ghost of miles

I've been to the Vanguard three times in the past couple of years, sitting twice on the right-hand side close to the bandstand, and on my last visit (to hear the Monday night Vanguard Orchestra) sitting far in the back center of the room... excellent sound at all of the shows.

Just finished the first (an intriguing look at crime and political corruption in 1920s/early 30s Los Angeles) and am halfway through the second (which is a 2020 reprint of the 1977 edition, with a new foreword by Gornick):

Whoops! Wrong thread, clearly!😄 I’ll delete and repost in the correct forum.

The new issue of the literary periodical Brilliant Corners includes a poem inspired in part by the Night Lights program The Jazz Monk: Thomas Merton. Though it's not available online, the poet (Betsy Sholl, former Poet Laureate of Maine) and publisher/editor Sascha Feinstein have given me permission to share it: "Thomas Merton Experiments with Meditations on Jazz" (Brilliant Corners is always well worth checking out, btw. Poetry, fiction, interviews, and other literary content all related to jazz.)

Hope they can somehow ride this out: City Lights on verge of closing for good

I didn't realize that Marlene Rosenberg's career extended that far back. Quite by accident ended up sitting next to her at the newly-reopened Cafe Bohemia this past January during a Wallace Roney gig. I swear to God I read an interview with Joe while he was still alive in which he lamented Verve's lack of interest in releasing anything by his trio. But not sure what era/incarnation he was referring to.

Flyin' high with the Hawk and Red tonight:

So glad you enjoyed it... thanks for letting me know! Trying to complete a batch of new programs, but current working conditions are making it difficult.

Amen! Been contemplating a late-1960s/early 70s Cannonball show for ages... your post might serve as the butane lighter/blowtorch/choose-yer-own-incendiary device that my butt needs to get it going. (also have to track down a couple of recordings mentioned in this thread, but I do have most of the music already at hand). Can't remember who hipped me to this album many years ago--might even have been an Organissimo poster--but I picked it up and dug it. Re OK's liner notes, yeeesshhh... I could live the rest of my life without ever reading another set of his self-congratulatory-indeed musings. (Grateful for the recordings that he produced, yada yada, truly. But also truly put off by the way he writes about them, or as is more the case, about himself.) How is that Walk Tall biography? I have it but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Being updated all too often, sadly: COVID-19 Jazz Casualties

Bumping for Feldman’s birth anniversary today (born April 7, 1934): The Arrival Of Victor Feldman

I'll be looking forward to it, but I don't see it happening by 30 days from now. Everything here's pretty much canceled or online-only through the end of the summer, and there's already talk that stay-at-home could be extended into early June. Hard to say how we can ever get back to "normalcy" until there are either plentiful antibody tests or a vaccine (which is most likely a year away, it seems?). I love my home and being here (I'm still going into work three days a week, about five hours a shift), but man do I miss being able to go out to restaurants and stores, watching baseball, shopping at the grocery store without feeling as if I'm stepping through the Valley of Death, etc. Strange spring for sure.

Damn, pops, it's Professor Bop! This past week's Night Lights show about mid-century arbiter of the hepgeist Babs Gonzales is now up for online listening: How Professor Bop Paid His Dues: Babs Gonzales

Extended version with lots of good and amusing 80s highlights... damn, I miss baseball.

Man, I loved “This Week In Baseball.” My brothers and I watched that show religiously. I really liked the closing theme music, and I think I may have even written NBC at some point to ask what it was... was it a Copland piece? EDIT: these questions are so much easier to answer in the age of the Internets. The closing theme is “Gathering Crowds” by John Scott: This Week In Baseball Wikipedia entry

So, weird—when I ran a search for any topics with the word last in them, the search yielded nothing—not even the Night Lights show with the word last in its title. In both that topic’s title and the thread you’ve just unearthed, last is part of a phrase in quotes. Do the quote marks throw off the search mechanism, perhaps? I’ll try running a search for “last” in topic titles instead of a quote mark-free version of the word and see if the threads turn up that way. EDIT: nope, neither thread still comes up when I run a search with quote marks around the word “last.” Strange!

