ghost of miles

I'm pretty sure we had a thread like this back on--where the hell did we come from again?? Anyway--I started compiling a list this morning: Hugh Masekala on the Byrds' "So You Wanna Be a Rock 'n Roll Star" Sonny Rollins on the Rolling Stones' "Waiting on a Friend" Phil Woods on Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" Chet Baker on Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding" Curtis Amy on the Doors' "Touch Me" (is this correct? I know he or somebody else from the Pac Jazz scene showed up on some Doors' records)

Couldn't get through for the last two and a half hours, but am now... slowly...

Last call for July: The Byrds, YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY Sonny Rollins, SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS Sonny Rollins, PLUS FOUR Anita O'Day, COMP. NORGRAN/CLEF/VERVE RECORDINGS

I'm also on the fence about BIRD AT THE HI-HAT. I've got so much live Parker from the early 50's--I'm sure you can't have too much--but I remember hearing the Hi-Hat date years ago and not being blown away by it. Still, prob. better to err on the side of caution...

Assuming many of you got this, but for those who didn't... I'm on the fence about LOVE CALL, as I'm hoping they'll re-master and re-issue it some day:

Hey all, I'm re-running my three-hour special on Gigi Gryce, featuring music and remarks from Gryce biographer (and Organissimo poster) Michael Fitzgerald. Here's the blurb: Alto saxophonist and composer Gigi Gryce is one of the great mysteries of modern jazz. Jazz fans may know his frequently-covered tunes such as “Minority,” “Nica’s Tempo,” or “Social Call,” but they know little about the man who wrote them. In the 1950s he seemed on the verge of becoming a musical legend, only to leave the jazz world behind and disappear for the last 20 years of her life. What happened to this sensitive, prolific player and composer? and here's the link: WFHBGryceshow or simply paste 129.79.21.137:9198/listen.pls into whatever media player you use. From 6-9 p.m. EST tonight!

There's a version of "Out of This World" on the Gerald Wilson Mosaic box, and in the liners the writer alludes to Wilson's ahead-of-its-time 1940's arrangement. Just this morning I heard it for the first time, on the Hep CD THEY ALL HAD RHYTHM 1945-46. It's over five minutes long, with a Herb Jeffries vocal, and it really does sound advanced (no surprise there, with Mr. Wilson's fingerprints on it). Definitely an arrangement worth hearing, and a disc worth picking up (lots of Benny Carter here as well).

Whitney Balliett has a review of the Bix/Tram/Tea Mosaic set and the Sony Armstrong Hot Fives/Sevens set in the new New York Review of Books, along with the Bix-centered novel 1929. I'd provide a link, but it's e-edition only--hell, I subscribe to the print edition and even print subscribers can't read it online. Anyway, it's the Aug. 14 issue, out now.

I guess the club scene is better there than in southern Indiana... OK, we're movin' the party! Oh, guess I need to get the 50 mill first, huh?

Hey, man, if I ever come into an extra 40 mill or so I promise I'll snap it up and re-open it as the official Organissimo Resort Spa! I'll contract Weizen to run the bar and Catesta to keep the grounds up (500 grand a year OK for each of youse?) and Quartet Out and Organissimo as the house bands (500 grand for youse guys too). On the sixth floor we'll have a lively political "chat room" w/myself, Greg, Johnny, and others dangling one another 100 feet above the atrium floor whenever things get out of hand. I actually wrote two cover stories about the hotel for our local alterna-weekly when it was being restored. They're about to approve gambling for the valley (West Baden is right next door to French Lick, Larry Bird's hometown) and I think that's the only way the hotel is going to sell--that and if they can put in a new golf course. Cook has done a lot, but truly re-opening the place might take another 50 million, or so I've heard.

BURNIN' is the one I'm prowlin' for.

This building, the West Baden Springs Hotel, is about 60 miles down the road from me. In the 1920s it was a favored spot of Al Capone and other Chicago gangsters; in the early 1930s the owner donated to the Jesuits, who ran a seminary there for three decades. In the 1980s the building was abandoned and fell into disrepair, but in the past few years the Cook Group has restored it. The atrium is quite amazing, and you really get a sense of 1920s glamour when you go there: Some pictures of it in its 1920s heyday:

Huh? What's up with that? That precludes--everything before 1950 or so? I did a three-hour show on Carter and devoted the first hour to the 1930's and early 40's. How could anybody ignore that period of his career? I can understand a station's wish to emphasize "modern" (i.e., post-WWII to present) jazz, but completely blacklisting anything prior seems silly.

