fasstrack

For anyone interested in more info on the kind of civic pride and community activities going on practically unnoticed by the outside world in Mt. Vernon check out their local paper: http://www.mvinquirer.com/ PS: I tried, but failed, to locate a website for the Grimes School in Mt. Vernon. Probably the answer is they're a private school. Personally I wouldn't care if they were funded by bake sales on the 3rd moon of Vulcan. Whatever they're doing, it's working.

BTW it goes without saying that this is the place to share your own stories........

It just never seems to end. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.... It seems almost every day I go out to hear local church or school-based music I come home rejuvenated and inspired. I spoke a bit about St. Mark's Methodist church in Harlem here earlier (site of John Hicks' funeral), and that is a house of amazing and totally unknown (outside the community) music. Tonight, on invitation from the parent of a piano student in Mt. Vernon (and to tell the truth to follow up on a few promising teaching job offers) I wound up at the spring concert one Grimes Elementary School of the Performing Arts on S 10th Ave., the heart of 90% black Mt. Vernon. I missed the band and walked in on the choir, followed by the jazz dancers. These kids (the dancers) were just happening, all these vivid colors and great moves. They were topped, though, I must say (it wasn't even close) by the next act: break dancers with incredible moves. The (admittedly easy) audience of relatives like to went out of their minds applauding, screaming, and stomping---and I was right with them. Amazing, focused energy coming out of 4th graders and their teachers. Next was an amazingly mature rendering of Peter and the Wolf. It actually was the first time I saw this piece and I must admit to ignorance of Prokofiev's score or even themes beyond that famous 6-note motif. Well, consider me cured, nay, baptized. Every one of the principals was extraordinary: Peter, the Bird, the Wolf, the Duck---all of them. And the 'hunters' entered in grand style, like a dramatic Sonny Rollins solo, from the aisles in their army fatigue outfits with plastic shotguns. When the Duck magically appeared alive at the end it was, you guessed right, pandemonium. How do you top that? With African chanting and drumming! A phalanx of young drummers playing African-style hand drums and playing in 6 over 4 like they were the Jazz Messengers. I know Buhania is smiling somewhere tonight because these kids were seriously swinging---and they kept it up for 25 white-hot minutes or so. Naturally there were young dancers and naturally they too entered from the aisles. When it ended (less than 1 hour ago at this writing) I was introduced to the principal and congragulated her, then had mercy and moved on, let her have a well-earned moment (but not before giving her my resume---well she did, ahem, ask). Community-based music. Arts alive and thriving in American communities far and wide. Grimes Elementary Performing Arts School. Can I get a witness?!

Is that like 'In Search of the 27th Man'? Or was I just barking up the wrong tree? Guess I was.

i thought Branford did a brilliantly self-centered job of using his forum to settle old scores in his favor. old scores misconstrued, misunderstood, taken out of context, all of the preceding ... or just beyond his comprehension. preaching to the converted it was easy. You're writing in generalities. Who, where, what, why? And I never saw that at all. If anything it was quite the opposite and he was way too permissive, and not only with critics of his own work or person. In 4 years of that forum he only got into it with one particularly irksome asshole and only after quite a lot of baiting by said asshole. He removed one thread where a guy called Hitler 'the best chef in Europe'. He let a lot of stupidity by some stupidity mongers fly and never took sides in the many 'wars' that broke out, preferring to let the idiots hang by their own idiotic ropes. In the end people took advantage of his egalitarianism by finding holes in the site's buggy software (which couldn't trace IP addresses) to literally steal the identities of musicians of some repute and start racist and other inflammatory threads. His name being on the forum, a new son, and other events conspired to have him evidently say 'screw this. Who needs it?'. He will reopen, he has said. Having said that, many people (myself, who was openly and loudly critical of him re the above and other things, absolutely included) were treated very well by Branford and also got gigs and made lasting friendships as a result of that forum. My occasional email relations with him remain very cordial and the ones I have received have been helpful and supportive of me, a person he has met exactly once and for less than 5 minutes. So, if you would, spell out what you mean by 'did a brilliantly self-centered job of using his forum to settle old scores in his favor'. Thank you in advance.

