paul secor

I was truly sorry to read your post about your friend. A very good friend of mine died of cancer a little over two years ago. She was 44 and had fought her disease with everything she had within her. The doctors had given her six weeks to six months to live after the cancer spread to her brain, and she lived for more than two years beyond that prognosis. When someone told her that I wasn't handling the news of her illness very well, she wrote me a note reassuring me that everything was ok and that I shouldn't worry. That's the kind of person she was. I still carry that note and read it when I think about her. Marianne (my friend) was the strongest, bravest person I've known. All I can say is that I hope you can let your friend know how much you care about her, and that you enjoy the time that you have left with her. I know that she's in your heart now and that she'll remain there after she's gone.

What he said!

Hope you're having a great birthday, Chris!

Bottom line for me: If a musician allows audience members to tape a concert, that's fine. If a musician doesn't want a performance taped, that's his/her right and people should respect that. I would no more feel that I'd have the right to tape a concert without permission than I'd feel I'd have the right to borrow a musician's car without asking. Musicians have worked to create the music, and it belongs to them. It doesn't belong to me, "the audience", or "the people", unless we purchase it or unless musicians give it to us. There are a lot of people these days who feel that because they want something they have a right to it. That's probably always been the case, but the internet has provided a new and easier excuse for that sort of thinking.

Sure, if we'll buy them again (and again, and again ....)

Django - Disc 4

Just a couple of thoughts after a first glance: I would have included Sidney Bechet in the 1917-42 listing, even if I had to omit Bix from the main listing. Bechet was truly a force of nature. Also would have included Django in the followup listing for that era. I wouldn't have included any of the recordings found in the main 1980-2000 list. I'll have to think about what my choices for that era would be.

Leonardo Padura Fuentes: Adios Hemingway - a novel about Cuba, Ernest Hemingway, writing, loyalty, and friendship, (and probably some other things I didn't pick up on) in the guise of a murder mystery.

Riley was a snooze, 'cept he was there for the best Monk Columbia (IMO) "Live at the It Club". At his point I wish to mention the lp version (edited by Teo) had much more impact than the "restored" cd version. Wish I'd kept the lps. ← Agree completely. I've kept the CDs for the extra material, but the LPs have a presence that's lacking on the CDs. Chuck just read your post a second time. I'm talking about the sound. Are you talking about the music being edited (bass solos cut out, fewer tracks, etc.) having more impact?

Happy birthday, Mr. Dixon! Thanks for all of the music - hope there's much more to come.

I enjoy hearing alternates in sequential order with the released takes, but I'm not a fanatic about that.

I remember when Nipsy Russell was the co-host on a late night show in the mid sixties. (I believe it was Les Crane's show.) Fat Jack Leonard was one of the guests and in the midst of his usual insults, he said to Nipsy, "I knew you when you were a slave." Nipsy looked as if he wanted to hit him in the chops right then, and I don't believe that he spoke for the remainder of the program. He should have clocked him, but if he had that probably would have ended his career.

← To add to what I wrote back when, Bird's Eyes Vol 8 also contains a session from April, 1951 with some truly inspired Bird (I should say more inspired than usual) and Roy Haynes (the Philology notes credit him and the Bregman/Bukowski/Saks discography says it's probably he) on fire. (The mic seems to have been placed near the drum set which adds to that feeling.) And just an added thought - I've always found that Bird's alto somehow manages to be heard and to ring clearly through on even the murkiest, muddiest bootlegs. Pretty amazing to me, and it speaks volumes about Bird's sound.

I have a handful of autographed albums - Lee Konitz, Doug Sahm, Roswell Rudd, Mingus, among them - but I've pretty much given it up. I'll never sell them (unless I'm homeless or starving) and after I'm gone I won't care what happens to them. I think that Dylan put it very well in No Direction Home when he told the autograph seekers, "If you needed it, I'd give it to you - but you don't need it." I don't need an autograph, and I don't need to take up time from artist's lives to have them sign an autograph for me.

Happy birthday, Bill! And thanks for some good (if humbling) listening on your blindfold test.

Glad you're back, Larry. I missed your posts. They usually gave me things to think about.

Well, yeah, but I also hear total command of the limitations, so we're possibly getting into the realm of what's a limitation and what's not, which I really don't care to get into. But the thing that strikes me most is the impeccabilty, the purposefulness of his "microtiming" (if that really means anything) and his various attacks and dynamics. Not at all unlike Monk in end result, although, of course, in a totally different idiom using totally different raw materials. Different but alike. Or vice-versa. So, whatever that means, there it is! ← I get "whatever that means" and agree. Dylan's harmonica playing worked (works)perfectly for his music, which is all it had to do. There's a difference between technique (which is what Dylan has) and facility.

Chet Baker Quartet with Duke Jordan: No Problem (Steeplechase)

Up for one last try. He has two very good but short solos on the Joe Morris set - "Wilma's (sic?) Idea" and "Easy Riff" that make it clear that he was familiar with and fluent in the bop idiom. Hard to believe (but it seems to be true) that this man just disappeared and that no one here knows anything about him.

Von Freeman Quartet: Young and Foolish (Daybreak) Perusing the Von Freeman thread in Recommendations, I came across Larry Kart's mention of this and decided to revisit it. Glad I did - Very good Von Freeman and also very good John Young.

I wouldn't usually give these guys a mention, but since there have been several negative comments about the sound quality of the Sony box, and since the Masters of Jazz series is out of print, has anyone heard the Definitive studio sessions box?

It's still today so - Happy Birthday!!!

Spent the morning with some piano players: Ellington/Mingus/Roach: Money Jungle (UA/King - Japan) Jelly Roll Morton: The Library of Congress Recordings Volume One (Swaggie) Otis Spann: Good Morning Mr. Blues (Analogue Productions)

Welcome! I'm sure you'll find that this is an interesting place to hang out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!