ghost of miles

Here’s a new Night Lights show that I did about Shirley: “Jazz Is Not A Noun”: Don Shirley, The Extraordinary Pianist

Last week’s Night Lights took a look at the musical career of pianist Don Shirley, recently depicted in the Oscar-nominated movie Green Book: “Jazz Is Not A Noun”: Don Shirley, The Extraordinary Pianist

That’s the other Pullman-porters book on my to-read list... great Pullman-curious minds think alike, eh? We’ll have to trade reviews!

Wrapping up Victory City (which has been excellent) and getting ready to start this:

Disc 1:

I've been eyeballing the Sonny Rollins/Horace Silver and the Ray Charles ever since we got promos of them a year or two ago here at the station. They're both excellent. I've never ordered from Jazz Messengers, in spite of the great feedback it seems to receive here... what are the usual shipping costs?

My brother!!! I whiled away many, many hours playing Strat-O-Mat (as did my biological brothers).

Is that an APBA card?! I was a big Strat-O-Mat player as a kid in the late 1970s... seems like there was a third statistical-based board game back around then, but I can't remember it. Strat-O-Mat and APBA were the big two in that regard iirc. I pulled this photo off the web--I think my actual set is still buried in my father's storage unit--but it looks quite similar to what I had, which was based on the entire 1977 MLB season:

Excellent entry in this series:

It does seem odd that there's nothing from McCoy Tyner's late-1960s/early 70s Blue Note period on here. That to me would seem a little more fitting for the nature of this series than "Footprints," which is obviously a superlative tune.

The focus this time’s on Blue Note artists: Spiritual Jazz V. 9: Blue Notes I’m guessing that those of us with an interest in this series may already have most, if not all, of the music that will be included. (As opposed to previous volumes, where it’s rare indeed, at least in my case, that I have *any* of the material included.) But I’m still going to pick it up, because these titles are so well done.

Loving this one so far:

If Harper’s ultimate goal is the most years and most dollars he can get, he should swallow his pride and hope that the Nats are still agreeable to such a contract. He’s definitely not going to get a better or even equivalent offer to their 10-year/$300 million proposal.

I’m wary of some of them, but no out-and-out red flag for me, save the proposed starting-with-a-runner-on-second rule for extra inning games. That’s one I absolutely loathe, the idea of being awarded an unearned baserunner just because you want to get the game over with. Please don’t let that anywhere near a regular-season MLB game.

I just ordered a used copy of All Bound For Morningtown about a week ago. It’s supposed to be a good anthology of their 1960s recordings.

If the Celtics somehow manage to get their act together, your neck of the woods could be seeing yet another championship title in several months.

The best thing about the Super Bowl? It means that pitchers-and-catchers is nearly at hand!

Last week’s Night Lights show, which highlights some of the newly-reissued 1963 studio recordings as well as live performances featuring Herbie Hancock and the music of Gunther Schuller, is now up for online listening: Dolphy ‘63

Somehow I missed that earlier topic! I was hunting around in Stratemann's book earlier today for info about Don Shirley's appearance with Ellington's orchestra and the Symphony of the Air at Carnegie March 1955 (audio of it's on YouTube--Shirley played the piano part on "New World a-Comin'") and came across an entry on the "Music '55" appearance. I was skimming through it and happened to notice the reference to Warhol having done the background illustrations for the "Pretty and the Wolf" segment. Re your question in the other thread, you'd think Ellington's rendition here (and I agree with you) would've popped up on some sort of bootleg radio-and-TV-appearances release... there was a Sounds of Yesterday release that compiled some of the show's performances, but Ellington's not on it: Music '55 Joe Medjuck might know if it's ever popped up anywhere in an audio format.

Something I stumbled across a couple of hours ago while working on a Night Lights show and turned into a blog post: Duke Ellington, Andy Warhol, And Yehudi Menuhin: A 1955 TV Collaboration ... btw, if you read the comments on the Youtube posting of the "Music '55" episode to which I link, you'll see I'm not the first Organissimo poster to have viewed it. One "Jim Sangrey" left an inquiry regarding the possible presence of Johnny Richards arrangements in the program.