ghost of miles

Zach Kram at the Ringer seems dubious that MLB will be able to complete the season, owing to the pandemic. Gotta say I agree... and also can’t believe that some teams in some of the worst-hit states right now want to seat fans at 50% capacity?! WTF. Here in Indiana they are trying to push ahead with a 50% capacity Indy 500, which is really nuts, because that means you’re talking about massing anywhere from 120-175,000 people in one place, in late August—and warm weather is decidedly not making the virus go away. Even if events are taking place in an outdoor setting, you’re still looking at giant masses of people moving through gateways, entrances, tunnels, stairs and stairwells, and using bathroom facilities. Many of them will probably not be wearing masks. The same would apply to 20-25,000 people attending a baseball game. On another note, another big thumbs down for the unearned runner on second concept. Why the hell subject pitchers to that disadvantage? While we’re at it, why not require only three balls for a walk once the game goes long? And outfielders will not be allowed to catch fly balls... they must let them drop for hits! ☝️ If they’re concerned about lengthy games during the pandemic, just allow ties after 10 innings.

Sweet serendipity! Around 7:30 this evening I finished putting together the Night Lights show "The Second Great Trio: Ahmad Jamal On Impulse" (it starts going out to stations tomorrow for broadcast this coming week). An hour later a new post from my friend Luke Gillespie, the jazz piano professor at IU, popped up on IU's Jazz Studies Facebook page: For African-American Music Appreciation Month we're posting a few of our favorite jazz recordings: From Luke Gillespie: Ahmad Jamal Trio The Awakening 1970 (Impulse) Jamil Sulieman Nassir (also spelled Nasser) - double bass Frank Gant - drums I was 13 when this came out, though I didn’t hear it til I bought the LP in Japan when I was 15, and I was hooked. It was this album that taught me how styles (straight 8ths and swing) and meters (4/4 and 3/4) could be mixed and switched inside a given tune’s arrangement. Also, I learned about pedal points, ostinatos, modal playing and chromaticism, hemiolas, the coexistence of rhythmic subdivisions (for example, when drums play double time while bass plays half time or in “2”), playing “in and out” (of time and key), and the use of tertian and quartal harmony from this record. Also, need to include another record this trio recorded in 1968 called “At the Top: Poinciana Revisited (Live at the Village Gate)” also on Impulse. It includes many of the same things I learned from “The Awakening” and has an excellent example of metric modulation where the dotted quarter note in 3/4 becomes the new quarter note in 4/4 and back again in his original tune “Lament”. I feel awakened!

I envy your neighborly proximity! I have the book, but haven't started reading it yet... ordered the CD yesterday.

Finally obtained my own copy after years of borrowing the station's library CD:

Me as well. Thanks for the post, Larry--prompted me to pull this off the shelf for some late-evening listening.

Thanks to Late for hipping me indirectly to this reissue (via his post about it in this thread iirc):

Yep, seems you're right. This is from the 2003 interview with Kenny Washington that's included in the Mosaic booklet: AJ: Someone talked me into building a restaurant so I could stay home in the Alhambra and just work there and that's what happened. So when I built the Alhambra, it was such a headache that I decided to quit everything, dismantle the group and come here (New York City) and go to school. My long-felt ambition was to go to Julliard. Of course, that didn't happen. I started working again. KW: So that's why you broke up the trio? AJ: As a result of the trauma of opening up the restaurant, 43 employees. What do I need with a restaurant? Come on.

The power of (online) journalism, folks. TPM broke the story earlier this week that the Trump admin was planning to end its support for testing sites in Texas and other states at the end of this month, in spite of the resurgence and rise in cases of coronavirus. Now Texas GOP senators Cruz and Cornyn are demanding that the federal govt continue to support those sites. This is a *very* bipartisan, apolitical virus!

Sounds as if Texas is not in great shape right now: Texas governor orders pause in reopening ...and is suspending elective surgeries again.

