ghost of miles

I was trying to sneak him in, Lester-Bangs-like.

Happy b'day & best wishes, NoF, for a good year ahead.

That's by Organissimo forum member Mark Stryker--and Doug Ramsey, who writes one of the most frequently read jazz blogs, linked to it today.

Rereading, after many years, Chandler Brossard's WHO WALK IN DARKNESS.

Mark, thanks for letting us know, and thanks again for your reassurances and advice last summer when our kitten got out and was missing for two days. I have two 18-yr-old boy cats & am grateful for every extra day that they're here... and grateful that you're here on this board as well.

We will be re-airing this program tonight at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN and at 11 p.m. EST on WFIU. It will also air Sunday evening at 10 EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. Since it's a repeat, it's already archived for online listening. You can also watch the movie's trailer as well as a clip from the film itself (featuring Susan Hayward as a partying Barbara Graham). Next week: "Jazz and Jack Kerouac."

Happy b-day to Monsieur Solal... we'll be featuring him on Afterglow tomorrow evening. Also just found out that I'm sitting in this afternoon for our weekday jazz jock, so maybe I'll slip a little Solal into the set list!

Yep--posted that version of "A Train" to the Night Lights When Betty Met the Duke page. How's the Basie number?

Good Lord! And trying to remember... when did they go to the "3 innings=save" stat definition? They shoulda called off Game 2 & shown Bad News Bears films for the rest of the night.

A friend of mine last week played me an acetate of Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes, and Seymour--Weiss, I think? not Krim--doing a vocalese rendition of Tristano's "Intuition" and "Digression." This was circa 1950... not as bad as you might think. I have a soft spot for THE SUBTERRANEANS and parts of VISIONS OF CODY. Have not read DESOLATION ANGELS or BIG SUR, but on the basis of this thread will make a point of checking them out. (And how's DR. SAX?) Probably the reverse of most folks, but I've actually come to like Kerouac better than I did when I first read him around age 19 or 20. I think I may have been prejudiced by the two or three awful Kerouac disciples in my creative writing class (but I shouldn't have been throwing stones, living as I did at the time in the big Glass house of J.D. Salinger devotion).

Jazztropic, I played some of the sides mentioned above on a Night Lights program... it's archived here along with a playlist if you're interested in hearing some of the music under discussion.

Thanks for the tip--I've passed this one over several times at the local record store... your description is pretty close to the vibe I had about this title.

Chuck, I pulled that info off Mike Fitzgerald's page--or at least what I think is Mike's page: Monk discography project I was aware of the Spotlight on 52nd St., just assumed there was another club with same name in D.C. Anyways, not sure if that's Mike's site or not (looking at it again, I'm not sure it is), but I'll contact whoever runs it & advise them of the mistake.

Does he solo at all? I assume you're referring to this date: 1946 Dizzy Gillespie And His Orchestra Dave Burns, Talib Dawud, Kenny Dorham, John Lynch, Elmon Wright (tp) Dizzy Gillespie (tp, vo) Leon Comegys, Charles Greenlea, Alim Moore (tb) Howard Johnson, Sonny Stitt (as) Ray Abrams, Warren Luckey (ts) Leo Parker (bars) Milt Jackson (vib -8/11) Thelonious Monk (p) Ray Brown (b) Kenny Clarke (d) "Spotlight Lounge", Washington, DC, May-June, 1946 1. Our Delight Hi-Fly H 01 2. Ray's Idea - 3. Cool Breeze - 4. One Bass Hit - 5. Groovin' High - 6. Second Balcony Jump - 7. unknown title - 8. 'Round About Midnight - 9. Oo-Bup-Sh' Bam - 10. The Man I Love - 11. Things To Come - * Dizzy Gillespie '46 Live At The Spotlite (Hi-Fly H 01)

"The Duke Pearson Songbook" is now archived.

Otis Nixon Amos Otis Andy Pettite

Paul Simon Les Paul Ron Paul

Probably the best one-sentence summary of Goodis that I've come across yet. I went on a big Goodis kick about 7-8 years back, but good lord, it gets a bit tedious... Storytelling invention & plausibility was not a strength of his, to put it mildly, and the haunted/poetic quality of his vision & prose was ultimately too slim to make up for his weaknesses--at least that was my reaction after reading more than half a dozen of his books. I pretty much quit seeking them out. Anybody else here ever read John Evans/Howard Browne's HALO Paul Pine novels? Set in late-1940s Chicago... also a big fan of Paul Cain's FAST ONE, which almost out-Hammetts Hammett.

