ghost of miles

Re-aired this this past week and it remains archived for online listening: Herbie Nichols' Third World Happy birthday to Mr. Nichols. Also check out Jason Crane's new interview with Mark Miller on The Jazz Session.

Over the past couple of days, these two:

You and Herbie Nichols--you're in good company, Mr. MJ. Best b-day wishes to you.

Nope--I nearly posted a comment about this myself the day after the set arrived. Discs 2 and 3 in the first case required artful, several-minute-long thumb-and-finger-wrestling matches for removal.

An excellent article by Marc Myers at Jazzwax: Billy Taylor 1921-2010

He left behind a lot of nice compositions as well.

Mustang of choice in my teen years: ...not the actual one we had, but it's the same year/make/color (1966 burgundy Mustang). Man, I loved driving that car.

Here's a list I did for the Night Lights site: Best Historical Releases and Reissues of 2010

Elvis as the beginning of Southern strategy is some narrow/simplified/wrong jive as well. You're boiling down a whole lotta stuff and throwing away the racial/sexual impact of him and everything he led to, which is a helluva lot more than the "Southern strategy" (Gawd awmighty, I can't believe I'm here defending Elvis, but there it is). And hey, maybe bebop would've happened anyway without that weak-willed, drug-addicted, momma's boy Charlie Parker, eh? And maybe a whole lot better--we wouldn't have had all of those dime-a-dozen Bird imitators. GOD! Point taken that you don't like Elvis. I don't particularly like him either, but making him the poster boy for everything that's gone wrong in America over the past several decades is just nuts. Or put it this way: you can't make Elvis a symbol for the coming of George Bush and then deny his symbolic impact for everything that eventually broke loose in the Sixties, which, whatever the chaos and mess and complex upheaval of it all, led to things being better for a whole lotta non-southern-white-male folk. No, yellow doesn't make me sad, but I can return the condescension and say that sanctimonious/aesthetic would-be drill-sergeant hullabaloos do get irritating and old after awhile. (Hey, I may not be true southern, but I'm "up South," as the term goes, with a fair-ish amount of redneck/Appalachian back in my own backyard.) As do relatives, loved ones and friends, and all of us eventually, I suppose. Love and respect to you in any event, wherever your head's at these days on Elvis, fellow board members, and everything else, but look down that lonesome road before you travel on, OK?

When/if Weizen returns, we gotta hip him to this thread.

Oh my God, yes--equal candidates, anyway, and give John Lydon credit for going on to do some interesting things post-Pistols, but talk about the Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle! And yet they had a huge, undeniable impact and a sound that galvanized a lot of people into starting bands. (Though I'd give the Ramones perhaps even more credit, both stateside and even UK--their Bicentennial concert in London '76 shook things up pretty hard.)

Wow--I just read this comment in the Mathis thread and Jsngry, this is really over the line, man. I'm sorry, but whatever the declining state of America etc., this just seems way, way overblown as an analogy. One of my best friends has a three-year-old son who really, really digs the Beatles. Should we all march down there and tell him what a chump he is? If he starts digging some Charlie Parker, should we tell him what a momma's boy Bird was and hup-hup-hup him to music of 2010/11 only? (Talk about a quasi-totalitarian mentality!) Seriously, man, people are still going to find joy in music and all sorts of other art from now, from 50 years ago, from whenever. "Fight the power" indeed (though you're quoting from a 20-year-old rap song!), go light up the folks at NextBop if you wish, but you, of all people, know--you know--that people dig all sorts of music for all kinds of reasons...why so ginned up about this? I don't even like Elvis particularly... but in his own, screwed-up way, he was, for better and for worse, a revolutionary force in music when he came along. (Read Lester Bangs' essay on him in PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS...and believe me, Lester Bangs had no illusions about Elvis...but even Lester Bangs, purveyor of many a who-the-hell-is-THAT-band or artist, ultimately realized that hipster obscurantism can be as much b.s. in its own way as music-biz hype when it comes to trying to get a grip on musical history.) But if the point of this is that you're looking for music to be a revolutionary force today (and therefore death to Elvis, death to the Beatles, death to standards, etc.), IMO that possibility is pretty much played out no matter what, and if there is a revolutionary force to be found, it will come from somewhere else. (And while I sympathize with your admiration for underground dance-music culture, that's not going to do it either, again IMO...and anyway, much of that seems to me somewhat akin to rave culture of the late 1980s, which produced a lot of good times, too much Ecstasy-indulgence, and not a whole lot else.) This is still a board very much based in the old Blue Note board, which was a board that centered around a love of 1950s/60s/70s jazz, and a lot of other music and art from that era. People here do talk about newer music, newer artists, etc., but it just strikes me as odd to go so ballistic over posters enthusing about historical figures. And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes it's a Philly blunt, and sometimes it's a sociopolitical thingamabob, and sometimes people feel a kinetic connection with a singer--or a trumpet player, or a writer, or anybody who moves their spirit for some reason. I'm sure my friend's kid will eventually move on from his Beatles kick (he's more advanced than me--I didn't go on mine till I was 8 or 9), and Alexander's kid will move on from Elvis as well. Society at large is "moving on" all the time, but that doesn't mean we still can't enjoy the music of Coltrane, Ellington, Miles Davis, Johnny Mathis, the Hi-Lo's, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Topps baseball cards, ice-cream, a good new drug, or what have you. And sure, we argue and delve into the why and the how of this stuff all the time here--it's what we do. I just think a lot of the import here is misdirected.