I did a Night Lights show on this topic, but I don’t think it’s the thread you’re looking for: The Last: Final Recordings Of Jazz Greats Running a search for threads with “last” or “final” in the title didn’t turn up a topic thread. I’ll keep digging around to see if I can turn it up.

Worldometer Coronavirus statistics Note that 20% of the "closed cases" so far have resulted in death.

Lingering issues from the hip operation he'd had earlier in the year?

From Wynton Marsalis’ Facebook page: My daddy passed away last night. We now join the worldwide family who are mourning grandfathers and grandmothers, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers— kinfolk, friends, neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances and others. What can one possibly say about loss in a time when there are many people losing folks that mean so much to them? One of my friends lost both her mother AND father just last week. We all grieve and experience things differently, and I’m sure each of my five brothers are feeling and dealing in their own way. My daddy was a humble man with a lyrical sound that captured the spirit of place--New Orleans, the Crescent City, The Big Easy, the Curve. He was a stone-cold believer without extravagant tastes. Like many parents, he sacrificed for us and made so much possible. Not only material things, but things of substance and beauty like the ability to hear complicated music and to read books; to see and to contemplate art; to be philosophical and kind, but to also understand that a time and place may require a pugilistic-minded expression of ignorance. His example for all of us who were his students (a big extended family from everywhere), showed us to be patient and to want to learn and to respect teaching and thinking and to embrace the joy of seriousness. He taught us that you could be conscious and stand your ground with an opinion rooted ‘in something’ even if it was overwhelmingly unfashionable. And that if it mattered to someone, it mattered. I haven’t cried because the pain is so deep....it doesn’t even hurt. He was absolutely my man. He knew how much I loved him, and I knew he loved me (though he was not given to any type of demonstrative expression of it). As a boy, I followed him on so many underpopulated gigs in unglamorous places, and there, in the passing years, learned what it meant to believe in the substance of a fundamental idea whose only verification was your belief. I only ever wanted to do better things to impress HIM. He was my North Star and the only opinion that really deep down mattered to me was his because I grew up seeing how much he struggled and sacrificed to represent and teach vital human values that floated far above the stifling segregation and prejudice that defined his youth but, strangely enough, also imbued his art with an even more pungent and biting accuracy. But for all of that, I guess he was like all of us; he did the best he could, did great things, had blind spots and made mistakes, fought with his spouse, had problems paying bills, worried about his kids and other people’s, rooted for losing teams, loved gumbo and red beans, and my momma’s pecan pie. But unlike a healthy portion of us, he really didn’t complain about stuff. No matter how bad it was. A most fair-minded, large-spirited, generous, philanthropic (with whatever he had), open-minded person is gone. Ironically, when we spoke just 5 or 6 days ago about this precarious moment in the world and the many warnings he received ‘to be careful, because it wasn’t his time to pass from COVID’, he told me,” Man, I don’t determine the time. A lot of people are losing loved ones. Yours will be no more painful or significant than anybody else’s”. That was him, “in a nutshell”, (as he would say before talking for another 15 minutes without pause). In that conversation, we didn’t know that we were prophesying. But he went out soon after as he lived—-without complaint or complication. The nurse asked him, “Are you breathing ok?” as the oxygen was being steadily increased from 3 to 8, to too late, he replied, ”Yeah. I’m fine.” For me, there is no sorrow only joy. He went on down the Good Kings Highway as was his way, a jazz man, “with grace and gratitude.” And I am grateful to have known him. - Wynton

I devoted almost all of Tuesday’s show to the jazz artists and the standards mentioned in “Murder Most Foul,” ending with the song itself. Show started late because of the governor’s daily press conference, and I kicked off with a couple of Red Norvo tracks in honor of his birthday before moving on to the Dylan playlist: The Jazz and Popular Song Playlist of “Murder Most Foul”