ghost of miles

Glad to take it off your hands! I passed this one up years ago, but I'm such an Ike fan (and Grant Green) that I want it anyway--neither one will be putting out new records again. Just curious--why do you guys regard this as one of the worst Conns? Are her vocals really that bad?

Excellent! You guys are priceless--thanks!

That is quite a coincidence, Swinging Swede! And thanks for the account, Matthew--does it give a date for that performance, BTW? I'm really hoping to track down the specific night...

Hey all, anybody know of eyewitness accounts or otherwise to the night that Artie Shaw walked off the stage at the Cafe Rouge in New York's Hotel Pennsylvania circa November 1939? He gave up his big band and disappeared for a couple of months--re-surfacing in Mexico, I believe. I don't know if our library's Downbeats go back that far, but I'm very interested in any stories about this night that have been printed anywhere. Surely Shaw's talked about it before (he mentions it fleetingly in the SELF-PORTRAIT liners, I think).

Scores from tonight: Yanks 13, Baltimore 1 Red Sox 8, Tampa Bay 2 Texas 6, Seattle 4 Looks like the BoSox have a good shot at snagging the wildcard... Baseball books sitting on the shelf that I need to get around to reading: THE CATCHER WAS A SPY and Arnold Rampersad's bio of Jackie Robinson (he also wrote a two-part bio of Langston Hughes)

Sounds like a haul to me, man! The Urso, Benny Powell and Upper Manhattans sound particularly intriguing.

Wow, already? Didn't they license that for 10,000 copies? Whether it's sold that fast--or sold that little--in 4 years, I'm surprised. In any case, yes, get it while you can! SO many good albums hear--SYMPHONIC ELLINGTON, AFRO-BOSSA, JAZZ VIOLIN... this, in fact, is one of my favorite Ellington collections, and one that I re-visit often. Not to be missed! Hell, I even like the Mary Poppins stuff (you ain't heard it till you've heard it arranged by Strayhorn); that album was one of the unexpected delights for me when I picked up this box.

Jimmy Lyons, BOX-SET disc 1 (yeahhhhhh!) A.K. Salim, PLAYS PRETTY FOR THE PEOPLE Bunny Berigan, Mosaic set discs 1 & 2 Red Garland, MANTECA

Mine arrived this afternoon and I had time to listen to most of Disc 1 and read the booklet before I had to go to work. Beautiful! Ben Young's liner notes fill in a lot of Lyons' background that I didn't know about, and the music--what I got to hear of it--was amazing. Can't wait to check out the rest of it after midnight tonight...

Either way it's still an interesting discussion. I've sometimes heard the Blakey Birdlands referred to as the birth of hard bop, and I've also sometimes seen Bud Powell's 1949 session with Sonny Rollins (what were they billed as? "Bud Powell and His Modernists?" In any case....) given the same label. Everybody will say, "You can't nail down the start of a movement to a specific date/session/player," and while that's often true, trying to do so can dig up some interesting, overlooked moments in the making of the canon. I'm thinking that hard bop's roots/precedents have to predate even the Powell '49 session... haven't listened to the Blakey/James Moody NEW SOUNDS disc in some time, but I might pull that out tonight and give it another listen.

Al Grey, SNAP YOUR FINGERS J.J. Johnson. J.J.'S BROADWAY Webster Young, FOR LADY Bud Powell, COMP. BLUE NOTE & ROOST (disc 1) Randy Weston, GET HAPPY

Wesbed, are you sure you didn't read that ANABirdland was the beginning of "hard bop?" Bebop was at least 10 years old at this point (actually older, if you trace the roots, etc.--the classic point-of-departure has been the 1941 Minton sessions in Harlem). Some day I'd really like to do an "echoes of bop" show that would focus on the bebop precedents set in the 1930s.

Doublin' on my PM earlier--hope you scored big at the record store!

I've been having a craving to go back and watch some of the classic Universal horror flicks that I always used to see on our local late-Friday-night fright flicks feature (hosted by a character named "Sammy Terry"--get it, yuk yuk). Picked up a copy of the OOP DVD of THE MUMMY (1932, with Boris Karloff) and watched it last night, and it really held up. Great atmosphere, and Karloff's performance really carries the picture. Our library here has most of the cheesier followups on VHS, and I'll probably give some of those a viewing (THE MUMMY'S HAND, THE MUMMY'S TOMB, etc.; but if you come across the DVD of the original for a reasonable price, I highly recommend picking it up. There's a good documentary (albeit with a corny title, "Mummy Dearest") and some of the usual DVD extras:

Too true, Lon.

Wow! A friend played me an old vinyl version of this the other day, and it cooks! On one track Fred Wesley plays a mile-long solo that just goes on and on, and you don't want it to stop!

Right-o, B3-er, old chum! We just need a Jeeves to extract us from our numerous scraps, romps, and devil-may-care follies!

Don't forget Mae West! I fall somewhere between Lon and Jim on this one. "Acquired taste" was exactly the phrase that came to my mind as well when I perused this thread earlier, but I think I've acquired it more and more. Who was the vocalist on "Strange Feeling?" Was that Hibbler--seems like it was somebody else, but I liked him, at least for that particular song.

It's been down for several days and isn't due up till Sunday. AAJdown

Well, you guys got me pretty worked up about that JAZZ IN AFRICA CD, so I went ahead and ordered it too... Our annual Bloomington world music bash (the Lotus Festival) is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I usually do some kind of world-jazz show the night before it starts, so this sounds as if it will be a nice addition. I'm going to be MCing for a group called The Cool Crooners, a sort of jazz/doo-wop group from Zimbabwe--should be a fun time.

I had the same thoughts as you, relyles, regarding RAINING ON THE MOON. It is a pretty strong record overall. I've seen Parker and Drake several times here in Bloomington (once with Peter Brotzmann!) and have always felt that I was in the presence of modern-day greatness.

I've had similar (mis)adventures with both White Lightning and John L regarding PMs in the past two days. Also got that "Error: mail send" message several times when I posted a new topic or a reply in a thread. In all cases, though, the messages/posts did go through.

I'll bet you have, Lon, without realizing it... I've heard the Byrds' "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n Roll" star for years, ever since I was a kid, and only recently when I was studying the liner notes to one of their re-issues did I learn that it was Masakela on trumpet! Was Mel Torme's TORME supposed to be part of this round? Hopefully it's coming in the October batch... Supposed to be a damned fine Torme record (yes, I am a fan ).

Bad news about the delay, but glad to hear that the advances sound so good. BTW, beautiful Von Freeman-Jason Moran duet of "I Like the Sunrise" on Freeman's last Premonition CD.

Talk about reaching critical mass! That place is gonna blow (in more ways than one ). AAJ and JC are both very good boards where I tend to lurk much more than I post. As for this place, what we need is some humble, underpaid flunkie who'll cut and light our cigars for us while we ruminate on various topics jazz and non-jazz. "Dammit, Weizen, my good man, if your GOP brothers would just acquiesce to a lift of that pesky Cuban trade embargo, we could be smoking in style!"