ghost of miles

God help me, Mny, I took up another last night and am more than halfway through it, as I set aside U.S.A. and the Harlem book for the weekend. I've had a 1970's Modern Library edition of this book for a long time, but some recent discussion on the board concerning McCarthyism inspired me to pull it out, and I ended up being completely engrossed: E.L. Doctorow, THE BOOK OF DANIEL. It's a fictionalized account of the Rosenbergs, told by a fictional son. (Note to jazz fans, a Mnytime-factoid, if you will: the actual Rosenberg children were adopted by Abel Meerepol, who, under the nom de plume "Lewis Allen," wrote the lyrics to "Strange Fruit.")

Love Oscar Brown Jr., love him! A big second to all of P.D.'s recommendations, and hopefully BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL will make it to CD. And yeah, if FREEDOM NOW SUITE hasn't been re-issued in the States again, you might try Amazon UK--that's where I scored my copy a couple of years ago. Another fave: "Jeanine," a Duke Pearson tune to which Brown put words. And how about the classic "40 Acres and a Mule"?

(Sigh) Damn, am I gonna go broke this year. Of course it's not too early to start the birthday/Christmas list...

New record just set:

Shrugs, here's a link to the set on AMG: Duke1946-47

They're actually transcriptions recorded for broadcasts, rather than broadcasts themselves. It's a great set, and you can often find it online for about $25 or so... Some material on there, such as "Magenta Haze," that I don't think Ellington recorded anywhere else. In fact, it's the first Ellington on CD that I ever got, a Christmas present from my wife years & years ago.

Rooster, I haven't seen much beyond David Rosenthal's mention of Hill in HARD BOP and the booklet that accompanies the Hill Mosaic. But yeah, I'd like to read a bio too.

Or what happened to Michael Jackson...

Can you imagine? And the guy essentially went straight from age 19 to 39... coma

What exactly does the Garland Prelude box encompass, and where can you get it?

Herbie Nichols--January 3. I actually sort of observe his, Coltrane's, and Powell's birthday. Tend to light a candle and spin some of their CDs... I really have a spiritualistic reverence for the three of them.

I'd never heard of these before, but the other day I got a Critics' Choice Video and DVD catalog and came across them while browsing: and The catalog describes the plot of THE BEIDERBECKE AFFAIR as thus: "An amateur detective is on the trail of a saleswoman who sold his girlfriend a defective Bix Beiderbecke record in this comedy thriller. 2 DVD or 4 cassettes; 5 hrs., 12 min. (5 hrs., 12 min.? It's longer than GONE WITH THE WIND!) This is the plotline for THE BEIDERBECKE CONNECTION: "Married high school jazz teachers and jazz aficionados inadvertently become involved with an ex-con who wants to destroy the world's currency." (This one clocks in at a breezy 3 hrs. and 20 minutes.)

These are on my Hep want list, WL (which totals 25+ so far). Are they all live performances? I'm wondering if there's any overlap with the '45 Carter band sides that appear on the Capitol Sessions Mosaic set. I picked up the Moten set used a year ago and love it. Man, I'm just so into this label right now!

Another movie from '39 that I like--not one for the ages, I suppose, but nonetheless--is ANOTHER THIN MAN. It's one of my favorites in the THIN MAN series.

John Coltrane--September 23. Bud Powell--September 27.

Hey, Tod, best wishes and get well soon. You haven't been hobnobbing with a certain Republican operative in the Virginia region, have you? I hear those guys are extremely contagious... They get you drunk and pretty soon you're voting all kinds of crazy tickets!

Yes. One time I was sitting in the dark around 4 in the morning, listening to Coltrane's solo on "Blue in Green"... Man, just thinking about it right now makes me shiver again, and this was years ago. IN A SILENT WAY sometimes has a similar effect, as does Eric Dolphy, Ron Carter and Mal Waldron's recording of "Warm Canto". This one, too, for a wildcard:

And you don't? My friend, I think you're the most voluminous reader on this board! I, at least, stand in awe of your literary intake... My problem is that I get interested in too many titles & topics at once. I forced myself not to start LIGHT IN AUGUST because I was starting these other volumes as well (God help me, I will never call a book a "tome" again, and you know the reason why). I'm trying to restrict myself right now to books that I need to read for literary and radio projects.

Started last night on U.S.A. and also re-started one that would make the Red Menace himself blush with pride: THE COMMUNISTS IN HARLEM DURING THE DEPRESSION.

I picked up a used hardback of Gene Lees' LEADER OF THE BAND for a song a couple of years ago. I've only skimmed it, and I'm hesitant to call any bio "definitive," but it might do the trick for ya.

Well, Pettite and Mussina bailed the Yanks out and gave them a split with the Bosox, keeping NY four games in first... they'll have a three-game re-match later this month at Fenway. Seattle's cooling off a bit... What do you guys think of the new All-Star game rule, giving the winning league home-field advantage in the World Series?

Yeah, I'm still on the fence about the Wilson CDs... I'd love to have the non-Holiday stuff, but there's so much overlap with the Holiday Columbia set--except for V. 7, which I already have, and V. 2, which I probably will order as well. I have both Jazz Factory Thornhills (purchased before I saw the light) and will probably ditch 'em for all of the Heps. I'm getting really addicted to this series!

Won't that make it impossible to bring back Connery as his father than? I mean Pt 2 & 3 were supposed to have happened before Pt 1. Wasn't Last Crusade set in the mid 30's? Wouldn't that make it 15+ years to get to the 50's? Connery would be 73 I believe in May. Anything on the rumors that they are going to bring back the screeching Mrs. Spielberg, Kate Capshaw? The Horror, The HORROR! Here's one of several rumor-sites on the web. You can find several if you do an "Indiana Jones 4" search: Indy4 Connery may indeed be in the new one, although one web wag has pointed out that he and Ford are more likely to look like brothers now, given that their age difference has proportionally narrowed... and Kate Capshaw may be doing only a cameo, along with Karen Allen from the first movie. No word on who the new villains will be, except that it won't be Nazis--the Soviets, perhaps? TEMPLE OF DOOM was my least-favorite, partly because I wasn't too crazy about Capshaw either.

Ford will be 62 when they start filming next May. Evidently the film will be set in the 1950's to accommodate his aging (the Jones character's dob is supposed to be 1899).

I've been going on a 30's/40's kick lately (again--seems to strike me every year or so), and I thank the re-issue deities for Scotland's Hep label. Recently picked up Bunny Berigan's GANGBUSTERS and have a lot more in my sights. Over the years I've bought the random stray title from Hep (like their collection of Teddy Wilson's 1939-40 big band sides), but I think it was deciding to opt for their Benny Goodman titles that really made me realize what a wonderful catalogue they're offering. I mean, they even put out compilations of people like Teddy Powell... bandleaders whom I can't imagine turning up on re-issues anywhere else, at least anytime soon: Hep