ghost of miles

Congratulations, Tony--sounds as if the new addition will arrive just in time for Father's Day!

Dr. J has to be Tony, based on a reading of said Dr.'s posts.

Mr. Milazzo has checked in!

Yes, I ordered it this morning, and lucky for me, too, before Jim's review sends board-members stampeding to deplete BMG's stock!

Damn--that sure beats hell out of the AMG review!

Hey, I saw that moniker and wondered... I remember mentioning him on this board once and eliciting several positive responses. I think Dan Gould was still in touch with him and mentioned that he perused this place from time to time. Glad he's here, if it is indeed him.

Sold!

I've got a couple of freebies still coming from BMG, and they have the mini-LP Verve re-issue of Herman's Philips album 1963. Jim Sangrey swears by this period of Herman, and who knows if the alleged Philips "box" will ever come to pass, so I'm thinking of pulling the trigger--any thoughts from those who might already have it?

I was thinking about starting this thread today anyway, and then saw Chris' topic about the old board. I really miss Joe Milazzo; I know he's active on JC and AAJ, but he's a BNBB vet whose presence would be most welcome here.

Checking in from Douglas, Michigan (just 60 miles south of Chuck Nessa's swell jazz joint) where I'm on the next-to-last day of my vacation, perusing the following: Robert Dupuis, BUNNY BERIGAN: ELUSIVE LEGEND OF JAZZ William L. Van Deburg, NEW DAY IN BABYLON: THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT AND AMERICAN CULTURE, 1965-1975 Chester Himes, LONELY CRUSADE Arthur Conan Doyle, THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES Henry James, THE ART OF FICTION AND OTHER ESSAYS However, I have no CD player with me and am suffering a serious jazz jones... particularly with the CDs I bought from Chuck smokin' a hole in my suitcase.

Congratulations, Mike! With my other station's permission (still pending), I'm hoping to re-broadcast my Gryce show, including a great deal of music and many comments from Mike, on WFHB-Bloomington Wednesday, July 30 from 6-9 p.m. (The show originally ran as a two-parter on our local NPR affiliate, but war coverage blocked out the stream.) I'll keep folks posted...

Ah, well, time for me to get my lumps for the names I omitted, inadvertently for the most part. I guess I associate Tyner so strongly with Coltrane's 1960's sound--which, on the surface anyway, does not seem to resemble the "Blue Note sound" very much--that I neglected to put him in there. Ammons and Lewis, whom Jim Sangrey mentioned, did cross my mind, but they--along with Johnson and Hodes--represent the dawning years of the label, and while they helped set the template in some ways, they don't represent what I think of as the Blue Note sound. (Ouch, I feel the flames already!) In retrospect I probably should have included Tyner and one of the Ammons/Lewis/Johnson/Hodes coterie, and dropped one or two of the iconoclasts. I voted for Hancock, by the way, after the initial Silver/Clark twinge. I think Herbie's range touched nearly every aspect of the BN aesthetic.

Not the "best," but the pianist that for you captures the Blue Note "house sound." (Yes, I know, a vague, categorical concept...)

Alan Wald's WRITING FROM THE LEFT: NEW ESSAYS ON RADICAL CULTURE AND POLITICS. Wald is writing a three-volume history of 20th-century American leftists and authors (only published volume so far is EXILES FROM A FUTURE TIME). Fascinating to read how many radical writers went underground into the pulp industry after WWII; anybody who's interested in leftist culture, history, and art should check out his work.

Evidently this happened a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't heard about it until Steve Schwartz from WGBH-Boston posted the news over on Jazz Corner. He also posted this remembrance from Bill Crow via the jazzwestcoast list:

Just started Graham Greene's CONFIDENTIAL AGENT, a 1939 "entertainment" that Greene later disowned, but which a friend and Greene fan endorsed with much enthusiasm.

An update that from Lois' post on Jazz Corner. Grimes is going to play the Vision Festival in New York City on Memorial Day, May 26: Here's the Monday, May 26 10:30 p.m. lineup: 10:30 William Parker leads the Jeanne Lee Project voices: Thomas Buckner, Ellen Christi, Jay Clayton, Lisa Sokolov; Rob Brown alto, Lewis Barnes trumpet, Joe Daley tuba Cooper Moore ashimba, piano, Gerald Cleaver drums, William Parker balaphon, Ngoni, bass and special guest Henry Grimes For the full schedule, here's the link. Damn, wish I could get to NYC for this! Vision

Just got the VME of Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt's BOSS TENORS IN ORBIT; in the liner notes, the writer cites a 70's saxophonist named Gregory Herbert, who died of a drug overdose at the age of 31. I'd never heard of him, but the writer was full of praise, so I pulled up his bio on AMG: Anybody else ever hear/hear of this musician?

Ahhhhh, you know he's got a copy, buried in a closet somewhere... waits till the wife & kids are asleep and then sneaks a few pages every night.

James Naremore, MORE THAN NIGHT: FILM NOIR IN ITS CONTEXTS. Naremore's a professor of English and film studies here at IU, and a jazz buff as well; I'm going to have him on as a guest for my jazz in post-WWII French cinema radio program.

