in Whiteville, but there's nothing on the website to indicate whether it was an HBCU at first. Even the NC HBCU database website doesn't mention it.

I love this album. NP disc one from the Bechet Mosaic Select:

Thanks!

Any latter day Frank Foster small or large group recordings recommended? I've got the Frankly Speaking album but that's the latest I have of his playing...

Incredible and awesome.

This OJC has some alternate takes and is enjoyable.

I bet he flipped his wig when Brian Setzer had a hit a few years later, thinking he might have hit pay dirt.

Pretty sure that once they had a few years of data to mine in terms of streaming choices, it was very clear what the market wanted to listen to.

I've told my dad several times recently that he needs to cash in now on any value his Elvis records have. They'll likely be worth nothing in the very near future.

In follow up, the above article promotes a new book from Susan Williams called White Malice which talks about this episode. However, Karl Evanzz detailed what happened back in his 1992 book The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcom X, specifically his chapter 8 from that book "Lament for Lumumba." It's detailed there that Armstrong was already controversial on the international scene as an American Goodwill Ambassador appointed by Eisenhower. He had been accused of being a member of an Israeli spy network by the Egyptian press, which led Armstrong to be banned from Lebanon 5 days later. The State Dept's request (or perhaps demand?) that Armstrong's last stop on his 8 week tour be Leopoldville was done as cover to hide the presence of Loy Henderson. Henderson was a high level State Dept figure whose specific assignment in this case was Lumumba's assassination. He coordinated this with foreign mercenaries (one mentioned in the above article) and local conspirators. The demi-god status of Armstrong was deftly used as a distraction/trojan horse to finalize Lumumba's fate. Of note, there had already been several assassination attempts on Lumumba that failed. Henderson, who'd had success in Greece ('52) and Iran ('54), was the trusted hard case that officials knew could get the job done, and Armstrong's distraction was a key component that allowed he and the merc team to arrive and set up shot basically unnoticed. Unfortunately for Lumumba and the rest of the world, Henderson proved to be successful. The assassins successfully kidnapped Lumumba, beat and tortured him and flew him to a safe house where Godefroid Munongo (a leader from the Katanga province) stabbed him in the chest with a bayonet (Lumumba's hands were bound behind his back). As Lumumba begged for his life, a Belgian merc "Colonel Huyghe" (CIA code name QJ/WIN, and a career criminal involved in other projects) got angry, screamed nonsense at Lumumba and shot him point blank in the head. They then loaded the leader's body in a vat of acid supplied by the agency. Prior to describing that tragic event, in the same chapter Evanzz mentions additional jazz-world connections to Lumumba. It was Abby Lincoln's CAWAH (Cultural Assoc for Women of African Heritage) that organized a protest march in response to America's refusal to grant Lumumba a visa to attend the opening UN session in Sept '60. Evanzz's book probably should have been mentioned by that Guardian article. If Williams used it for her book then hopefully she credits it properly.

Indeed, just marketing for consumers. But reading that linked article (from '81) it's hilarious in terms of the total blind spot afforded to hip hop. The author is going out talking to Wexler, Stan Rubin, et al about whether swing has a chance to become the foundation of music for the younger generation...lol, that's a pretty big swing-and-a-miss. Also, interesting comment from Ertugen on the author's preference for golden age swing: "Ertugen says, ''That Great Age you talk about, you know what it was? A claque of publishers and songwriters from Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood, European in origin, feeding a foreign music to the American people.'' Cole Porter? European? ''He wrote in the same vein,'' Ertegun says. ''White Christmas''? ''God Bless America''? Foreign? ''Well, consider Irving Berlin's movie 'Top Hat.' About a guy at the Savoy in London. The cotton-picker in Mississippi, the dockwalloper in New Orleans, the lumberjack in Washington, the gasstation attendant in Houston - what did any of them have to do with that? American music was derived from the blues, there was none of that European sophistication to it. It was forced on the country, simple as that. When rhythym and blues came in, rock-and-roll, it hit a nerve; it was what the American people wanted; it was their music.''

Holland & Walcott have some serious jams on this record.

Red Callender comes to mind here.

Levy was 16 when he recorded this. Amazing.

Now: Moving on to:

Sad and shameful. But that's what the state dept and see eye a do. Peoples' lives don't matter when there's resources and profits to be had.

What does that mean, “post-truth era”? That statues of confederate generals/soldiers that were erected via the efforts of white supermacists should remain standing because they represent some historical “truth”? Or does it mean something else?

That article is from 2018. But no doubt that broad brush he loves still gets heavy use.

Were the arrangements for these sessions done by Duke Pearson?

That pic is funny. I only saw the very end of that game unfortunately.

This is a good comp of Dolphy's Prestige recordings. Then it was on to: A so-so comp, but has some good playing. And now: So much better than Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which I think (at least that first disc) may have been rehearsals (need to check the booklet again). This big band in concert is phenomenal.