ghost of miles

This'll never happpen, but given how excessive A-Rod's contract is, imagine if he went to Steinbrenner/Cashman and said, "Hey, you know what? Take $3-4 million annually out of my contract over the next 3-4 years and give it to Jeter instead." A-Rod's inflated salary comes down, Jeter gets something closer to what he wants on an annual basis, the Yankees don't "lose" money in terms of total payroll, and A-Rod comes off looking like a pretty good guy, teammate and friend. Like I said, ain't never gonna happen, but if I had A-Rod's cash and a true desire to finish redeeming a busted-up friendship... that might be a nice way to do it.

Blogging Bombers now quoting another source as saying that no offer whatsoever has been made to Lee. Still, I think the initial report is quite likely what it will come down to... NY offering around that much and Lee trying to squeeze an extra year out of either them or Texas. Believe me, people over at Pinstripe Alley aren't happy about the thought of signing him through either age 38 or 39. Sure, Andy Pettitte did well this past year (although his age surely factored into how long it took him to come back from his groin injury), and I'd say he's a good bet to win 15 games in 2011 if he stays healthy... but he won't be making $24-$25 million either. The Jeter contract negotiations are already getting ugly, btw, and I don't expect them to get much better anytime soon. He really dug himself a hole by having such a bad contract year. Supposedly NY's offering 3 years/45 million, and supposedly he wants more years/more money. I could see offering him 4 years/65-70 million at most... much more than he's worth now as a player, objectively speaking, but Jeter is Jeter and all that.

Ken Davidoff just tweeted that Andy Pettitte's leaning towards coming back for one last season as a Yankee in 2011. And you've probably already seen the reports this afternoon that the Yankees have offered Cliff Lee 6 years/140 million, and that Lee's holding out for a 7th season. Frankly, that kind of contract should be viewed as a good thing by those who, ah, do not count themselves as Yankee fans. Sure, Lee will probably give NY several good seasons, but they'll be saddled with yet another huge contract for an aging player. And I still don't rule out Lee's eventually signing with Texas instead, especially if they're willing to offer a 7-year deal around $150 million+.

Oh man, Rolf, I am so sorry and sad to hear this--I know what a battle she fought with this and what the two of you went through with it. Yes, you may have been a lucky man to be with her, but she was lucky to be with you as well. Please know you'll have as much care and friendship as those of us here can offer.

Ivie Anderson and Duke Ellington, "There's a Lull in My Life."

I've still got this kicking around in a closet somewhere:

I was tempted by APBA too, but never bit... was that the game took into account the dimensions of the real-life stadiums in determining the outcomes of certain plays? That may have been yet another game (was there a third one in the 1970s?). I used to love seeing the ads for them in Street and Smith's baseball annual, which was a must-buy every spring when I was a kid. And Jsngry, I know what you mean by "used"! My Strat-O-Mat set is well-thumbed and about as far from "mint" as one can get.

There's a legendary Strat-O-Mat Johnson family picnic story, in which an uncle of mine, managing the 1977 Philadelphia Phillies, had Greg Luzinski, who sported a stealing rating of "E," attempt to steal home. Iirc this meant he had a 1 in 30 chance of succeeding (you drew small orange cards to determine the outcome). My uncle proceeded to draw a 1 card and Mr. Luzinski successfully stole home. He had 16 GDPs in 1961...no triple plays occurred in MLB at all that year (according to this chart).

Strat-o-matic!!!! A proud player and owner from 1966-1969, even bought the "Hall of Fame" set somewhere in there...1927 Ruth vs 1966 Koufax, a kid's dream come true (and Koufax usually won). It was like fantasy baseball only much more baseball than fantasy. Yes! Me too! A proud player and owner from 1977-1981. I had the complete 1977 season...my brother had the complete 1978, and we had many of the teams from 1979-81. I also bought a few of those Hall of Fame teams as well. Man, I loved playing that game. Still have the cards, board-set, and a ton o' scoresheets somewhere in a closet at my dad's house.