Heard 'em tonight. Smokin', dudes and dudettes. Bill really played his ass off (meaning he played out, balls out) and the trio is a well-oiled machine, something on the order of Ahmad's famous trio. I mean to say not that this is the second coming of the Ahmad Jamal trio, but they absolutely loom large as a model with these guys. And they're pretty close in the mantle among cats out there now. Kenny Washington is a MF, he's so alert. I don't want to leave Peter out, he's the real strength in a way because there's so much close interaction between Bill and Kenny that someone has to 'keep the furnace burning', as Red Mitchell used to like to say. The dynamics as a trio just turn on the dime with these guys, too. Having a working group is the answer to everything. Songs, not necessarily in order: Israel (that was the first tune); Godchild; Blues in the Night; Rocker; Bon Ami (Jim Hall); A Harry Warren ballad which I didn't know and can't recall the title of now; Blue Skies; and they closed with The Best Thing for You Would be Me (which, if you followed Ahmad's group, that was one of his mainstays). I wanted very much to mention that I had thought the scene at JALC was a little stiff and perhaps overly 'corporate', but a guy named Desmond who's usually at the door took really good care of me and treated me with the respect everyone deserves and then some. It was a perfect closer to a very beautiful day for me here in NY. I'm still smiling.

What was the name of the artist who drew Spy Vs. Spy? I forget. I do remember he did both drawings and story lines. I predict at least 90 responses.....

I didn't need any schooling in being a smartass. It's just a gift I have Nah! Takes a lot of training to make an effective smartarse. When I was at work, one of my responsibilities was smartarse remarks. MG You and Son-of-a-Weizen get my vote for best screen names on this board BTW. Mine is lame by comparison. "If you got it, flaunt it!* *Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock in The Producers

I didn't need any schooling in being a smartass. It's just a gift I have

Remember it well. That was Mort Drucker, right? I can see his work in my head even as I write this. His stuff was great. Did he do East Side Story? That one panel of Krustschev with the black leather jacket scaring the Dutch ambassador......too f'ing much!

Yup. Don Martin. I remember "the new dart set". Also, Sergio Aragones, the "Brazil Nut", and his 'drawn out dramas' are as good as it gets, and all in a little margin! Anyone remember "horrifying cliches"? They were one-panel cartoons featuring cliches turned into monstrous creatures. Like 'nursing a grudge' with a nurse ministering to the needs to this hairily humongous, wild-eyed thing

From The Lighter Side of Business: Dave Berg (as per usual as Roger Kaputnik) to himself at his kid's party: "Gee this kid's party is sure costing a fortune. I wish I could think of a way to get it back". To a kid: "Hey kid, ask me how's business". "Sure. How's business?" "It stinks" To himself: "Good. Now I can write the whole thing off as a 'business conference' " .

http://mydamnforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1856 Sorry, don't know how to copy photos. Just open the link. It's from this past April.

I just remembered the funniest part of that fighter flick parody: In one of those 'transition scenes' the fighter is seen to slowly morph into the wolfman. Then, the punchline written in boldface as was Mad's wont, he says 'somebody goofed. It's the WRONG TRANSITION SCENE' I took that panel and copied it, then whited out the dialog balloon and wrote "Wow. DYNAMITE MINOXODIL!! It's still hanging on my wall

They really hold up for me. Maybe because I think everyone's basic core tastes and values form early in life. People either stay open or don't after that, but the basic ducks line up kinda early in the game. I want to get reissues of my favorite Mad 'zines. I still have a few, including the fight movie parody where the guy's playing the ocarina in the beginning. When he starts making a name for himself a gangster looking like a sawed-off Buddy Hackett approaches him and, naturally, says: "I wanna buy a piece of you". The fighter rejoins: "Which piece do you want? I can let my ruptured spleen go for very cheap...". Also his girlfriend is always finishing his sentences and thoughts. "You're probably wondering..." At the end he's about to propose and she says: "You're probably wondering if I'll marry you, right?" "Yeah, but first...." Bam, he knocks her ass out and in the final panel she flies out of the ring.

