ghost of miles

...not only happy but the most humble man you may meet. For everything he's gone through and to come out of it the way he has is inspiring. I have had several conversations with Henry over the past couple years, the guy is a gentle soul....more should be like him. Despite all that has happened to Henry over the past few decades, you would never know it to speak with him....and his music is amazing!!! m~ My thanks as well, Mark, for the new photos, and, as always, for the day we spent with Henry last autumn. Everything you say about him is true. The greatest comeback story in the history of jazz? Quite possibly.

Posting late as I was away from a computer yesterday--tonight on Blue Lake: This week on Night Lights it’s “Jazz Goes Disney.” Music has been an important part of the Disney formula ever since the studio began making films in the late 1920s, and the enormous success of the so-called “Magic Kingdom” has pushed many of its movie songs to the forefront of popular culture. Inevitably jazz artists were drawn to the Disney canon, and on this program we’ll hear recordings from Betty Carter, Bill Evans, Louis Prima, Peggy Lee, Sonny Rollins, and Sun Ra, among others. “Jazz Goes Disney” airs Sunday evening at 10 p.m. EST on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Red Trane"

This week on Afterglow it’s “Nancy Wilson: Something Old, Something New.” Nancy Wilson, the host of NPR’s Jazz Profiles, has been a mainstay on the jazz vocal scene ever since her breakthrough 1961 album with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. We’ll feature a set of music from her new CD Turned to Blue, as well as selections from new reissues of two classic 1960s Capitol LPs, Broadway My Way and Hollywood My Way. Hoagy Carmichael, Sheila Jordan, Art Pepper, Helen Merrill, and the Modern Jazz Quartet are some of the other artists we’ll hear this week on Afterglow, airing at 10:05 p.m. EST tonight on WFIU and at 10 p.m. Central Time Saturday evening on WNIN-Evansville. The show will be posted Monday afternoon in the Afterglow archives. Next week: "Lee Wiley: West of the Moon."

Where would you like them to go? North Dakota works for me. I hear Fargo needs a minor league team. Hey JP, I passed Comiskular Park the other day on my way through Chi-town and gave it a wave on your behalf.

Let the better times roll! (Well, not for your beloved Bosox... but otherwise... )

Very long post from Doug Ramsey's blog about the concert.

Anybody mention Irene Kral's 1963 BETTER THAN ANYTHING, with Junior Mance on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Mickey Roker on drums?

SOAW, if you dig the Teri T. that Larry recommends--and it's indeed a fine record--seek out her two larger-ensemble records from the early 1960s, SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT and OPEN HIGHWAY. Not as strong as DEVIL, but I liked her singing so much that I picked up the other dates as well. Back to small-group dates: Betty Roche's Bethlehem and two Prestige dates Peggy Lee's late-1940s sides with Dave Barbour (available elsewhere besides the Mosaic?) Anita O'Day, ANITA SINGS THE MOST Sarah Vaughan, LIVE IN JAPAN ...I'll try to post others as I think of them.

"Norman Granz's Jazz Scene" is now archived.

Thanks for the recs. I started THE DROWNING POOL this afternoon; it's an earlier Archer, I take it (1950?) and seems a bit under the spell of Marlowe/Chandler at times, but I'm still really enjoying it.

Sounds like a great show, birdmonk! Are you Mr. Feldman, by any chance? I notice he recently relocated from Denver... which matches your Feb. '04 origin. Either way, keep us posted--I'll tune in for sure.

E-mail sent re: JJ at Cafe Bohemia and Julie London.

Is this a new book? I thought I had all of Hammett. (Includng a book of comic strips he wrote.) Yes--I have that SECRET AGENT X-9 book as well. LOST STORIES came out just last year; I stumbled across it at our local Borders last week. It's not "complete," as far as I can tell; it doesn't contain the very last Continental Op story, "Death and Company" (which I've been searching for for some time), or several early 1930s stories I still can't find ("On the Way," "Albert Pastor at Home," and "His Brother's Keeper"). It does have "Night Shade" and "This Little Pig," plus a # of 1920s stories I've never read, so I bought it. The book is rather padded with biographical commentary.

Ghost, you and I appear to have similar reading interests. I've been reading a ton of Hammet, Raymond Chandler etc this summer. I can hardly get enough of it! Lately, I've been reading Ross MacDonald (the Lew Archer stuff). I just finished the Galton Case. Have you read Paul Elie's biography of Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor? Really enjoyable and interesting to see the intersections among those great lives. No, I haven't, but that sounds really good--I'll take a look for it when I go down to Caveat Emptor today, coincidentally enough to look for some Ross MacDonald! This a.m. I was reading Lorrie Moore's review of a new Eudora Welty bio in the new NY Review of Books... she mentioned Welty's liking for MacDonald (real name Ken Millar), which got me interested in reading him again. I have two paperbacks, THE DROWNING POOL and FIND A VICTIM--neither of which I've read yet--but the other day I'd come across a quote from a 1953 novel of MacDonald's... so I'm going to go downtown and see if I can find it. In the meantime, Moore's review drove me to start reading Welty's THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER--more of a novella than a novel, so I think I might be able to get through all of it today.