The New Yorker on Dick's Library of America volume. (LOA is also doing Kerouac next month--can Burroughs be far behind? Not to mention Iceberg Slim...) I have to admit I have a fetish for LOAs & have a bunch here at the house--but also have a stubborn undergrad romanticist streak that wants to keep Kerouac/Dick/Burroughs etc. in beatup paperback editions. Obviously they're long, long past their sell-by date as "subversive" literature, or what have you... I think I would've voted Pynchon into this blackbound hall of fame first, but he's still alive & perhaps not ready for canonical entombment yet.

No--I'm just saying it needs to be at the heart of whatever's driving somebody to perform/write/create. (And generally is... I mean, who except a fool sets out writing a novel or recording a jazz album in hopes of getting rich?) And in some ways, the landscape today is actually better... has it ever been as easy to record an album/CD, for example? One lamentation I run into these days is that there's too much recorded and released music available, that everybody and his/her brother is putting out a CD, and howthehell is a critic/DJ/fan supposed to sift through all this stuff? I mean, if somebody wants to make a STATEMENT... in the age of blogs, Internet sites, self-produced CDs, etc., ain't no stoppin' them now. Now what kind of response they're going to get is another matter altogether--and again I'd say the world & culture don't owe anybody anything, regardless of real or fake auspices of jazz. Of course, an artist running his/her own label and website doesn't owe anybody anything either! Yeah, it's probably too idealistic and naive to see something like ArtistShare as realizing some of the goals of the October Revolution, or the Jazz Artists Guild (and that infamous assassin Archie Shepp! ), but for me that particular glass is half-full... that to me is the future. LCJO moh be there too... and Monday Michiru too. If you love what you do, there's at least a decent chance that you'll find some way to do it, even if (most likely) it's not your main gig in life. (And hell, I've gotten very lucky, as of the past two years, to be doing something I love doing, but even then it's only a part of what I do... lotsa monotonous, not-so-fun tasks and responsibilities that go along with the "fun" part, and I do a fair amount of the "fun" work/part after hours and/or at home.) Unless you sink into a sea of negativity, which is what I've seen happen to a fair amount of people... or else their priorities change, for whatever reason. The game's over in their minds, and so it is.

