GA Russell

Happy Birthday T.D.!

I've been doing some Wikipedia searching tonight. Mike Longo is a pianist who was Dizzy Gillespie's musical director. He also operates a small label called CAP - Consolidated Artists Productions. CAP Records has released all four albums by pianist Jay D'Amico. From 1984 through September 10, 2001, D'Amico was the "pianist in residence" at Windows on the World, which was a restaurant and bar at the top of the World Trade Center's North Tower (which was destroyed September 11th). (In 2000, Windows on the World reported revenues of $37 million, making it the highest grossing restaurant in the US.) More recntly, D'Amico went on vacation to Tuscany, and while there composeed the eleven songs on his new album Tuscan Prelude. This is a trio album, with Marc Johnson on bass and Ronnie Zito on drums. Johnson and Zito provide quiet support. Most of D'Amico's compositions here have melodies that someone could write lyrics to, although not melodies of the sort Jon Hendricks would work on. There is a classical influence to his playing. I think it would be fair to call this contemporary third stream, but more jazzy than the ECM third stream records I have been listening to lately. To compare apples to apples, I would like to hear D'Amico do an album of standards, so that I would see how he matches up with Bill Charlap. I think that I would like D'Amico better. I like Tuscan Prelude a lot; but now that I have it, I wouldn't want another just like it. D'Amico is a much better pianist than composer. I can understand why he was selected by a restaurant which could afford anyone in New York they wanted.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers 25....Toronto Argonauts 16 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4184594 Good game between two bad teams. See-saw battle with poor play until the Bombers got their act together in the last two minutes to put the game away. The Bombers' magic number is now one. ***** Edmonton Eskimos 27....British Columbia Lions 20 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home This was an interesting game because the Lions had won five straight and were playing at home, yet the Eskimos dominated throughout. Edmonton had a big second quarter, and led handily after that. With the score 27-10 fairly late in the game, BC scored ten points, the last three on a FG in the last minute to close the point differential in case a tie breaker is needed for the standings.

Just a guess, Bill!

Bill Clinton?

Fred Williams Week 16 preview http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4184477 Two games tonight, and two on Monday. Our Columbus Day is their Thanksgiving Day. This is it for the Argos.

David Naylor Week 16 preview http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ory/GlobeSports

Here's an article about a woman who claims that she is Elvis's half-sister, and that she has a recently mailed letter from him, and that the DNA from his licking to seal the envelope will prove that he is alive. So the probate judge is examining, without ruling on the truth of her claims. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,434821,00.html