Man, I've been a bit of a drunk with this sale--just snagged the Dave Douglas CD/DVD KEYSTONE and the 6-CD Billie Holiday master takes on Verve set, for a grand total of 36 bucks. No more!

Wang notches #17, the Yanks' magic # is 13, and with the Tigers' loss tonight, NY is right on their heels for homefield advantage in the playoffs. Ryan Howard went 2-2 with four walks--two of 'em intentional. Anybody see the remarks from Maris' family, saying Howard should get the HR record if he surpasses 61?

Ditto. This set, like the "Birks Works" discussed elsewhere comes from what is IMHO a sort of golden age of reissues at what used to be PolyGram, in the mid-90s and under Richard Seidel. They did some excellent reissues, and more importantly, they *stuffed* CDs, like the 2 LPs in 1 CD (Gloomy Sunday/How to succeed...), 3 LPs in 2 CDs (like a couple of Ben Webster sets) or even 4 LPs in 2 CDs (the Lee Konitz/Jimmy Giuffre set). F A golden age indeed. Michael Lang, Ben Young, and Peter Pullman were some of the other folks involved w/the Polygram reissue program at the time. Re: The Jazz Scene, the bonus material on disc 2 is really good as well. I bought this set in late 1994, shortly after it came out, when I was in the first throes of my love affair with jazz, and TJS served as my introduction to Ralph Burns, George Handy, and Machito. "Norman Granz's Jazz Scene" up for broadcast in about five minutes on WNIN-Evansville, and again in about an hour and five minutes on WFIU.

Another mention of the NYC benefit concert:

Dashiell Hammett, LOST STORIES. Also rereading parts of Michael Mott's THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS OF THOMAS MERTON.

This week on Night Lights it’s “Norman Granz’s Jazz Scene.” Jazz impresario Norman Granz, who started the popular Jazz at the Philharmonic concert tour series in the 1940s as well as the record label that came to be known as Verve, also produced a lavish package of jazz recordings that was somewhat akin to an early box-set: The Jazz Scene, a folio packet of six 78 records with an accompanying set of photographs of some of the top jazz artists of the day and liner notes for each musical selection. In his introductory note Granz wrote, “This is our attempt to present today’s jazz scene in terms of the visual, the written word, and the auditory,” and emphasized that he’d given the set’s musicians complete artistic freedom. Among those appearing in the collection were Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, pianist and arranger Ralph Burns, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Latin jazz bandleader Machito. The set was issued in a limited edition of 5,000 copies and sold for a cool $25 (yes, that’s 1949 dollars). “Norman Granz’s Jazz Scene” airs Saturday, September 9 at 11 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It will be posted Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Jazz Goes Disney."

Thanks much for the update. I was using the AAJ page today & noticed that (unlike Jazzmatazz) it apparently has no backtracking feature... one of the great things about Jazzmatazz has been that you can go back and see what you might have missed in previous months. Hope Alan gets the JMT update section up again & running! Hell, I'd donate a few bucks for the cause; like Organissimo, it's certainly worth it.

This week on Afterglow we’ll feature music from a new and comprehensive collection of Nat King Cole’s late-1950s Capitol recordings, including Cole’s collaborations with arrangers such as Billy May, Nelson Riddle, and Gordon Jenkins, as well as two sides made with members of the Count Basie Orchestra. This was a prolific and rewarding period for Cole—in 1958 alone he produced seven albums. You can also hear some early 1960s Nat King Cole radio broadcasts on the March 17, 2006 program in the Afterglow archives and Cole’s music for the 1958 movie St. Louis Blues on this Night Lights program. In the first hour of the show we’ll also hear from Artie Shaw and Red Garland with John Coltrane, and we’ll have a set of music from the Jones (Norah, Thad, Rickie Lee, and Carmell) in addition to a set of 1960s movie themes performed by Chet Baker, Louis Armstrong, and Lee Morgan. “Stardust: Nat King Cole on Capitol, 1955-59” airs Friday, September 8 at 10:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 10 p.m. Central Time Saturday evening on WNIN-Evansville. Next week: "Nancy Wilson: Something Old, Something New."

Thanks much, Mr. A. Wanted to offer special thanks as well to David Frasier, a great reference librarian who works at IU, and author of several encyclopedic "tomes" (sorry, best word for what they are--apologies to memories of Hardbop) on sordid homicide/suicide-related topics (in John Waters' 2004 movie A DIRTY SHAME, a character is seen holding aloft a copy of David's book, SUICIDE IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY--also part of the trailer, no less... talk about great free/targeted advertising!). Special thanks also to Stereojack.

Just went back and bit on that Brubeck box--couldn't resist at that price.

Just nabbed the Granz Jam Sessions box for $25 total--free shipping and handling and 2/3 off.