Brownian Motion

"Old Rough and Ready" Nelson Eddy Ozzie Smith

Sonny Terry Ralph Terry Cy Young

Bud Abbot Bud Harrellson John Ratzinger

W. Eugene Smith Gene Wright Orville Redenbacher

Hamilton Fish Phish 3 Dog Night

Weatherford without a doubt. One of the members of the board was kind enough to provide me with a burn of his entire European output, but I would love to hear the recordings he made in India. I think some of these may have made it on to an LP; not sure.

Rip Van Winkle Ludwig Van Beethoven Igor Stravinsky

How insulting to call this fine musician a "journeyman". Dan, how do rate the date he recorded with Gene Harris?

Danny Polo

Didn't a home-recording of this legendary Texas pianist surface years ago? And if so has anyone here heard it?

I miss this place. To an eight-year-old it seemed the zenith of cool. Hojo's i could care less about.

I think the primary reason I was ready to drop vinyl completely when CDs came along was because I couldn't handle the stress of worrying about my stylus. I probably changed styluses twice or three times as often as really needed, and I kept my tone arm ultra-light--lighter than was recommended, resulting in a loss of fidelity--and still I worried constantly that a worn stylus was tearing and gouging and slicing through my grooves. Digital technology kept me from going mad, or at least slowed the process down.

Hmmmm...I'll have to think about this one.

1920s trumpet player-arranger John Nesbit comes to mind. Pianists Sonny White and Garnet Clarke. Trumpeters Don Joseph, Bobby Moore, Guy Kelly.

W. B. Lipes Dies at 84; Performed Surgery on a Sub By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN Published: April 20, 2005 Lt. Cmdr. Wheeler B. Lipes, who performed a storied appendectomy while a pharmacist's mate aboard a submarine in the Pacific during World War II, died on Sunday in New Bern, N.C. He was 84. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his daughter-in-law, Berniece Lipes. On Sept. 11, 1942, Pharmacist's Mate Lipes become a surgeon aboard the submarine Seadragon, on patrol at a depth of 120 feet in the South China Sea. A 19-year-old seaman from Kansas, Darrell Dean Rector, had suffered appendicitis. With the Seadragon about a week's journey from the nearest Allied port, in Australia, the skipper, Lt. Cmdr. William Ferrall, obtained Seaman Rector's permission for surgery by a team of sailors, not one of them a doctor. Pharmacist's Mate Lipes had observed several appendectomies as a laboratory technician at a naval hospital in Philadelphia, so he was designated to lead the surgical team, amid much trepidation. In a 1999 interview with the Naval Historical Center, he recalled the moment when the commanding officer approached him after the diagnosis of appendicitis was made. "The C.O. and I had a long talk and he asked me what I was going to do. 'Nothing,' I replied. He lectured me about the fact that we were there to do the best we could. 'I fire torpedoes every day and some of them miss,' he reminded me. I told him that I could not fire this torpedo and miss. He asked me if I could do the surgery, and I said yes. He then ordered me to do it." Seaman Rector was placed on a mess table. A tea strainer covered with gauze became an ether mask, and the anesthesia was monitored by the communications officer, Lt. Franz P. Hoskins. Metal spoons bent at right angles became muscle retractors, holding the wound open after Pharmacist's Mate Lipes made a three-inch incision with a scalpel. Sulfa pills were ground into powder to use as an antiseptic. Boiled water and alcohol milked from the torpedo mechanism sterilized the instruments and operating "gowns," actually the crew's pajamas. Pharmacist's Mate Lipes removed the appendix in about two and a half hours in the first appendectomy ever performed on board a submerged submarine. His patient was soon back on duty. When the Seadragon returned to Australia, its report told of the Japanese ships it had sunk and it related another eventful moment, headlined "One Merchant Ship, One Oil Tanker and One Successful Appendectomy." George Weller, a correspondent for The Chicago Daily News, received a Pulitzer Prize for his article in December 1942 about the surgery. The operation was recounted in the 1950's television series "The Silent Service" and dramatized in the Hollywood movies "Destination Tokyo" and "Run Silent, Run Deep." But Seaman Rector did not survive the war. He was among 78 crewmen lost aboard the submarine Tang when it sank off Formosa in October 1944, having been struck by a torpedo that veered back at the submarine after being fired. Wheeler Bryson Lipes, a native of New Castle, Va., joined the Navy in 1936 and served on several submarines during the war. Upon returning to the United States in 1943, he spoke at war-bond rallies, representing the Navy, although he did not receive a commendation for his surgical feat. He retired from the Navy medical corps in 1962 as a lieutenant commander and later served as a hospital executive. He is survived by his second wife, Audrey, of New Bern; his son, Bruce, of Corpus Christi, Tex.; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His first wife, Myrtle, died in 1997. In his interview with Navy historians, Commander Lipes said that many doctors in the Navy's wartime Bureau of Medicine and Surgery were unhappy with his achievement. "I guess they were afraid that because I had performed an appendectomy everyone in the fleet would be running around looking for the first opportunity to do one," he said. Two appendectomies were performed by corpsmen aboard submarines later in World War II, the Navy said. In February, Commander Lipes was presented with the Navy Commendation Medal, as a result of a belated study of the surgery by the Navy Medical Department. "I just didn't think it was that big a deal," he said of the surgery in an interview with The Roanoke Times, in Virginia, after receiving the medal. "I was just proud to save a guy's life."

