paul secor

Last night I watched Page Eight on PBS. I'd seen it before, but it was well worth watching again. Great performance by Bill Nighy - one of my favorite actors - and a plot to make you think about governments, lies, corruption, decency, and loyalty.

The first book on the blues that I'd recommend is The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings by Tony Russell and Chris Smith. I say that even though I never bought a copy. That was because I looked through the book thoroughly and already had 90-95% of the records they recommend and didn't need to know more about them. But these gentlemen know of they write. Buy the book, use it as a guide, and listen to the music. That's more important than any history. Or - when Hans (J.A.W.) updates his Songsters, Blues and Rhythm & Blues list http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/371-songsters-blues-and-rhythm-blues/ you can use that as a free guide to blues recordings. It's not as complete as the Russell/Smith book, but it's still immensely useful. Blues Records 1943-1970, a discography, is another source, in some ways a bible, but it seems to be out of print and very expensive. As far as general histories of the blues go, I generally don't trust them. The authors of the ones I've read tend to have their own take/spin on things and tend to make the music fit their agenda(s). The blues covers too wide a range for any one history book to hold, at least imo. There are some selected histories of the blues that you might find checking out. I have several on my shelves that I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read or have only read parts of. I'll still bring them to your attention: Red River Blues by Bruce Bastin is a history/discussion of "The Blues Tradition in the Southeast". I've read much of this one, and while it may cover more of the southeastern blues than you want to know, Mr. Bastin covers his subject well. He's done fieldwork, done recordings, and released records of the music on his Flyright and Traveling Man labels. Michael Gray's Hand My Down My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell Gayle Dean Wardlow's Chasin' That Devil Music (includes a CD with some great tracks.) I'll also list two "as told to" books that I've only read parts of but are worth considering: Henry Townsend: A Blues Life as Told to Bill Greensmith I Say to Me a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman, As Told to Glen Alyn Making this post has made me ashamed of my own ignorance and has made me realize that I have to get some books off my shelves and do some reading of my own.

Johnny Unitas Charlie Joyner Rotary Connection

Doris Duke Raoul Duke Raul Castro

Albert Ayler: various tracks on Live in Greenwich Village Ornette: various albums with Prime Time; Sound Grammar Numerous Roscoe Mitchell albums - among them: Nine To Get Ready, The Bad Guys, Song for My Sister, Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1,2&3; Far Side

Anything you might add to The Guardian review? Well, I haven't read the novel. Looks like another one from that uneasy territory where biography and fiction intermingle. Sorry. I read your first post too quickly and thought you had read the novel itself, rather than the review. My bad.

This is a very fine album. Surprising it's not better known Has it ever been reissued?

Anything you might add to The Guardian review?

I was looking for something other than gospel choirs, but I figured you'd drop a mention or two and I was cool with that, so I didn't place a limitation. (Well, I guess I did post in in the classical forum.)

I was listening to some choral music on the radio recently and have since listened to more via the internet. Would anyone here like to list some of their favorite choral recordings?

I was doing a search for something else, came upon this and read it. I'm glad I did, as it spoke to me. Thank you for posting it, Lazaro.

Basil Rathbone Basil Deardon Basil Bunting

A possibility, but I'll bet that some of Chuck's realities over the years beat any of my dreams.

Johnny Hodges Bunny Berigan Pat Hare

Most of my dreams are gone by the time I awaken or shortly thereafter, but this one was very vivid and stayed with me.

Buk Duke Mook

Cats, without a doubt.

