ghost of miles

Best b-day wishes to you, C...may your days (and nights) be full of wine, women and song...in whichever particular order you're desiring them!

It is the last song programmed for the "Haunted Love Songs" Afterglow, and it is indeed Jo Stafford's recording that I used--concludes the show. Although after last night I'm considering replacing it with "The Ballad of Cliff Lee."

...replete with an image guaranteed to terrify : Halloween: Haunted Love Songs, Strange Enchantment

That was painful. Spanked hard by Cliff Lee and Philadelphia at home in Game 1...but what disturbs me the most is how badly the bullpen performed again. NY put the first two runners on in the bottom of the 9th, but so what? They're down 6 runs! I'm surprised Lee was left in the game that long--his pitch count must have ended up close to 120. Are the Phillies planning on using him again in Game 4 or in Game 5? If Game 5, I can see keeping him in there after the first two batters got on, but still thought it strange that they didn't pull him, especially after the shutout got spoiled by the throwing error. Phillies definitely looked like the superior team tonight. NY better turn it up more than just a notch.

Damn, what a different game this is if NY's bullpen doesn't give up FOUR runs in the 8th and 9th!

...and the middle-relief looking very weak again. Looks like NY's going to lose the home-field advantage out of the gate. This whole game's vibe reminds me unpleasantly of the '76 WS...a NY team very happy to be returning to the WS after a postseason dryspell running into a badass, supremely confident NL outfit. Certainly a badass, supremely confident pitcher in the form of Cliff Lee. EDIT: ...and lest I forget, in '76 that was a defending-champion badass, supremely confident NL outfit. Just to extend the analogy a bit further. It probably can't carry much farther, but that's what tonight's game has reminded me of. EDIT: Even worse! Man, CC leaves the game and NY's given up 3 runs in less than two innings so far.

Not lookin' good, B, you're right about that... CC's pitch count already around 110, and I can't see Girardi bringing him back for the 8th if he has any intention of pitching him on Sunday. Biggest problem is trying to now overcome a TWO-run lead held by Cliff Lee, who's making NY look sad tonight. Utley's sure had CC's # tonight. A good game indeed, but it'd be an even better one if the score were reversed.

OK, CC really settled down after that home run and is looking very good now...but Cliff Lee is looking just about unhittable at this point, having just struck out the heart of the NY order. Even a one-run lead is too much to give that guy.

Well, I was booting up the computer to express some anxiety about how the game is going when Utley hit that homer off CC. Cliff Lee definitely getting the better of him so far--CC is working like hell to get through each inning, already at 60 pitches after 3 innings, and Lee is just mowing down the Yankees... hardly breaking a sweat while doing so.

Here's the home/away split on Hamels. 7-5 w/3.76 ERA at home, 3-6 w/4.99 ERA on the road. Burnett's got a somewhat similar home/away split for NY, which is why they've been trying to rotate him through Yankee Stadium as much as possible.

Hamels much better at home than on the road though this year, right? Maybe that's why they slotted Pedro for Game 2 at Yankee Stadium?

NY Times says the Phillies have a significant edge on defense all over the field.

Phil Coke: from chimneys to Yankee clubhouse ...nice report buried deep in the story that A-Rod buys all the NY rookies a couple of suits. Sure, I know, he can afford it, but still a nice gesture.

This sounds great, Lazaro. I posted it to the Yahoo Songbirds listserv--I think there'll be some interest in it there as well.

How the Phillies and Yankees match up

Rollins predicts Phillies in five ....says if Philadelphia is nice, they'll let it go 6. And Pedro Martinez is starting Game 2. Great drama there!

All the best to a wonderful Guy!

I'd say simply that we've had Monk's music, to one degree or another, for 60+ years now and will have it, to one degree or another, for a long time to come. I'm grateful to my deity-of-choice for that. What we haven't had--what I haven't seen, anyway, in my admittedly limited experience and reading--is a judicious, fact-grounded, and sympathetic book-length effort to present him as a human being, as a man and musician, rather than the Strange God o' Bebop or what-have-you. (Not to say that certain such qualities weren't present in Monk... my only qualm with the book so far is that I think Kelley's so driven to knock down the Strange God o' Bebop image that he periodically risks appearing to deny the complex reality of Monk's overall personality even as he's documenting it.) The book has actually sent me back to the music, which I haven't listened to in the past year or so. (And Lon, thanks much for the tip on the Ben Riley tribute... it arrived yesterday, looking forward to hearing it.) And it's been refreshing as hell, again, to get some sense of the man behind the mythic mist. Makes me appreciate the music that much more. I don't need the bio/story to appreciate the music, but I don't need to keep away from it in order to preserve the music's magic either. Or some such. It's admittedly a touchy issue, given the longstanding, prurient fetishization of jazz musicians' life-stories ("Bird ate/drank/shot-up/screwed/then-soloed, etc., etc.") and its opposite prim/curt whitewash of any such talk that's kind of insulting in its own way. Anyway, it's a great time of year to be reading this book. Something about Monk's music goes really well with the way I feel in autumn (and spring, too).

Hmmm--not down with the NY Post's taunting arrogance, but it kinda goes along with everything else I dislike about that paper. Phils are defending world champs and if I were making bets...well, I'd never bet against the team I like anyway, but I might be giving Philadelphia just slightly better odds. To me, this WS has the potential makings of a mid-1950s Yankee-Dodger-style 7-game barn-burner.

How 'bout dem (damn) Yankees?

I certainly do. I worked there with Hadda Brooks, a great singer-pianist from L.A., for a month in '94. Gil Wiest is his name (the brother of actress Dianne)---and his reputation preceded him. He gave myself and Ms. Brooks the hardest time he could----but we never took the bait. She was such a great singer (and my friend Morris Edwards was on the gig on bass) that we just pulled together, ignored his BS and made the best music we could. You worked with Hadda Brooks?! Sir, I must bow in your honor. Fun film fact: she's the pianist/singer during the nightclub scene in Bogart's IN A LONELY PLACE.

Doin' my best, TTK! Got at least one show on the drawing board for early next year that I think you'll like. I should've mentioned Bernstein in the board promo copy as well...was just in a hurry this a.m. to take care of some other things at the station. Got lucky re: Naremore, in that he just finished writing a book about the film. He's a great guy, big jazz fan as well...retired now from active teaching here at IU but still pursuing authorial projects. He's in a much older Night Lights show as well, Jazz in the Postwar French Cinema.

It's mentioned on the program page and talked about (as well as played) in the show itself.

This week on Night Lights--delving into the 1957 film, soundtrack, and cultural significance of Sweet Smell of Success with film expert James Naremore (author of MORE THAN NIGHT: FILM NOIR IN ITS CONTEXTS) and Indiana University music professor and Dial M for Musicology blogger Phil Ford. Playwright Clifford Odets, actors Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, director Alexander Mackendrick, and the Chico Hamilton Quintet all helped shape the direction of a movie that's become a cinematic classic. The program is archived for online listening: Sweet Smell of Success Air times for Night Lights around the U.S.

Wow! Yeah, the Eastern Seaboard could just sink below sea level...