ghost of miles

Thanks from me too, Chris. Doctors Without Borders is a great organization... I try to send a few bucks their way every year and will do so again today.

Garth, I've got the novel and soundtrack for MAN WITH A GOLDEN ARM and will probably do a show based around it sometime in the next year. I've heard of QUARTET IN H and will try to hunt it down, based upon your rec--and who was Evan Hunter? Wasn't that a pen name for a leftie-turned-noir writer whose name is escaping me at the moment? I'll have to ransack my Alan Wald essays on the matter when I get home tonight. P.S. Duh--just saw the Evan Hunter/Ed McBain reference in your post. McBain was known for the "procedural," correct? I think I'm confusing him with someone else I read about in one of Wald's books or essays.

My sentiments as well, AB. I also thank his wife for letting us know... peace to him always.

How on earth does Jazz Profiles continue to air, then? Or any program that's devoted to a single artist? Do they have to go through the waiver process for every single show?

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). Actually, we have a bound volume of JAZZ REVIEW just seven floors above me (man, it really helps to work in a big library sometimes). In the article, there's reference to a band of jazz musicians at Lexington: X or Y is probably Dameron, correct? Too bad this band appears to have never recorded.

Up--I'm taping a Night Lights program tomorrow based around both RIKERS & SYNANON.

Some amateur footage of a tsunami hitting a resort has surfaced in an AP story (accessible through the Yahoo newsbox).

Miles to Wynton Marsalis? Ding ding ding! A free month's worth of fast food and porn-surfing to Mr. Catesta. B-)

"Man, get the f*%# off the stage!"

The Dick van Dyke Show, season 3. Couldn't hold off on the Marx/Paramount and picked that one up as a "gift for self" when it came out.

Man, it was a brutal year. Thanks for the link--Jimmy Coe was right in my own backyard, but I was thinking he'd passed away last year. Too much sad news to keep up with on this front.

Elvin Jones Steve Lacy Pete Jolly Ray Charles (however we classify him) ... who else? I'm already forgetting, which is sad.

If we're talking more than jazz, Elliott's makes the very top of the list. I played that one more than any other new CD I got this past year.

Man! Glad George Wein didn't get to inscribe Twardzik's tombstone.

Wasn't Armstrong a huge fan of Lombardo & other sweet bands? And I don't think he was alone among African-American musicians of the 1930s. (Hell, Allen, I might've read that in your book--don't be surprised if you encounter your own wisdom/knowledge being parroted back to you here!)

Thanks for posting that, Guy. Latest I heard on the death toll was around 23,000--and, as Guy observes, it's likely to climb even higher from post-disaster problems.

Geez, I wonder why George didn't include it as a "bonus" on the new DVD trilogy set. My wife told me last night that she remembered seeing it, too. She & her brother were both big SW fans and sat down excitedly with snacks in hand... ten minutes later they turned it off and stomped out of the living-room in disgust.

Allen, is that the one with the weird drawing of Twardzik on the cover? 1954 IMPROVISATIONS, or something like that? If so, yes. I have the PJ, the Boston 1952 date w/Bird, the Chaloff material, the Mariano date, the sides w/Baker in France... I think I've got it covered, music-wise, but really hope I can read the Chambers before doing the show. I might even go against our listening guide & postpone the program if I don't have the book yet; its appearance was a prime factor in my timing.

Happy birthday, Mr. Moose! Hope your Christmas loot was doubled and that you had some time to enjoy it! (Mssrs. Spade and Op also say great going on making it another year without being shot down by some gunsel.)

I should add: Von Freeman, THE GREAT DIVIDE Fly, FLY Diana Krall, THE GIRL IN THE OTHER ROOM Johnny Holiday, JOHNNY HOLIDAY (which could count as both a new release and a re-issue)

This is somewhat anecdotal, based on my experiences working in several local CD stores for seven years & perusing articles, jazz radio charts, etc., but there is a brand of jazz--the brand that dare not speak its name--that continues to be somewhat popular & esp. with African-Americans, and that is the dreaded smooth or "urban" jazz. So where does that leave us? I can't stand it, musically speaking (in any form of speaking), but that's the kind of jazz that younger and middle-aged African-Americans tended to buy in the places where I worked. It was mostly the older crowd that bought the music that's talked about here. Lots of white folks buying it as well, and they were all buying it for pleasure (cue the cable-movie sex scene). We can say that bad taste knows no boundaries, racial or otherwise, but I think that's a condescending attitude. "Pleasure," listening-wise, is such a subjective way to frame the discussion of how we approach the "worth" of music... One of my co-workers was a middle-aged black woman, and we used to jibe each other about our respective tastes in jazz. She'd grimace while I was playing Sonny Rollins in the overhead--"That's just so skronky!" (and we're talking the Prestige sides) and then throw on Dave Koz. She hipped me to some early Grover Washington, and I thank her for that, but she also liked lots of later Grover that, uh, well, the friendly jibes continued flying.

Will do!

To what do you attribute the shift, Jim? The party line that's developed among the Murray/Crouch/Marsalis crowd is that jazz turned its back on the public (although I think they revise Ellison's dictum from bop to free as the point at which it did so). Yet same said crowd's efforts, to my way of thinking, will do anything but restore a certain degree of popularity to jazz--not in any way that's living & viable, at least.

Louvin Brothers?