ghost of miles

Bit on several of these that I long been on the fence about: Jimmy Smith, Six Views of the Blues (per Shawn's note below, Cecil Payne's presence is what finally drew me in on this one) Chet Baker/Stan Getz, West Coast Live Chet Baker/Art Pepper, The Route

Whoa! The Beatles never broke up A "lost" post-1970 Beatles album, surfacing in the most bizarre fashion!

This week's SBN power rankings for the MLB: Full rundown here.

Dave James & other Yankee fans--here's a stat that might give us all pause. After tonight's win NY is 37-22...the second-best record in the majors behind Tampa Bay. But here's the kicker: we are 10-1 against Baltimore, and a much-less-impressive 27-21 against everybody else. We have 103 games left, but only seven more against the O's. Granted, we went through a very rough patch with injuries early this season...but given how tough the AL East is this year, we're still going to have to turn it up a notch against non-Oriole teams, or we might not even make wild-card, let alone overtake the Rays.

Patrick, has Sunday's game sold out yet? I read that ticket sales were going crazy after the Nats announced that Strasburg would be starting that day.

You'll dig it, Weizen. I'm psyched about both of these sets.

Great topic--next week's Night Lights show works along this theme ("Daddy-O! Father-and-Son Teams in Jazz") and I'm planning a brothers-theme program for broadcast in September.

Wow--grab Art Farmer's MODERN ART if you don't have it already.

The most recent Night Lights program, Jazzing The Cool With Ted Gioia is now up for online listening. Gioia, the author of The History of Jazz and West Coast Jazz, talks about his new book The Birth (and Death) of the Cooland jazz's relationship to cool, from Bix Beiderbecke up to the present day, with plenty of music accompanying the timeline. And the Night Lights Six Degrees of Support fund-drive continues, as the show heads towards its sixth anniversary. If you're a regular listener or somebody who enjoys the program and its archives from time to time, please consider making a contribution...any amount is welcome! The direct link to the support page is here.

I'm in, Jim--thanks as always for hosting the best jazz discussion forum on the Internet.

Am I alone in thinking that the Nats are rushing him to the big leagues too soon? Nope! Honestly, they should have seen after a few starts that it was pointless to have him in the minors, he couldn't work on holding on runners or anything else, when the other team had 2 hits. Even if he was only going 5 innings a start, they might have 5-6 more wins at this point. Surprised they let him go 7 innings. Glad they did though! Perhaps they were keeping his pitch count down in the minors to let him go a bit further in games? And I was wrong about it looking like they messed up his motion in the minors. I just noticed it was the way they edited his strikeouts in the minors back to back, and it made it look like he had no leg kick. I just saw his arm motion. Not that anyone cared what I thought! Too bad this was only on mlb, no way to watch it on DISH. I guess they want to build up that network . Berigan, I think they held off on promoting him until June in order to push back his arbitration eligibility a year--pretty sure it was mostly a future-fiscal reason.

Here it is: Strasburg's 14 strikeouts Incredible! It Should Be You, you must've been so jazzed... pretty exciting for baseball fans in general, just to see a young rookie make a debut like that. The Nats' radio announcers kept describing the atmosphere at the stadium as "playoff-like."

I can't find a highlight reel yet of Strasburg's performance (guessing there'll be one up later tonight on the Nats' site), but in the meantime, here's his three-up, three-down first inning, which ended with his first big-league K.

Stras finishes with 14 K's in 7 IP! Just two runs given up, on that homer... assuming the Nats bullpen can hold the lead, he'll get the W. I think his debut actually lived up to the hype.

David Foster Wallace wrote a brilliant piece on his experience with cruise-ship culture called "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."

I don't have MLBTV, but I'm listening on MLB Radio and Strasburg's last six outs have come on K's.

Many, many thanks to you, papsrus and Bill (and to another Organissimo poster who's made a contribution). Allen, yes, of course--we're always open for that kind of business! That link again : Support Night Lights Wanted to share a bit of a thrill I got to have today--I'm working on a Night Lights show for the week leading up to July 4th about Louis Armstrong's 1947-57 period, and spoke over the phone for more than an hour with Dan Morgenstern. I've always loved his jazz writing, and he was just a wonderful person to talk to (almost all about Louis in those years, though I couldn't help but take an Ellington detour near the end of our conversation). Anyway, some of Dan's remarks will be included in the show, and I'll probably post more on the program page.

