ghost of miles

Revisiting with pleasure:

Listening to this as part of the massive Herbie Hancock Columbia box set, which I’m so glad to have finally picked up in the past year:

My reaction too, Dan—I wish the author had more of a jazz pedigree, but the photos may inspire me to pick it up, especially if the price drops at some point.

Forthcoming title that looks to be of interest, especially for the photos—though Messrs Morgenstern/Rollins/Jones’ viewpoints will be welcome as well. Sittin’ In: Jazz Clubs Of The 1940s And 50s

Dodgers In postgame interviews expressing their sense of relief and jubilation when Cash pulled Snell in the 6th. Did seem like too much of a rote “no third time through the lineup” mentality when Snell was pitching so dominantly and had not reached a high pitch count yet. But Rays’ lack of offense certainly put their pitchers in a tight spot tonight in general.

Never mind--I see you've already got a couple of shows in the bag! Ridin' In Rhythm

Starting today?

Yikes--thanks for that link. Ironic that her attempts to "brand" the store are undermining what's made it attractive to so many customers for such a long time.

Glad to see that Bluestockings is apparently hanging in there. I tried to plan a trip to their now-former Allen Street location this past January but ran out of time. Seems to me the biggest issue in the Strand story is the PPP loan, if a number of employees were laid off anyway. (Of course the larger PPP story is a huge mess rife with stories of abuse on a much larger scale, given the lack of oversight that I've read about.) The Strand may not be your standard "mom and pop" store, but it's been owned and run by the same family for 93 years... so it's not exactly like a corporate behemoth that moved in and leveled the landscape. Btw there's a good documentary about NYC bookstores that my girlfriend and I watched at the beginning of the spring lockdown period: The Booksellers

I just checked the Strand’s Wikipedia entry and it says that Fred Bass—son of the founder, and father of current owner Nancy Bass Wyden—did indeed buy the building for $8.2 million in 1996. Unless he bought it outright, though, the family may still be making monthly mortgage payments on it, especially if they refinanced at some point. On a vastly smaller scale, we have a somewhat similar situation with a wonderful independent bookstore here in Bloomington, the Book Corner, where the owner owns the building as well.

Last week’s Night Lights show was a centennial-year tribute to pianist Hazel Scott, a classically-trained prodigy who rose to fame from New York City’s Cafe Society nightclub at the beginning of the 1940s. Scott appeared in five movies, found popular success with her “swinging the classics” interpretations of music by composers such as Rachmaninoff and Chopin, and in 1945 married the charismatic minister and newly-elected Congressional representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr, forming an African-American power couple whose lives were covered extensively in the black press. But Scott’s outspokenness as a civil-rights advocate cost her jobs in Hollywood and a pioneering role as the first African-American woman to host a TV show. To Be Somebody: Hazel Scott includes some of Scott’s earliest recordings, two of her “swinging the classics” sides, two numbers from her movie appearances, two tracks from the 1955 trio album that she made with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, and more.

Oh man! I’ve gone there every single time that I’ve visited the city in the past several years—and oddly enough was just gazing fondly at a Strand purchase with the store sticker on the back of it a couple of hours ago, remembering what a joy it’s been to go there. It was going to be one of several definite stops for my planned May 2020 NYC trip with my girlfriend, which has been put on indefinite hold. Thanks for posting this... I’ll try to order some books through their website. P.S. Iirc the family that runs the Strand also owns the building. Hopefully that increases their chances of riding out the next few months... while they’ll still be on the hook for property taxes and utilities, at least I assume they’re not paying rent.

... and on to disc 4 of this set, as accompaniment to the early parts of Ricky Riccardi’s new Armstrong book. I still recommend this one to people wanting to check out 1920s/30s Louis:

The latest entry in the Spiritual Jazz series:

Comment in the Prestige Records Story box-set booklet from Ron Eyre, sales director for Prestige in the late 1950s/early 1960s, that seems pertinent to this thread: There were two elements to the Prestige catalog. You had the soul-funk area with the organ groups and the honking tenors. And then the young Turks (Bob Weinstock) was doing on New Jazz. I was always anxious to push the New Jazz artists because some of those guys were getting good reviews. Bob taught me a lesson. He said, “Gene Ammons has never gotten more than two or three stars in Down Beat, nor has Eddie Lockjaw Davis. I don’t need Down Beat to sell Gene Ammons or Shirley Scott.” It was a point well taken.

Revisiting this excellent 4-CD Prestige anthology:

This is an excellent label box-set that I’ve been revisiting over the weekend. I picked up a number of sets like these—the Contemporary, Riverside and Debut boxes—when they were getting bargain-priced on their way to OOP status. The booklet is very well-done, with lots of background info on Prestige and the artists it recorded. Highly recommended if you run into a cheaply-priced copy.

Disc 3 of this set, which is still some of my favorite Cecil Taylor ever put to disc. Great notes for this set as well by Buell Neidlinger and others:

Indianapolis guitarist Charlie Ballantine’s new tribute to author Kurt Vonnegut:

Revisiting this CD right now and yeah, definitely landing on my top-10 list for 2020 historical releases.

An excellent book about some overlooked African-American artists of the McCarthy/Cold War era: