ghost of miles

Put me in mind of the 1980s Bud Shank album, which led to a horrible joke/fantasy in my mind--Bud doing a prison concert a la Johnny Cash and calling it THIS SHANK'S FOR YOU. Guess I've been staring at jazz boards too much today... What I really wanted to say, Alan, was that a poster was bemoaning the disappearance of the music-release magazine THE ICE today on Yahoo Songbirds, so I pimped your site... and it's getting very good notices. Happy b-day again, and thanks for all the jazzmatazz.

Chris, I think I'm closer to solving this, partly on the basis of your post here. Was Irene H. married when you knew her? Was this in New York City? Donald Clarke, in WISHING ON THE MOON, asserts that the "Irene" who wrote "Good Morning Heartache" is the same Irene who wrote "Some Other Spring" and "I'm Pulling Through." But... he devotes several pages to Irene Wilson/Kitchings earlier in the book, and states that Irene Kitchings moved back to Cleveland (her birthplace), met an Ohio state Youth Commissioner named Elden Kitchings, and married him in 1946. They were together for the rest of their lives; Clarke doesn't say so, but the implication seems to be that they stayed in Ohio. If the Irene H. you knew was unmarried, or married to somebody else (not Elden Kitchings)... well, I think it's clearer and clearer that they are two different people, and that the similar first names have led to numerous wrong statements about authorship of "Good Morning Heartache" and "No Good Man" (the other Irene H. song recorded by Billie).

The liner notes to the new Mary Lou Williams Collective's recording of ZODIAC SUITE include this passage: There's another session I'd love to hear.

BTW, this question may have been raised before--have any of Mary Lou's radio programs from the mid-1940s survived? I'd love to hear those...

Up for any news of Mr. Kelley's progress.

relyles, forgot all about this thread--the CD is on Mary Records and finally came out a couple of weeks ago. Looks like plenty are floating around on Amazon.

I like the new CD--almost all the way through it. Allen is a good pick, I think, to put a modern gloss on this music (not that it needs much; the original still sounds very modern to me). Hope you get to catch them live!

Just got in a new release from Mary Records (run by Peter F. O'Brien), with Geri Allen on piano, Buster Williams on bass, and either Billy Hart or Andrew Cyrille on drums running through Mary Lou's ZODIAC SUITE and several other pieces. I like their take on "Aries" so far... love the original suite so much that I'll be interested to see what the new folks bring to it.

Happy b-day and many, many thanks for the great jazz site!

Just checked Stuart Nicholson's Billie bio, and he, too, like Clarke, IDs Irene Higginbotham as Kitchings/Wilson. Chris, did Irene H. ever mention having been married to Teddy Wilson?

Response from Yahoo Songbirds this a.m. to my queries and postings there:

According to Amazon. Not very familiar with McCorkle's work--hoping to pull some CDs from our station library for a listen.

Many happy returns! (And sales!)

Jules Styne was one of the writers. It was his first hit, though he didn't have another for nearly 15 years.

So far I've seen info that Irene H. was J.C.'s niece and that she was his sister. This online reviewer of a swing compilation has another take: Chris, I await your historical verdict. What a hash! If they are indeed two different people, then a number of writers on Billie Holiday are incorrect in their references. Even the folks on Yahoo Songbirds haven't been able to sort this one out yet...

Chris, thanks! So she was definitely NOT the former Mrs. Wilson aka Irene Kitchings? Was she J.C.'s sister or niece? Re: your closet, I'm beginning to think you should lease it to Mosaic!

OK--Linda Dahl's lengthy article on women songwriters identifies them as two different women: However, this para contains an inaccuracy: it was Kitchings, not Higginbotham, who co-wrote "Ghost of Yesterday"--unless they are indeed the same person. Or did Teddy marry two songwriters named Irene? This thread begs for Chris A.'s intervention in at least a couple of ways!

Man, thanks much, Marcello--I had never come across a picture of Irene Kitchings. Well, I'm becoming more & more convinced that Irene H. and Irene K/W are one and the same... wonder where Linda Dahl got the "Armstrong" name? Also, I hadn't thought of Irene H. as a "prolific" songwriter, but I'll have to dig a bit more... she's probably going to take up half of the program at this point.

Me too. The ones I find myself returning to are FAREWELL, MY LOVELY and THE LADY IN THE LAKE.

I'm hoping to eventually read SIEGE. He died fishing, didn't he? Pulled out to sea and drowned?

Sidney Bechet Select, disc 1. The liner notes for this set, written by Bob Wilber, are really great, btw.

For years I've been a fan of the quite slim output of songs by Irene Kitchings, who married Teddy Wilson in the 1930s (the marriage was over by the end of the decade). She is the co-writer, along with Arthur Herzog Jr., of several songs that Billie Holiday recorded: "Some Other Spring," "I'm Pulling Through," "Ghost of Yesterday," and "What Is This Going to Get Us." Here's my question: is Irene Kitchings the same as Irene Higginbotham, who co-wrote "Good Morning Heartache," "No Good Man," and who wrote "This Will Make You Laugh" (very nice song recorded by both Nat King Cole and Carmen McRae)? Steven Lasker identifies Higginbotham as the former Mrs. Wilson in his 1991 notes to THE COMP. BILLIE HOLIDAY ON DECCA, and Donald Clarke makes the same connection in his 1995 bio WISHING ON THE MOON (best Billie bio around IMO). Yet Linda Dahl, in her 1984 book STORMY WEATHER, talks about Kitchings (esp. re: her early career as the leader of a jazz trio in Chicago) and never refers to the Higginbotham incarnation. I'm currently working on a show about women songwriters for Night Lights and want to devote considerable attention to Kitchings... anybody else have any clues? BTW, I think Michael Brooks goofs in his liner notes for QUINTESSENTIAL B. HOLIDAY V. 7 (replicated in the complete Columbia box) when he says that Kitchings wrote the lyrics for "Some Other Spring" and that Herzog Jr. wrote the music--Clarke quotes Kitchings herself as saying that Billie took the music Kitchings wrote to Herzog, who added the lyrics.

Up for broadcast in 20-25 minutes.

Yes, I'm treating it as a somewhat novelistic treatment of LB's life. I'll keep an eye out for THE ESSENTIAL LENNY BRUCE--I'm really eager to find something reasonably well-written about him. Been listening to that Shout! Factory compilation, though the set I picked up had no booklet--and also used an LB track for this week's Night Lights--hence my renewed interest in him right now. So, is Annie Ross supposed to be the LB love interest that Goldman refers to as "the member of a highly successful vocalese trio?" Currently reading J.G. Farrell's THE SINGAPORE GRIP.

BIG fan... I posted about watching some of Season 1 on DVD either in this or the other DVD thread recently. Season 2 comes out in May. The characters and many of the storylines really hold up, though Michael Conrad's wolfish and sometimes bullying streak hasn't aged well. I watched about 4 episodes over two days while I had the flu and found myself sucked in all over again. First season of DR. KATZ was great, I thought... but it seemed to drop off after that. Re PETER GUNN: "Mr. Gunn... it's a profound gas."