Matthew, I think Fantasy is now issuing this material in a series of CDs. The second one, PARISIAN THOROUGHFARES, just came out, or is coming out. At one time there was a box-set of the Paudras recordings (on the Mythic Sound label), but it's long been OOP. Amen to Georgie Auld, a saxophonist who often gets lost in the historical shuffle. Berigan, do you have the Hep? And, as always, a bunch of great suggestions here. The Verve Farlow seems close to becoming a reality, and Cuscuna says the Keynote is "limping along." I also really like the idea of a Strata East set--some of that material is really hard to find. I'm also excited about the forthcoming Roy Eldridge on Verve, which is a set I've often wished aloud for. Still, in addition to the Keynote I think the set I want most is a McCoy Tyner Blue Note 1967-70. Mosaic has alluded to this set being a possibility, and it's one to which I hope they give a completist, rather than Select, approach.

Oh well, it was $22 total from Mr. Tanno, and I'm glad to put a few extra bucks in his pocket... Actually I'm also glad to know, because I'll check out Red Trumpet more often. Until the past month or two I avoided buying imports, fearing that they'd become the CD equivalent of crack for me--but I'm starting to give way, esp. when titles like BREAKIN' IT UP just refuse to surface in the States. And, like our friend Weizen, I'm beginning to develop a fondness for mini-LPs! God help me...

Serendipity--just found out I might be MCing a concert at this year's Lotus Festival (world music shinding that happens every autumn in Bloomington) by the Cool Crooners, described to me as "Zimbabwe doo-wop. " Right on! Here's their press description:

OK, refined my search a bit and found it after all; it evidently came out this past spring. LowDown I also see that the Mule posted an LA Times review of this book back in the first week of May: LaTimesAlbanythread

All Things Considered carried a feature tonight on LOWDOWN, a memoir by pianist Joe Albany's daughter A.J. I heard only part of it because I was busy running the board and talking to another announcer, but she evidently discusses his life, music, and drug problems, as well as what it was like to grow up in an environment of jazz & junk. Oddly enough I can't find a listing for the book yet on either Amazon or B & N (or, perhaps, not oddly; ATC sometimes runs stories about new books or CDs weeks before they hit the market). Anyway, the audio for ATC supposedly doesn't get archived online until 9 in the evening. Here's the page with the Lowdown story (if you scroll down the page): LowdownJoeAlbany

Up for broadcast in 15 minutes.

B3-er, I don't think I've gotten my August issue yet, but I'll mail it to you after I'm done reading it.

This past weekend--Season 1 of Python on DVD. "Upper Class Twit of the Year" still funny the third time around. Also watched the two-disc re-issue of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN that Berigan alluded to in another thread. It's fascinating to watch films from that 1950 period like this one and SUNSET BOULEVARD, with their respective self-referential takes on Hollywood--an interesting historical vantage point, as the glory days of the studio system were starting to wane. What was the first self-referential Hollywood film? The first Crosby/Hope road movie?

In days of yore, coffee and a smoke was the best breakfast around as far as I was concerned. These days, it's granola, strawberries and nonfat vanilla yogurt, orange juice, and coffee... coffee... coffee all morning long. But on Saturdays my wife and I go out for breakfast and I put away a big serving of French toast (made w/whole wheat bread) and home fries with onions... all chased by many cups of coffee. That's my favorite breakfast.

Dancin' with myself in the now-reading thread again... BOOGALOO, by Arthur Kempton. Mixed feelings about this so far and will post more tomorrow night after I've finished it. ROOSEVELT'S SECRET WAR, by Joseph Persico. Just started this one, which seems to be taking a fairly positive view of FDR & his covert efforts to bring us into WWII. And delving periodically into the first book of Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy.

Love Geri Allen's work on that one. RoyBrooksROYBROOOKSRoyBrooks!!! Yeah, he ain't bad either. My nomination, should the honor ever fall to me:

Aric, See here: PattonSelect