ghost of miles

Happy birthday to a great guy whose love and knowledge of not only jazz, but literature and religious history as well, is a constant inspiration and one of the many, many reasons why I've inhabited the BNBB and continue to inhabit this wonderful place that is made even brighter by your presence. Satchmo sez:

I heard Lovano talking about this record on WGBH a few months before it came out, and he sounded genuinely enthusiastic, so maybe he sensed that he'd just come up with a good one. I like the Schuller collaboration and the QUARTETS double-CD, as well as the first trio CD w/Elvin, but had avoided the Sinatra songbook--and I like Sinatra. I think I was just burned out on "songbook" projects when that one happened to come out. Will give it a listen if I come across it. I've heard only a handful of selections from I'M ALL FOR YOU, but they certainly live up to Joe's praise for the CD.

Down for a few hours...horrible, horrible. How many dead? Did Alexander Haig assume command? Isn't he dead? Nevertheless, I'm in charge here...--Ghost of Alexander Haig

You better put one of these on. At least until all the smoke clears. Hey, that'll also come in handy if & when I re-enter the Politics forum... B-)

Down for a few hours...horrible, horrible. How many dead? Did Alexander Haig assume command?

I was gone for a station staff meeting... what'd I miss? B-)

I have FALLING IN LOVE (based on Jim's rec), EVERYBODY'S SOMEBODY'S FOOL (a comp of his early-50s Decca recordings), and a one-CD sampler promo from the Savoy box, and I like 'em all much. BTW Bob Porter featured Scott's 1950s recordings on "Portraits in Blue" last Saturday. Don't know if that program's archived or not, though. P.S. Was it ever determined for certain whether or not it's Scott singing "Embraceable You" on the Parker ONE NIGHT IN BIRDLAND release?

Yes, indeedy!

VERY sad news for me, as I'm a Shank fan & have a keen interest in Port Townsend--would like to live there some day, in fact. I was hoping to catch the festival next year. I also wonder if this is part of the trend to "pop-ify" jazz festivals. Hey, I appreciate the multitudinous quality of the music & music in general, but lately I've looked at the listings for some "jazz festivals," and sometimes only a third or a quarter of the acts are jazz! I guess directors gotta do what they gotta do to survive...

Brownie, The culture and the ideological battles of 1950s France are fascinating to me--any recommendations for books either in English or translated into English about that era? (My French is only good enough for scanning, not really for lengthy sit-down book-reading.)

I feel sorry for him, and I'm someone who lived in Indpls. when a lot of folks spewed hate in his defense during the rape trial. When it comes to athletic decline, boxers have it worst of all in some ways, I think.

Great news regarding the Marx Brothers! SilverScreenDVDset The box will include THE COCOANUTS (1929), ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930), MONKEY BUSINESS (1931), HORSEFEATHERS (1932), DUCK SOUP (1933), and an extra disc of bonus material. My November 9th suddenly got much brighter...

Still reading Lewis' WHEN HARLEM WAS IN VOGUE, but have been shamed by my brother into finally starting Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH (somehow never got around to reading it). Just ordered Douglas Brinkley's TOUR OF DUTY: JOHN KERRY & THE VIETNAM WAR, and hope to read that next weekend. Anybody here ever read Bernard Fall's HELL IN A VERY SMALL PLACE and STREET WITHOUT JOY? I've wanted to read him ever since coming across mention of his work in Michael Herr's DISPATCHES... supposedly some definitive writing on the French experience in Vietnam.

Up for broadcast!

He's also a tad forgetful... he's hepped us to this gent before: MattDusk

Everyone OK in Texas? 13inchesofrain

Mr. oldschool is a tireless advocate for new artists! google

And believe it or not, he had no desire to talk to Orrin Keepnews!

Very interesting, Chuck. You know, I've shied away from reading Warren Miller's novel because it came in for a lot of criticism as a white writer's distorted interpretation of Harlem... but I should check it out for myself. I'd also love to find Mal Waldron's original soundtrack for the movie, if it was ever actually released (I have the Dizzy Gillespie version that got re-issued a few years ago on CD).

Didn't some of Dexter's comps for this show up on one of his Blue Note albums? I'm thinking "Soul Sister" and "I Want More" from DEXTER CALLING... amazing, the number of musicians who went through this play. Hoping to do the show in mid-September & will post the link when I do.

Jim, I have the one that came out on Felsted w/Howard McGhee... may still be in print. Are those actually Brooks compositions, though? I'm at work & will have to check when I get home. Never heard of that Cecil Payne version... this is all very interesting, because I'm planning to do a show based around THE CONNECTION and am trying to track down as much material as I can find. Will probably get the DVD, though Jim is dead-on about its general gawd-awfulness...

I already have PIANO IN THE FOREGROUND (though I'm looking forward to the new edition) and have never heard BLUES IN ORBIT (put off buying the old one because of this re-issue), which is why I'm more interested right now in BLUES. I definitely plan to pick up the BACKGROUND CD as well, though. You can never have too much Ellington, as far as I'm concerned.

I think we'll learn a lot more about that 1950s arrest when & if Peter Pullman's Bud Powell bio comes out. Hopefully, too, we'll learn more about Monk's entire life, including his last few years, when Robin Kelley's book is published. Sometimes visionary artists end in a silence that can be interpreted as either profound or bleak (I'm thinking of William Blake--wasn't he relatively quiet for the last few years of his life?), and that probably stem from a variety of factors. Basically, I think that Monk never did anything that he didn't want to do--and when he didn't feel like playing music anymore, he stopped. Sad if depression/exhaustion of vision were the causes, but I admire his integrity.

I think we all overlooked certain language in the "terms of membership" agreement, Jim. Put it this way: by comparison, John Forgerty got a hell of a deal with Fantasy. G.d. publishing contracts!

Glad to see you here, Jack. We are not worthy, we are not worthy! Happy birthday and many more of 'em.