ghost of miles

Stories like this one out of South Korea make me think we’re in for an extremely rough ride re reopening: One South Korean man responsible for 80 new infections

Afaik (happy to be corrected if wrong) players are already currently receiving dramatically-diminished compensation due to the lack of games being played, as part of the $170 million advance for April and May that was part of the late-March deal. This ESPN article elaborates at length on said deal: What the MLB deal means Those payments will stop at the end of this month, if I’m reading the article correctly. Not sure how the prorated salary agreement, which the owners now want to renege on, plays out in terms of any abbreviated spring training that might occur in June, as is now being discussed. Since it applies to regular-season games played, I assume players won’t be getting paid during any compressed conditioning period. Again, could be wrong about that, but overall point is that players already have sacrificed a large part of their compensation for 2020. Asking them to take a further hit when they’re the ones who will be putting themselves in harm’s way, *and* when there’s already an agreement in place, just strikes me as wrong. In any case I’m inclined to bet that this is a moot discussion. I miss baseball (and basketball too, to some extent) as much as anybody, but the health and safety factors involved in making any kind of sports viable on a mass scale still seems unlikely to me. Are owners and players going to have to revisit the needed-to-reopen elements of that March agreement as well? Because what’s laid out there seems very unlikely to me to come to pass in time for even an abbreviated 2020 season. Although as the article says, Manfred has considerable leeway to revise them: >> The agreement outlines three necessities to start the 2020 season, though it offers significant caveats that allow Manfred -- in consultation with the union -- to override them. 1. No governmental edicts on mass gatherings that would prevent teams from playing in their home stadiums; 2. No travel restrictions in the United States or Canada; 3. The determination, after talking with health experts and the union, that playing does not expose players, staff or fans to health risks. The caveats are the key to this seminal part of the agreement: Manfred, it says, can consider the use of neutral sites instead of home stadiums as well as the possibility of playing in front of no fans. Though not ideal, games with no fans in areas that are not coronavirus hot spots provide the clearest path toward games being played.<< On that score, Canada’s looking to keep their border wjth us closed for another six weeks. Maybe that doesn’t matter if the Blue Jays are playing all games on a neutral U.S. site., or if Canada decides to reopen the border come July 1, just in time for a shortened season. But seems like another X factor at this point.

Well, I’ve certainly changed my tune from 2009! Reading Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In (in both its standard and expanded form) helped instigate a deeper dive into books about the Beatles over the past few years. You Never Give Me Your Money, alluded to above, is an excellent look at the band members post-breakup, but I’m really here today to rave about a book I first read two years ago and am now rereading (after the disappointing announcement from Lewisohn that we won’t see Tune In V. 2, which will cover January 1963 through December 1966, until 2023 at the earliest): Beatles ‘66: The Revolutionary Year It’s a month-by-month look at what they were up to, both individually and as a band, with a number of anecdotes and quotes that were new to me. Some elaboration about how they came close to recording part of Revolver at Stax, a great reflective quote from Lennon in 1969 related to the whole bigger-than-Jesus controversy, great historical/cultural context... Steve Turner beat Lewisohn to the punch here, I’m afraid, at least for this particular year, though I’ve no doubt Lewisohn’s work will offer further revelations and insights, whenever it finally appears. (He’s not quite into Robert Caro/LBJ territory, only 61 at this point, but his current timeline hypothetically puts a concluding volume 3 circa 2033 or so.) Anyway... strong recommendation for Beatles ‘66.

Well, my bad, the Variety article indicates that there are still plans to reissue the original film at some point in the future. Difficult to imagine that Jackson’s new version will still receive a conventional theatrical release in early September, though. I had another unrelated Beatles item that I wanted to post about—but apparently there’s no pre-existing general all-things-Beatles thread here? (A la the Dylan corner.) What is this place, anyway—a jazz forum?!

