frank m

Can any of you guys help me with information about an old jazz label?? There was a label called "Shoestring" which put out a few LP's back in the 70's I guess, and I suppose it no longer exists. They put out airchecks of the band that Bobby Hackett had in 56-57 consisting of Caceres.Buzzy Drooten,Bob Wilbur,Dick Cary et al, and is, as you might suppose hard to come by. There is one record announced in advance as SS113 "to be released iin early 1979" Does anybody know if this label lasted that long? and if so was it really released--I don't know if it really exists. Title of this will-of-the-wisp is "Live from the Voyager Room,Volume II"

I hope that wasn't a putdown of the Sauter-Finegan band. That was an original--indeed a unique- band with a great vocalist in Sally Sweetland. I saw them a couple of times and they were even even splendid visually with that expanded tympany section. IMHO one of their better recordings was an LP of reorchestration of arrangements that they each did singly for the Miller and Goodman bands. I know that they couldn't make it for long in the economics of that time but they were sure interesting while they lasted. I think that a lot of jazz purists didn't much care for them because they didn't realize it was a band with a well developed sense of humor. Someone else who hasn't been mentioned here is Ralph Burns who did so much arrangement for at least one of the Woody Herman herds. I still find "Summer Sequence" and its sort of epilogue "Early Autumn" to be haunting.IMHO that piece of music will still be around when we're all gone. All of which leads me to a question: Whatever happened to Ralph Burns after his association with Herman????? And was he really only 22 when he did that arrangement????

The most IMPORTANT thing in frying chicken is not to listen to anyones recipe who isn't from the south---the deeper the South- the better. I've been there enough to know that northern fried chicken is not to be compared in quality to southern. I confess I don't know how they do it- but they do.

My wife and I went to the mainstream jazz concert last September at Chattaqua (sp?) New york. Lasts about 3 days straight of jazz. A bit pricey for the likes of us, but it's only once a year and it's a heck of a lot of good music and great food. Musicians like Dick Hyman, Dan Barrett, Bob Barnard, Vince Giordano and on and on. Great fun.If we can get dogsitters, we'll be there again this year.

You can download " Temptation" and the obverse side for 99 cents each at iTunes. I'm told that this will work even if you have a PC instead of a Macintosh. I still haven't made up my mind about it, but I like her Nat Cole album a lot b etter.

On a ship== Groucho (looking out to sea): Is that a U-Boat? Chico: Atsa No my boat.

Some guys from the ship (navy) were going to 52nd st. to hear Billie Holiday. (1945) After that there was no turning back.

About 10 years ago on Long Island we had two jazz organizations and jazz club. All gone now, leaving us with zilch. Save for an occasional 60 mile trip into the city or Jersey, we have nothing. There is a club here that professes to have jazz but it is nothing like any jazz I have ever heard. That and the fact that it is a small room subject to ear shattering amplification of that shit means its better to stay home and listen to stuff on my audio system.

Bless HBO--for both "six feet" and "sopranos" . Except for news programs its about the only thing worth a hoot. imho

Maybe we ought to set up a trading center here. Anyone want to make a list????

I've already said this in another post so if you find it redundant,forgive me. I first found Dick Hyman as that skinny white guy playing behind Diz and Bird. He has a history as a bop musician, but he seems to have migrated to encompass the entire range of jazz. The only criticism I've ever heard of him is that he is so good and plays so many styles that he has no distinctive style of his own. I think he's the best pianist around.

My wife and I saw Yaged and his then sextet thirty or so years ago as the second group along with some much more famous group we've now forgotten. Sol worshiped Goodman but always played in his shadow. He was a pretty good musician but never made it to the front rank. But he sure loved to play. We were seated toward the back of the hall, and when it came time for the other band to take the stand, Sol stood behind us behind an airconditioner or something, playing softly along with the other group. I too was amazed to find him still at it.

I'm happy that Wild Bill Davison has been mentioned. I don't have any of the records Jackie gleason made "directing" Bobby Hackett with strings. Little known is the fact that Bobby needed money at the time,went to Gleason, who screwed him out of his rights to a cut of the sales for a paltry few thousand dollars. Those records made millions.

No argument here. But I first saw her in a segment of the Altman film about Kansas City. That segment is available as a video tape and probably now as a DVD. Whatever its maybe the best piece of video on jazz I've ever seen save for the one Whitney Balliett did early on with Billie Holiday and some of the best players of the day.