We re-aired this program last week and it remains archived for online listening.

No more Lowe blows, please!

How do you pronounce David van Kriedt's last name? (Member of the late-1940s Brubeck octet.)

What do you mean "we," Kemo Sabe? I'll see your Kemo Sabe and raise you 40 acres and a mule.

Gents, I think it's high time we reined in these remarks and corralled our punning tendencies.

Get it while you can...

Love and horses...uh oh... haven't we ridden down this road before?

Love is here to stay, dude.

Perhaps a fitting commentary on this thread as well!

I can't be sure, but I really do think Joe was talking about a 1990s trio of his in that article (and how he wished Verve would release live recordings of it). Also can't be sure, but I think the article in which he made his remarks may have been this one: Samuel Fromartz: Art and Commerce and Porgy and Bess. Joe Henderson's history to date is a story of trail-blazing, standard-setting tenor saxophone improvisations..., in: Jazziz, 15/2 (Feb.1998), p. 58-61

Thanks, John L--it's possible I'm remembering incorrectly about a trio and that he was simply referring to his 1990s group in general. I think the interview appeared around 1997, so this would have been before his stroke... he may have been promoting PORGY AND BESS, which had come out around that time. He certainly wasn't dismissing his Verve concept CDs in the interview, but he seemed to feel that his live work of the period better represented his jazz artistry.

Weird that I just now saw this thread--I had some Henderson CDs out for a Night Lights project and ended up e-mailing Mosaic a few hours ago about Joe's 1990s trio. I remember reading an interview with him in the late 1990s (in one of the mainstream jazz periodicals) in which he expressed disappointment that Verve wouldn't release any live recordings of his then-current working trio. Are there any unreleased live recordings from that trio sitting in the vaults? That was my question to Mosaic...might make for a nice Select if so.

I like your concept, TTK. In the meantime, vis-a-vis the thread topic, I think I'll stick with this instead:

Thanks for the heads-up, Dave. I saw them at the Patio in Indpls in '85 when I was a wide-eyed kid and still have great memories of that show (the Replacements came through the same summer, with Bob Stinson still in tow...both bands at their peak around then IMO).