Fellow members of the O, we're launching the annual summer Night Lights online fund-drive this week. If you've enjoyed any or many of the programs I've posted here over the past several years, would you consider making a small pledge as a way of investing in the show for another year? On the new website you can check out the whole Six Degrees of Support fund-drive theme, or skip it and click directly to the support page to make a contribution. I'll have a couple of special fund-drive shows up in the next week or so--"The Prestige Records Story" and "Good Vibes" (in addition to the regular weekly programs). We're trying to make a goal of $600 in online contributions by July 3, which will be the sixth anniversary of Night Lights' debut. Any bucks at all from you--$6, $30, $60, less, more--will be very helpful and much appreciated... and will aid me in justifying the program for another year to my boss! Once again, that number--er, link: Support for Night Lights Many thanks to all here who've been so supportive of the show since its inception.

Wooden grew up about 20 minutes north of here--although he's strongly associated with UCLA, I still think of him as a great credit to the legacy of Indiana basketball.

At least they pulled it out, Dave, and Javy had another strong outing, putting aside said bad pitch. Very good 8th inning comeback from the Yanks, and even if A-Rod didn't come through for once after an IBB to Tex, it still led indirectly to the tying run (the wild pitch while A-Rod was batting) and the NY runners moving into a position from which Cano was able to knock them both in. Joba kept it interesting again, didn't he? Still, one run given up is better than five... glad we didn't get swept on the road. I'd be curious to look at a team split for hitting on the road vs. at home...sure seems like the offense tends to go silent whenever we're away from Yankee Stadium these days. Dan, I think there's an excellent chance that we'll have 4 AL East teams with 90 wins or more by the end of the season.

Is anybody who played in the band still alive? EDIT: Well, Nat Peck for starters, it appears.

All tied up in Toronto after 7 as the Blue Jays just hit their 5th HR in this series so far off the Yankees.

Another BIRTH OF THE COOL connection to Miller's AAF (interesting, now that I think about it--the AAF did "Moon Dreams" and had Carisi for a spell)--is the presence of French horn player Addison Collins Jr. in the band. He was part of the Mel-Powell-led "Swing Sextet" aka "Uptown Hall Gang" band-within-a-band, and evidently responsible for that group's doing "Night in Tunisia" (which surely must be one of the first known recorded performances of that tune, coming in late '44 not long before Sarah Vaughan would wax it as "Interlude"). I wish there were more of the Uptown Hall Gang's performances readily available; right now they're scattered across the MISSING CHAPTERS series (and the Timeless CD, good as it is, is not really a straight-up representation of that group). If you can find it (some used copies seem to be floating around), Geoffrey Butcher's Next to a Letter From Home offers a well-detailed account of the Miller AAF band.

Great station--several friends of mine worked as DJs there in the late 1990s. Sounds like a fantastic opportunity for anybody in the area to get on the airwaves.

Use of instant replay is not going to result in 10-12 minutes being added to games--particularly as if, per reports yesterday, that Selig is looking at a one-challenge limit. (Also, I haven't seen any recent stats, but the first year the NFL went to expanded replay, they found it added an average of 72 seconds per game.) Also, any time "used up" for umps reviewing a play is sure to be made up for by fewer incidents of managers yelling their heads off at umps. Besides, are we going all Joe West here? TV's a big culprit in why games have gotten longer. Besides, you're talking a maximum two reviews a game, and even that won't be the case most of the time. NFL refs are given 60 seconds to make their determination. I just think the whole "will slow the game down!" cry is a bit of a red herring. It's not "lawyering up," simply giving managers one chance per game to make sure the right call was made in a key situation. I'm more inclined to favor two challenges, but one's better than none. As for the scenario of "if you give 'em one, they'll want more": I can almost guarantee you that managers and now even umps would rather have one than none. They'd be inclined to use their one challenge quite judiciously. Have NFL coaches clamored for more challenges? Hardly! (Though they do use the same two-challenge system that I favor.) The NFL has had its current instant replay system since 1999, and if anything, the game's only gotten more popular. What on earth is so wrong about a limited use of available technology that makes it much more likely that athletes' performances on the field during a game will be accurately reflected in the game's outcome? Rather than living with what in effect is a lie, simply because we didn't want to wait 60 seconds to make sure a crucial call was right. EDIT: USA TODAY has an interesting article on MLB & the NFL's move to instant replay.