ghost of miles

I had already bought the ticket for Steve Turre when I found out about the Maria Schneider sets. Smoke tickets seem to be non-refundable... if anybody in the NYC area is interested in a supremely-discounted seat for tomorrow night's Turre/Larry Willis/Eric Alexander 10:30 set, drop me a PM.

Seeing the Fred Hersch Trio with Miguel Zenon at the Village Vanguard tomorrow night and then heading to either Birdland for the Maria Schneider Orchestra or Smoke for Steve Turre.

As a kid I loved watching reruns of the original series in the 1970s (broadcast in late afternoon after school for awhile, at one point shown late in the evening right after the local newscast--the news anchors and weatherman always "beamed out," dissolving into the start of the episode)--saw only a few of the animated Saturday-morning shows but enjoyed those as well. I remember the first movie feeling like somewhat of a letdown, and then Wrath Of Khan seeming like a worthy comeback. I got the complete original series on Blu-Ray for my birthday several weeks ago; in fact, I made the transition to Blu-Ray in large part because of my desire to watch TOS with the original special effects, and am very grateful that the Blu-Ray set gives you that option. I know great effort was taken to try to make the new effects seamless, but boy, are they ever incongruous, IMO... every time I see those shots, I'm yanked out of my episode-watching reverie. Anyway, I'm about half a dozen episodes into Season 1, and getting a great deal of pleasure out of the revisitation so far. And to think this series was airing from the autumn of 1966 into early 1969! Wow. I'm sure many of you have seen this famous SNL sketch with William Shatner, but if you haven't: https://dai.ly/xmagzq

Up in honor of Nichols’ centennial today: Herbie Nichols’ Third World

I'm posting this week's program a bit early, as I'm going to take an internet and social-media break until January 2nd. Full list included in the web-post, though space did not allow for everything to make it into the show itself. Happy New Year and all that jazz: Best Historical Jazz Releases 2018

Harper and Machado are both 26–much younger than Pujols when he signed his contract. Even a ten-year contract still gives you 5-6 years of them in their prime. Harper has a great OBP and a short rightfield porch to aim for at Yankee Stadium. He’d also be a lefty bat in a lineup that’s heavily stacked with righties. But we’ll most likely not sign him because we’re still paying Jacobi Ellsbury $22 million a year for two more years (now *that* was a terrible signing, partly because Ellsbury was already in his 30s when the contract began) and because Yankee management seems infatuated with Machado. I don’t want A-Rod II: Machado Boogaloo for the next 8-10 years.

Dave, I agree with every single thing you wrote—maybe most emphatically the apparent willingness to consider Andujar as trade bait. But also yes re Harper vs Machado.

My prediction, and one about which I’m not happy: Manny Machado will sign with the Yankees, and Bryce Harper will sign with the Dodgers (though I’m not not ruling out the Cubs landing him instead). I think that Harper really wants to be a Yankee, but gee, we’ve already got Brett Gardner and Jacobi Ellsbury, so no need for another outfielder! I feel like strangling Hal Steinbrenner (and Cashman to some extent as well). I remember how well our “overstocked outfield” did last year when Aaron Judge was on the DL for two months and Stanton was having hamstring issues. That’s why we ended up trading for Andrew McCutchen. I guess we’re also content to hope that Luke Voit’s season-end surge at age 27 wasn’t a fluke or that the ever-promising Greg Bird will finally take flight. But hey, at least our payroll will end up below Boston’s right? And our season record as well, no doubt.

My friend John McCluskey, a writer and retired professor who's a lifelong jazz fan, showed me this keepsake from his Harvard days in the early 1960s. (He was Harvard's first African-American starting quarterback and was profiled in Ebony--facts that I learned from a mutual friend, as John never touts his considerable array of accomplishments. But he is very outgoing about his love of jazz.) Fire up the time machine!

So I had a really unique opportunity to follow up on this anecdote last week. My friend John McCluskey, who I've helped record telephone,interviews recently with both Sonny Rollins and Ahmad Jamal, took me out to lunch last Thursday by way of saying thanks. (He showed me a mind-blowing postcard for Boston's Jazz Workshop circa early 1964 that I'll have to post elsewhere here on the forum--John was a student at Harvard in the early 60s and saw lots of great jazz acts there.) I mentioned the Newk-Rollins cab story to him, and he said, "Oh, I'm talking to Sonny again tonight... I'll ask him about that!" Next day he sent me an email that Sonny had confirmed the veracity of the story, adding that he and Miles let the cabbie go on believing that he was indeed Don Newcombe for the duration of the cab ride. Sonny also told John that he did meet Newcombe years later, in New Orleans.

An excellent Bing Crosby collection purchased from a fellow board member:

Last week’s Night Lights show now up for online listening: A Night Lights Wonderland Happy holidays and all that jazz... 🎄🎁 🎅

Tonight’s at-home viewing:

Usually the opposite of what’s on WFIU1 in terms of talk/news vs music. So if, come 4 p.m. you think, “I am not digging what this guy David is playing... and whuzzup with today’s Supreme Court decision?” you can listen to NPR’s All Things Considered on WFIU2 instead. WFIU2 was developed as an Internet stream about 10 years ago when the industry was hoping everybody would buy HD radios. That trend never came to pass, but we did acquire a (albeit rather weak) second tower to broadcast the second channel into the inmediate Bloomington area—and the Internet stream remains active for anybody able to listen that way (as most are able to now). Here’s a page where you can toggle between the WFIU and WFIU2 schedules and see how they’re programmed: WFIU radio schedules

The idea of banning the song is pretty ludicrous--I haven't followed this thread for the past couple of days much, but if people in the wide world outside of Organissimo are advocating that, well, there are more immediate and more significant issues in the realm of date rape and sexual assault, IMO. But if by "banned" you mean a program director saying "We're not gonna play this song on this station," no, I don't have a problem with that. I haven't chosen to do that at my station for a variety of reasons, the most important being that I have great faith in the judgment of my two on-air colleagues who spin music. Still, if it's a free country, I'm free not to play it. I think it is indeed a creepy song heard in today's context, and like certain 1920s/30s/40s songs that traverse issues of race in an offensive or stereotyping manner, not something I care to play on a radio-broadcast program.

These are great! I love the aggrieved teammate in the first one and the beret and squiggly notes for his "progressive jazz" taste in the second one. Was Jim digging some George Russell/David Baker sides?!

Yep, WFIU1!

This 2001 article seems to offer confirmation of my remembrance that Don Newcome, in addition to inspiring a nickname and album title for Sonny Rollins, was also a jazz enthusiast. I'd never before come across the story of how Sonny picked up the Newk moniker: Swinging For The Fences

Close enough for entertainment! I don't think young Wilt stopped "a-rovin'," however. This was the b-side, I take it?