Hiatus was apparently from 1962-64, which is what I meant by several years in the early 1960s. Source is Wikipedia and isn't footnoted, so I don't take it as gospel, that's for sure... trying to find out more information along those lines. But even this discography seems to indicate there was indeed some sort of hiatus in the 1962-64 period. I'm just not sure why he took it. I sent a bibliographic index request to JazzInstitut, and hopefully that will provide me with a lead or two. And even though the Mosaic set ends in 1962, I'm going to reread the booklet to see if there's any mention of why he might have stopped recording and performing for a couple of years during this period.

Co-hosted by Greg Bryant and Nate Chinen. Haven't had a chance to listen yet, but the concept sounds intriguing: Jazz United

Thanks so much for this! Heat Wave is actually the only Cadet LP from this era that we have in the station's library... I have all of the ABC/Impulse albums from 1968-71. Haven't heard Extensions yet and will have to check it out, though for purposes of the Night Lights show I'll be focusing on trio with Nasser and Gant... and may include one of the Heat Wave tracks that you reference as a set-up for the ABC/Impulse era. The Awakening has certainly gotten some recognition over the years (and has evidently been a well-mined source for hiphop samples), but I'm surprised that this particular trio in general hasn't been more celebrated. Maybe it just looms in the shadow of the prior Crosby/Fournier trio that Mosaic so justifiably documented with their box set. Also, I hadn't even realized until I started working on this show that Jamal apparently took a hiatus from the music scene for several years in the early 1960s?

A rather short and curious article! We've discussed Legge around these parts before, iirc... I need to revisit that trio album.

With coronavirus surging, MLB’s return plan doesn’t matter

The agreement in March stipulated that 2020 would count as service time--but was that contingent on some sort of season actually being played? I have no idea if there was any language in that March agreement that addressed the consequences of a season cancellation in that regard.

Chocolate Dandies 1940, Hawk and Roy are fine, but Benny Carter... good gawd almighty. Benny Carter is ridiculous here:

Finally undertaking a show I've contemplated for a long time about Jamal's late 1960s/early 70s run of albums for Impulse with Jamil Sulieman Nasser and Frank Gant. What do other Jamal listeners here think of this period? (Jsngry, you a fan? I noticed that you posted "I Say A Little Prayer" from Tranquility).

Sounding way better than the CD-R version I made years ago by ripping the vinyl from the station’s library:

Thanks, Joe--I'll definitely give this a listen after wrapping up some production work this weekend.

Yes, and in other countries what should be a straight-up public health issue hasn’t been turned into another front for the culture wars. Btw isn’t the NBA planning to resume its season and play all of its games in Orlando, Florida?! Welcome to one of the hottest Covid-19 states in the country! Just read about 23 Clemson football players/personnel testing positive as well. Yeah, this is gonna go great.

Up in honor of one of my favorite jazz artists on his birthday. I listened to some of the Five Spot recordings in the Prestige box set last night... still capable of making me exclaim “Damn!” from time to time. The weird thing is that the out-of-tune piano now sounds right to me... is that just because I’ve listened to this music so many times? Or that it almost seems to fit with the sound of what Dolphy and Little are doing anyway? Or that Mal Waldron did what so many jazz pianists in clubs have had to do and somehow made it work?

Multiple Florida hospitals running out of ICU beds as coronavirus cases continue to spike Yep, things are going great!

All MLB training camps to temporarily close after positive coronavirus tests I believe most if not all of those camps are in Florida and Arizona, two of the worst states in the country right now when it comes to coronavirus. And apparently teams were planning to do pre-season workouts in their home stadiums anyway. Still, this doesn’t bode well for any kind of 2020 season.

It's already getting plenty bad again in Texas, Arizona, and Florida. I expect it to get even worse in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, the Onion scores again in the satire-is-truer-than-truth category: City enters phase 4 of pretending coronavirus is over