ghost of miles

The End!

One more go-around this past week for Norman Granz’s Jazz Scene.

Just scored a copy for $20 at my local record store. God bless Landlocked Music CDs and Vinyl!

Fellow fan of Jazz United here, though I’m way behind on listening to episodes. Years ago I used to listen to this podcast—which is apparently dormant now?—and enjoyed it: Jazz Insights With Dr. Gordon Vernick I’d be interested to hear others’ recommendations as well—thanks for reviving the topic.

😯 I just reread TSAR last summer (in the new LOA edition) and think I remember seeing a reference around that time to this particular book. Getting ready to start this newly-arrived NYRB Classic:

Yes! I’ve been listening to this one a lot the past two weeks. Right now, the first Smiths album I ever bought (autumn 1984) and still one of my favorites:

One more go-around this past week for The Great Columbia Jazz Purge: Coleman, Evans, Jarrett And Mingus. A sequel is in the works!

WBGO obituary: Slide Hampton, trombonist who also made a lasting impression as a master arranger, is dead at 89

Seems as if the conventional wisdom is that Some Girls was the Stones' last "great" album... does Tattoo You qualify for the honor instead? (and gotta confess I'm not sure I've heard any of the subsequent Stones albums all the way through) It at least deserves extra credit for the presence of Sonny Rollins. EDIT: looking around online a bit leads me to think that perhaps the CW already *is* that the title below is the "last great album." (And yes, ironic that it's essentially a pulled-together album of 1970s outtakes that Jagger finished off)

Underrated record... thanks for highlighting it!

Up in memory: Slide Hampton: Slide At 75

Just commented on this in the Hasaan Ibn Ali new-releases thread and second Lon's "Wow." Wow!

Only a third of the way into disc 1, and uh--feeling a little slack-jawed with wonder so far. On first listen it's hitting me the way hearing Bud for the first time did back in the early 1990s. And there's certainly Bud influence here, some Monk and Tatum and even Cecil at times, perhaps? all turning into the highly distinct kaleidoscope of Hasaan Ibn Ali. The most invigorated (and invigorating) take on standards I've heard in quite awhile.

It's one of the better-done making-of-a-movie books that I've read (a genre that I've dipped into increasingly over the years).

Tristano release date now December 20th, per the Mosaic email that I'm sure many of you received as well. (The email says a discography for the set is now posted, but I'm still getting a "coming soon" message when I click on the link for it.)

And didn't Richard Groove Holmes score a hit with it in the mid-1960s?

Picked up my copy of the new Omnivore release at Landlocked and will be listening later today!

Looks great--thanks for the heads-up, just added to my book/CD budget for next July when it comes out. (Gives me some time as well to finally finish George Lewis' book!)

Second Jim's recommendation of Lighthouse '68. Includes one of the better jazz-goes-Beatles 60s moments IMO with their rendition of "Eleanor Rigby."

Bumping for Veterans Day today, and because we're re-airing this week: The Duke Is On The Air: Duke Ellington's Summer 1945 Treasury Shows

Via NPR (of course!): Local stations across the country celebrate Public Radio Music Day Grateful that the public radio station which I work at and listen to gave me the chance to start Night Lights and take over our weekday afternoon jazz show. What commercial station would afford me the opportunity to play the "Pursuance" passage from the new live recording of A Love Supreme this afternoon, as I'm planning to do? Or devote an entire two-hour programming block to paying tribute to a beloved local jazz musician and educator? I'd be the first to admit that, broadly speaking, public radio music programming isn't always all that it should be or as good as it should be... but it's also a place where you can hear Lazaro Vega and Ken Dryden, for starters, or Kevin Whitehead reviewing Albert Ayler releases on Fresh Air, or Felix Contreras, Nate Chinen, and Christian McBride honoring living jazz artists as well as those who've just passed on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. (And sure, I'm being a propagandist here, but it's propaganda in which I truly believe. Maybe that makes me an "advocate.") Anyway--big, big thanks and gratitude to everybody who listens and supports public radio and public radio music programming in one way or another. Planning to do my best over the next few years to help justify that support!

... or else spring right out! Re Zoot Sims' legendary "Stan's a nice bunch of guys" quip, think of the possibilities in our age of virtual replication... a whole gaggle of AI humanoid Stan Getzs. A veritable Four-Brothers-Of-Stan-Getz-Only! A 15-piece big band of Stan Getzs backing Kenny G on "The G From Ipanema." An army of zombie-bot Stans who turn on their soprano-sax master and shuffle after him in pursuit, till he falls to his death from a high precipice as he tries to escape. Or something like that.

I got a promotional email about this as well, Ken. Let me choose my words with care--"a fucking abomination" is what comes to mind.

Bob Blumenthal just posted this news to a jazz listserv, via a NY Times notice. Glad that so many of McNeill’s albums got reissued in recent years before his passing: Lloyd McNeill R.I.P.