Would you care to show me how those two are separated to any meaningful extent in the current "enlightened" environment? ? Rightly or wrongly, I don't think there's any question that they're separated. Most people think of GAS as the songwriters Sondheim's talking about, operating pretty much in the period that GA Russell describes...and popular song form since being the provenance of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, etc. (Somewhere--I can't seem to find the source right now--Dylan's quoted as saying that he helped kill Tin Pan Alley, that "before me it was all 'I love you and you love me, riki-tiki-tiki, do-re-mi.' I ended all that." Never mind that Dylan later would profess a penchant for standards; a friend of mine remembers the Tambourine Man driving fans out of the arena during a 1987 concert with his renditions of "I'm in the Mood for Love" and other popular-song chestnuts.) GAS devotees to this day still tend to howl if standards singers try to introduce pop-rock material of the past 40-50 years into their repertoire. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument, but for me the song form still has the ability to connect, to be relevant. Here's one example, from Elliott Smith (who, yes, I know, has been annointed some sort of Emo Martyr-God since his strange 2003 death, but in spite of the post-GOOD WILL HUNTING hype, he was a damn good songwriter)--his 1997 song "Between the Bars": drink up, baby, stay up all night the things you could do, you won't but you might the potential you'll be that you'll never see the promises you'll only make drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days do what i say and i'll make you okay and drive them away the images stuck in your head people you've been before that you don't want around anymore that push and shove and won't bend to your will i'll keep them still drink up, baby, look at the stars, i'll kiss you again between the bars where i'm seeing you there with your hands in the air waiting to finally be caught drink up one more time and i'll make you mine keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest where i like you the best and keep the things you forgot the people you've been before that you don't want around anymore that push and shove and won't bend to your will i'll keep them still Video of Elliott Smith singing "Between the Bars" Now, some people might tend to knock Elliott Smith for being relevant primarily to 20/30something would-be artist types and slackers who drink too much, etc. Damn straight, I suppose! But all I can say is that this song hit awfully close to home for a number of people I knew, not to mention myself. And it was just one of many that Smith wrote that caused people to feel a strong sense of connection. (Though you might be interested to know that shortly before his death he was much more into what he called "soundscapes," or "noise tracks" as they're known in the ES online community... but even those tended to be built around some kind of motif or hook, and I think ES's desire to create them spoke mostly to his sense that for him, after six albums and change worth of songs, he might be ready to expand his notion of what he was doing musically. I don't think he ever fully repudiated songwriting or song form, though.) Or here's another song, by Nick Drake, with lyrics that might seem banal or silly when read on the page, but which to me are articulating the same sort of identity/closing-contorting sense of possibilities that Smith's getting at in "Between the Bars": I could have been a sailor Could have been a cook A real live lover Could have been a book I could have been a signpost Could have been a clock As simple as a kettle Steady as a rock I could be Here and now I would be, I should be But how? I could have been One of these things first I could have been One of these things first I could have been your pillar Could have been your door I could have stayed beside you Could have stayed for more I could have been your statue Could have been your friend A whole long lifetime Could have been the end I could be Yours so true I would be I should be Through and through I could have been One of these things first I could have been One of these things first I could have been a whistle Could have been a flute A real live giver Could have been a boot I could have been a signpost Could have been a clock As simple as a kettle Steady as a rock I could be Even here I would be, I should be So near I could have been One of these things first I could have been One of these things first Nick Drake singing "One of These Things First" ...and I'm just scratching the surface here of (IMO, of course) good, relevant songs written over the past 40 years that don't fit into the world of GAS and all that it evoked or now evokes, but whose composers have connected powerfully with listeners (yes, mostly the white college-kid and white post-college kid world in the examples that I'm giving, but that's the world I probably know best). But hell, "Straight Outta Compton" is a strong song in its own right... what's wrong with a form that tries to give a poetic/melodic expression of some of the things we struggle with in our environments, ourselves, etc.? I don't think anybody's putting it up on a pedestal or giving it some sort of sacred power that it doesn't possess (not to say, though, that music doesn't have some sort of powerful influence/hold over us, which I guess should go without saying... I used to treat certain pop-rock artists with a kind of reverence and still have that feeling now for certain jazz artists). I still love listening to Billie Holiday, Sinatra, Nat King Cole et al sing standards. I think these days that can easily veer between connoisseur appreciation and Starbucks "lifestyle" soundtrack for a lot of people, but that music has, for better or worse, become somewhat canonized as mid-20th-century Americana. When it comes to modern-day singers, I'd generally rather hear somebody like Madeleine Peyroux try to sing Elliott Smith's Between the Bars or Dylan's You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go then the Billie Holiday songbook. I'd rather listen to their originals, too, while I'm at it. I'd rather listen to people try, in general, and take some risks in pursuit of putting across material--whatever it is, originals, post-1965 pop, or the Great American Songbook--with some spark of soul, passion, and creativity. But I don't think you have to jettison song form to do it, and I don't think song form is exhausted.

Count me as a fan of Schwartz-Dietz, a songwriting team that doesn't get mentioned enough IMO, and yes, Moms, also of Yip Harburg (would you say there's a "revival" afoot, faint as the measurement of such things may be?). I've also got lots of time these days for Harry Warren and Harold Arlen. But here's my question for Jsngry: are we talking Great American Songbook (aka GAS), or are we talking the song form in general? Because I thought you meant the latter, not the former. Yes, Great American Songbook has become institutionalized & while I love a great deal of it, I dig your argument vis-a-vis the sands of time and all that...but I don't think the song form itself is going away, despite predictions of its demise for decades now. Yes, we're in an age of ringtones, ambient music etc., but I think centuries of conditioning or whatever it was that's made human beings so responsive to songs with lyrics and some sort of structure is not going to vanish anytime soon.