ghost of miles

Collectors' Choice says they'll be re-issuing all of the Let's Active records. However, I think there were only two after CYPRESS (BIG PLANS and another title that escapes me); however, it was CYPRESS that I listened to over and over again. I still have the cassette of it, which I've hung onto ever since missing the CD release. (This one will have the two bonus tracks that were also included on the brief I.R.S. CD release.) Trying to think of other underground American pop bands I listened to in that era, besides the obvious Replacements/Husker Du/Sonic Youth axis: Rain Parade Guadacanal Diary Minutemen Dream Syndicate the db's Feelies ...God, I know there were others, but I've forgotten some of them.

...or maybe it's just me. Anyway, Collectors' Choice is re-issuing the first two Let's Active records (AFOOT & CYPRESS) on a single CD. This was in print for about 10 minutes in the early 90's and has commanded $100plus on e-bay in recent years. It's the band of Mitch Easter, producer of the first three (and the best, IMO) R.E.M. albums. Lotsa great harmonies and chiming Rickenbackers, if you're into that sort of thing, as I was and am. Bring on the Rain Parade!

Our fair city recently voted to enact a comprehensive ban on smoking in public and private establishments (including, gasp! bars) as of Jan. 1, 2005. As somebody who quit smoking a few years ago, and who feels for the waitstaff and musicians who have to work in smoke-filled atmospheres, I thought it was a good move--but still found myself jonesing for a cig and a brew at the local pub. How many here have kicked the habit, and how many still indulge?

You also get the added excitement of knowing that a fellow board member is busily at work posting a response in a thread where you just posted. You can start work on your riposte immediately! (If it's politics, that is.)

You can even log in & then open the site again as a guest in another window, allowing you to watch yourself watching the online list... It's all too perverse and voyeuristic, if you ask me. Well, enough of this... I gotta get back to checking on where everybody else is!

I have and greatly enjoy the Doughboys, Playboys Western Swing set and the Dawn of Doo-Wop set. The Good News gospel one looks quite appealing as well, and I'll probably pick up the forthcoming Nazi swing set, which sounds quite interesting from a historical perspective. I'm generally reluctant to buy the sets that overlap with in-print Mosaic boxes... does anybody know if the Krupa does so with Mosaic's transcriptions collection?

Ah, cripes, I'm in the midst of a CD-buying ban that doesn't end till May 1. Guess I'll wait for the new one, then. Thanks for the info, Hans & Weizen.

Brownie, thanks for the quick education on the French New Wave. Perhaps I'd better broaden my approach to "Jazz and postwar French cinema..."

Hans, Any word on whether or not Eddie Costa's HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS is still coming out in one of these batches?

Hey all, I'm preparing yet another radio show, this one on jazz and its usage in films of the French new wave. Some of the films and soundtracks I'm focusing on include ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (Miles Davis), BREATHLESS (Martial Solal), and DANGEROUS LIAISONS (Art Blakey & Duke Jordan). I'm looking for any articles and/or books that might discuss this topic.

The Yanks & the Sox both overpowered their opponents today, leaving Boston still trailing by half a game . New York opened 5-1 on the road, and Soriano had multiple hits in every game. It's a sweet April so far...

Got sick several days ago and took a day off from work, which gave me time to read TWO books in one day. I should get sick more often... Read the Lester Bangs bio LET IT BLURT (style and narrative a little rote, but lots of interesting info about a music/cultural critic whose work I've always enjoyed) and James Cain's MILDRED PIERCE, a psychological study of a very dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship. (Also a Joan Crawford movie and the title of a Sonic Youth instrumental.) Now it's on to MISS LONELYHEARTS and/or ZENO'S CONSCIENCE... and I'm hoping to track down a copy of a book that Weizen once recommended (no, not RIGHT FROM THE START --it's called GREAT HILL STATIONS OF ASIA. I'm also reading a Gershwin bio entitled THE MEMORY OF ALL THAT.

Phineas Newborn Jr., GREAT JAZZ PIANO OF... Lee Konitz, AT STORYVILLE Shelly Manne, PLAYS PETER GUNN Shirley Scott, SOUL SHOUTIN' Billie Holiday, ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL

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.)