ghost of miles

Jazz artist, scholar, writer-of-superlative-Mosaic-booklets, and National Museum of Jazz director Loren Schoenberg stopped by the show recently to share some music from the Savory collection. Nearly all of it has not been heard since its original broadcast: Listening to the Savory Collection With Loren Schoenberg Artists featured on the program include Mildred Bailey, Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Benny Goodman, Bunny Berigan, Chu Berry, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Bobby Hackett, Earl Hines, Django Reinhardt (performing with Ellington at Carnegie Hall in 1946), Louis Jordan, John Kirby, Joe Mooney, Red Norvo, Artie Shaw, Dave Tough, Tommy Dorsey, and Bud Freeman. The music is heard in excerpted form, accompanied by some commentary from Loren.

Any day when Derek Jeter finishes with a 4-6, 2 HR, 3 RBI line is a happy one in Yankeeland. Granderson knocked out his AL-leading 11th of the year, but perhaps more significantly, his fifth off a lefthander so far. At the Yankees' current HR rate, they'll finish with 273, which would break the 1997 Seattle Mariners' MLB team record of 264. Dave James, you're right about the pitching, of course. Colon had three strong starts for us; hopefully yesterday was the inevitable bad game, but most posters over at Pinstripe Alley feel the same way, that he and Garcia are bound to run out of steam and that we'll be lucky to get 10 wins apiece out of them. I was heartened by Ivan Nova's performance the other night (though he was facing a Rangers lineup that lacked both Hamilton and Cruz), and A.J. Burnett seems to have stabilized somewhat this year, though he's had a good start every single season with the Yankees, so it may not say much about how well he'll pitch for the rest of the year. Hughes, of course, remains a huge question mark, and I don't think we have anybody in the minors, including the promising "Killer B's" prospects, ready to come up yet. Anyway, glad we won today, as the Rays seem to have forgotten how to lose, and Boston once again appears to be getting its act together. Mark Feinsand in-game tweets:

Moral victory indeed--they blew a 5-0 lead, then immediately tagged the Yanks' bullpen for two runs after Swisher had tied it all up. Plus you guys nailed 14 hits total off us. In the meantime, outside of the occasional sputter here or there, the Yankees' offense continues to be suddenly less than daunting. How long, for instance, do we keep Posada at DH if he maintains his sub-.150 batting average? Jesus Montero may be coming up sooner rather than later (just one option if Posada doesn't find a better groove, though I think Joe Girardi's going to wait a long time before benching Jorge).

Dave, also wanted to add about Granderson: especially glad to see him doing so well this season, as he seems to be a genuinely nice, very likable person. (Quite the charities guy too, from what I understand, even by MLB player standards.) He's also been a great asset in centerfield, that's for sure... between him and Gardner in left, a lot of potential hits have turned into outs this year and last.

It's a conundrum all right, Dave. A-Rod got off to a great start, but he hasn't been the same since that oblique injury. Texiera has hit well for power, and at least he hasn't had quite as miserable a beginning as he had last year. As for Jeter, the Yankees'"hardline" negotiating stance is starting to look rather generous, isn't it? I'm also concerned about Posada, who's knocked out half a dozen homers but is currently batting in the vicinity of .150; not exactly the kind of offensive production you like to see from your DH. Thank God for Curtis Granderson, eh? With all that, we're still 18-12 after tonight, which is much better than I thought we'd be--especially if you had told me last November that (1) we'd fail to sign Cliff Lee (2) Andy Pettitte would retire and (3) Phil Hughes would not only fail to return to April-May 2010 form, but would be out of the rotation for an indefinite period. Still, dropping three in a row to Detroit in such lousy fashion did a nice job of revitalizing my pessimism!

That would be Tad Hershorn's book, which has been in the works for a long time. Glad to hear that it's still on its way; here's the Amazon link.

Final out!

Cool, Dave! A personable and dapper gent... thanks for sharing this with us.

... a really fascinating memoir about working railroad yards in California and the Southwest, probably late 1970s/early 80s, as far as I can tell.

Nice program from Afropop Worldwide on American jazz artists and African influence/heritage: Reimagining Africa: From Popular Swing to the Jazz Avant-Garde

How 'bout those Indians? And they won again today. Nice win for the Bosox today, esp. with King Felix starting for the Mariners. Too bad Wakefield didn't get the decision. Via Pete Abraham on Twitter: And glad, of course, to see NY 16-9 and atop the AL East, but they've played 18 of those 25 games at home.

Matthew, how 'bout those Mariners?

Fasstrack, the Chicago 1946 concert was previously released on MusicMasters and got reissued not too long ago: Ellington Chicago 1946 The recently-unearthed Savory collection includes an excellent track of Django playing with Ellington--can't remember if it's from the Carnegie Hall concert or not, but I'm pretty sure that it is. There'll be a brief sample of it on next week's Night Lights show.

We're re-airing this program this week (now retitled) and it remains archived for online listening: Handy With The Horn: The Rise Of John Handy

Papsrus, calling Papsrus--your Rays are on fire! MartyJazz, this just in--Nick Swisher finally knocked his first one out of the ballpark. And Bartolo Colon is looking to be the pickup of the year for the Yanks, right next to Russell Martin. Good thing, too, since Phil Hughes may be out for awhile... I wish some of the Yanks' "Killer B's" pitching prospects were ready to come up this year, but they're likely another season away at the earliest.