Scott seems to function at his highest level when other horn players are present. I treasure his Three Tenors date with Buddy Tate and Al Cohn--both of whom rise to the occasion as well. And pretty much anything Scott did with Warren Vache, Dave McKenna, or both is worth a listen. That said, I've been disappointed with his choice of band-mates and material for some time now. He's in a rut, but he doesn't seem to care.

My sister and I--age six and four respectively--had a pair of shellac 78s we were permitted to play without parental supervision. This would have been about 1951. One record was by the cheerful but grating "Mr Manners" and was titled Manners Can Be Fun [uh-huh]; the other was an 12" Asch recording of Leadbelly singing and playing his 12 string guitar on Bring Me a Little Water, Sylvie; Meetin' At the Building; Yellow Gal; Pick a Bail of Cotton; Take This Hammer; and Goodnight Irene. When I was about 5 a copy of Dvorak's New World Symphony mysteriously appeared in our record pile; this was the first lp I had ever seen. I liked the music, although I found parts of it kind of spooky. Not too much later Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue also appeared, which I also really liked, but not too long after this my family acquired a television set and my musical education pretty much ground to a halt, temporarily at least.

I have a question. How come Hoagy never wrote for a Broadway musical?

Erskine himself, who might have been one of the hundred best trumpet players of the swing era, was billed as "The 20th Century Gabriel" by RCA Records. This blatant hyperbole won him no friends among jazz critics and historians and probably accounts for his being pretty much written out of jazz history, despite the excellence of his band.

Salvador Camarata, 91, Music Arranger, Is Dead By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 19, 2005 BURBANK, Calif., April 18 (AP) - Salvador Camarata, a big-band arranger and trumpeter who worked with stars like Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday and Annette Funicello, died here on Wednesday. He was 91. His death followed a brief illness, said his son, Paul Camarata. In addition to his big-band work in the 1930's and 40's, Mr. Camarata, who went by the nickname Tutti, was the musical conductor for several television series, including "Startime," "The Vic Damone Show" and "The Alcoa Hour." While living in Britain in the late 1940's, Mr. Camarata helped start London Records with Sir Edward Lewis. The label's goal was to make classical and pop recordings for American distribution, and among its best-known artists were the Rolling Stones. Returning to the United States in the 1950's, Mr. Camarata joined Walt Disney to establish Disneyland Records, which recorded Disney stars like Ms. Funicello and Hayley Mills. He helped Ms. Funicello, the former "Mickey Mouse Club" Mouseketeer, develop the vocal style that briefly made her a pop star in the mid-1960's. In 1960 he opened the Sunset Sound recording studio, which his son now runs. Mr. Camarata studied music at the Juilliard School in New York. He was the lead trumpeter and the arranger for Jimmy Dorsey's band, arranging hits like "Tangerine," "Green Eyes" and "Yours." He left Dorsey in the early 1940's to work as an arranger for Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra and for Benny Goodman's band. He also arranged music for Ella Fitzgerald, Crosby, Holiday and others. His own recordings include "Tutti's Trumpets" (1957), considered a classic for trumpet composition. In the 1970's, he orchestrated and conducted albums for the London label that showcased the work of Bach, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

Maybe Chick had no "stars", but he had some greats. Bobby Stark was one of the outstanding trumpet soloists of the 1930s; listen to his solo work on "Spinning the Webb". Personal problems kept him from achieving the fame he deserved. And trombone player Sandy Williams, while clearly influenced by Jimmy Harrison, was a soulful, interesting soloist whose talents were better demonstrated away from the Webb Orchestra.

I notice that yourmusic is offering a Coleman Hawkins CD DVD package for 12 bucks. Has anyone seen this DVD?

"I seen my chances and I took 'em". -George Washington Plunkett. Quoted in Plunkett of Tammany Hall.

I'm not sure what that's all about, either. My theory is that folks who set down one bid after the other in small increments during the last couple of minutes of an auction believe that they are doing something to hinder or prevent other bidders from placing bids.

As someone who sells more than he buys on ebay, I resent sniping. Why, back in the good old days, I occasionally sold a 35 dollar book for hundreds; but then the bidders wised-up and began waiting until the last few minutes of an auction to assess the situation before they bid. Rats! No more silly bidding wars. Now as a buyer I too snipe to save a few bucks here and there and as a seller take comfort in the fact that sniped or not, the auction still goes to the highest bidder.