ghost of miles

They were broadcasts that Ellington did for the Treasury Department in 1945 (continuing into 1946, I think) encouraging people to buy war bonds (later re-titled "Victory Bonds" after Japan surrendered. I remember a song, sung by Ray Nance, about " shhh....loose lips sink ships" on those broadcasts.

Interesting. Personally, I'd say these days I prefer AAJ for the simple reason that there far too many threads ABOUT organissimo AT organissimo. I went to AAJ yesterday to ESCAPE the hubbub around here. You too?! Yes, for once the... well, let's just say it had a certain perverse appeal yesterday that it doesn't usually have. (Not to knock AAJ! I post over there from time to time, and Bev's points about musical taste there are well-taken.)

You have been much missed, Hans.

They were broadcasts that Ellington did for the Treasury Department in 1945 (continuing into 1946, I think) encouraging people to buy war bonds (later re-titled "Victory Bonds" after Japan surrendered. There are a number of tunes that Ellington rarely performed after 1945 (such as "Blutopia"), some pop songs of the day, and a fair amount of Ducal songbook staples. Lots of performances of The Black, Brown and Beige Suite... and peppered with Duke pitching for war bonds. Many of the shows were done on the road (I'm particularly taken with V. 6, which contains a broadcast from Evansville, Indiana). The liner notes are generally pretty good, done by several longtime Duke connoisseurs. You can find them online for $20-$21 (including shipping) or order them directly from Storyville.

Between the Bars has been my favorite. I heard she was on public radio denying any Holliday influence or any attempt to imitate Holliday. Bull, says I. --eric That's why she covers "No More" on her new CD, huh?!

There's plenty of room for cultural-studies approaches in jazz history, and to knock it is just as negligent as it is to knock the incorporation of technical analysis IMO. The music isn't made in a vacuum, and the social and economic forces that influence its making are sometimes profound indeed. The book is cited so much that it's rather a tired example at this point, but Scott Deveaux's THE BIRTH OF BEBOP seems to capture the elusive balance that some of us seek--a blend of history, musicology, cultural analysis, and true love for the music (Deveaux plays himself). In fact, I'd say the books I've liked best in recent years were written by authors who play jazz themselves and who also have a background in modern cultural studies. They seem best-equipped to write about the music. However, I completely understand the desire of some to completely avoid that aspect of things; it's not part of why they enjoy jazz, and that's totally cool.

Bringing this back up to echo Lon & Brownie's thoughts and to urge anybody who likes or loves Ellington to check this series out. V. 11 should be out next month. From April through October of this year I'll be devoting one big-band show a month to these broadcasts. As Lon pointed out, they've supplemented the shows (which originally came out on LP in the 1980s) with 1943 and '45 broadcasts from the Hurricane, etc.

Creepy. I have just got back from the local supermarket with some wine for my wife and I, and I have also picked up a copy of the film, for the kids to watch this evening. Che. Nick Hornby talks about it in the new issue of The Believer. Seems to be in the air, particularly in England!

Daniel, thanks for the nod on this one. I did a JJ big-band program a couple years back and used the "Eurosuite" material off THE TOTAL... will be keen to search this one out.

Ghost - we must be psychic! No kidding! Great wasted minds and all that? I don't know if you saw my original post. I had the same picture right underneath your post. Weird and wacky stuff! Here's Syd from 2002: No, I missed that... I think we must've been hanging out on the same Internet page! Some more about the WYWH sessions:

Ghost - we must be psychic! No kidding! Great wasted minds and all that?

I'm a HUGE Syd Barrett fan. I've played most of his songs in my various bands and he's another huge influence on my playing. Recognize this fellow? Syd at the Abbey Road WISH YOU WERE HERE sessions (where he showed up much to the FLoyd's surprise):

I read about this a couple months back on a Linklater page and have been pretty psyched ever since. Lon, isn't it Robert Downey Jr.? Heard this may be somewhat similar to Linklater's WAKING LIFE, in that they're filming it and then may overlap computer animation onto it.

Tonight on The Big Bands I'll feature the music of two "all-girl" groups, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears. The Sweethearts of Rhythm were formed in 1938 at a Mississippi school for orphaned African-American students and went on to gain great renown on the black big-band circuit, playing at venues such as the Savoy and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. We'll hear broadcasts they did in 1945 and 1946 for Jubilee, the Armed Forces Radio Service program for African-American military members, as well as two pieces recorded for Bluebird Records. To learn more about the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, check out Sherri Tucker's SWING SHIFT: ALL GIRL BANDS OF THE 1940S and Antoinette Handy's THE INTERNATIONAL SWEETHEARTS OF RHYTHM. Ina Ray Hutton, known as "The Blonde Bombshell of Rhythm" and the half-sister of big-band singer/Pied Piper June Hutton, was hired by Duke Ellington's manager Irving Mills in 1934 to lead an all-female big band. The band appeared in several Paramount musical film shorts and made a number of recordings before disbanding in 1939. Next week: "Songbirds," featuring big-band singers Kitty Kallen, Helen Ward, Helen Forrest, and Ella Fitzgerald.

And Wanky was a wanker.

Going to play a few cuts off this when I sit in for Joe this afternoon; it's grown on me quite a lot (love the covers of Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome" and Elliott Smith's "Between the Bars," perhaps the best sides on the album).

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to go put on THE WIZARD OF OZ.

PIPER and WISH YOU WERE HERE are my favorites... started out as a DARK SIDE junkie when I was 14, but I think I permanently burned myself out on it. And also became a Barrett devotee in my later teens... was very much into the "record one album/write one book" sort of romanticism (even though Barrett ultimately recorded more than one album). Every once in awhile I read some Floyd retrospective, and some reporter goes up to poor Syd's house and knocks on the door, where he's greeted by an overweight, balding and rapidly-aging man who'd prefer to be left alone to garden.

Fantastic news, Dan! Man, that must be the thrill of a lifetime for a GHF such as yourself... good news about the book, too.

Hey Clem, I know exactly what you're saying. I was 20 and in Bloomington when IU beat Syracuse in '87, and there were nearly 15,000 people in the streets... a weird sort of joyous anarchy and one of the most diverse street scenes I'd ever seen, because even the non-basketball fans were out either to rip it up or just check out the general mayhem.

Indeed!

Jazz it up, Rooster man!

Why is the political forum the constant scapegoat for things going wrong on the board? Based on the events of the past several days, you'd be better off dumping everything else--the politics forum has been a model of civility and decorum compared to what's gone on in "Misc. Non-Political" and "Forums Discussion," not to mention some of the recent threads in "Artists." Seriously! Aric hardly ever posted in Politics. If it's not jazz-related, then by all means, let's dump it... let's get rid of the football threads. What do they have to do with jazz? How about the various cooking threads that spring up? The weather--wtf do I care what it's doing in southern Florida? Right, I'm being sarcastic, but I'm just saying that a number of posters have a significant interest in politics... why should that be censored, particulary when it's been cordoned off and hidden from the rest of the board? The Politics forum is now completely invisible unless posters are members and logged in. Even then, posters can still choose to have it blocked. Very little of the vitriol I've seen lately stemmed from Politics, and it carried over only when a couple of posters still honked at Che about a particular thread started lobbing remarks at him in non-political threads. Whatever people think about Che, he's not the one who brought that discussion outside of the Politics forum... so why not call for rapping the knuckles of those who dragged it in?

My thoughts exactly. As long as we get that chewing gum out of Catesta's hair. I've ID'd it as the source of today's troubles.