ghost of miles

Godard's BREATHLESS. Stylistically this is still a fun movie to watch, but ideologically--gah! Jean-Paul Belmond's character is a narcissistic ass, and the burgeoning feminism of Jean Seberg's character seems to be brought up only to ultimately be dismissed. Nice jazz score, though.

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?

Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt, BOSS TENORS IN ORBIT Gene Krupa, GENE KRUPA STORY (disc 1) Duke Ellington, COMP. CAPITOL (disc 1 Miles Davis, ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS Martial Solal, A BOUT DE SOUFFLE Brad Mehldau, "Things Behind the Sun" (Nick Drake cover, outtake from LARGO)

In 1994 Joshua Redman composed a jazz score for filmmaker Louis Malle's VANYA ON 42ND STREET. Did this ever see the light of day on CD?

Chalk up another sale. Pretty soon you guys will be rolling in drugs and groupies.

For me, one just got knocked off the list... Let's Active's CYPRESS, which Collectors' Choice recently re-issued. Elmo Hope, SOUNDS FROM RIKER'S ISLAND (out in Japan in the late 1980's, according to Weizen). Eddie Costa, HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS (about to get re-issued in Japan again) Barry Harris, BREAKIN' IT UP (out in Japan, I think) Sonny Simmons, ON THE WATCH (ESP) My Bloody Valentine, ECSTASY & WINE Various, CRIME JAZZ V. 1 Various, CRIME JAZZ V. 2 ...can't think of any more right now, but I'm sure I will later.

Haven't listened to it in a long time, but I recall it as a great CD to have on while a storm's coming in.

You have taken a giant hit off the mother of all crack pipes. Glad you found the ex-Blue Noter safehouse. The J.J. Johnson set is exquisite. Late 50's/early 60's small-group material, most of it not in print--and frankly, I'm surprised this box is still around.

Let's Active, CYPRESS/AFOOT The Charioteers, BEST OF (praise be to Collectors' Choice for the above two!) Charlie Ventura, BOP FOR THE PEOPLE disc 1 & 2

I'm putting in an order for this tomorrow and hope to feature it on my Wednesday June 4 radio show. I'll post a link a couple of days before the program.

Kitty Kallen, BAND SINGER Grant Green, REACHING OUT Ben Pollack, COMP. V. 5

Somebody posted this e-bay auction to the Coltrane list: JC$1

I had a roommate about 10 years ago who had the '73-issue Evans VV double LP. I think he also had a twofer of PORTRAIT IN JAZZ & EXPLORATIONS. Hearing those albums started me down the long jazz road... and I also picked the 70's Fantasy vinyl twofer of JAZZ AT MASSEY HALL, which showed the roof lifting off an auditorium. It had both the quintet and the Powell trio sets. I ended up selling it on the cheap to a friend who's into vinyl.

The aforementioned Jimmy Lyons box, the Japanese re-issue of Eddie Costa's HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS, Uptown's Allen Eager disc and that coy Chuck Nessa's Warne Marsh beauty, the Miles Blackhawk set, Jimmy Giuffre's THE EASY WAY... and just about everything that Mosaic's chunking out in the next few months. In fact, everything.

Yep, several of the albums contained within the Wilson Mosaic set.

Helen Ward, COMP. COLUMBIA Barney Wilen, JAZZ IN PARIS: JAZZ & CINEMA V. 1 Red Mitchell/Harold Land, HEAR YE! Steve Allee, NEW YORK IN THE FIFTIES Yo La Tengo, SUMMER SUN

Up for broadcast in about an hour and a half. I'm going to play at least four and possibly five tracks from the CD, along with music from Big John Patton's GOT A GOOD THING GOIN', Charles Mingus' JAZZ COMPOSERS WORKSHOP (Savoy), Freddie Hubbard's BLACK ANGEL, Miles Davis' BOPPIN' THE BLUES, and the Vandermark 5's AIRPORTS FOR LIGHT, as well as a number of vocal tracks.

Now that Universal seems to be re-opening the doors to the vaults, perhaps a Giuffre Verve Mosaic is feasible again. I haven't heard much of this material beyond what showed up on the Konitz twofer several years ago, and I know that THE EASY WAY is slated for re-issue soon. Have to think, though, that this would be a good collection.

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.

I've been reading James Naremore's MORE THAN NIGHT: FILM NOIR IN ITS CONTEXTS, and I began to think about a movie I saw on AMC years ago that doesn't seem to get too much attention: THE BIG STEAL (1949), with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and William Bendix. Mitchum plays a soldier wrongly accused of stealing a payroll; he goes on the lam to Mexico, taking the always-alluring (to me, anyway) Jane Greer. Remember her in OUT OF THE PAST? She's not so much a femme fatale here, just has a quiet, sexy smartness about her. William Bendix (what's a noir flick without William Bendix, that omnipresent big lug of the 40's) is the man pursuing Mitchum. A lot of great dialogue and a chase-driven plot.

I'm about to bite on that Hal Russell/NRG Ensemble, courtesy of Chuck's not-so-subliminal bait.

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.

Hey all, Here are some links to WFHB, the Bloomington, IN community radio station where I host a jazz program every other week. I'll be playing four or five cuts from Quartet Out's LIVE AT THE MEAT HOUSE, so catch the sizzle this Wednesday night from 6-9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I have some programs planned for the end of May at WFIU, our local NPR affiliate, but here's your chance to hear Jim Sangrey & co. over the airwaves: WFHB1 WFHB2 If those don't work, try pasting either www.shoutcast.com/sbin/shoutcast-playlist.pls?rn=9054641&addr=129.79.21.137:9198&file=filename.pls or http://129.79.21.137:9198/listen.pls into whatever media player your computer uses. David J. WFHB 91.3/98.1 FM WFIU 103.7 FM Bloomington, IN

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.''