Don Newcombe "Nuke" LaLoosh H-Bomb Ferguson

I had an odd dream several nights ago that's stuck with me. I know that hearing about other people's dreams can be boring, but this one has some music connections, so I'll share it. The dream began with me watching a TV set. B.B. King was playing a duet with a man named Sam Bush (but not the "newgrass" guy - this was an older musician.) B.B. was playing some of the most relaxed, subtly flowing guitar I'd ever heard him play. Sam Bush, whom I was unfamiliar with until this dream, was playing acoustic guitar and singing like a somewhat more pop-oriented Floyd Tillman. The duet ended and I left the building I was in and walked down the street to a used bookstore. There I found an old music reference book that said that Sam Bush was a songwriter/musician who was active in the 1940s and 1950s. Next to this entry, there was a photograph of him playing piano. I bought the book and as I was getting ready to leave, I saw a 78 recording by Von Freeman on the Goldband label on the wall. The price was $20 and even though I knew that such a recording didn't exist, and even though I didn't have a turntable that played 78s, I bought that also. In the next segment of my dream, I was in a small auditorium where Von Freeman was playing with a band that included a secong saxophonist. I don't remember anything about the other musicians because Von Freeman was wailing his heart out. At one point, he left the stage and walked down the center aisle while playing a ballad. His sound was reflecting off the walls and the ceiling of the auditorium and at times he seemed to be accompanying himself. After the concert, the hall emptied and I was the only person there. I walked backstage and found a reel to reel tape recorder that was connected to the sound system. It seemed to be abandoned and I felt that if it were left there, some imporatant history might be lost. So I took the tape reel. The next segment of my dream was sometime after the concert. I was standing in a dimly lit room talking with Von Freeman. I asked him about the Goldband 78 and he said that such a record might indeed exist because he had played with a band in Louisiana in the 1950s and a guy had taken them into his recording studio and recorded them. As far as he knew, nothing had ever come of the tapes. I told him about the reel of tape I had taken from the concert and asked him if he wanted it, since it was his music on the tape. He was considering that when I woke up. Dreams are weird - sometimes soothing, sometimes unsettling - but always weird.

Grizzly Adams Adam Ant David Carradine

Billie Holiday: Lady in Satin (Columbia/Classic)

You just have to keep your distance from "the people".

Great pick. I forget how long it is, but he really makes a beautiful transition from inside to outside playing on that. I remember playing that track for a few people at random back in the day, just somebody would be hanging out, not "jazz people" or anything, just folks, and not everybody would dig it. But some of the ones that did would get up and start hollering and screaming the deeper into it that Trane & Elvin got, I mean, involuntary reactions and shit, like in church or something. My first reaction was not quite so outwardly demonstrative, but yeah, I was gripped, to put it mildly. Still am. Ultimately, that's the kind of music I like best, the kind where "liking" it or not is not an option you have. It just takes you over. BAM. Figure it out later, if ever. Hell yeah. When I read your post I was reminded of catching Coltrane's quartet at Shelly's Manne-Hole in L.A. around 1965. People got so lost in the music that they were emitting primal screams and shouts. Those small cocktail tables were being knocked over, glasses were breaking, it was pandemonium. It was like a vortex in the room. I have never experienced anything like that, before or since. When I walked out after the set, a buddy of mine was waiting in line to go in for the next set. He asked me, "what the hell was going on in there?" I could only say, "you'll find out". Amazing. And from a 'West Coast' crowd too I don't think we'll see music of the mind and the heart like that anymore. What an experience to have heard that music in it's own time, unfolding before you! Great story, Cali. freelancer, as long as Cecil is with us, there's always the chance it can still happen. Thanks. I feel very privileged to have witnessed that. It's the closest I've ever felt to a religious experience. I had the same sort of experience the first time I heard Cecil with Jimmy Lyons, Henry Grimes, and Andrew Cyrille. Though I probably got more carried away than most of the other people there. Wish I have that experience again, but at least it happened once.

Cootie Williams Skeeter Davis Bugsy Malone

I remember when he wrote a column for Down Beat in the 1960's. I believe he told a story about a guy hearing a record on a juke box and wanting to have it so badly that he broke the glass cover on the juke box and took the record. I may have misremembered it to some degree, but the gist of the story and the idea of that guy wanting to have the record has stuck with me.