For anybody who's interested, here's a recent Afterglow program I did with Mathis: Johnny Mathis: Now and Then I did an ISDN phone interview with him for a special we were producing about Indiana bandleader and composer/arranger Al Cobine (Mathis was one of the marquee singers who used Cobine as an orchestra contractor) and we spent the second half-hour of the interview talking about Mathis' new CD and some of his classic recordings, which I ended up using in the program linked to above. An extremely gracious guy to talk to.

John was here a couple of months ago to play a gig at the Bear's Place Jazz Fables series, and that same deadpan-dry wit was on display throughout his entire visit.

Got this for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and have watched the first three episodes. So far I'd say it's hipper and jazzier than Peter Gunn (although it was created in response to that show)... the NYC exterior shots that they drop into the shows also give it a grittier, more TV-noir look than Gunn had. Some of the same West Coast jazz musicians that were in Gunn float through this show as well.

Grateful for the many things we were able to hear and/or hear better in large part because of Mr. Towers... R.I.P.

Glad tidings and all that jazz to one and all throughout Organissimoland!

Happy holidays, all--Night Lights' annual Christmas show is posted for online listening, with music from Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Duke Pearson, Eddie Higgins, June Christy, Pete Rugolo, and more: A Cool Christmas Season's greetings and all that jazz!

Loren Schoenberg's notes for the Herman set were revelatory. He's also done an excellent job on several other Mosaics, including the recent Goodman; he, Dan Morgenstern, and Larry are my favorite Mosaic writers (Larry, I still hold out hope that one day we'll see your byline on some sort of Mosaic Lee Konitz Verve set. ) Speaking of Mr. Kart, see pg. 57-62 of his book Jazz in Search of Itself for a wonderfully detailed assessment of "The Sergeant Was Shy."

Just picked this up today, Bill, at the Book Corner in Bloomington, and am hoping to read some of it over the holiday weekend.

Sounds like a Proustian madeleine moment.

This past week's Night Lights show, The David Baker Songbook is now archived for online listening. It includes interviews with jazz educator/composer David Baker and bandleader Brent Wallarab (whose orchestra recorded an entire CD of Baker's music), as well as interpretations of Baker's music by George Russell, Philly Joe and Elvin Jones, the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, Jack Wilson, and Baker himself. Coming up later this week: "A Cool Christmas."

BillF--calling BillF! Right now: disc 4 of the CTI COOL REVOLUTION box.

Actually, Pettitte's hardly been talking his head off about this situation--it's driven by fan curiosity and the NY media. What's to say this isn't a genuine struggle for him? He's an athlete with a very finite career--and just about every professional athlete is motivated by money, so there's hardly any evil there. I know if I were in his shoes it would be a difficult decision, given that he'd most likely make another ten million or more if he came back for one more year... yet at the same time he's got several children, and in the end, as Artie Shaw liked to say, "Time is all you've got." Anyway, I don't think there's anything unnatural about a star athlete in his late 30s struggling with this kind of decision for two or three years in a row. Re: the Boston bullpen, now will you cede that Boston is the clear-cut favorite to win the AL East?

Just got the Naxos Duke of the Musicraft sides and you're right, Ted--much superior to the other versions I've heard as well. Thanks for the tip.