ghost of miles

Holy crap! Guy The true mark of the beast!

I don't think my poor, suffering budget can take an autumn '06 release for the 1960-64 box. Have finally been delving into this at length over the past two days, and the sound is wonderful--as is the music, which for many will go without saying. I'm not normally that crazy about Gordon Jenkins as an arranger, but it's hard to imagine anyone else doing the LOVE IS THE THING material with Nat as effectively as he did. Not too keen on the "gospel" album, but man, what a set! My only other criticism is the thematic nature of Will Friedwald's accompanying book. It doesn't really follow the sessions sequentially, and so consequently you're jumping back and forth, trying to find the sections that accompany the music to which you're listening (might've been helpful if they had simply put, under the sections w/titles like "The Gordon Jenkins albums," a subtitle indicating "Disc 5 #1-12, disc 7 #10-24," or something similar). Relatively small quibble, though. If you're a Cole fan of any passion, you should definitely save your pennies for this box. A lot of obscure tracks here that I've never heard before, and some of them pretty good, too. (Johnny Green's "Song of Raintree County" for starters.)

Yes, JDS is still alive. Back in 1997 there was a big flurry of news because "Hapworth" was going to come out in book form, published by a small press (Orchises). Michiko Kakutani ripped the story a new one in the NY Times' arts section, and it's rumored that Salinger was so upset that he postponed and eventually killed the book publication. I'm not sure he would've followed through anyway; at times I suspect a certain coyness in his reclusive fame, somewhat similar to a child who cries, "Leave me alone, leave me alone!" and then, when ultimately left alone, ends up doing something to bring attention back to him. (In fact, there's a passage in "Zooey" that expresses a very similar sentiment--when Zooey's mother finally leaves the bathroom.) Bertrand's right concerning the film history (and I always think of JDS whenever I listen to Bill Evans do "My Foolish Heart" on the Village Vanguard recordings), although I think a bizarre & unauthorized version of Franny & Zooey was filmed several years ago in Iran, of all places.

Claude or Peter Pullman would probably be the best source to talk to re: this Paudras story. If such recordings ever existed, I'm sure they're lost. Powell's daughter, Celia, is still alive (teaching somewhere in the South, I think) and might know what happened to her grandfather's possessions after he died. Re: Paudras, the proverbial grain of salt is always recommended.

Guess he showed after all.

Did he show up for the show?

Like many a reader before me, I got badly hooked on J.D. Salinger's writing when I was a teenager. Every so often I still like to go back and revisit the four published books and some of the uncollected stories... I don't hold out any great hope for what might be published posthumously, but I'll probably read whatever comes out. I'd be especially curious to see some of the unpublished stories from the 1948-53 period, as well as any more installments concerning the Glass family (I even like "Hapworth 16, 1924," which many consider all but unreadable). For the last year or so I've occasionally perused the following site, which may be of interest to any fellow Salinger devotees: Dead Caulfields I find it strange that no theorists or critics (that I'm aware of, anyway) have made an argument for Salinger as one of the pioneering metafictionists, on the basis of "Seymour: an Introduction." To me, that story seems right in line with what John Barth and others were doing, or starting to do, in the late 1950s.

Chuck, I went on an Algren kick a couple of months ago (guess my avatar gives that away, sort of) and read that Algren's creative-writing class at Iowa was a bit of a disappointment... that all he did was talk about Capote's In Cold Blood over and over (this while it was coming out in the New Yorker, before it got published in book form). True story? Algren's Nonconformity is a hell of a read and maybe more relevant today than ever.

Sorry--should've posted a link to the Hewitt program, as we archived the Baker/Russell for this past week. Coming up this week: "It Came From Texas."

Glad you liked it! I'm still grateful to Jim Sangrey for bringing Hewitt to my attention through his Hewitt thread here at Organissimo. There'll be more Hewitt coming out from Smalls Records in the future.

Thanks for mentioning this, Bol--I didn't realize Haynes had a new one out.

