ghost of miles

Potential title for a Davis retrospective?

Up for the last week/home stretch. Although we got off to a great start, we've slowed significantly & are in need of more support in order to make our goal by the end of Labor Day Monday. A little over two years ago, our station manager took a gamble and decided to let me have a late-night, not-so-prime-piece-of-radio-real-estate when Worldwide Jazz lost its corporate sponsorship and was taken off the air. Part of her decision was based on her belief that this program, as I described it, might translate into something that--in addition to possibly ending up on other stations--could be promoted over the Internet as well. For the past year & a half we've gotten a fair amount of very positive e-mail from listeners around the world who enjoy hearing Night Lights programs, and nearly all of them are listening to the program via the archives. In order to maintain those archives, we need to pay a webmaster. In order to justify the hours the station lets me spend on the program, we need to maintain listener support. If you're somebody who's enjoyed listening to the program at all--or who's been able to decide whether or not to buy a CD or a boxed-set based on a certain show you've heard--then please consider supporting Night Lights. Up this week: show #100!

This one should be available on stealth release by Wednesday direct from CD Baby. It has a couple of the tracks featured on David Brent Johnson's (aka Ghost) program. David, I will be sending this to you. It has remastered versions of those tracks that are quite a bit better than the draft masters I gave you for your progam. Hey, great news, Luke--I'll look forward to hearing & playing those remastered tracks... special thanks (it should go without saying) to you as well for all of the help you provided for the original show.

Yes--picked that one up, and it's fantastic. I'll probably pick up the Aretha at some point as well; couldn't bring myself to shell out the big $$$ for the Rhino Handmade box.

Very nice article on Bennie by new Organissimo member and Detroit Free Press writer Mark Stryker here.

Mark wrote the excellent article on Jackie McLean which was posted here back in April. If you follow the link that I'm posting at the bottom of this piece, you can hear audio clips from the interview: Article with audio links

Two really good musicians named Rahsaan and Roland Barber played for several years here in Bloomington while they were attending the IU School of Music; they're twin brothers, and they were indeed named after Mr. Kirk. (I believe either they or their mother actually met Kirk's widow and told her the story of their being named after RRK.) Ironically enough, Bloomington is where Kirk died after performing his final concert, where he said something along the lines of, "At midnight someone will go, but another will come along to take his place."

Best to you, NOF!

This program will re-air tonight on Michigan's Blue Lake Public Radio. It is already archived under the June 25, 2005 listing. Next week: "I Want to Live!"

Not too keen on his later work either, but have just begun to discover his earlier work in the past year or so, and rue that I never got the Mosaic set. Re: band leaders, one could make the argument that Gerald Wilson is pretty close to the "great" category. Or possibly even in it.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG & HIS FRIENDS, his next-to-last album. BMG/Bluebird reissued it on CD a couple of years ago.

I'll be doing a short, end-of-the-summer tribute to both Lee and Syd Barrett from 4 to 4:30 tomorrow while I'm sitting in for Joe. Will include an interesting story some here probably already know about Burt Bacharach, Love, and "Interstellar Overdrive."

Lazaro, do you or the station have the Kenton CD City of Glass? It's on there. (As is just about all of Graettinger's work for Kenton.)

Our weekday afternoon jazz DJ, Joe Bourne, is getting ready right now to play some Maynard Ferguson music--from 3:30 to 4 EST and 4:30-4:55 EST (he has a prescheduled guest from 4 to 4:30). You can listen here.

A 15-year-old, wasn't it? Pitched for the Reds (were they still the Red Legs then?)... Joe Nuxhall, I think.

You mean BLUES FOR A REASON on Criss Cross--right?

I'll see what I can do--I did manage to shoehorn a bit of Herschel Evans into "It Came From Texas." Still, it could be "Twelve Tenacious Texas Tenors" or "Thirteen Tenacious Texas Tenors." I just don't want to end up doing any medleys!

I'm obviously a bit prejudiced in the matter, but even given that, I still think NPR is the best source for news. (At least, when they're not doing one of their "fluffy feature" bits--more common on the weekend broadcasts, in general.)

No, I didn't know! Michael, of course, went on to WBGO & was replaced by another Bourne--Joe, whom I sometimes sit in for. And Dick Bishop turned me on to the Gibbs-Sales connection when I was working on a program about musical tributes to jazz DJs. I've inherited Afterglow from him... I always say it's like trying to play centerfield for the Yanks in the wake of DiMaggio and Mantle around that joint!

Terry Gibbs did a tribute to Sales called "Soupy's On." Good to see you here, Mark--I really enjoyed your article on Jackie McLean earlier this year.

I knew that I should've bought this book a few months ago! It's going on my Christmas wish list... if anybody here has the book, would it be possible to check on a Betty Roche question for me? I'm trying to determine when she joined Ellington around the end of 1942... some sources credit the January 1943 Carnegie Hall concert as her debut date with Ellington, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Does DAY BY DAY mention her appearing at any gigs with Ellington in December 1942? (Apparently the month that she joined the band.) Carnegie Hall was Jan. 23, 1943... I'm thinking she surely had performed with Duke before then. Thanks much in advance!

Hmmm... $217 at Deep Discount, even w/the free shipping. Unless CDWolf really sticks it to you on the postage, he's probably your best bet.

Hear, hear! For me, the occasional DVD as well.

I hear ya & feel your pain, Joe... rarely, if ever, watch TV these days, but damn if I don't catch myself firing up the computer every several hours to see what I might've "missed." ( )