ghost of miles

Can't we just be friends?

Do you sell drugs?

What about me?

What's love got to do with it? What is love, anyway, forsooth, but a second-hand emotion?

If Wynton's BIG TRAIN leaves the Sony label at a pressing of 100,000 and returns 12 months later with 95,000 copies still in tow, what are the chances that Sony will release 8 more CDs by him in the following 12-month period?

If Wynton plays a solo in the forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does anybody care?

What is jazz?!

Is it called "free jazz" cuz I don't have to pay?

There's a candidate for the Worst Songs thread. Or, as Uncle Jack liked to say, "You call that music?"

As Uncle Jack used to remark, "You're pretty stupid for a smart guy."

As Uncle Jack once remarked, "There are no stupid questions--just stupid people."

It doesn't?! Never realized that...

Here's another: James Carter, THE REAL QUIETSTORM.

Yeah, that's him! He was a really cool guy. Doing damned well these days, I hear, from a friend who still sees him from time to time... he played on Shawn Colvin's Grammy-winning CD and is a top on-call drummer in NYC. I wasn't much into jazz when I knew him, so I wish I'd tapped his brain more... he was a big Blakey fan, I know that. His favorite expression for someone he liked was, "So-and-so is a heavy hoss." Anyway, I'm forever grateful to him for steering my indie-rock ears to KIND OF BLUE.

Oh God, I f*#@ing hate that song! When I worked in a record store my moniker for that band was Deep B.S.

When I was 19 and wanting to buy my first jazz record, I asked a drummer who lived on my dorm floor, and who was heavily into Art Blakey, what album I should buy. He was a very hep, Zen-like guy; didn't say much, always had a kind of natural-high smile. He looked at me for awhile, said, "Miles Davis, KIND OF BLUE. Make love to it, man." Then he walked away without saying anything else. These days he's the drummer in the Saturday Night Live band:

I'm a child of the 80's--Roxy Music's AVALON for me.

Man. A jazz DJ & good buddy of mine gave me his copy, signed by Dizzy in the early 1980s, for Christmas a couple of years ago. I was very touched and never, ever intend to sell it. I'm sure he had a sense that the book might be worth something and didn't care--he's a sweetheart of a guy. I'm always a bit stunned when I see the asking price of certain Mosaics and other jazz-related items, mostly, I suppose, because I just can't imagine selling anything that I have, outside of the odd Connoisseur or other CD that a box-set makes redundant. For insurance purposes, I really should get around to determining the going price of what I have on hand. Back to the subject of the thread, I haven't read either Dizzy's memoir or the bio (Shipton, right?) yet, even though I have both. Wonder what kind of skewed view the two combined will provide...

Listening to it right now--nothing too remarkable, save for the pleasure of hearing Curtis Fuller still performing and running through a set of standards. Overall (well, I'm only halfway through the disc), I give it the .

Happy birthday from a fellow Hoosier and jazz-lover! Whoop it up and don't forget to buy yerself a few of them there jass CDs...

She did a date with Coleman Hawkins in 1939 ("He's Funny That Way") that I really enjoy, and I've been thinking about tracking down some of her recordings. Any starter recommendations? BTW, anybody else wish we had a "Vocalists" forum here? I know it didn't generate as much traffic on the BNBB as most of the other forums, but I still miss it...

I've long known of this singer and came across her name again in James Gavin's INTIMATE NIGHTS: THE GOLDEN AGE OF NEW YORK CABARET. Any fans here who might be able to point me in a good direction regarding her recordings?

Peter Carroll, THE ODYSSEY OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE: AMERICANS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR.

I don't know about Debra Parkinson, but I do know that you should not hesitate if this set hits Running Low/Last Chance. One of my favorite Mosaics, and one of the more underrated ones, IMO. It captures J.J. in what I think of as his prime period in many ways, both as a player and as a composer/arranger.

Wagstaff: Oh, you do, do you? Well you're wrong again! If there was a snake here, I'd apologize. Where would this college be without football? Have we got a stadium? Professor One: Yes. Wagstaff: Have we got a college? Professor One: Yes. Wagstaff: Well, we can't support both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college. Both professors: But professor! Where will the students sleep? Wagstaff: Where they always sleep. In the classroom.