You're not. Once upon a time, though (at least at the Borders where I was a music dpt. manager, and I'm pretty sure it was like this at other stores), we were allowed to do one-stop special orders about once a week, and we frequently stocked up on coming-to-town titles. However, my understanding is that that ability to special-order through one-stops was curtailed and/or eliminated several years ago.

Damn! I've been wanting to do a FOCUS/MICKEY ONE Night Lights for quite awhile... now I'd feel like I was simply lifting from the BBC. (Didn't realize that the MICKEY ONE cd was OOP; I picked it up a few years ago.) I'll try to tune in for this.

Kalo, I just got that book a couple weeks ago--ordered it after my wife & I saw a segment related to Houdini on a PBS program. Looks to be a good read.

Glad you're finding it compelling, Paul. I really do hope Haslett doesn't abandon fiction completely for the law. I'm still making my way through AMONG THE DEAD CITIES, a philosophical inquiry into the Allied bombing of population centers during WWII. Just checked out a Peter Lorre biography, THE LOST ONE, and am hoping to spend some time with it this weekend.

In the summer of 1959 a 27-year-old David Baker and several bandmates from Indianapolis attended the Lenox School of Music in Lenox, Massachusetts. There they met George Russell, a jazz composer and theorist in his mid-30s who had first gained renown in the late 1940s for his compositions "Cubana-Be, Cubana-Bop" and "A Bird in Igor's Yard," and who had published a book about his progressive jazz ideas and theories called The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. Russell had recorded several highly noteworthy albums in the 1950s, including Jazz Workshop and New York, New York, and was looking to form his own small group. Baker and his colleagues were young, energetic, and ready to embrace new musical modes of thinking, despite their roots in bebop. In the next year and a half, after intensive rehearsals with Russell in Indianapolis, the George Russell Sextet--comprising Russell, bassist Chuck Israels, and the nucleus of David Baker's Indianapolis group--Baker on trombone, David Young on tenor sax, Al Kiger on trumpet, and Joe Hunt on drums--played a well-received three-week gig at New York's Five Spot club, toured the Midwest, and recorded three albums. The results--At the Five Spot, Stratusphunk, and the rarely-heard Kansas City--can be heard on this edition of Night Lights, which will be broadcast Saturday, August 12 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU; because it has been aired before, you can hear it now by clicking on When Russell Met Baker. (Note to southern & central Indiana listeners; the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, under the direction of David Baker, will be performing at the Musical Arts Center in Bloomington this Saturday evening at 8. More information here.

Thanks for the info, ghost. I've been curious about the Mr. Moto films for years, not least because the title character is played by a young Peter Lorre. Provided the name for a great surf-instrumental, too. My wife & I have watched the first two films over the past couple of nights & enjoyed them very much. Don't expect great plots, but there's some good dialogue for Moto, and the films look wonderful (the cinematography in THANK YOU, MR. MOTO is indeed impressive, and I can see how it influenced CITIZEN KANE). Also, Peter Lorre is fantastic in the title role... I went to the IU library this afternoon and checked out the 2005 Lorre bio, THE LOST ONE, and look forward to reading it. I have to think that these movies influenced the Indiana Jones series... and that they may have also influenced, in a weird way, Peter Sellers' Inspector Closeau (accent, use of disguises, etc.).

Just noticed 9-10 guests all registering simultaneously when I looked at the "Last Click" field.

Half the Perfect World, due out Sept. 12.

Get the Fats Savoy material, though it's been spread over several CDs. Nice Fats site here.

Support links fixed!

Don't have much of Jordan as a leader--just the aforementioned FLIGHT, plus the soundtrack to LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES and that title on Vogue that's split between him and Bud Powell. He was a player, though, who always jumped out at me whenever I was listening to something that included him on piano, one of those musicians who makes you go, "Oh, that's _______!" Man, the generation that came of age in the 1940s is nearly all gone.

Much thanks to the board member who PM'd me. I think we had a thread about this album at one time.

I've sent a message to our webmaster and operations person. In the meantime, you should still be able to access the "Support" page through the link at the top of the archives page. Obviously we are in dire need of support!