ghost of miles

Ongoing discussion of KKJZ at AAJ. I've never been a listener, but evidently longtime fans have endured a lot of heartbreak of late... evidently KKJZ's last fund-drive bombed bigtime.

Ah, good ol' EW... God help us if they ever start reviewing Mosaics! When I worked at Borders, a number of the employees--generally fairly literate types--perused EW during their lunch-breaks. It's always struck me (and I have looked at it a few times) as a PEOPLE-type production.

My wife & I are rather fortunate in that Bloomington's a relatively small city--we can get away with owning only one car, which is good both environmentally and financially speaking. I bike to work every day and she uses the car (her job's on the far east side of town; mine's on campus). The gas prices have hit us mostly for trips up to Indy to visit my dad.

CD... Soundcraft put it out several years ago. It's simply titled "Broadcasts 1942-43." A live version of "Turn Right," early version of "Besame Mucho," some Helen O'Connell, some Kitty Kallen (particular fave of mine right now ), Bob Eberly, of course... it's fun. I've added those Circles to my humongous "to-get" list (still need to get the Ellington Circles while I'm at it). The person who does the liners for Classics now posts here--I'll try to drop him a line and see if he knows anything about why they haven't done Dorsey.

If you have to ask, you'll never know... OK, OK, sorry, couldn't resist. I love the "Funny Rat" thread... lurker only (may have posted once or twice, but I'll be damned if I can remember), but most appreciative. Have drifted away from modern improv, but someone slipped me a new William Parker CD the other day...

New webpage for The Big Bands, including lotsa links at the bottom to various cool big-band sites. There's a temporary university freeze on new logos and graphics, which severely restricted our ability to do much visually... hoping to jazz it up, so to speak, once the freeze is lifted. This Friday on The Big Bands it's "Duke Ellington: The Treasury Shows April 1945." In the spring of 1945, as World War II finally began to draw to a close, Ellington began "Your Saturday Date With the Duke," a series of weekly broadcasts sponsored by the U.S. Treasury Department to promote the sale of war bonds. The sets featured classics from the Ellington songbook, pop hits of the day, obscure Ellington/Strayhorn compositions rarely or never recorded by the band, and pitches from Ellington and MCs to buy war bonds, along with occasional news bulletin interruptions. Ellington's 1945 band, removed only a couple of years from the celebrated Blanton-Webster era of 1940-42, retained superlative musicians such as Johnny Hodges, Ray Nance, and Lawrence Brown. The broadcasts continued through the late autumn and resumed early the following year; the one-hour programs were edited into half-hour shows that were then distributed by the Armed Forces Radio Service. Ellingtonian specialist Jerry Valburn spent 30 years tracking down the original broadcasts and restoring them to their full length. The vinyl editions which appeared in the 1980s are now being reissued as 2-CD sets, supplemented with other live Ellington material from the 1943-1954 era. From April through October of this year I'll devote one program a month to Ellington's Treasury Department broadcasts, in observance of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. The programs will roughly correlate with the month, so that you'll hear material primarily from April 1945 in April, May 1945 in May, etc. This week's program features "Blutopia," a composition commissioned from Ellington by Paul Whiteman; the little-known tune "Frustration;" a memorial broadcast for President Franklin D. Roosevelt two days after his death in which Al Hibbler sings "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen"; Johnny Hodges soloing on the ballad "Mood to Be Wooed"; Ray Nance performing the Ellington wartime song "A Slip of the Lip Can Sink a Ship" and the pop hit "Candy;" Joya Sherrill taking vocal honors on Johnny Mercer's "Accentuate the Positive"; and Ben Webster stepping up on "Tonight I Shall Sleep," taken from a 1943 Ellington war-bond rally. The program airs at 9 p.m. Friday on WFIU 103.7 FM; you can listen live on the Internet. We are still hoping to archive the programs, but it's contingent upon a pending situation that is unrelated to programming.

I've read that Coleman Hawkins perferred classical music to listen to away from work...who else have you heard was into classical music??? In John Chilton's book 'The Song of the Hawk', there is a mention that Hawkins carried gramophone records with him when he traveled through Europe in the '30s. Favorites were the Boswell Sisters and the Mills Brothers. Had never heard the Boswells when I read this. That got me interested! Been a huge fan of the Sisters since! Brownie, Can't remember the source--quite possibly Chilton's book--but in the early 1960s Hawk wanted to record an album of Bach pieces. Never came to pass, though.