Here's a Boston Globe article on the documentary to which the earlier post alludes: Film will aim spotlight on a free-jazz legend By Steve Greenlee, Globe Staff, 12/6/2002 In life, tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler never got his due. He was a leader of the 1960s free-jazz scene, and today he's considered one of jazz's most influential artists, one of the forefathers of the avant-garde branch. Although the critics liked his work, it didn't have many fans at the time. His 1964 recording with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, ''Spiritual Unity,'' was so different from everything else in jazz - even free jazz - that it frightened people. It still frightens people listening to it for the first time, but now it's recognized as a masterpiece. It's not hard to find jazz artists today who claim Ayler as an influence. Yet, he's still a mysterious figure; no one knows, for example, whether his 1970 drowning in New York's East River was the result of suicide. Brian Carpenter is trying to shed some light on Ayler's life, in filming what is apparently the first documentary about the saxophonist. Based in Boston, Carpenter has crews here and in New York working to assemble a feature-length work about Ayler and his legacy. In conjunction with this project, Carpenter has been producing concerts - and filming them - to illustrate Ayler's impact. The next one will take place Thursday at the Tremont Theatre, where the Other Dimensions in Music group (trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr., saxophonist Daniel Carter, bassist William Parker, and drummer Rashid Bakr) and guitarist Joe Morris's trio (with bassist Timo Shanko and drummer Luther Gray) will perform. ''The Other Dimensions group, we definitely wanted to get them in the Ayler documentary,'' says Carpenter, 30, who moved to Boston two years ago from Florida, where he grew up and went to college. ''Not only because of their tenure - they've been around for 25 years - but because of their telepathy. They make it work. I've seen a lot of bands in free jazz not work. It's very hard to do.'' Carpenter is something of an authority on Ayler. While studying the history of the jazz saxophone years ago, Carpenter was stopped in his tracks by Ayler's music. ''Where in the world did this come from?'' he wondered. ''It didn't seem to fit in the lineage.'' ''Everybody has their first experience listening to Albert Ayler,'' he says. ''You can't listen to it as background. You have to sit down and listen to it. The first record I heard was `Spiritual Unity.' I was frightened by it. I couldn't listen to it. At the same time, I was intrigued. I was moved. ... Now I find it accessible. It's an emotion. It's raw nerve. It's more accessible than bebop, in a lot of ways.'' Today, Ayler is viewed as a prophet who foresaw a new way of presenting jazz and expressing naked emotion. Such respected saxmen as David S. Ware, Ken Vandermark, and Fred Anderson are considered disciples. Guitarist Marc Ribot recorded a solo album last year, ''Saints,'' on which he covered three Ayler tunes. This is the legacy that Carpenter wants to get at. (Carpenter, by the way, moonlights as a trumpeter, playing in a local free-jazz sextet called Beat Science.) He and his crew have been in production since last spring, and they already have 70 hours of film - concert footage, biographical material, and interviews. The documentary will alternate between sharp pictures of concerts and grainy black-and-white segments that tell Ayler's life story. In Boston, Carpenter has been interviewing and filming just about every relevant artist who comes through the city: Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Ribot, Vandermark - those who played with him as well as those who are influenced by his work. The film is a long way from completion. Carpenter hopes to wrap it up in 2004 and then start taking it around to film festivals in hopes of finding a distributor. ''Who knows what will happen after that?'' he says. ''We'd like to see it on DVD eventually.''

I'm excited, because I'm pretty sure I don't have any of the music associated with the tree. It's also heartening that another avant-garde artist is getting a box (coming on the heels of the news about the Jimmy Lyons collection). Went on a big Ayler kick a few years ago when I first discovered his music (me and a few thousand other listeners, right?), and this news makes me want to pull out a few CDs that I haven't spun in awhile (listened to WITCHES AND DEVILS about two months ago). I'll be interested to read the book, too. Have any of you ever read the Ayler bio that's posted online? AylerBio

Just posted on the Coltrane list: caught evan parker recently which was a real treat -- news for this group is that we found out there that revenant is planning a big ayler project. i found more in the american-statesman: "the next giant revenant project is box set focusing on the late free jazz pioneer albert ayler. 'this is definitely as big as the (charley) patton box for us,' blackwell says. titled 'holy ghost' -- and penciled in for a fall 2004 release -- the projected eight-cd collection is slated to include extensive liner notes, never-before-seen photographs of ayler and his bands, and hours of never-before-released material, including ayler's legendary performance at john coltrane's funeral." the revenant ad in the parker program called it a "multi-disc set" scheduled for summer of 2004. perhaps a revenant set, along with the documentary also planned for 2004, will help bring ayler more of the attention he deserves. and get me those ayler fridge magnets i've been looking for. btw i have a couple of extra programs from the parker show. will be happy to mail 'em to whoever emails me their addresses first -- off-list please.

All right, enough with the dreary debates about petty matters such as SACD and U.S. foreign policy--here is the news of the day! Can a duets recording be far down the road?!? ElvisDiana