Anybody else remember The Lloyd Thaxton Show? It was an American Bandstand type show syndicated weekdays for the after-school hours, after Dick Clark reduced his schedule to Saturdays only. I saw it very few times, but I remember seeing The Tijuana Brass, The Turtles and Bobby "Boris" Pickett on it. From the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,2214593.story Lloyd Thaxton, the host of a popular Los Angeles TV dance show in the 1960s who memorably injected a visual zaniness into his daily rock 'n' roll party for teenagers, died Sunday. He was 81. Thaxton, who later became the Emmy Award-winning producer and director of TV's long-running consumer advocacy program "Fight Back! With David Horowitz," died of multiple myeloma at his home in Studio City, said his wife, Barbara. He had been diagnosed with the disease in May. Photos: Lloyd Thaxton | 1927 - 2008 Tribute post on comedy writer's blog A television personality from Toledo, Ohio, who arrived in Hollywood in 1957, Thaxton launched "Lloyd Thaxton's Record Shop" on KCOP-TV Channel 13 in 1959. The show featured records, guest stars and Thaxton's flair for humor. Revamped and renamed "Thaxton's Hop" in 1962, the live, low-budget, late-afternoon program became such a hit with young Southern Californians that it was syndicated nationally in 1964. Like "American Bandstand," Dick Clark's popular TV dance show out of Philadelphia that went national in 1957 on ABC-TV, what came to be called "The Lloyd Thaxton Show" featured teenagers dancing to records and guest appearances by top recording artists such as the Byrds, Jan and Dean, the Righteous Brothers, Sonny and Cher, and the Turtles. But new viewers quickly realized that the 30-something Thaxton was more than just a genial, dapperly dressed host. Humorously lip-syncing -- and doing assorted variations thereof -- to the hit records of the day was his signature. For a Herb Alpert instrumental version of "Zorba the Greek," Thaxton donned a fez and moved around the teenage dancers as he "played" two trumpets in his mouth. Another time, he sat at a grand piano "playing" Roger Williams' "Summer Wind" as a huge off-screen fan increasingly blew newspapers, toilet paper and assorted other debris at him. Thaxton would even cut a singer's lips out of an album cover and mouth the lyrics by putting his lips through the hole. And then there were Thaxton's famous "finger people" (painted faces on his thumb and/or other fingers), who would "lip-sync" to a record as Thaxton slightly bent his finger joints to open and close the painted-on mouths. In one "finger people" routine of Linda Laurie's recording of "Jose He Say," Thaxton wore a large sombrero and a droopy mustache and lip-synced the male part in a duet with his thumb, which was topped off with a small sombrero, doing the female part. The group of about 30 teenage dancers on each show, who came from different Southern California high schools, also got into the act in various contests, including lip-syncing contests in which the boys might lip-sync the girls' parts and vice versa. "It was an anything-for-a-laugh type of approach," said Dan Schaarschmidt of Research Video, who has been editing a pending "Best of" DVD of Thaxton's show. "A favorite quote of his was from a fan who wrote one time and said, 'When I first saw your show, I thought you were making fun of rock 'n' roll. And the more I watched, I realized you were making rock 'n' roll fun,' " Schaarschmidt said. "He really took that to heart as a mission statement of his show." The point of the lip-syncing and performing "other wild and crazy production numbers" was "to make the music visual and more entertaining to watch," Thaxton wrote on his blog, www.lloydthaxton.blogspot.com. "People started calling me a musical Ernie Kovacs," he said in a 2003 interview with The Times, referring to the late, visually creative comedian. Thaxton, who produced his dance program, would sign off by saying, "The name of the show is 'The Lloyd Thaxton Show,' and my name is Lloyd Thaxton." To which the teen dancers in the studio would shout, "SO WHAT!" "I was addicted to the show," said Jon Burlingame, a film and television music historian who teaches at USC and watched "The Lloyd Thaxton Show" on the NBC affiliate in Schenectady, N.Y., as a young teenager in the '60s. "The show was constantly entertaining," Burlingame said. "And I think the reason it was so entertaining was it wasn't just about spinning the current hits; it was funny in a way that didn't talk down to young people." During his peak as a TV dance show host in 1965, Thaxton's face appeared at the top of the newly launched Tiger Beat magazine (then known as "Lloyd Thaxton's Tiger Beat") for which he did a column...(more at link)

Happy Birthday marcello!

Man oh man, that's terrific! Congratulations!

Mike Maurer has come out of retirement to help the Eskimos. My favorite Maurer story is the one about the time he physically attacked a teammate on a bus ride when the guy, fresh from being cut by an NFL team, went on about how the NFL was better than the CFL! http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Edm...7006841-cp.html

The trio will return to the US next month. Here are the dates: November 1st - Seattle, WA – Earshot Jazz – Triple Door November 2nd - San Francisco – SF Jazz Florence – Florence Gould Theatre November 3rd - Los Angeles, CA - Jazz Bakery November 6th - Chicago, IL - The Morse November 7th - Milwaukee, WI - Polish Cultural Center November 8th – Philadelphia, PA - Chris' Jazz Café November 9th – Baltimore, MD – An Die Musil November 10th - Columbus, OH – Wexner Center

Happy Birthday MG, wherever you are!

Happy birthday DukeCity!

Happy Birthday HolyStitt!

Happy Birthday marcoliv!

Happy Birthday Brad!

BM, that's MTA! Interesting that your kids, without any knowledge of the group's history, would choose as their favorites the group's two biggest hits!

