ghost of miles

Well, the Yanks' weakness in the bullpen caught up with them last night. It could indeed be the fatal flaw--Hammond had a lousy spring training and continued in said manner against Tampa Bay. Here's hoping Rivera is back soon, although he's no longer indomitable. I predict a season-long tussle with the Sox. BTW, what's the record for most consecutive playoff appearances by a team? New York's been in for the past eight years (much easier in modern times, given the wild-card); but I'm guessing Atlanta, which seems to have been in every year since Bobby Cox took over. Berigan?

I also suspect that said puppy might be cheaper to buy part-by-part. Remember the bogus Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis Blue Note boxes a few years back, in which they packaged all the individual CDs and tacked on an extra few dollars for the cardboard casing? ... Well, Lon just posted ahead of me. If it really does have 75 CDs, then it might actually be cheaper than buying them one by one. Either way, I don't have an extra few hundred lying around right now. The most expensive set I ever shelled out for was the RCA Ellington, and I got a handsome discount on it as a Borders employee at the time.

Sonny Criss, UP, UP AND AWAY Roy Campbell, IT'S KRUNCH TIME Teri Thornton, THE OPEN HIGHWAY Vandermark 5, SIX FOR ROLLINS ... and much Wayne Shorter.

How many CDs is this puppy? Not that I'll be picking it up anytime soon--Deep Discount has the best price I've found so far, and that's still a cool $511...

Berigan, we have plenty of electronic gizmos, but it's difficult to utilize the audio elements unless I'm on a break--hence my reluctance to subscribe, esp. when I'm on a night schedule for the most part. At least it's easy to keep track of games on the Internet. But what do I care? I'm quittin' my job to be a baseball bum! Pending approval of my wife, that is.

Hmm... guess I'm just gonna have to quit my job in that case! Then I can justify shelling out $12.95 while I sit blissfully at home, downing a cold one or six and huzzahing home runs as my wife supports us on her salary alone, smiling all the while at my boyish enthusiasm. Ah, life!

It's been such a pleasure to follow the games tonight at work (well, granted, my Yanks are tearing up the Jays although Jeter dislocated his shoulder in a nasty collision )--a pleasant diversion from the war news, which, whether you're for it or against it, is a grim business. Does anybody know of good free Internet radio sources for baseball? WCBS charges for coverage of the Yankees; given my sporadic ability to listen, I'm not ready to pony up even a $12.95 fee for the regular season. There's something so enjoyable about listening to baseball on the radio. I remember helping my father move back from Austin, Texas in 1995, and listening to Game 2 of the Seattle-New York playoffs. It went 14 innings, and the signal kept fading in and out as we drove along the highway at night, with the wind blowing in through the cab of the moving van. Jim Leyritz finally hit a home run to win it for the Yanks. A great memory.

Quite excited about both of these, as I have only the Green Conn. and the Weston UHURU/HIGHLIFE cds. If the Bunny Berigan set comes out on time, it's going to be one helluva Mosaic May.

The Cubbies clobbered the Mets today, 15-2. For at least one day, Chicago fans can live in optimism. The Red Sox are my second-favorite team; I was a Fred Lynn fan as a kid. However, the Evil Empire will always take precedence for me: What can I say? I was a big Civil War buff as a kid, and definitely a partisan for the North (yeah, yeah, already a liberal) and I took to the Yankees because of their name. They weren't particularly good--it was the Ralph Houk/Bill Virdon era. Hmm, the Civil War, baseball, jazz... oh my God, was I given away by the Burns family at an early age?

Thanks, gents. I'll part with some green for it the next time I give Cadence a call.

I didn't hear Teri Thornton until her 1999 comeback CD I'LL BE EASY TO FIND. She died of cancer shortly thereafter, and it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I picked up two CDs of her early-1960's work--DEVIL MAY CARE and OPEN HIGHWAY. Her voice didn't really strike me at first, but I've found myself returning more and more to the CDs in the past three days, esp. OPEN HIGHWAY, which is less jazzy than DEVIL MAY CARE, but which has an interesting selection of non-standard songs (or songs that never became standards, anyway). She sang "Somewhere in the Night," the theme song to the TV show Naked City, and I'm hoping to find the Dauntless LP that bears that song name as its title.