I was a voracious reader of all I could get my hands on as a child. But I mostly grew up on Mad Magazine. It's still around but not at all the same and they caved in and started taking advertising. That was the beginning of the end. If you follow their history, though, it's pretty amazing. If started as comic books, then there were the pulp formats. One early and brilliant contributor was Bill Elder. An early classic by him was Starchie, a vicsous (sp?) and dead-on parody of America's 'typical teenager' Archie Andrews. In it Starchie's family were gypsies, Betty and Veronica (here 'Biddy' snd Salonica') both had bad acne, and Reggie was a bully and a shakedown artist. Starchie's dad was a drunk who was always yelling about the noise: 'who makes noise in my teenage house?' I think old Miss Grundy even had a racket going, maybe selling it on the side . At the top of the list of the funniest stuff to me was the Broadway musical parodies. I remember when the movie West Side Story came out we went and it

Opinioned and at times intentionally provocative, yes, rude no, at least not intentionally. Manners are very important to me and I try not to cross the line with personal attacks. If anyone feels bad I feel bad. I've had some real sickos dump on me on the Web in language and visciousness that makes anything I ever wrote or read here or anywhere else seem like Sunday School teachers' importunings. I'm still here and sort of like the way I choose to express myself. I can take the heat because I know I use strong language and will sometimes get as good as I give. And I do listen and learn from anyone with anything intelligent to say. The Internet is a weird place to debate or even discuss things. A lot of misunderstandings and even ill will crop up because IMO it's a very limited and atomized mode of communication. You can't hear a voice or see a face and a lot of the subtelty of 'actual' conversation is lost. And people, myself included, do take things personally. Plus, the honor system that's sort of in place can be subverted by all kinds of people who lie, steal identities, etc. That's why Branford Marsalis's forum eventually closed, and he did a valiant job of believing in democracy and peoples' ability to sort things out. This place is eminently civil by comparison, the people are by far the most knowledgeable about jazz I've encouintered on the web, and I will continue to post and just lurk and read here. I saw what I saw in that clip and people reserve the right to disagree. However IMO not to see the larger issues exposed there re the patterns that have cropped up vis a vis race and treatment of jazz musicians on commercial TV is to suffer from tunnel vision. But anyone who thinks I read too much into it is entitled to think so and prove their points in the tradition of civil discourse. I'm listening.

What's the point of taking it that way? It wasn't intended like that. I also was never rude and took pains to say any dissenting opinion is as valuable (or meaningless) as mine. I see where this is going, has gone, and it's not important for me to be right, just to point out what's obvious to me. Sorry if you were offended. I'm outta this discussion but will read the opinions of black musicians especially who might have been around then and can teach us all about these things/ Let's all have a nice day. And let's all lighten up. Please.

(Yawn) Any black people care to comment and give the real inside skinny? Last comment from me on this.

Ahhh, chaddup, all of yiz. And me, too. Like Mammy Yokum, 'I has spoken'. I really think blacks on this forum should comment and we should listen and not talk anymore. I'll start.

Wow. Thanks for that info from the bottom to the top. This is what the Web should be about.

No need to. You have your opinion, I have mine. I base my opinion solely on what I see on the screen, as I would hope that you do. Wilson was a newspaper columnist, not a TV host, so to place him as representative of the TV establishment is inaccurate. In 1951 there was hardly any TV establishment to speak of, anyway. The industry was in its infancy. I don't deny that jazz musicians were denied access to TV for decades, but I think it was more for commercial reasons than for any racism, intentional or not. He was a TV host beside his column, just as Ed Sullivan was. To say that racism in America, especially on the white owned and controlled medium of TV, and double-especially back then played no role in programming or shutting people out of the medium strikes me as nothing less than incredible, frankly. Can you not see what is obvious to me, namely that commercialism, racism and control by the few of TV---early or late---are all heads on the same monster? For but one of countless examples, Nat Cole, by the time he was ready for TV was a middle-of-the-road entertainment sensation (and a great performer at or away from the piano). But his above-average 15 minute show 'went quietly into that good night' after a short while. Reason: He couldn't get a sponsor. One lipstick company tapped said "but Negroes don't use lipstick, do they?". Cole's comment, according to his wife, was "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark". BTW Cole's failed TV gambit was roughly contemporaneous (perhaps a few years later) with the Parker-Wilson imbroglio. You gotta be kidding me, man. Or else we're living in different countries that one of us mistakenly thinks is America... Will some black people please come on this thread and straighten these nice and well-meaning but, sorry-to-say clueless (on this issue) people out? I'm white and Jewish and even I know this stuff. Someone that has to go through this shit daily in 2006 America could speak far better than I. Maybe someone of color who actually has worked in TV?