I'm not sure my link shows it, as I have Politics blocked, but Dolan entered via that forum, where he righteously ( ) engaged Johnny on the topic of Michael Moore.

I'll add that one to my list--I'm still on the hunt for Beevor's FALL OF BERLIN 1945. Ever read his Stalingrad book? I'm currently reading SATCHMO BLOWS UP THE WORLD, about the U.S. State Department's sponsorship of jazz tours during the Cold War, and trying to get traction on Conrad's THE SECRET AGENT.

I haven't found any info about the soloist, Berigan, but have you ever heard the instrumental "Turn Right"? From the same year, I think (1941), on CONTRASTS, the one CD of Dorsey's Decca work that GRP has put out. written by Dorsey pianist/arranger Joe Lippmann. I also have a live version from 1943, and it sounds pretty modernistic as well. A lot of folks (not us around Org, of course B-) ) forget or don't realize how much Bird admired Jimmy Dorsey. Strange (or maybe not) that GRP has done so little with Dorsey's Decca catalogue (he recorded more than 400 sides for them). Even Chronological Classics hasn't done anything with it... Hep has only touched upon later material. I'd sure like to hear more of his work with Joe Lippmann. Any recommendations in that regard? Looks like Circle has issued a couple of volumes circa 1939-1941.

Maxwell Davis has always been a favorite of mine from this period--you can hear a lot of his work on the Charles Brown and Amos Milburn Mosaics.

As in Dolan? Actually, he's registered here and has posted a few times: Dolan posts

The Mary Lou program is now online (only under "This Week on 'Night Lights'", not in the archives yet). Jeff B, thanks much--Pee Wee is stiff competition!

I misread this as the "Origassimo."

I've decided that dustbunnies are my friends... particularly on Easter weekend.

What do records mean? Che. They mean all kinds of funny things if you play 'em backwards. That's true. Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" says "Start to smoke marijuana." No lie. Don't I know it... you & I obviously went to high school at the same time.

What do records mean? Che. They mean all kinds of funny things if you play 'em backwards.

Just noticed Jim Sangrey's posted 66 times today. Probably not the record--but what is?

...give them a "warm welcome?"

Posted on another jazz board:

Not a record, but we just had 71 users online a few minutes ago. I post here a lot on Saturday afternoon because I'm on the board during Opera From the Met, All Things Considered, and Prairie Home Companion--and that's a pretty high number of users for a Saturday afternoon.

This week on Night Lights it's "Music for Peace: the Sacred Jazz of Mary Lou Williams." Williams, the pianist, arranger, and composer whose career in jazz traced a line all the way from the Kansas City scene of the late 1920s through the swing era, bop, the 1950s jazz expatriate community, and an academic job at Duke in the late 1970s, also helped to pioneer sacred jazz in the early 1960s. After converting to Catholicism in the mid-1950s, Williams maintained a low, almost non-existent profile in the jazz world, emerging briefly in 1957 to play with Dizzy Gillespie at Newport. In the early 1960s she began composing jazz pieces with religious underpinnings, culminating in a series of jazz masses. We'll hear material from the recently re-issued mass MUSIC FOR PEACE and the 1964 album BLACK CHRIST OF THE ANDES (which includes guitarist Grant Green and saxophonist Budd Johnson on several tracks). The program airs Saturday night at 11:05 (8:05 California time, 10:05 Chicago time); you can listen to it live or in the Night Lights archives, where it will be posted by Monday afternoon. Next week: "The Art of Pepper." Art Pepper's mid-1950s Aladdin recordings.

Some earlier discussion here.

What on earth?!... I just got an e-mail about its release from RH three months ago! That's crazy... release date is listed in AMG as Dec. 7, 2004, and they're already sold out? I knew a Jimmy Webb revival was underway, but didn't realize a 5-CD set would move so fast... shows I travel too much these days in the rarified world of jazz re-issues.

Jimmy Webb at Rhino Handmade