But are you saying that lasting Reagan-fallout has not been accompanied by lasting Marsalis-fallout? Or that there has been no lasting fallout from either? If so, that does not compute... No, I'm saying that I can't see comparing historical figures in times so radically different (1961 vs. 1981--or 1967 vs. 1981, for that matter) and roughly presenting an equation that says, "Look at all this good guy did, vs. what this bad guy did or didn't do." You & I may prefer the cats that Trane got signed to Impulse to the Young Lions Wynton got signed to Verve, Palmetto, or whatever... in both cases, I'm not sure they sold all that well (with the exception of Pharoah's "Master Plan"? Others? I need a brushup on my Impulse history...) and it is pretty much a slam-dunk IMO that the guys Trane pushed will have a surer footing in the canon than the Marsalites ever will. But if Trane had lived to 2000 I don't think the situation would be very different, and I guess that's where I do buy into the notion that this unpretty pass was pretty much on the way anyway. (And as much as I love Trane, who's to say he wouldn't have turned into something akin to post-1971 Sonny Rollins? Which is not a bad thing at all, really... lots of post-1971 Sonny I'm very happy to have heard and/or have around.) We're all very passionate about jazz here, almost to the point where I think there's the underlying subtext of "Dammit, this music simply MUST endure. I mean, there should be a law!" But there is no law, and--as we've all said, pointed out, discussed before--the "break" with popular music goes all the way back to the mid-1940s. I guess the question is, how does "jazz" survive? And if part of that equation is as a "popular" music to any degree, then aren't we all the way back to Ralph Ellison, ironically enough? (Ironic in all sorts of ways, in that the Marsalites supposedly venerate Ellison, and yet he argued that jazz needed to retain its dancing element... not something that I generally feel like doing whenever I hear the modern folks under discussion, but maybe that's just my particular feet & anatomical points posterior.) OK, I'll grant that figureheads can matter for the advancement of an ideology. MLK certainly helped the civil-rights movement, and it's hard to imagine Reaganism without Reagan. But they reflected much larger cultural forces at work--good in the case of civil-rights, obviously, and IMO the negative "oh-hell-what-have-we-unleashed, let's-turn-the-clock-back" forces at work in Reaganism. (And the screwed-up failures of Reaganism factor into my skepticism about relying too much on historical parallels, models, etc.) FWIW I think Reagan--even speaking in terms of scale--had a much more significant impact on the culture at large than Wynton's had on jazz culture. Look at Wynton's record sales! (Lack thereof, I mean.) Sure, he makes a million at JALC, but that's a freakin' executive position, a CEO-type JOB he finangled because he's played his game well. I just think you're giving the man too much credit (destructive kind)... maybe we're just arguing over degrees of significance here. If what people lament is the passing of jazz as an exciting, vanguard music that's always evolving, changing, moving forward, then... maybe it was only Miles who ran out of avenues to explore circa 1975, but I think jazz was going to cede that ground anyway. OR turn into something that few here would consider "jazz"--another irony! In fact, isn't that part of what accounts for the rise of Marsalis? The feeling prevalent circa 1980 that jazz was in trouble, that it had gotten too far away from whatever made it "jazz"? Either way, the past is past and the big bands ain't NEVER comin' back. And maybe I am too optimistic that people of a different bent can make a difference, even if it's just on their own small scene. (Our small scene here enjoys what success it has largely because of IU and the IU School of Music... as a local musician said to me, "Bloomington without the IU School of Music would be Bedford." And Bedford probably hasn't had jazz since Hoagy was whistling Bixie. Just about all of the people that have started collectives, helped bring people to town, etc., are here because of the university, and sometimes because of the jazz studies program. I suppose that could be used to validate the attack on the LCJO when it comes to the "institutionalization" of jazz, but for me it only validates my own belief in a popular front.) I'm not quite as crazy about Maria Schneider as others are around here, but I sure do respect what she's done on ArtistShare... I respect what Dave Douglas is doing on GreenLeaf. And I certainly respect you, sir, for your wide-open ears and mind. There are alternatives to the Marsalis model, and there are people under 30 out there grooving to things quite close to "jazz," or to "jazz" itself as it's known around these parts... but sometimes I feel as though they're as despised as the Marsalites. So which way hence? Whatever way I try to help make it. The world doesn't owe me and my love for jazz anything--on the other hand, I feel I owe jazz and the people who have made it (including you) and the people who have shed light on it (you again and others like Larry) and the people who have helped to make it happen and available (Chuck & some others here) all I can do to keep it in the culture of consciousness. But this is where I'M pessimistic--remove WMarsalis from the picture, and I think all that happens is WMarsalis is removed from the picture. I do not think that the cooler cats we all venerate begin to ascend in his place. Again, I think Wynton takes up waaaaaaayyyy too much time and place in people's minds when it comes to what's ailing jazz (commercially speaking, that is).

Jim, I'll reply more later, but just wanted to quickly say that my skepticism about "historical parallels" pertained to then/now comparisons, rather than of-the-same-moment, different-realms-of-society comparisons... we're on the same page about Reagan/Marsalis.

Oh, I hope so! But you shouldn't bail on Max--that's why we have the archives. (And with the new site, I can post the show myself, which means it will be up on Monday morning like clockwork.) I wish I could've done a Max tribute, but NLights is done 6-8 weeks in advance... I've been able to sneak memorial shows into "holes" a couple of times, but it's rare that I can do that.

