ghost of miles

These spammers just keep growing bolder...

My bad... so to speak.

Yeah... not exactly sure what you and I were "disagreeing" about.... Brian Wilson? I simply meant to say that their point about "Surrey"--that it's supposedly a ridiculous, irrelevant song because it's about a surrey--was misguided. It's a vehicle song, in more ways than one (theatrical as well as automobile), and therefore not absurd on the grounds that they suggest it is--unless one is capable of understanding songs/stories that contain only one's own contemporary contexts/details/etc. (Hmm... isn't Bowie's "Space Odyssey" a "car song" as well? Oh man, I gotta get back to work!)

But that's my basic point--it's a car song. I think the Bad Plus (wrongly) hold it up for ridicule because nobody--well, not too many folk, anyway--are likely to be driving a surrey these days, with or without a fringe on top. In that regard it's NOT particularly silly... and as you said, it's serving a purpose in a musical, which is indeed another kind of ballgame to some extent. And right, songs ultimately tell stories... it's just that I hate car-song stories! But that's just me... obviously tons of people love 'em, and I don't wanna deny anybody's right to aesthetic happiness, pleasure, or general love of life.

I agree with the spirit of the piece and a number of its points (one reason why I posted it, in addition to being interested in how Organissimo folk would view it), but the slam on "Surrey's" lyrics seems a bit misplaced. It's basically a standard, if somewhat more clever, "baby I got wheels!" tune in that regard, the kind of thing the Beach Boys later ran into the ground in the early/mid-1960s, with far worse words IMO, and a theme that's generated tons of crapola rock songs. (OK, I'm prejudiced... I long ago got sick of the Beach Boys and have never been a fan of my-little-409-or-Corvette-or-what-have-you musical vehicles, so to speak.) And Bowie's never written silly, all-but-meaningless lyrics? But yeah, right on to artists not turning their backs on their experiences and/or times. I mean, even though that's one reason why I don't much like Brian Wilson--he wrote about cars, girls, and being young in California in the early 1960s, all through the filter of being a lonely, "sensitive," not-loved-enough white boy. That's a viewpoint I found compelling when I was, ah, feeling the same way about myself ( ) 20+ years ago, but not now. But at least he wasn't trying to be Rudy Vallee or Bing Crosby...or playing their songbook.

Something I wrote a few years back for Nuvo, the alt-weekly in Indianapolis, about the mid-20th century Indiana Avenue jazz scene, with photos and links added...Part 1 is now posted on the Night Lights website.

Dan, you're a swell guy, an online friend, and a real mensch... and yer boys have still probably got a lock on the division... but I gotta say I'm enjoying seein' 'em sweat to get there! I still don't think NY will catch the Bosox, but I'm starting to feel more confident about the wild-card. The Yanks are playing so well right now that I'm a bit worried about a possible crash-and-burn in the playoffs again.

I got to meet Clifford for the first time on Sunday--very cool guy... had a great chat with him and David Williams (Indiana Avenue archivist who seems to have just about every LP and 45 ever put down by a Naptown artist) Keep me posted on the Owl business, sheldonm. Would love to spin anything that David Y. might wax for them (or anybody else, for that matter).

You are a depraved and sick man. ...actually, what I really want to see in the encore is a loose 'n large collective jam of Led Zep, the Pistols, Henley/Frey, and Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper with Paul McCartney, Mick Jones, Chuck Mangione, Bob Dylan and Jerry Lee Lewis doing an on-the-spot ditty, "All You Need Is a Whole Lotta Lovin' Anarchy Goin' On In the U.S.A." Oh, and half the gate going to a worthy cause of some sort.

But what about "Roadrunner"?

Hey, as Paul McCartney and Wings once said, all you need is love!

... and during the encores they'll be joined by special guests Don Henley and Glenn Frey!

God love 'em... punk rock will never die! Sex Pistols reuniting to commemorate 30th anniversary of NEVER MIND...

Just the Facts

Sorry to hear that too, Mark. 23rd and Illinois still rough, I guess... back around 1990 my girlfriend was living at 21st and Talbott, and I lived at 14th and Alabama... both much safer now than then. I hardly even recognize 14th and Alabama when I drive that block these days, but several people got murdered within 1-2 blocks while I was living there. Saw Mel with David Young this past Sunday afternoon at Tutto Bene and it was a very good gig--David Young still has so much weight in his tone.

"The Connection" is now archived for online listening. Video of John Coltrane in 1962 doing "I Want to Talk About You" posted for the upcoming Trane '57 program.

Good road trip for the Yanks! They damn near gave away tonight's game after Jeter finally staked them to a lead, but managed to hold on... and though there's no way they'll win the division, they did at least end up taking the season series from the Bosox. Good to come into Fenway this late in the year and take two of three--and they need every win they're getting, what with Detroit right on their heels for the wildcard. Didn't realize that this was the first time Clemens and Schilling had squared off since Game 7 of the 2001 WS.

The Connection was a groundbreaking 1959 off-Broadway play from New York City’s Living Theater group, written by Jack Gelber, that cast jazz musicians as heroin addicts waiting for a score. Artists that passed through the play included pianist Freddie Redd (who composed the original score), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, and pianist Cecil Taylor. The Connection was made into a 1961 movie directed by Shirley Clarke, who would go on to film the adaptation of Warren Miller’s controversial Harlem-set novel The Cool World. A West Coast production was also staged in Los Angeles, with different music written by cast member Dexter Gordon. The show won several Obies and ran for more than 700 performances; eventually it was presented in London, where its raw immediacy and demolition of the normal boundaries between audience and cast provoked a near-riot. We’ll hear music from four different versions of The Connection’s soundtrack–the Blue Note album released under Freddie Redd’s name, the Felsted record on which Tina Brooks replaced Jackie McLean and trumpeter Howard McGhee was added to the line-up; baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne and pianist Kenny Drew’s rarely-heard 1962 score; Dexter Gordon’s Blue Note recordings of two of the pieces he wrote for the Los Angeles production; and a performance of one of Redd’s compositions by a French group led by Daniel Humair as well (the show was staged in Paris in the early 1960s). We’ll also hear dialogue from the 1961 movie version, which included original cast members Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean. Though parts of The Connection may now sound dated, it remains a cultural landmark of both early-1960s jazz and theater–a moment when the jazz world found itself in the service of avant-garde drama. There's more, including video from the movie of McLean and Redd performing "Who Killed Cock Robin?" on the program page for the show on the new Night Lights website. The Connection: The Living Theater and Hardbop Jazz airs tonight at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville, and at 10 p.m. EST Sunday evening on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted for online listening Monday morning in the Night Lights archives. (Note: this is a re-recording of a previous program, with extra music added.) Next week: "Trane '57."

Best wishes to you, Dan... not to yer team, of course.

Aloc started a separate thread for Mark Singer's New Yorker article, which I just read in the print edition; thought I'd link to it here as well.

I'm interviewing Melvin tomorrow (Thursday) by telephone...he's playing here in Bloomington on Sunday for a Jazz From Bloomington benefit. Hoping to interview him at greater length in the coming month for another project.

He is--he's back stateside, out of the Marines, and I believe now in college.

The board in general hasn't seemed quite as busy to me for the past several months, but that's purely anecdotal, haphazard observation. Is DrJ still in the house?

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

"The Incomplete Sonny Berman" is now archived, and information for next week's show, The Connection, is up, including video from the movie version featuring Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean.