ghost of miles

I salute you, sir, for your indefatigable writing, research, and discographical work. Look forward to reading whatever you publish next--you are one of a number of people who regularly raise the intellectual temperature around these parts.

Some recent reading: Larry Kart's JAZZ IN SEARCH OF ITSELF Dan Morgenstern, LIVING WITH JAZZ Gene Lees, SINGERS AND THE SONG II Ira Wolfert, TUCKER'S PEOPLE Gunther Schuller, THE SWING ERA Jonathan Lethem, THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE Only one I've actually finished is the Lees... the others all still in progress. Time, give me more time!

More on Hagen, from the AMG bio. He played w/Isham Jones, Goodman, and Dorsey in the 1930s:

I've had a recent curiosity about the composer of the theme music for The Dick van Dyke Show. Learned the other day that it was Earle Hagen--looked him up on the web and found the following listing on Space Age Pop (a fun website, btw): Earle Hagen He wrote "Harlem Nocturne," which was news to me, as well as the theme for The Mod Squad and The Andy Griffith Show. The whole transition of jazz writers, arrangers, and performers to the 1960s studio scene really fascinates me. Has anybody written a book or lengthy article on the topic?

It was a very HEP Christmas: Artie Shaw, ARTISTRY OF (1949 classical recordings + rare Gramercy 5) Claude Thornhill, 1949-1953 Charlie Barnet, 1941 TRANSCRIPTIONS Ray McKinley, CLASS OF '49 Slim Gaillard, LIVE 1946 + (received in advance): Dan Morgenstern, LIVING WITH JAZZ Dick van Dyke show season 3 on DVD 2 lbs. Yellow Dog coffee (from Uncommon Grounds in Saugatuck) Hey, I'm set for the next month!

My wife grew up on Long Island and speaks w/great fondness of the Yule Log. Me, I'm a simple Midwesterner--"whatcha wanna watch a log burnin' on TV fer?" :rsmile:

Don't forget Art Pepper .... almost 17 years!!! 1960-1977 .. Garth, I forgot that Pepper was in prison for much of the 1960s, but was he in at all during the 1970s? I'll have to go back to STRAIGHT LIFE, which also has lengthy ruminations on his stay at Synanon.

Thanks, Larry. Pretty sure we have Jazz Review at the IU School of Music Library; I've gotten articles from it before (Gunther Schuller wrote a lengthy piece entitled "Jazz Renaissance in Indiana" that appeared in it around the same time).

He was also putting down Cecil around the same time--didn't DB give him a Taylor record for a blindfold test? He said something like, "Take it off, man! Is that what the critics are digging? They'd better stop drinking coffee," or something like that. Clem--I love "What Are You Waiting For, Mary?" and have to say that Crosby also really makes that piece for me as well. To me he's an early avatar of white hip. I remember your stating elsewhere your intense disappointment with Giddin's Bing bio--do you have any recommendations for other writing about early Crosby?

Larry--a couple of nights ago I was reading your book & playing "spot the influence," and the two I came up with were Martin Williams (true story!) and (I mean this as a compliment) some of Norman Mailer's better critical pieces.

I think he was working as a janitor and living at the YMCA. According to the liner notes for SOUNDS FROM SYNANON, there was an article on Synanon in a July 1961 issue of Downbeat, so I'm going to go to the music library & look it up.

Smooth never makes the cut here at WFIU. Joe Bourne hosts the afternoon weekday jazz program, Just You & Me, from 3:30 to 5, and also does The Big Bands every Friday night at 9. (Full disclosure: I frequently sit in on both programs.) We also have a great two-hour jazz/popular-song program called Afterglow, hosted by the venerable Dick Bishop, that follows The Big Bands. The only syndicated jazz program that we carry is Marion McPartland's Piano Jazz, which comes on just before Joe and Dick's Friday night shows. And, uh, there's this *cough cough* Saturday evening program called Night Lights that focuses on artists and themes of the 1945-75 period in American jazz. There might even be a website for it or something, if you look around... Definitely send us the next Organissimo CD! I still plan to buy one & support the band, but I think Joe would like you guys as well.

Yes indeed--the best jazz board on the Internet just got even better.

If you're going to do something on Twardzick, may I recommend the Vladimir Simosko book on Serge Chaloff. Quite a character for what you seem to be looking for! Thanks, Brownie, I'll try to hunt that one down. Have heard of it but never seen it--did Simosko do some of the writing for the Mosaic liners?

Uh... uh... that was actually on the afternoon weekday program, which wasn't taped. Please don't ban me!

Thanks, Allen, that's a good point. Not all that far from my neck of the woods either. Who was off the scene for long periods owing to drug-related prison sentences? Dexter in the 1950s... Ammons in the 1960s, as well as Hawes...

Ironically enough, Chet's on tap for Jan. 8, but it's actually a program that deals with his pre-addict recordings (the recent EMI reissues). Yes, I've read the Gavin, and it's indeed harrowing (also some material there about Twardzik, whom I'm featuring Jan. 29--I understand the Chambers bio is finally out, though I have yet to see it). Seems as though a common narrative in the 1950s and into the early 60s (thinking of both Baker and Art Pepper here, as well as Billie Holiday) was to publish a confessional-style piece in which the musician rues his or her descent into hell, etc., and then gives thanks for having conquered his/her demons, etc. I'm sure that much of this stemmed from societal attitudes towards addiction at the time, seemingly underlined by the notion that addiction was something one simply overcame in a single blow. The Synanon/Riker's Island albums intrigue me in part because of the music (particularly on Riker's Island) and in part because of the more liberal/social-worker approach they advocate when it comes to treating addicted musicians. They seem to represent a first step (as it were) towards moving away from the "weak/sinful/character flaw" line of thought.

I'm preparing a Night Lights program for New Year's Night entitled "Resolution: Jazz From Rehab" that will focus on Joe Pass' SOUNDS FROM SYNANON and Elmo Hope & co.'s SOUNDS FROM RIKER'S ISLAND. Any articles about or from that time concerning jazz musicians and drug use that those here might be familiar with? I'm going to mention Art Pepper's time in Synanon, and Morgenstern's LIVING WITH JAZZ hipped me to Charlie Haden's spell there as well (knew about Haden's early-60s fight against addiction, but had no idea he'd been through the Synanon program). Also didn't know till I read Hentoff's liner notes that Walt Dickerson was behind the RIKER'S ISLAND session.

Hey all, the "Holiday Happening" program I did for Night Lights last week is now in the archives. It features music from Booker Ervin ("White Christmas" from his 1966 album SOLID STRUCTURE), Ahmad Jamal ("Snowfall"), Sonny Rollins ("Winter Wonderland"), Babs Gonzalez ("Bebop Santa Claus"), Bill Evans (a rare and amusing vocal take of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"), an excerpt from Dylan Thomas reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales," and more. "Holy Ghost: Albert Ayler" will be airing this Christmas night... more info to follow. Happy holidays and good listening to you all.

Wow... I placed two orders, both of 'em fairly hefty, and looks like every title I ordered has been filled, save for the Byas BEBOP (sold out, but I just found it elsewhere for a good price). DG must've had a bevy of them.

a hundred of manhood and a wimmering of weibes. Big went the bang: then wildewide was quiet: a report: silence: last Fama put it under ether. The noase or the loal had dreven him blem, blem, stun blem. Sparks flew. He had fled again (open shunshema!) this country of exile, sloughed off,sidleshomed via the subterranean shored with bedboards, stowed away and ankered in a dutch bottom tank, the Arsa, hod S.S. Finlandia, and was even now occupying, under an islamitic newhame in his seventh generation, a physical body Cornelius Magrath's (badoldkarakter, commonorrong canbung) in Asia Major, where as Turk of the theater (first house all flatty: the king, eleven sharps) he had bepiastered the buikdanseuses from the opulence of his omnibox while as arab at the streetdoor he bepestered the bumbashaws for the alms of a para's pence. Wires hummed. Peacefully general astonishment assisted by regrettitude had put a term till his existence: he saw the family saggarth, resigned, put off his remainders, was recalled and scrapheaped by the Maker. Chirpings crossed. An infamous private ailment (vulgovarioveneral) had claimed endright, closed his vicious circle, snap. Jams jarred. He had walked towards the middle of an ornamental lilypond when innebriated up to the point where braced shirts meet knickerbockers, as wangfish daring the buoyant waters, when rodmen's firstaiding hands had rescued un from very possibly several feel of demifrish water. Mush spread. On Umbrella Street where he did drinks from a pumps a kind workman, Mr Whitlock, gave him a piece of wood. What words of power were made fas between them, ekenames and auchnomes, acnomina ecnumina? That, O that, did Hansard tell us, would gar ganz Dub's ear wag in every pub of all the citta! Batty believes a baton while Hogan hears a hod yet Heer prefers a punsil shapner and Cope and Bull go cup and ball. And the Cassidy--Craddock rome and reme round e'er a wiege ne'er a waage is still immer and immor awagering over it,a cradle with a care in it or a casket with a kick behind. Toties testies quoties questies. The war is in words and the wood is the world. Maply me, willowy we, hickory he and yew yourselves. Howforhim chirrupeth evereach

Hmmm... they seem less than impressed. I like a lot of OFN, but have to disagree w/them on this one.

Yeah, I even taped it. I wish more radio shows reviewed jazz...it's great when the reviewer can play you clips of what he's talking about. Seriously. WFMT supposedly has such a show in the works. I'm a little bit wary, though... it's being hyped as "in the spirit of Click and Clack." Now, I love Car Talk and all, but somehow that description doesn't exactly infuse me with anticipation.

Speaking of the Savoy Sultans, no airchecks/live recordings have ever turned up, correct? Which is too bad, if so--I have that Chronological Classics CD & like it, but I'll bet a bundle they sounded much better live.

Is this the same Horsecollar to whom either Jackie or Herbie refers to in A.B. Spellman's book as "a ruined musician who chewed Benzedrine all day" and who had a somewhat out philosophy re: music? I actually think it's a different Horsecollar--or a horse of a different collar?