Will they get to share in excessive profits and/or revenues in the future? I’m generally not a fan of Scott Boras, but I agree with what he says in this article: Players ready to play in 2020... on one condition Not to mention there was already a negotiated agreement in late March that the owners are now trying to renege on. I realize that this is a tremendously difficult situation for all parties involved. I also think from a health perspective that it’s still likely we don’t see any baseball at all this year (which according to the USA Today article will be even more costly for owners than a shortened season with no fans at the games). If the owners want to renege on their previous agreement, then players should demand profit-sharing of all future revenues in addition to their salaries. I know we’re talking well-paid professional athletes here, but it’s still the all-too-familiar principle of socialism-for-the-rich, rugged-individualism-for-everybody-else approach that plays out so often in America. Share the pain, OK, but then the owners had better damn well share more of the wealth that the players are generating for them.

Yeah, I’m trying to sort out what’s going on. I thought the owners and players had already reached agreement back in late March that the players would receive prorated salaries based on the number of games played. So if a player’s salary for 2020 was set at $3 million, say, and MLB plays 81 games, that player would get $1.5 million. Seems fair given that the players will be putting their health and even potentially their lives on the line (yep—friend of a friend who was 35 with no underlying conditions just died from the virus) and teams will still be receiving TV revenues, even if there aren’t fans in the stands. So are owners now asking players to play for less than their prorated salaries? Do players get more money when MLB revenues rise, as they have continued to do for quite a long time? Uh, no, not that I’m aware of. (Though I’ll confess to not being fully or even partly versed in MLB labor and revenue agreements.) This puts me in mind of a story in my state this week about the utility companies—they want to raise rates because people and businesses are using less electricity. Wtf?! If your boss comes to you and says sorry Joe, we need to reduce your hours from 40 a week to 30, do you get to say sure, so you’ll be increasing my hourly wage by 33% since I’m working less, right? Gotta make up the difference somehow!

That is a pretty amazing stretch and I can't think of anybody else with a similar run off the top of my head. Should be noted, though, that Dylan did leave Columbia briefly in the early 1970s to record two albums for Asylum. (Planet Waves and Before The Flood--though evidently later reissues of them fell under the purview of Columbia as well?)

2014 deluxe expanded edition of Oasis' What's The Story Morning Glory. They were at their zenith then:

Had a CD that got stuck in Jersey City in early March finally show up a couple of days ago.

I summoned the ghost of Thelonious Monk and this is what he sayeth: Where's jazz going? I don't know. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. I swear! Well, either that or I read that quote in Nate Chinen's Playing Changes. Almost certainly the latter...and btw, Chinen's book is a good read for anybody interested in this here topic. If nothing else, it does a good job of telling where we've been the past 20 years or so. Ask jazz musicians in their 20s what they're listening to. That will at least give you an idea of the stew of influences that's brewing. I've recently heard praise from such folks for Pat Metheny's American Garage period, pianist Aaron Parks, Esperanza Spalding, Lee Morgan, Maria Schneider, hiphop and gospel... that's just from several conversations, so it can't really be extrapolated into anything meaningful. But I always like asking younger musicians that question, because I know they've grown up in such a different world than I did, in terms of what was on the radio and TV when they were kids, etc. There's a fair amount of overlap now actually that didn't use to exist as much between generations, because of the Internet and the explosion of access to so much previously-made music. Still, newly-emerging sets of cultural references inevitably arise in the exchanges that I've had.

So much good stuff here--already have a fair amount of it, but this sale will enable me to pick up a few things still on my wish-list. Plugs for the Jack Purvis set, the Red Nichols Brunswicks, and the Louisiana Rhythm Kings, for starters.

We re-aired The Ornette Coleman Songbook this past week, and it remains archived for online listening.

Revisiting an album I first bought 36 years ago this spring (good Lord!): My next-door neighbor Sam Stephenson (author of The Jazz Loft Project and a biography of the photographer W. Eugene Smith) penned the liner notes for this album and is helping her to write her memoir: Lucinda Williams

Up for Keith Jarrett's 75th birthday today--photos are currently not a concern! Birth: Early Keith Jarrett

I hear you--Bob Griese at QB (Indiana connection, a Hoosier who went to Purdue) and that running-back triple-threat of Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris, and Jim Kiick, Garo Yepremian at placekicker, Paul Warfield at WR, Nick Buoniconti leading a great defensive cast... great memories of watching those early/mid 70s teams.