ghost of miles

charlesp More on LULLABLUEBYE here, including a couple of posts from Mr. Kimbrough himself. Hope that new trio release is still on schedule for this fall--very much looking forward to it.

Double the birthday pleasure!!

Kinuta, Some earlier discussion here. To a large extent it inspired the show--Late's suggestion plus garthsj's term. There are a lot of talented, interesting artists like Charles from the 1945-1990 era (the era that Night Lights covers, for the most part) that seem to have gone almost unnoticed. Playing their music is one of the reasons why I started the show--trying to be a Mosaic-like radio program, I guess, in some ways. The article by Noal Cohen (Mike Fitzgerald's co-author on the Gigi Gryce biography) is well worth checking out.

This week on Night Lights it's Teddy Charles: The Early Avant-Garde (with thanks to garthsj and Late). In the early 1950s vibraphonist Teddy Charles made a series of records with Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, and others, that still escape easy definition today--were they Third Stream? Were they West Coast? Were they cool jazz? We'll hear selections from his albums New Directions and Collaboration: West, as well as his 1956 Atlantic LP The Tentet, and appearances as a sideman with Wardell Gray and Miles Davis. For more information about Teddy Charles, see Noal Cohen's Coda article. The program airs Saturday night at 11:05 p.m. (9:05 California time, 12:05 NYC time) on WFIU; you can listen live, or wait until Monday afternoon, when the program will be posted in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Late Lee." The late & last recordings of Lee Morgan.

Is that a new or recent book, Randy? I'm interested in Shepherd esp. because of his Hoosier roots.

Chuck, that's great news! I'd bet on the Arts section rather than the magazine... great exposure for the CD. I'll be sure to pick up a copy that Sunday (esp. now that I have weekends off, for the first time in my adult working life... I fully intend to sit around drinking coffee, listening to jazz, perusing books and the paper, and doing my blessed American-male best to avoid house or yard work of any kind).

uhhh, have you actually heard it?? It's nothing compared to America's!! ← I sure have... "O Canada," right? Heard it whenever I watched a baseball game played in Montreal or Toronto. Much preferable to Francis Scott Key's bombast. Look, if we'd gone with "America the Beautiful," I'd agree with you... that's a lovely tune that I wish were our national anthem.

Good for Canada! You've got a better national anthem, too.

Somebody really needs to write this CD up--the NY Times, for instance, and certainly the jazz media. Bracket it with the Monk/Coltrane and you've got two major finds coming out within months of each other.

I'll try to check it out--thanks for the rec.

I worked her version of "I'll Look Around" into Afterglow, our weekly ballads-and-American-popular-song program, a couple of weeks ago, and followed it with Gerry Mulligan's "If I Fell" off the infamous IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM... seemed to work quite well.

Yes. Currently playing: "In What Direction Are You Headed?" from THE LAST SESSION.

Is it just me, or do some of the instrumental passages from DANCE SESSION (such as the trumpets on "Bubbles") sound way back in the mix? Was that deliberate?

Friend of mine (who's a Cardinals fan) observed at breakfast this a.m. that the AL East is the most interesting race in baseball this year--that the Yanks, Bosox, and Orioles all have significant flaws/problems that will prevent one from pulling away from the others.

Got this in an e-mail--posted elsewhere? This one's on Thursday night...

The Jack Purvis set is very good... I also like the Ben Pollacks.

Pre-order placed!

Jim, thanks much for this thread, and Luke, thanks for your thoughts and updates. I'm ordering both Hewitts today and will order the quintet date when it comes out this fall... one more reason to love the autumn.

Listening to this set all the way through for the first time, as I'm doing a show on it later this week, and man, does the NT band grow on me. When I first got into jazz, it was partly through the Decca Basie OT set--and for a long time, I found the 1950s unit too codified by contrast. Don't know if it's because I'm older or have just listened a lot more, but I have much more appreciation for the musicianship and arrangements on these NT records. Somehow this band sounds smooth (in the best sense of the word) and dynamic at the same time, a nice trick if you can do it. And Chris A.'s liner notes are a wonderful mix of description and anecdote; I particularly enjoyed his speculation about Basie's including the quote from "Blues in the Night" on the same day that a story appeared about his wife finding "a delicate letter" from a band singer in Basie's coat. Interesting, too, that Basie was supposed to be one of the first State Dpt. tour acts. Wonder why that didn't come off? I'll have to revisit SATCHMO BLOWS UP THE WORLD to see if that's discussed.

I've picked up a couple of the Tolliver Strata East CDs used from a fellow board member--I'll be all over this Select the day that it comes out. Wow, between this and the Hill set in the spring... it's been a very good year!

This program is now archived.

As a kid I was a huge fan of Carl Barks, particularly the Uncle Scrooge and Gyro Gearloose comics. My father-in-law has the complete Barks set and has said that he's going to pass them along to me at some point. As an adult I've mostly followed Clowes. Anybody here read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? A real love-letter to the 1940s era of comic books.

This week on Night Lights it's "For Lady: Early Tribute LPs to Billie Holiday." Although there had been tribute LPs to other artists before Billie Holiday--Bix Beiderbecke and Fats Waller among them--the concept really took off in the two years before and after Holiday's death in 1959, as six albums dedicated to the iconic singer were released. We'll hear selections from little-known trumpeter Webster Young's 1957 For Lady, as well as Anita O'Day's Trav'lin' Light, Johnny Griffin's White Gardenia, Sam Cooke's Tribute to the Lady, Carmen McRae's Sings Loverman, and Mal Waldron's Left Alone. "For Lady" airs Saturday, July 16 at 11:05 p.m. on WFIU; you can listen live, or wait until Monday afternoon, when the program will be posted to the Night Lights archives. Next week: "The Early Avant-Garde: Teddy Charles." (tip of the hat to Late & garthsj.)

An adaptation of this chapter is online. Apologies if it's already been posted.

Are there any good articles or online sources concerning the last couple of years of Lee's life?