Billie Holiday was paid a ridiculously low amount for all her early recordings, with no residual rights. She got not one additional cent for all those classic records. this happened to lots of the early jazz musicians, most particularly count Basie, who was royally screwed in his first contract.

Marty Grosz is ,as you have cited, one heluva good guitarist. He is also one of the wittiest raconteurs in jazz. I've seen him countless times reduce an audience to helpless laughter with one of his stories. Saw him once at a more or less mainstream concert when at the beginning of the concert-looked out at the audience and said "This looks like the centerfold from the AARP magazine" Unfortunately for jazz, this was true. BTW he is the son of the great cartoonist,artist and satirist George Grosz. I don't know the details but I do know he was born in Germany. His father was on Hitler's shitlist for his anti-nazi drawings, but apparently got out with his family before it was too late. He's made a lot of records with some of the best young jazz mainstream musicians in NY.Lately now they're on Arbors or Stomp off records and he's to be found mainly at jazz festivals around the country.

You folks all remind me of my former students, for whom history began with their birth. I humbly remind y'all of the two who started it--Louis and King Oliver.

I do a lot of bitching on these posts about what a fallow area this is for jazz. At last I can announce a jazz concert in these parts . The Long Island Museum is sponsoring a Jazz Brunch at the Oldfield Club in Stony Brook. It may be considered a bit pricey for some of at sixty bucks per person, but that includes a gourmet brunch and free admission to the Museum. The brunch-concert starts at 12 noon and features some fine New York based musicians. Ed Polcer,cornet Mark Shane,piano, Mike Weatherley ,bass, Dan Bloch,reeds and Judy Kurtz Polcer, vocals. My wife and I have heard all these folks play and I guarantee you will enjoy the music. Its about ten or fifteen minutes from the Port Jeffereson ferry, which puts you folks in Connecticut within range.Come and support JAZZ ON LONG ISLAND. It doesn't happen often -dammit Date is Sunday Mar 21,at 12 noon. Call 631-751-0066 EXT 247 for reservations

BRAD--- My wife and I have often traveled to the Cornerstone in Metuchin to hear favorite musicians. (We're stuck in eastern Long Island, also known as the Jazz Desert) We've never gotten to Shanghai Jazz, which leads me to my questionl. How does it happen that New Jersey manages to support not one but multiple Jazz venues with top jazz musicians usually? and a number of jazz festivals run by the NJ jazz society. I live in a community which is not only similar socio-economically to Jersey, but is close to a college community and which is still jazz hinterlands. How do you people do it? Do you have any idea? I've always been baffled by the terrific disparity between my locale and Jersey. If anyone asks why we don't go to Manhattan which is on the way to Jersey- the answer is that its too damned expensive compared to Jersey. And they don't throw you out after a single set yet like they do at a number of NY clubs.

I was seriously considering it but I found live365 which has a lot more and costs a lot less. For driving purposes it doesn't work but then I have a cd player.

How can you folks discuss Miles as if he played only one style? I know of no other jazz musician who moved from one style of playing to another so readily. I likked some of them Others I despised, I felt so negative about his electronic phase that I did something I never thought I'd do-I walked out in the middlle of his performance--not that he cared.

Amazing---Nobody but me wants to hear Bix??--that is if we don't have to hear Whiteman.

jg--- I hope we're talking about the same Mosaic set. I mean "Classic Columbia Condon Mob Sessions".(MD8-206) I count 4 sessions for PeeWee and 4 for Peanuts. Counting alternate takes I make it 21 cuts for PeeWee and 14 for Peanuts. As for being available elsewhere there are some 29 out of print lp's this Mosaic was culled from. Go figure what your chances are. There is another condon Mosaic--"The Complete CBS recordings of Eddie Condon and his Allstars" MQ7-152 which is, except for the last record, terrific. If you haven't heard their version of "Old Mis" you have missed the best hunk of that brand of Chicago style jeaa. IMHO

re Patricia and her dixieland record: (two posts back) this is a musically sophistocated group here. How many of y'all know who Shoeless Joe Jackson was? I'll bet it's some 80 - 90 percent.

An early 10 inch LP of Ralph Burns composition "Summer Sequence" with Woody and one of the early herds. Part of it became "Early Autumn"