ghost of miles

Something that Aaron Judge is making into a bit of a tradition:

Saturday, January 26, 2019: Wadada Leo Smith's "America's National Parks" live at Jazz at Lincoln Center

Saw the very same group at the Village Vanguard just a couple of weeks ago. Joey Baron was tremendous, and I was also impressed by Lawrence Fields on piano. The new CD (Scandal, out on Douglas' Greenleaf label) is my favorite of the group's releases so far.

Good one, Paul! Right now:

I've been on a bit of a Mary Lou Williams kick of late and listened this afternoon to the album she recorded at the Cookery in the 1970s:

I keep coming back to this one:

I tend to break out into hives myself. OTOH the rest of the bullpen has been on fire for the last month or so. Speaking of being on fire, the Astros have certainly been playing up to and perhaps beyond their 2017 form of late. Mighty glad at least that they didn’t manage to snag Kelvin Herrera from the Royals.

Thanks much for the feedback on this set—really looking forward to hearing it.

Here's a web-post from the Netherland Club with a number of photos from the plaque-unveiling event at the former site of Cafe Society last week: Unveiling of the plaque at Cafe Society

I've been greatly enjoying the Woods-Lew Tabackin CD and decided to go for the Woods Mosaic without a whole lot of contemplation--paid $120 (including shipping) for a like-new set with still-sealed CDs on eBay, which may be a bit much in this era of deflating Mosaic prices, but happy to have it on the way nonetheless. Others here have a take on this set? I've heard several mixed opinions over the years.

Larry, do you have the 3-CD Waller box set If You Got To Ask, You Ain't Got It? Dan did outstanding notes for that collection.

Great comeback by the Yankees last night--very happy to see Giancarlo Stanton be the hero at Yankee Stadium: https://www.mlb.com/news/giancarlo-stantons-homer-seals-yankees-win/c-282213260

I haven't heard that recording yet--the immediate chronology of Cafe Society after Barney Josephson gets out of the game in 1949 is rather mysterious to me. I know that Josephson generally didn't book bebop groups at either Cafe Society Downtown or Uptown, and in his memoir he says he "shuttered" Cafe Society Downtown in early 1949 (after enduring a lot of attacks from media figures like Walter Winchell and Westbrook Pegler for his leftwing connections). But somebody must have been operating it into the next year, if Parker was recorded there in mid-1950. Getting to stand in that space and play Billie Holiday's recording of "Strange Fruit" for a small audience with all of the lights turned off (we projected the famous photo from the Commodore recording session on a small screen while the music played) was quite a thrill, btw. There's an interesting post-Cafe Society history associated with that basement as well; in the 1970s it was the site of the Ridiculous Theater Company, which the manager of the current theatrical company occupying the space (Axis) told me warrants a chapter in the annals of queer theater.

Wish I could've stuck around last weekend to see Ron Carter and Ethan Iverson there. (I was still in town that Friday evening, but already committed to attending a Yankees game that night. I did get to see Dave Douglas and Joe Lovano at the Village Vanguard on Thursday, though.)

Upping this today in honor of what would have been Eric Dolphy's 90th birthday: Dolphy '64

A writer and baseball-fan friend of mine told me something several weeks ago that I found hard to believe: the 2018 collective MLB batting average so far, he said, was on pace to be the lowest since 1968. 1968! Year of Bob Gibson etc., as we've noted above. I finally found an online reference source, and while said collective MLB batting average must have moved up since our conversation, it's still on pace to be the lowest since 1972, when the collective MLB batting average was .244: MLB overall batting average and other hitting stats, season-by-season

Yes, "radio consultants and ratings" have come to play far too prominent a role in public radio. I'm not averse to attempting to reflect what a majority of the audience wants for overall content, but to ditch a popular jazz-specialty show when the overwhelmingly vast amount of programming on the station is already news/talk is appalling. It's less and less public radio and more commercial-radio-for-'smart'-people. This isn't the case at every station, but it's definitely the prevailing attitude and has been for some time now. It's one thing to move jazz out of day-parts and heavily-listened-to hours, another thing to eradicate it altogether.

I'm a CD rather than vinyl buyer and have had really good experience during recent trips to New York City checking out the Jazz Record Center (236 W. 26th St) and the Downtown Music Gallery (13 Monroe St).

WAMU cancels "Hot Jazz Saturday Night" John Hasse has started an online petition to save the program that's already garnered more than 6,300 signatures. I signed it, though I'm pessimistic that anything will cause WAMU to reverse their decision. As someone who works in radio, I can tell you that Saturday evening is not exactly prime real estate, so the fact that they're ditching a long-running program with a widespread and passionate following (that also evidently does quite well during fund-drive) in favor of more news/talk and a one-hour variety program does not even make pragmatic sense to me.

I'll be there this Thursday and will try to remember to ask. Hoping to listen to some of the Ellington material, actually... anybody know how much of it there is?

So, a bit of a crazy story here: a few weeks ago I scheduled the Night Lights Cafe Society show to re-air last week. Just a few days ago I received an invitation to come out and give a talk about Cafe Society at the very site of the former club (the original downtown Cafe Society that opened in December 1938) as part of a plaque-unveiling event. The basement space at 2 Sheridan Square looks quite different now (it's the home of the Axis Theater Company), but it will still be a thrill to stand in the same space where Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Frankie Newton, Albert Ammons, and so many other jazz artists whom I love once performed. In the meantime, here's the Night Lights program again, which includes commentary from Barney Josephson's widow Terry and historian Michael McGerr, as well as some broadcasts from the club itself: Cafe Society: The Wrong Place For The Right People

Maybe if they threw a little less as kids and teenagers, they could throw a little more as adults? At what age do kids start throwing breaking pitches these days? When I played Little League in the 1970s, that was a big no-no (at least in the league I was in); coaches told kids not to even fool around with breaking pitches until high-school or early teens, because it was thought to put too much strain on a young arm. I’m sure science, knowledge etc. are much more advanced now—but given that, why are we seeing a plague of this particular injury? It seems like some sort of adjustment needs to be made at the lower levels of play. (I also have to confess, on a not-really-related note, that I’m beginning to detest the whole “three true outcomes” concept, and an offensive landscape where some of the league’s biggest stars—Harper, Stanton, and Judge—are putting up numbers that remind me of Dave Kingman. I miss Rod Carew, George Brett, and Tony Gwynn. Hell, I miss Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neill! In the meantime, enjoying the rookie performances of Andujar and Torres, both of whom are hovering around that old-fashioned hallmark known as a .300 BA.) EDIT: only fair to note that there are hitters out there with outstanding BAs so far—Mookie Betts, obviously (.359) and Altuve, last year’s AL MVP, clipping the ball at a brisk .342 rate. Mike Trout consistently hits around .300 in addition to piling up a lot of HRs. I think perhaps analytics have worked more in favor of the pitchers so far—plus the beefed-up bullpens tend to offer a near-endless supply of fresh arms for batters to face. A friend of mine said a couple of weeks ago that the collective MLB BA is at its lowest so far this season since 1968, but I haven’t been able to run down any confirmation of that and find it really hard to believe. Wasn’t 1968 the year Yaz won the AL batting title with a .301 mark? I mean, talk about grim times for hitters... that’s when MLB decided to lower the mound, correct?