ghost of miles

May the coming months bring you everything that you desire--well, save for a certain New England baseball team's repeat championship. Have a great day, Mr. GHF.

How do you pronounce... Eddy Duchin's last name?

A musician friend of mine who hails from Fort Worth was over last night and played me some music by Dick and Kiz Harp--a piano-and-vocalist duo who played at what was apparently a pretty hip joint in Dallas around 1960 or so, The 90th Floor (yes, from the Cole Porter song). I really liked what I heard of Kiz Harp--very soulful sound. Evidently her and Dick's two albums were re-issued on CD earlier this year, and I'm thinking about taking the plunge. Found this article online: Dick/Kiz Harp & Dallas jazz label Anybody else ever hear this duo? Side note: those Ann Richards Capitol LPs sound intriguing too.

"The Man Before Miles: Freddie Webster" is now archived.

Caught part of it while my wife & I were driving to lunch: Rollins on Fresh Air

Some good bipartisan news there, GA.

I would third it and buy it.

Up for broadcast in a minute or so on WNIN and in another hour on WFIU.

Thanks for the update. Crawlin' with Bartok...

Hope the ol' spinmeister's doin' OK... wait a sec, is my answer already there? Seriously, I hope all's well with him, or that he's simply gotten "sidetracked" in a favored Vienna pub.

This week on The Big Bands it's "Convergence," featuring classic music from a new compilation of Indiana native Claude Thornhill's post-World War II big band and modern big-band music from a musician who once played with Thornhill, our own Phil Kelly, whose 2003 album Convergence Zone received two Grammy nominations. Music from that CD will follow on the heels of Hep's eighth--and final--release in their Thornhill series, 1946-47 Performances V. 2. This collection features arrangements from Gil Evans (including "La Paloma"), the Thornhill band venturing into bebop-anthem territory with "Donna Lee" and "Yardbird Suite," and vocal numbers by Gene Williams--an audio snapshot of the convergence of classical, bop, and pop elements in the famous Thornhill sound. "Convergence" airs Friday, September 9 at 9 p.m. (7 p.m. California time, 10 p.m. NYC time) on WFIU. The program will be posted in The Big Bands archives the following Monday afternoon. More on Phil Kelly here.

Hey all, I'm putting together a Night Lights program about the 1957 Robert Altman documentary The James Dean Story, which featured a soundtrack written by Leith Stevens and performed by Chet Baker and Bud Shank. Has anybody ever come across articles about this, interviews in which Shank or Baker mentioned it, etc.? Not a lot in James Gavin's Baker bio about it... I'll be digging around in the IU School of Music Library this weekend and wondered if anybody else had ever come across info about it. Am checking out an Altman bio tonight in hopes of learning more. The show will air on 9/24, just a few days before the 50th anniversary of Dean's death.

This week on Night Lights it's "The Man Before Miles: Freddie Webster." Trumpeter Freddie Webster is one of the great lost-legend stories of jazz, significant because he influenced both Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, little-known because he recorded only a few scattered solos and because he died at the age of 30 in 1947. We'll hear the most significant ones, including an anthemic "Yesterdays" with the Jimmie Lunceford Big Band, two sides apiece from sessions with Sarah Vaughan and Bud Powell, "I Fell for You" with Miss Rhapsody, recordings done with Louis Jordan's Tympani Five, the last and rarely-heard solo that Webster ever recorded ("Perdido"), and many more. "The Man Before Miles" airs Saturday, September 10 at 11 p.m. (9 p.m. California time, 12 a.m. NYC time)on WFIU; you can hear it at 10 on WNIN-Evansville as well. It will be archived on the following Monday. For more information on Freddie Webster, see Part 22 of jazz historian Joe Mosbrook's "Jazzed in Cleveland". Special thanks to Mr. Mosbrook for his assistance with this program. Next week: "Perfectly Frank: Sinatra's Small-Group Jazz Recordings."

He'll probably be tracked down and prosecuted under some obscure provision of the Patriot Act. Hey, Cali, thanks for posting that list of FEMA atrocities. Some folks on Fresh Air today were talking about what Bush has done to the agency... not good.

This program is now archived.

Boy, I was sure right about Bush and Brown (the head of FEMA). Anybody else see the article in today's NY Times? Pelosi met with Bush yesterday: "What didn't go right?" Said yesterday by our president.

God help us if we ever have another disaster while the current administration is still in office. Does anybody truly believe that Bush will fire Brown or overhaul FEMA, which he's run into the ground during the past four years? Some good posts on Tom Tomorrow today:

I think it's best simply to link to the "Catching Up With" interviews already on AAJ. Unlike certain other board moderators, Jim A. and co. are totally cool about other boards and see them all as part of a broad jazz online community. The other boards... well, it's like I said to Jim A. and Joe at the gig in Saugatuck: Organissimo is like the sexy girl that all the women try to keep their guys away from.

Kalo, You can listen to three tracks from it on the "For Lady" program on early Holiday tribute LPs that I did for Night Lights earlier this year. "Detour Ahead" 1:00-5:38 "Gloomy Sunday" and "Good Morning Heartache" 37:00-45:22 For Lady

Anybody else here pull out this set in recent days? I've gained a whole new appreciation for it.

Great set all the way through... I particularly enjoy the session with Dick Twardzik and the last disc w/Sonny Clark. The liners are by Simosko, right? It was one of my first Mosaics. I think there might be more from that session with Sonny Berman on a CD called SERGE CHALOFF MEMORIAL.... a couple of tracks that were done under Berman's name and therefore not put on the set? Been awhile since I pulled that one out.

I'm going to sit in for our weekday DJ today, and I'm ending the show with this song: We'll pull together. It's terrible, but we will pull together somehow.

This is so f&*#ed up:

Thanks for posting that, Chris. It makes it clearer than ever that FEMA and the Feds have screwed up royally. I've donated twice to the Red Cross... I sure hope their aid is being allowed through by these idiots. Hopefully the former FEMA guy that the Louisiana gov. appointed will get some things done.

Man commuting now by horse I'm biking more than ever now, myself. My wife has to drive to work, and we grocery-shop once a week... outside of that, we're avoiding car use. Are carpools coming back? They were big for awhile in the 1970s when I was a kid.