With the Bombers' loss, the Als clinched first place in the East. In the Hamilton-Montreal game, Anthony Calvillo set a league record with 44 completions. The previous record of 41 was held by Dieter Brock and Kent Austin. http://tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=251661&lid...os=secStory_cfl

Here's confirmation that the Roughriders have clinched a playoff berth. http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/new...4a-6f10b3ba7c93 ***** Hamilton Tiger-Cats 44....Montreal Alouettes 38 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4183577 Great game, and what an upset! Quinton Porter played again for the Ticats, and threw 5 TD passes. Prechae Rodriguez set the Ticats' team record with 13 receptions (including 3 TDs). (The previous record of 12 was set in 1976 by Jimmy Edwards.) Ben Cahoon broke Ray Elgard's career record for most receptions by a Canadian. He now stands at #5 on the career list. ***** Edmonton Eskimos 36....Winnipeg Blue Bombers 22 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ory/GlobeSports http://64.246.64.33/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=s...aspx?id=4183603 Winnipeg got off to a 14-2 lead in the first quarter. Very early in the second quarter, the Eskimos scored a TD to make it 14-9 just as I was tuning in. Well, the Bombers didn't do much after that. Edmonton scored 4 TDs in the second quarter, and I turned it off at the half with the score 30-16. I turned it back on late in the third, but not much had happened. The Bombers started playing again in the fourth, but by then it was too late.

I was in college in DC when Eddie Brinkman played for the Senators. Their last year, their manager was Ted Williams. The tv announcer was Warner Wolf. Many, many times over the years, I have heard Wolf refer to the fact that when Williams managed the Senators, he had everybody on the team batting forty points above his average. And Wolf would always cite Eddie Brinkman, who hit .260 that year instead of the .195 he would usually produce. From the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,5054501.story <h2 style="">Ed Brinkman</h2>Tigers' shortstop set record in 1972 Ed Brinkman, 66, the quintessential "good field, no hit" major league shortstop who set a record in 1972 with 72 consecutive errorless games for the Detroit Tigers, died Tuesday in his hometown of Cincinnati, according to the Chicago White Sox. No cause of death was given, although friends said he had a heart ailment. Brinkman won a Gold Glove Award in 1972 and was named to the American League all-star team in 1973, when he played shortstop in all 162 games. He finished his 15-year major league career with a batting average of .224 and a fielding percentage of .970. He went to the Tigers after the 1970 season, when the Washington Senators sent him and several other players to Detroit for Denny McLain, the Tigers' pitching ace who had won 31 games in 1968, and others. Brinkman began with the Washington Senators in 1961. After 10 seasons with the Senators and four with the Tigers, he played briefly for the New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers before retiring in 1975. The White Sox hired him as an infield coach in 1983. He stayed with the team as a scout until 2000. Edwin Albert Brinkman was born Dec. 8, 1941. He was a high school pitcher on a team whose second baseman was Pete Rose. Brinkman missed much of the 1968 season while serving in the Army National Guard. A week after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Brinkman was stationed in the left-field seats on opening day in Washington.

I hear The Edsels doing various songs on Sirius quite often. From the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,5054501.story October 4, 2008 George 'Wydell' Jones 'Rama Lama Ding Dong' songwriter George "Wydell" Jones, 71, who wrote the doo-wop hit and performed it as a member of the Edsels, died of cancer Sept. 27 at his home in Youngstown, Ohio, his son, Steffon Jones, told the Associated Press. The song -- originally released as "Lama Rama Ding Dong" -- peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961. The Youngstown-based Edsels also included Harry Green, Larry Green, Jimmy Reynolds and Marshall Sewell. During their heyday, which lasted about as long as that of the Ford model for which they were named, the Edsels performed at the Apollo Theater in New York and appeared on "American Bandstand."

British Columbia Lions 24....Toronto Argonauts 20 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4183417 http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Gam...6973416-cp.html Surprisingly good game. The Lions were the better team, but the Argos had the chance to pull it out in the last minute of the game. The Argos were in the game because of two long TDs runs by Jamal Robertson. Adriano Belli sung the National Anthem! He hit all the notes, sort of. With the Argos' loss, the Lions and the Stampeders (and I suppose the Roughriders, but I haven't seen or heard a confirmation of that) clinched a playoff spot (the crossover spot). ***** Saskatchewan Roughriders 37....Calgary Stampeders 34 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home Great game! Michael Bishop had a good night. The Riders lead the Stampeders in point differential by one, with one more game against the Stamps to go. They could have kicked a short field goal for the last play of the game to extend that lead to four, but they chose to take a kneel down. I suppose that it didn't occur to Ken Miller.

Will do! I heard a George Cables electric piano track the day before yesterday on Sirius's Jazz Cafe channel, which is a mix of contemporary jazz (sometimes pretty good) and smooth jazz (often lousy).