Happy b-day to a good Joe!

WBGO.

Dave, I hope for everybody's sake that Soriano can get it together in NYC. His velocity is certainly still there (he was hitting 95-96 tonight), but I'm not sure what other issues he might be having. I think people aren't ready to exhibit much patience with him because of an attitude perception that goes all the way back to his refusal to face AL East teams during spring training...and things like the popup incident last night certainly seem to reinforce it. Maybe Mo can help him out with the psychological end of things. Re: Boston, yes, CB may be struggling, but Beckett definitely seems to be back in an ace groove, Jon Lackey may have finally found his, and even Dice-K has put together a couple of strong starts. And then you have Lester. If I'm Boston, I definitely like the momentum right now, the sense that the team of pre-season hype has finally taken the field. The Yanks' first-place status feels like it's built on a bushel of home runs and luck, including subpar starts from the Bosox and the Rays. Again, though, I'm at least heartened that some of our offseason bargain pickups have paid off--Russell Martin biggest among them, but also Colon, Garcia, and Chavez. Now if we can just get the really expensive one to start clicking... Meanwhile, I'm still bummin' on Lillibridge: Robs A-Rod of hit with one out in 9th Robs Cano of hit to end the game Two very nice plays to snuff out the Yanks' rally.

Ah, but I'll bet the Baltimore game had you seeing red! Dave James, OK, maybe it's not too early to define two emerging long-term problems for this season: (1) The health of Phil Hughes' arm (2) The state of Rafael Soriano's mind If this keeps up, D-Rob may become the 8th-inning setup man, and Rafael may be scrapping with Joba for the 7th-inning role. Sure hated to see Ivan Nova finally go a good ways into a game pitching well, only to watch our much-vaunted bullpen blow another one.

Yes, starting to look like Cashman was right to balk at signing him. Hopefully he turns it around, but the signs so far don't look good. And WFT with Brent Lillibridge, eh? Dude robbed us of two game-tying or winning hits from A-Rod and Cano in the bottom of the 9th. Gotta doff your cap to that, though it doesn't tickle me to do so. (My realtime reaction was kind of blue, to put it mildly.)

Sunday Bosox-Angels recap Dan, you have to be happy with the way Boston's playing right now--they look like the team everybody expected them to be. NY, meanwhile, won in ugly fashion against the Orioles today... they can thank the baseball gods that they still have Baltimore to beat up on, especially with another mediocre bullpen performance (including a second, worrisome blown save from Mo, who was lucky not to lose the game altogether, aided immensely by a great catch by Brett Gardner in the 8th and Swisher/Cano's throw to the plate in the bottom of the 9th). The only positives for the Yanks in today's game were another excellent start by Freddie Garcia, some great defense by Gardner, and a 4-6 showing at the plate from Jeter, even if two of his hits were of the infield variety. (DJ is running up some monstrous grounder numbers this year.) Well, and Curtis Granderson's 7th home run... dude is on a tear. MartyJazz, I'm not worried about Swisher's HRs; he's only 30, and he's hit 21-35 HRs every year since 2005, so I think he'll start knocking out a few very soon, unless there's some sort of injury or mechanical issue that we're not aware of. The bullpen, though, does worry me, what with Joba starting to make me think he can't handle being a 7th-inning pitcher either, and Mo looking increasingly mortal. OTOH what a boon it will be to the rotation if we can get 12+ wins apiece out of Garcia and Colon... but I have to wonder how well they'll hold up across the long stretch of a season. Anyway, still very early to really get a strong sense of what long-running problems we might be forced to deal with this year.

Robinson Cano sure likes going to bat in Baltimore:

I'll say one thing about this year's Yankees: they can jack HRs like nobody's business. Great poetic justice that even Brett Gardner knocked one out right after Rupe drilled Russell Martin, he of the home runs in his two previous at-bats, between the shoulder blades. Dan, Boston's coming around quite quickly...only four games back of New York with a week of April still to play. If you keep ticking along like this you'll be in first before the end of May. Interesting quote from jscape at PA: Too much riding on A.J. Burnett, Bartolo Colon, and Freddie Garcia as well (not to mention The Incredible Shrinking Phil Hughes). Going into tonight's game, the Yankee starters were last in the league in innings completed. As for Boston's rotation, imagine if Lackey starts getting it together in any kind of consistent fashion. They're certainly living up to their pre-season buzz so far. A rotation like that will always keep you in the game, even if your offense goes lackluster.

For the Easter weekend, a wide-ranging survey of 1960s sacred jazz, with Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Ed Summerlin, Paul Horn and Lalo Schifrin, Vince Guaraldi, Joe Masters, Herbie Hancock, and even a humorous take on the jazz-mass trend from Al Jazzbo Collins. Much more on the program's website page, including a clip of Ellington's first sacred concert, performed at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in September 1965: Sacred Blue: Jazz Goes To Church In The 1960s

Any advice as to what computer program will run the newsreel clip? (Track 22 on disc 2.) I've tried it in several different players on the computers here at work (QuickTime, Power DVD, Windows Media) and can't seem to get it to play... the booklet doesn't appear to offer any information about it.