ghost of miles

… listening tonight to the June 27, 1945 session from this set (C13 on disc 9), with Guarnieri and Buck Clayton and Denzil Best. What a date! It’s going to send me back to the Byas-Clayton small group sides made with Basie several years prior. Grateful to Loren Schoenberg for the reminder of the latter in his notes, which are superlative as always.

Dan smiles last and smiles biggest! The Miracle of the Rice was apparently only a one-day pause of the ongoing demise that is midsummer Yankee baseball this year. (Feeling more and more like 2022… it’s deja vu all over again, folks!) On a broader topic, what’s everybody hoping/looking for come the trading deadline? Are any significant players likely to move?

I’ll see Dan’s Saturday-morning smile and raise him my Saturday-evening smile 😉 after a Yankee rookie who grew up a Yankee fan in Massachusetts (and who as a little boy scrawled “Yankees rule” on the Pesky Pole at Fenway) blew away Friday night’s bad vibes with a three-home run outburst against the surging BoSox. 🤩 AL East has certainly gotten more interesting, with the Yankees’ 5-15 stinker of a stretch going into yesterday’s game, Baltimore slipping into the division lead but not capitalizing as much as they could have on NY’s miserable run, and Boston coming on strong. I still see the O’s as ultimately taking the Eastern crown, but the other four division teams are all in the wild-card hunt—even the struggling Jays and Rays. Anyway, Bos-NY rubber match tonight, with a faltering Luis Gil on the mound for NY—he’s gone from looking like Bob Gibson in 1968 to Carlos Rodon in 2023. (And 2024 Carlos Rodon has begun to look a lot like 2023 Carlos Rodon as well. 🤦‍♂️) NY has dropped five of its last six series and split the other one… will Boston extend our woes and induce another Gould smile, or will my face be lighting up with a grin as big and goofy as Ben Rice’s? On another note, I’ve followed the Astros’ return from the dead with displeasure. Jsngry, what are the chances of the Rangers turning their season around?

Several underway, all of a historical nature:

Concur about how good the sound is, though I’m just a few tracks into disc 1. I haven’t listened to any of this music in quite awhile (other than the occasional single piece) and it’s really enjoyable to begin revisiting it this evening. Blue Note Hall of Famers abound on these dates too… interesting and possibly valid what Blumenthal says about Hutcherson’s choice of instrument accounting for an underestimation of Hutch’s 1960s Blue Note legacy as a leader. And so glad that Cuscuna shepherded The Kicker into the market back in 1999 and into this box set as well. Yes, Henderson dominates the proceedings (I can imagine worse things) and the date doesn’t really showcase BH as a leader making his debut. Still, to hear more of Joe H and company here in this particular period is a joy. Looking forward to the previously unreleased stuff to come as I go deeper into the set. Nice to have this to listen to on the holiday eve.

Looks like my copy will be landing late tomorrow, just in time for the Fourth (and just as I’m about to wrap up my second tour of the Byas set). Really looking forward to revisiting Hutcherson’s 1960s Blue Note run… haven’t listened to most of those albums in quite awhile.

I like this one (set to dad hat style in navy): Blue Note Records baseball cap

Got an email from a Night Lights listener chastising me for my pronunciation of the Concord label name. NY Times (albeit from 2009) says we’re both right: Concord pronunciation (And yes, regional pronunciation of the New Hampshire and California towns—the latter the source of the record label’s name—is the same as “conquered.” But I have never heard the record label name itself pronounced that way.)

An early favorite from when I was first getting into jazz.

Via the booklet for the box set of Davis' Prestige quintet recordings: In his liner notes to Steamin', Joe Goldberg wrote that many listeners initially felt that the quintet was comprised of "a trumpet player who could play only in the middle register and fluffed half his notes; an out-of-tune tenor player; a cocktail pianist; a drummer who played so loud that nobody else could be heard; and a teenage bassist."

Picked up this Verve Elite used at my local record store yesterday. Turns out today is Mr. Smith’s birthday!

Awaiting the first posting of a shipping notice! Who'll be the lucky Organissimo member this time?

That Lambert book is invaluable in so many ways. Here’s the Night Lights show, which focuses only on the first several months of the broadcasts, while war was continuing in the Pacific Theatre: The Duke Is On The Air: Duke Ellington’s Summer 1945 Treasury Department Broadcasts

So we have one eyewitness account that validates the “they thought he was a junkie” account, which doesn’t seem like such a wildly implausible scenario in the first place. I’m all in favor of historical accuracy and not bending truth to fit an ideological agenda, but the agenda of the initial post here seems to be an attempt to remove stereotyping, racism etc from the historical equation, as if the story had been cooked up in the first place. For now, we have the account of a witness and fellow musician that seems to confirm the “he’s a junkie ODing” story—and unless somebody wants to challenge Karl Berger’s credibility, why should it be questioned? What is the point?

This is from the opening of Vladimir Simosko's Dolphy biography: Dolphy was apparently already seriously ill upon his arrival at (the Tangent), and by the evening of the club's opening was able to play only two sets before being forced to leave the bandstand. His condition had worsened the next day, and he repeatedly asked friends to take him home. He died in Berlin on June 29. Joachim Berendt reported in Down Beat that doctors at the Berlin Achenbach Hospital had stated that Dolphy was a diabetic who had too much sugar in his bloodstream, and that he had suffered a circulatory collapse; the medical report from Europe attributed death to a heart attack. According to Simosko's bio, Dolphy told Joachim Berendt not long before his death that "I'd like to stay in Europe. There is no race trouble. I'll live in Paris." This topic actually reminds me that there's still a need for a good, thorough Dolphy biography. Did Brian Morton's work-in-progress ever come out?

Re the bump on Dolphy's forehead, here's an account from Zan Stewart's essay for the 1995 Dolphy Prestige box set: Then there was the remarkable growth on Dolphy's forehead, a benign tumor that had appeared sometime in 1961 and was removed before his death. "Monk told him it was his knowledge bump and he shouldn't have it cut off," says (Hale) Smith, but Eric's mother kept pressuring him, and he finally underwent the procedure for its removal. ... During the trip (to Europe in 1964), Dolphy was reportedly in very bad health. For the last year or so, his diet had been based around honey, and he always carried jars of it with him. After leaving Mingus and staying in Paris for a brief time, Eric, despite being seriously ill, went to Berlin on June 27, 1964 to honor an engagement with a trio led by pianist Karlhans Berger at a new club called the Tangent. He played two sets, and then had to return to his hotel room. Two days later, a doctor diagnosed him as being in a diabetic coma and administered an insulin injection to break the coma. According to Smith, who was told by Dolphy's mother, the dose was a very powerful one, a kind of insulin not then available in the States. It sent Dolphy into insulin shock, and he died on the night of June 29, just nine days past his 36th birthday.

A fascinating account of W.E.B. Du Bois’ unfinished book about Black soldiers in WW1: NY Times book review

I’m sure it’s been mentioned upthread, but anybody wishing to hear some prime mid-1970s Hutcherson should track down that 2007 Mosaic Select (though it doesn’t include Montara, iirc).

Very cool!