Rooster, it was indeed "Bottle Up and Explode," on a radio promo called DEREGULATING JAZZ. There have been a lot of rumors about Smith and his new album in the past two years. The album--entitled FROM A BASEMENT ON THE HILL--was supposedly rejected by Dreamworks for being too "dark" and a little too rough-hewn, audiowise (Smith's intention, from what I heard). Most of the songs have been circulating as bootlegs on the web, but I've heard only a few so far, and they sound up to par with his past work, if perhaps more harmonically spare. Now there's talk of a double-album which may replace BASEMENT, or which may be BASEMENT somewhat re-done. Smith evidently went through a pretty bad period for a year or so after coming off the road for FIGURE 8, but all the accounts I've read of his recent live performances have been very upbeat. This site has long been the best source of info on Smith, and not long ago he endorsed it as his official web-page. It's fanclubby but smart, and Smith himself has posted there on occasion. (There's also a biography assembled by one of the people who runs the site.) As for comparisons, the British folk singer/songwriter Nick Drake, who died at 26 in 1974, is often invoked, and I can see something of a parallel, although I think Smith is much grittier--but they both have a gentle, harmonically rich lyricism that's underlined with melancholic shades of depression, making bliss out of despair. (Ironically enough, Drake has also been covered by Brad Mehldau, who's recorded "River Man" on both studio and live CDs.)

There was an article in Downbeat several years ago, in which Henderson lamented Verve's reluctance to record his then-current trio, about which he was quite enthusiastic. I wonder if there are any unreleased live tapes of that group which Universal will see fit to eventually release, given that there won't be any more recordings from Joe.

Checked again today and found out it's the Nu Group, with madman Joe Fonda on bass. Can't wait!

Interesting topic, Dan. I tend to think of competent players who worked with the greats but didn't lead many dates of their own--say, Walter Bishop Jr. (In fact, I just checked his bio on AMG and they refer to him as a "valuable utility pianist!") I'll have to chew on this awhile and see who else I can think of.

Eddie turned up unexpectedly on a CD I played on-air today: Betty Roche, TAKE THE A TRAIN (Bethlehem). I hadn't listened to it in awhile and completely forgot about his presence on that date, along with Conte Candoli.

I listen to that one a lot in July and August. It has a kind of slow, brooding energy that I associate with late summer.

Nearing the end of March listening: Shirley Scott, SOUL SHOUTIN' Odetta, LOOKIN' FOR A HOME Bob Dylan, BOOTLEG SERIES V. 5 Wayne Shorter, various CDs Joya Sherrill, JOYA SINGS DUKE J.J. Johnson, TOTAL J.J. & J.J. WITH BIG BAND Martial Solal, A BOUT DE SOUFFLE

Sounds as if it went reasonably well. I hope Grimes doesn't feel pressure to live up to his past (although it must be hard not to). To me, the important thing is that he's playing (and seemingly enjoying) music again. That he's performing out in public after what--three months?--is something of a small miracle in and of itself. Thanks for the news, Adam!

Any other Roy Campbell fans on the board? He's coming to Bloomington next month in some kind of configuration (not Pyramid Trio, not Die Like a Dog); I have and greatly enjoy ETHNIC STEW & BREW (with the ever awesome William Parker and Hamid Drake). Just picked up IT'S KRUNCH TIME but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. I like how he seems to so successfully combine world, free, and straightahead jazz into his playing.

Well, the time-honored BNBB tradition of suffering from a thinning wallet via youse guys has sure survived. That Gordon box looks great! I'll be sure to get it after I snap up a few more 24-bit mini-LP Japanese Mancini imports with bonus tracks...

I'm very sorry, folks. I learned late Tuesday evening that we had shifted to all-news coverage on our Internet stream as of Monday morning. I will try to repeat the broadcast sometime later this spring or summer, either on WFIU or on the community radio station where I also do a show. At that time I'll place a new post with the relevant links.

I'm sadly late to the game concerning this series, but it's one that's definitely piqueing my interest--thanks for the thread, Soul Stream. I remember a similar one on Ye Olde Blue Note board and need to investigate this further.

Yeah, I swore off political threads about two weeks before the Blue Note board went up in flames (pun intended?). I re-activated a couple of days ago but doubt that I'll be on them much longer... I agree with Joe that the war is a bit of a lightning rod for passion across the political spectrum, and I agree with Simon that given the volatility of the times, it's hard not to feel politicized. I still feel that a love of jazz binds us all, though. Hell, I may disagree with Berigan's ideology, but he & I both love certain early-jazz artists and swap PMs on an occasional basis. AAJ has some interesting discussions going on, but this place feels like home to me now. I'll try not to stink it up with too much backroom cigar-smoke... but every once in a while I feel the need to light a left-wing stogie.

Daedalus Books has this Tom Stoddard book in paperback for about $5 right now. It's a study of the early-20th-century jazz scene in San Francisco and sounds interesting. Just thought I'd tip off any readers who might want to pick it up on the cheap. (I'm a sucker for regional jazz histories myself.)