Adam

The CD from this suite will be released soon. Terry Cannon, who organized it, died on Sunday of cancer and one of his last acts was editing the liner notes by Lynell George. It's also been mastered. Not sure when pressing will happen now, but I don't think Terry's passing will delay it long. Terry was also the first one to invite Mark Cantor to present a show of jazz films, which he did at Pasadena Filmforum in the late 1970s. Here's more on Terry, that I just sent out: https://mailchi.mp/lafilmforum/terry-cannon-remembrance?e=e897c1456b

Anyone catch this article and film? https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/what-to-stream-jayhawkers-a-thrillingly-analytical-drama-of-wilt-chamberlains-college-years It's on Amazon prime. I haven't seen it yet. Nathan Davis was a friend of Wilt Chamberlain at University of Kansas, is represented by name in the film, and the real Davis did the score.

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I believe various indie movie theatres are making it available for streaming for low cost. I think PBS will come at some point late this year.

Steve Isoardi literally lives on the same block as me. I know that he has copies of the book available as well; I'm hoping he has the CD too.

No, this statement is just wrong. People who want police disbanded are people who are tired of the police harassing and harming them for centuries literally just because of the color of their skin or their current economic condition. Police exist to defend the property of the propertied classes. We know that they aren't there to protect the property of the disenfranchised, as we can see by their predilection to throw away the few possessions that homeless people have. We know that they aren't generally there to protect Blacks and other people of color. We know that the prison system was enacted and grew as a way to help come up with new free labor after the end of slavery, leading to many thousands of Blacks being arrested and imprisoned for doing nothing wrong, or for doing trivial acts which cops would let whites get away with. We also know that reforms don't work. Many of the reforms currently being argued for already exist on paper and are ignored by the police and prosecutors in reality, Chokeholds? Already banned in New York for years before Eric Garner was killed with one. Tear gas? Police ordered to stop using it, and only two days later they used it again. The problem is the entire culture of policing, the code of men in Blue, the history behind them, the society that props them up, and the continuing fear that many whites have of any people of color or of giving up any of their superior position. One study showed that 40% of police are involved in domestic violence. Policing attracts more than a few people who want to harm people and break the law and, as police, get to do it legally. Policing also attracts people who want to do good, but far too many don't fit that, or get changed in their training. That's why the police need to be defunded. New systems would have to be built, including a crime investigation unit and traffic cops, and non-police units to follow up on domestic issues, trivial matters, people with mental or housing issues, and so forth. But the vast majority of cops don't get to a crime as it happens to stop it; most murders and robberies are never solved; most rapes are not even investigated and cops far too often say and do things to traumatize the victims even more. And, just to point out, resisting arrest is not a capital offense, and a cop should never shoot to kill when someone is running away. Far too many seem to think that any black person who isn't crawling in front of them is about to attack and kill them, so they need to kill them first. What sort of fear are cops trained to have? So anyway, lost of people who aren't predators have lots of good reasons to disband the police. The notion that "if you didn't do anything wrong, the police wouldn't trouble you" is one only held by white people. Guess you now know where I stand on this. :-)

I enjoyed a lot of life listening to Tony Allen drumming. Gonna miss him. The greatest. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52497008 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/03/tony-allen-obituary

The Hollywood store has generally 7-10 registers working at any time, another 3-5 people at the desk for buying used material, 2 people at the info desk, people in every department (2 in the back room with with jazz, blues, etc; 1 in foreign releases, another in rock. A bag checker at the front door, and a security guard, and someone monitoring parking. Oh, and another 3 or 4 people upstairs in DVDs. That's probably 30 people working there at any given time. 60 per day. Open 7 days, probably two shifts of people per day since they are open 12 hours or more. Probably no one works more than 5 days per week, so you basically have to double that shift. That's 120. Probably the same in Berkeley and SF. Then there is an online store. Who knows where that does packing & shipping? So I think 400 is easily achieved, and to maintain their volume, and treating workers decently, and not pay overtime, I'd say 400 workers seems about right, and difficult to reduce without reducing store size. You could probably close a register or two, but things go quite smoothly when shopping there, and there are a lot of people who can help you. I know that there is a general notion that everyone in America is supposed to work endless hours for limited wages, but that's really not the best way to construct a society.

Based on listed description of symptoms, it seems highly likely that my partner had it. She was home for 11 days; no ache like would normally happen in flu. Congestions that just wouldn't go away; lots of fatigue. But that was a couple of weeks ago, and she couldn't get tested, because she hadn't been to China or Iran, or been around anyone who had been positively identified as having it; a self-fulfilling issue at that time since no one had tests. Still not enough tests; they really need to be testing everyone. I never had symptoms, so I worry if I am or was an asymptomatic carrier. Or maybe she didn't have it, but just had a really unusual cold? We're mainly worried about her parents and my elderly aunt. No shortage of films and books and music. I can do most running of my non-profit from home, but we can't hold any screenings; and I was already telecommuting for the film I was working on. Having drinks with people via Google Hangout or Zoom or Facetime is a good thing to try. It can be tea or coffee as well. Today's ideas from the non-thinking administration indicate they want people to go to work sooner, which means that it will all last longer. Spanish Flu receded over the summer and came back stronger in the Fall. We will have to watch out for the same. A vaccine won't happen this year. Normal flu shots have to start being created in January to create the supply needed in August-October. I think a treatment might happen first, but hospitals will still get overloaded first. And it will affect urban areas more than rural, just due to density. I think things will be like this through at least the end of May, and then again come September. But who knows?

