ghost of miles

Holy shit. I just saw him at the newly-reopened Cafe Bohemia in New York two months ago. Goddam.

CJ started a thread about this in the Live forum, but thought I’d mention it here as well. *Probably* no performances of “Helplessly Hoping”... probably. Live From Our Living Rooms April 1-7 Chick Corea, Christian McBride, Bill Frisell, and others. Any money raised will go to help NYC-area musicians affected by the pandemic.

Jim, no offense, but I could care less whether the performance “moved” you or not. I think comparing a bunch of kids coming together in a virtual manner—the only way possible under current circumstances—to sing that song with that kind of feeling right now—to some dude who (sounds like, anyway) jumped on a incendiary murder to try to demand that other musicians play his half-assed work is not getting it right or justified. But *I’m* too old to spend time engaging in inane arguments that boil down to the equivalent of one man’s rapturous avant-garde ecstasy is another man’s squall from the bowels of hell. We’re all wired in ways that are at once similar and crazily disparare, so certain music resonates or vibrates in one person’s cells and leaves another thinking WTF is the big deal about that? I mean, there’s no compulsion here to like anything. We all share things we enjoy. No way everybody’s gonna enjoy all that is shared. My gain doesn’t have to be your loss. Plenty out there for everybody to find the things that move and groove them and give a spark to the soul. I love Duke Ellington’s music and I love that virtual-choir acapella performance of “Helplessly Hoping.” The horror, the horror! 😄

It’s a good song!

Dude, you're preaching to a longtime DKE believer. But that video of the kids in Rome virtually appearing and coming together onscreen, each in their personal space that's temporarily become a cell of sorts, to sing that song really hit home for whatever reason. A reminder of what we can spiritually be, even if day-to-day life doesn't provide very often for the circumstances. To summon that feeling in this particular moment is solace for the heart. A number of friends I've shared it with have had similar reactions. But everybody finds beauty in their own way! Thank God we're not all singing the same song every day!

H/t to Sam Stephenson for recommending this 1978 double-LP Impulse compilation of Coltrane's 1963 recordings with Roy Haynes, which I was able to snag online for a ridiculously reasonable price:

A little light reading as a diversion from the present crisis:

A co-worker shared this story with some of us last night. Terrible, and yet more evidence of how easily this virus can spread.

This is beautiful. "There are more things to admire in men than to despise."--Albert Camus, The Plague

We re-aired Ella '57: Ella Fitzgerald Flies High this past week, and it remains archived for online listening.

Singer-songwriter John Prine in critical condition with Covid-19

UK official predicts six months before life returns to “normal”.

Total U.S. deaths have doubled in just the past couple of days. We’ll pass China’s official number quite quickly at this rate: Worldometer Coronavirus tally U.S. cases and deaths kept spiking throughout the day yesterday. It’s a grim chart to track.

Nope, just evening meanderings from me. I was thinking about my experience of major-league baseball as a kid, which revolved around reading newspaper accounts and box-scores and listening to radio broadcasts. We did see Reds games on TV a lot, because they were close enough to be part of our local market, but other than that television viewing was mostly Saturday Game of the Week and the playoffs. We didn't get cable (which brought Cubs and Braves games with it) until I was away at college. I played Little League, subscribed to the Sporting News, bought the annual Street & Smith baseball yearbook each spring, and often a paperback handbook as well (the title of which eludes me), and spent far more time than I should have on Strat-O-Mat... but getting to watch a lot of major-league baseball on TV is still a relatively new phenomenon for me, because even as an adult I opted to go without cable for many years. The free MLB.TV subscription I've gotten through T-Mobile the past several seasons has spoiled me rotten! Btw, seems increasingly likely that there won't be a 2020 MLB season, even in shortened form. I hope the writer's prognosis is wrong, but wouldn't bet against him at this point. EDIT: this is the annual handbook I was thinking of, titled--what else?--The Complete Handbook Of Baseball.

New York, New York, it's a helluva town! New Yorker singing out window told to "Shut the f*#% up!"

All The Songs Named In Bob Dylan's "Murder Most Foul"

You know, you'd think they could in this day and age. Put in some simulated stadium crowd noise and ambience, and we can have a real mid-to-late-20th-century-style baseball experience! (Through the magic of early-21st-century tech, of course. ) Seriously, I'd probably listen to such a broadcast... I'm jonesin', man!

Elegaic and mesmerizing. Love the roll-call of artists and the many jazz musicians among them.

Thanks so much for hipping us to this! I was a Strat-O-Mat fiend as a kid... this will be fun to follow. I see Adam Ottavino blew Gerrit Cole's first potential win as a Yankee.

Revisiting this one for the first time in many years:

Saddest Opening Day ever.