There are several quotes on record from Trane & others that he was indeed moving towards opening some sort of club, or "school," or what have you, where artists he liked and supported could perform... I don't have Porter's book here with me at home, but iirc Trane was going to finance it with his own money. Not exactly the LCJO, and I think Trane was much more interested in his & others' musical visions than he ever would've been in hobnobbing with corporate sponsors. If one wants a contemporary non-Marsalis parallel (not really a big believer in historical "parallels" anymore, but for the sake of discussion), then look to Ken Vandermark... frequently attacked on jazz internet boards for not being that great of a player/musician, but somebody who seems to have done whatever he could to support other improv players, who spread some of his Macarthur Grant money around, etc... (though I've heard others label him the "free-jazz Marsalis"). People who know the Chicago scene better than I do can surely offer more insight, but the improv musicians I know around B-town have a fair amount of respect & admiration for what KV's done. He helped inspire a local promotional collective, Beyond the Pale, that brought all kinds of amazing musicians here for a few years... g.d., I saw Brotzmann with William Parker and Hamid Drake, the DKV Trio, Gerry Hemingway and John Butcher, Joe McPhee with Henry Grimes, and all sorts of other great artists because of Beyond the Pale and other people here in town who worked hard to bring them here, pay them decently, and secure whatever they could find in the way of local support (free food, places to stay, etc.). There's another promotional collective here that brings somewhat more mainstream artists to town, but because of them I've seen Greg Osby, Dave Douglas, and Dave Young/David Baker (of George Russell Sextet note) all perform (and btw, that $17,000 price tag for Branford... well, there are artists much more beloved and "legit" by this joint's definitions than Branford that have asked for a lot more than that, and hence priced themselves out of this particular market). Hats off to Jim for supporting Monday Michiru's latest project...hats off to any & all of us who buy in-print CDs rather than burning them, who go to live shows, who do anything to provide fiscal and moral sustenance for any modern music that we love. And I don't say that out of self-congratulation or feel-good backpatting, but rather out of despair at all of the self-pitying scapegoating that I tend to hear in some of these discussions. The LCJO is a jazz monolith--so what? It can't stop anybody from going out and playing the music that they love to play. And in the end, that's what has to be at the heart of any good music, writing, or any other kind of art. Gotta make a living? Sure do, and musicians, artists of ALL kinds should be paid more than they are. But gawd almighty, I've read enough "historical" interviews with musicians to know this problem has existed for 40+ YEARS at least... existed before WMarsalis was even born. Maybe LCJO has taken part of the pie away, though it's hard for me to imagine that Coca-Cola or any other big biz would want to sink bucks into most of the new music folks around here like or dig... and anyways, some in the classical world blame jazz for taking money away from THEM. (On the grounds that corporate bigwigs are more likely to support a relatively "modern" and "American" music over the Canon of Dead White European Guys, etc.) I'm not a working musician, so I can't speak with the kind of cred that others can about the impact of LCJO on gigs... but in public radio we face a somewhat similar challenge, in that jazz radio is considered outdated/passe in most markets, and talk/news has been the "wave of the future" for the past 12-13 years. It bums me out, and I want to do whatever I can to help keep jazz part of the programming landscape, including developing a program that will solely feature living/modern artists and new releases, doing what I'm already doing as well as I can, and getting more involved with the current local promotional collective here in town. Again, it's not feel-goodism, it's just simply saying, "OK, this is the landscape, this is reality, what small part can I play in trying to change it?" And I guess if ripping on WM for his cool million is a part of that, then maybe there's some point to all this lather... but why doesn't the revolution simply build its own network for televising? Jazz doesn't need a savior--dead or living. It needs a lot of people playing it, and a lot of people supporting it--listening to it, buying it, paying to see it live, playing it on the radio, writing about it, talking about it, etc. It doesn't need Trotskyist factional infighting, but rather a popular front. It's never going to have widespread commercial popularity, and I'm not even sure it should want or seek it. It just needs viability. And that viability shouldn't be dependent on Coca-Cola, for all KINDS of reasons. So let LCJO have it. Wynton is not the Anti-Christ--portraying him as such (and that's what most of this boils down to, whatever the complex critiques revolving around it) buys into the same paradigm that makes him out to be Louis II or the Duke Redux.

Duke Pearson was a pianist, composer, and arranger who helped craft the sound of many of the Blue Note label’s classic mid-1960s releases. He had a gift for writing quickly and coming up with memorable melodies that could be bright, poignant, or Sidewinder-style funky; several of his compositions, such as “Jeannine” and “Cristo Redentor,” have become jazz standards. “The Duke Pearson Songbook” celebrates what would have been Pearson’s 75th birthday (Aug. 17) with recordings of his music by Grant Green, Joe Henderson, Big John Patton, Donald Byrd, and Pearson himself, including one number by his late-1960s big band. (A future program will explore that band at greater length, featuring interview clips from Pearson himself.) "The Duke Pearson Songbook" airs tonight at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville; it will also air Sunday evening at 10 on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted for online listening Monday morning in the Night Lights archives. You can view Pearson's discography at the Jazz Discography site. Next week: "I Want to Live!"