Do not deceive yourselves. EVERYTHING between now and at least the end of April will be postponed/cancelled, and I wouldn't rule out May & June.

I was a big fan from 1970s reruns and myself in early teens. Basically, the first two seasons have a reasonable number of worthy shows, and the third season is a waste. (although Spock's Brain is fun in the "so bad it's good" way.). I saw Star Trek The Next Generation as it happened. The first season of that had too many retreads of the original story, and the kid saving the day too often, but starting in the second season it had a good number of good shows. Deep Space Nine is a totally different type of series, once it got going, more about negotiations and diplomacy. (or at least the episodes I liked). Haven't seen Voyager or Discovery, and now Picard. Yes, lots of mini-skirts and women's legs.

Thank you for all of this. Sorry for disappearing. I would be interested in the Tiffany ad. I don't have all the Saxophongraph LPs because I got many of the recordings on CDs from Jay; I'll check out more of the liners. Jack Millman - my mom and aunt were friends with him (and maybe his brother?). I have an LP autographed from him to my mom. I think they went to high school together. I'll try to post, and get more clarification from my aunt. 1950s Los Angeles jazz scene. My mom's first husband was a jazz musician Chuck Geisel, but he was too much of a druggie, I believe, and she left him.

Brand new New Yorker interview with Pharoah Sanders: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/if-youre-in-the-song-keep-on-playing-pharoah-sanders-interview

Someone somehow really needs to do an affordable reissue of all the Japanese Waldron albums. Sigh.

Where does one get "The Reminiscent Suite"? Thanks!

Just saw Don Preston a few weeks ago playing keyboards with Bobby Bradford in Pasadena as part of Bradford's band for his Jackie Robinson suite.

Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram Kendi. Really liking it.

Article in LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-09-25/bobby-bradford-jackie-robinson-stealin-home Performing 4 times between now and the end of the year. The other person interviewed, Terry Cannon, is a wonderful person who, besides running the Baseball Reliquary now, also founded Pasadena Filmforum in 1975. Pasadena Filmforum evolved into Los Angeles Filmforum, which I now run.

I just saw Mel Chin present thoughts at the Getty. he did indeed seem quite brilliant.

That's really quite the set; not to figure out if I actually have money for it. I noticed Vol. 14 has the titles in alphabetical order. Curatorial humor?

Any way to see what might be on the discs, please?

It will be really long, and there are lots of photos, but mostly of people whose recordings were lost. It's from the Magazine. The Day the Music Burned It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business — and almost nobody knew. This is the story of the 2008 Universal fire. By Jody Rosen June 11, 2019 1. ‘The Vault Is on Fire’ A version of this article appears in print on June 15, 2019, on Page 27 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: The Day The Music Burned . Moderator, please Delete if not allowed Summary of what was lost: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/master-recordings-universal-fire.html?module=inline

Overall, it's really quite an article.

More for those who can't access the NY Times: "One insider said, “Most senior executives in the record business have no understanding of what masters are, why you need to store them, what the point of them is.” Crucially, masters were not seen as capable of generating revenue. On the contrary: They were expensive to warehouse and therefore a drain on resources. To record-company accountants, a tape vault was inherently a cost center, not a profit center. These attitudes prevailed even at visionary labels like Atlantic Records, which released hundreds of recordings by black artists beginning in the late 1940s. In his Billboard exposé, Holland mentioned a 1978 fire in an “Atlantic Records storage facility in Long Branch, N.J.” Holland did not reveal that the “facility” was the former home of Vogel’s Department Store, owned by the family of Sheldon Vogel, Atlantic’s chief financial officer. Late in the 1970s, Vogel told me, Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic’s president, complained about tapes cramming the label’s Manhattan office. Vogel suggested moving the material to the empty Long Branch building. Vogel was on vacation on Feb. 8, 1978, when he learned the building had burned down. The 5,000-plus lost tapes comprised nearly all of the session reels, alternate takes and unreleased masters recorded for Atlantic and its sublabels between 1949 and 1969, a period when its roster featured R.&B., soul and jazz luminaries, including Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Today the importance of those tapes is self-evident: thousands of hours of unheard music by some of history’s greatest recording artists. But to Atlantic in 1978, the tapes were a nuisance. According to Vogel, Atlantic collected “maybe a couple of million dollars” in insurance on the destroyed masters. It seemed like a good deal. “We thought, Boy, what a windfall,” Vogel says. “We thought the insurance was worth far more than the recordings. Eventually, the true value of those recordings became apparent.”