ghost of miles

Another one off the shelf for a fresh listen, prompted by reading the new Sonny Rollins bio:

I'm thinking that I may just keep the PDF open on my cellphone while I'm reading the book. Doesn't match the permanence and convenience of having the notes in the book itself, but I can understand why they decided not to opt for a 1200-page volume. (Does anybody here besides guilty-as-charged-me happen to have the "extended special edition" of the first entry in Mark Lewisohn's in-progress Tune In Beatles bio? That's a "tome" so massive it had to be split into two books!) So glad your website was credited! More such references to come, I'm sure, given the wealth of jazz history that you pulled together there.

Dan, see pg 24 note 32 at the PDF link above. It includes Sonny’s quote about Percy from your website and your website’s address.

The only indexed mention of France comes in a passage on pg 48 right before my stopping point last night: ”Most of what Sonny learned about music at Franklin came from his peers, many of whom passed through the school. Among them were tenor saxophonist Percy France and drummer Sonny Payne; trumpeter Red DiStefano and pianist Elmo Hope attended earlier at the old Franklin building. Pianist Walter Bishop Jr had been a student there but, by the time Sonny arrived, had dropped out to join Buddy Brown’s band playing taxi dances. ‘I used to go to Gilly(Coggins)’ house after school and get him to teach me stuff,” Sonny recalled of the pianist, who was six years older. “He (didn’t) want to get into the… XYZ’s of music, but I got something from him anyway.’” The link listed on pg 727 doesn’t seem to be operative at the moment, but I found a link to the PDF (which can be downloaded) on Hachette’s website: Saxophone Colossus notes Robin D.G. Kelley’s Monk bio had a lot of interesting material in the footnotes, iirc. Just glanced at the book itself and Kelley’s notes take up exactly 100 pages. EDIT: Holy crap, I just looked at the PDF of Levy’s notes, and they run to 414 pages. 😯 That’s a whole other book!

It’s a good one! Beginning to revisit this landmark set, inspired by reading Aidan Levy’s new Rollins biography:

30 pages in and greatly enjoying it so far. I love Sonny’s expressions of admiration for Louis Jordan (pg 22-23), and there’s a hilarious story about Sonny interrupting a lengthy dinnertime grace. Also a sort of theatrical/cosmic screenplay description from Sonny of why and how he fell in love with the saxophone. For such a big book Levy narrates and writes with a brisk economical pace—he nicely evokes the world and culture of early-20th-century Harlem that shaped Sonny. A bit of a bummer that the footnotes can only be accessed online (since I’m the kind of nerdy reader who goes down footnote rabbit-holes), but no quibble if that move allowed Levy to keep more of the story in the book… even without them this thing’s a *tome*, as which board member was it who loved to say? Anyway, it’s engaging me much the same way Kelley’s Monk bio did a few years back.

Starting:

Ordered!

A kinetic version of “Make A List” on here, as well as a rare live performance of “Winter Moon”:

We re-aired Kind Of Two: Miles Davis And Bill Evans this past week, and it remains archived for online listening.

Only saw a few episodes as a kid, but I’m greatly enjoying all of the on-location early-1970s San Francisco shots and Karl Malden and Michael Douglas’ chemistry:

👍 👍 A number of West Coast jazz musicians playing on this one, as was so often the case for TV show and film scores in the 1960s and 70s:

DeGrom to the Rangers, sayeth ESPN:

Deluxe reissue of the Pretenders’ debut album:

Enthusiastic co-sign.

Impulsively Ellington, a nicely-done Ellington Impulse tribute compilation put together in 1999 for his centennial. Came across a cheap used copy at my local record store this afternoon and picked it up, partly for the handful of tracks I didn’t already have, and partly because I’ve grown to really enjoy well-curated anthologies like this one:

I dig the one that Johnny Hodges turned in 1967!

Here's a direct link to the article that Joe mentions: Jazz Review April 1959 (just click on the PDF link on the right-hand side) I'll add big thumbs up for both Amy Albany's memoir and its film adaptation.

It’s a promo copy sent out in advance.

Out tomorrow: Holy Ghost Amazon link