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Jim, I think you've outlined most of the conundrums that face historians. (Of all kinds.)

For the reviews (etc.) everything - including line breaks - has to be hand-coded. It's not for the faint of heart.

Well, their current resident sage gets very angry when people disagree with him.... And that, in a nutshell, is how and why I got ousted, though technically, it was over a couple of photos of guys wearing cowboy hats. (That was perceived as disrespectful to said person, and I was ordered to apologize, then banned from M2M and the board... I couldn't see apologizing for something that had zero malicious intent behind it and was in no way meant to be "disrespectful" to anyone.) At any rate, ever come across this book? (I want my own copies of the Doug Seroff books that Allen keeps talking about, but 1 copy of each, ordered at the same time, would set me back well over $100.00, so I think I'll wait 'til my ship comes in, or whatever... )

???? I think anyone dealing with music history is going to run into all sorts of things that appear to be contradictory (or mutually exclusive) but aren't. There were black actors, actresses, songwriters, lyricists, etc. in vaudeville. Obviously, I can't speak for Allen, but I think chasing after "roots" while willfully ignoring other things that were going on at the same time is dangerous. (and ultimately leads to what you get with Alan Lomax late in his life - a repudiation of things about which he knew better in order to shore up a pet theory - in his case, that the blues originated in the Delta.) but you know what? One of the reasons I got kicked off the AAJ board was this: some there claim that blues is African music. I disagree - African-derived, yep. With lots of traces of different kinds of African music: yep. But it developed here, not there. So really, I think I'd rather just agree to disagree, OK?

Jim, I think we're talking (mainly) about professional songwriters who were black... (Check this post.) The industry has never been exclusively white. Yep - I saw your opening post. If it had been me, I think I'd be trying to figure out how to take this on. It's a daggoned shame that Doug Seroff's books are so pricey. I wonder why his publisher thinks that they're basically "library only" purchases?

I wonder if it's even possible to nail this down? My guess is that it's a "both/and" thing; that it was all happening at the same time, or nearly the same time. At any rate, sounds like a fascinating study! All the best to you on it - quite a massive undertaking, no?

Allen, I like the idea very much and am wondering how - at this point - you see Tin Pan Alley factoring into it all?

Which is probably because the same 6-7 people are responsible for more than 90% of the posts in those forums. There's a lot of closed-mindedness, which makes it almost impossible to have a discussion with them.

Maybe so, but the board has gone to hell. Little to no moderator intervention for the most part (even when very much needed), then a lowering of the boom on people who disagree with Mike Ricci and/or some of the current denizens of the music theory and musician to musician sections of the board = disaster. And banning. Lots of banning. Now there's next to no discussion. It's a shame - but now that some time has elapsed since I was banned, I can see that there's little left to salvage.

(Good one, paps! )

I started turning to newspaper web sites in 2001, after somebody tipped me off to the existence of thepaperboy.com (An aggregator site that has links to newspaper websites from all over the world.) And immediately after 9/11, I mostly read UK-based news sources, like The Guardian and The Independent. (No subscription necessary, and far cheaper than trying to find - and buy - hard copies.) I love the fact that the New York Times is online (especially now that it's *free*), but... I really miss reading the actual paper. Still, when push comes to shove, it's far easier - and cheaper - to read it online. But: if I'm going to NYC for a weekend, I buy the paper ahead of time and make plans from there (for music, art galleries, etc.). As for what's been said about the sheer cost of paper, printing, etc. - I have no trouble believing that it's becoming more expensive by the day. But I vividly remember visiting my grandfather's office at the local paper here, and watching the Linotype operators, pressmen, etc. etc. It was exciting to be there, and my impression was that those folks took a great deal of pride in their work. All gone now...

Ditto for kicking back with the Sunday paper, passing the different sections around - reading the funnies, all of that. I won't regret losing all that paper, but I definitely will miss the recreational aspect of it all - reading papers online (which is what I've mostly been doing since 2001) just isn't the same.

Newspapers are invaluable for local news, especially for those who live outside of large urban/suburban areas. (Though I have to confess that the only reason i read The Washington Post is because it's D.C.'s local paper!) You know, it's very difficult to get *any* kind of high-speed internet access in a lot of rural areas - there have been some good articles about this recently on Lifehacker.com I know plenty of people who are on dial-up, and I really hope that my next move (early next year) will be to a neighborhood that's got high-speed access. You have to have some serious bandwidth and speed to read anything other than plain vanilla text online, and that's just not an option for many, many people. (As is, there's only 1 DSL carrier in my neck of the woods - that's a fairly literal description of my immediate locale, BTW. )

paps, I agree with you in general (on the financial aspects of newspapers), but can't imagine how most elderly people - and people who can't afford internet access - will get local news if small-town papers start going belly-up. There are so many people who either don't want to be "bothered" with computers, or feel confused by them. What happens to them when their daily print news sources start disappearing?

I like this one, too... although I'm not that fond of the song itself (fairly dull melody for Porter), so there you go.

hey, my apologies - I misread your comment.

I'm not surprised - it sounds as if they brought in the new editor to more or less clean house. As for axing jazz - and presumably other kinds - of reviews + the calendar, that's a very sad state of affairs. LA is major city, and there's so much happening in the arts in SoCal. all that to say that I disagree with you, MG. (BTW, it's nice to see you back here!)

Link to Don's new blog: http://irom.wordpress.com/ I'm very surprised by the opening post, but then, I was wondering why he was suddenly posting all his gig reviews on a blog...

Another great swing-style guitarist: Oscar Alemán. David Grisman reissued some of his recordings; you can get them on Emusic.com here's a clip: (No singing on the Grisman reissues, BTW!)

Absolutely! He and Elek Bacsik are new to me, and I've been enjoying their work a lot.

Christian Escoudé is a fave of mine - a very lyrical player who draws equally from Gypsy styles and jazz (pre-bop and bop).

I hear you - for me, it's particularly disappointing to have had this happen with an entire LP's-worth of Tadd's music.

Tadd Dameron's "The Magic Touch." Should have been great, judging from all those names. I guess it goes to show that even the best have their off days, just like the rest of us. Tadd Dameron Joe Wilder Clark Terry Ernie Royal Charlie Shavers Jimmy Cleveland Britt Woodman Julius Watkins Leo Wright Jerry Dodgion Jerome Richardson Johnny Griffin Tate Houston Bill Evans George Duvivier Ron Carter Philly Joe Jones

Very nice pics! woul love to see more... [hint, hint ]

Great discussion! I wrote my MA thesis on an artist (painter) from Washington, D.C. Given the connections between Howard U. and the Harlem Renaissance, I couldn't escape having to read some of Van Vechten's stuff. Let's just say that I was profoundly relieved that he stayed put in NY.