John Litweiler

Lucky GA! Weren't the Whalers where the 3 Howes first played in the WHA? The Howes played for the Texas team by the time I saw them. By then Gordie was 50-something and not very fast, but still the dirtiest player on the ice. While the referees were up front keeping their eyes on the puck and the two Howe boys stick-handling, Gordie was in back slashing, hooking, and leaving the ice littered with the bodies of Chicago players. A joy to watch a super-villain in action.

Yes, please no scratchy reissues.

Sold many many LPs and 45s when I was out of work but kept all my Nessas. A few of those rarities proved to be irreplaceable.

My brother in Madison claims that The Onion was best when it was published there, before it moved to NYC. That is hilarious.

Yes, good walking shoes are a good idea, I hope you and Ann have plenty of time to wander around, wherever you are. Another good idea is gelato in Rome. So is wearing your money, passports, etc. in a money belt in train stations, buses, crowded entrances, exits. Lots of local folks in Europe speak English. Might not be a good idea to holler "Yay, Munich!" while in the company of soccer fans. Show us your and Anne's photos, then, please.

Thanks, GA. First hockey game I ever saw was the Ft. Wayne Komets vs. one of the Michigan teams, about 1956 or 57. I fell in love with hockey that night. The World Hockey Association was a lot of fun in the 1970s. For much less than the price of NHL games we could see our favorites from a few years earlier, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, etc.along with young guys, some of them pretty good guys. Wayne Gretzky, 18 years old, played for Edmonton's Oilers in the WHA's last year, before a few WHA teams were absorbed into the NHL.

I was with Leon Kelert while he was recording the Jug and Dexter set for Prestige - Steve McCall, drums, I believe. Don Byas, before he began playing, came over to us to insist that Leon turn off the recorder. Wilbur Campbell played drums for that last set. Larry, do you remember, after the music, the 3 tenor players walking together across the street into the Lincoln Park night?

Albums that rocked my world include Nichols & May Examine Doctors, the first Moms Mabley releases that got played on WLAC, and Beyond The Fringe with Peter Cook & Dudley Moore.Songs that woke up my ears, at various young ages, include Spike Jones / William Tell Overture Joe Turner / Shake Rattle & Roll Coasters / Searching Jimmy Reed / The Sun Is Shining Ray Charles / Rock & Roll (album) Johnny Cash / Big River Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra (on an LP with Cantata Profana) Santo & Johnny / Sleep Walk (don't remember the singer) / Here I Am I'm Drunk Again Bayreuth 1936 (album of Wagner arias; Hitler was allegedly there that year) and the first rock-&-roll record I can remember hearing on the radio. It was by a male quartet and the first five lines were Booly otten boo, baby, booly otten boo Booly otten boo, baby, booly otten boo Booly otten boo, baby, booly otten boo Booly otten boo, baby Huh? The next strain was the same. Anybody know the singers or the name of the song? It was ca. 1953 or 54

Looks like Gary was making a sarcastic remark about something he heard the band play.

My Fair Lady Your Lady Lady Macbeth

A Mulligan-Konitz 10" LP convinced me of the value of the West Coast white sensibility back when I was young and first listening to hard bop, swing, Bechet, Bird, early Ra and Cecil Taylor and the 1st Ornettes all at the same time. Before that I liked San Francisco trad bands.

Speaking of "marches," some young, black drum--&-bugle corps can really swing a parade.

Ah, nostalgia. One day when I was about 18 y.o. I finallly got a $10 LP player and read a copy of Down Beat. Bought Manne-Previn-Vinnegar/My Fair Lady and a Benny Goodman Columbia collection from a little record store in the neighborhood - the only jazz records they had in the store. Much pleasure ensued.

Thanks, Aparxa. Odie Payne Senior presumably. Pee Wee Hunt of the Casa Lomas highly unlikely. IIRC Hattie Randolph had a brother who, like her, was once with Sun Ra, but I don't think his name was Hunt.

Music has improved my moods so many times, in that sense it surely shook my world. Ayler, Graves, etc. were right about its being a healing force. The opposite happened, too: rarely, music has made me unhappy at times when I needed to be unhappy.

Now you made me curious. What was that lawsuit involving Ayler's estate? Where did you read about it? It involved Bernard Stollman of ESP fame and I believe a faction of the Ayler state. The lawsuit effectively brought Revenant to a standstill. Where did you read about it?

Rome is a great city to get lost in. Loved it right up to the afternoon my camera got ripped off (beware riding on a bus). The jazz record store had few CDs by Italian musicians. Lots of sunshine when I was there in 1999.

Steve, well said.

Now you made me curious. What was that lawsuit involving Ayler's estate? Where did you read about it?

I'm glad Amina will play, but am sorry Bobby Bradford won't be there.

I was extremely annoyed that Pi issued a CD titled "Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City" by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It's bad enough that that CD doesn't include the title work - someone at Pi told me that they didn't know about the existence of the great Jarman / Delmark performance of the poem "Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City" (Nessa's second recording for Delmark). What was worse about Pi's blunder is that, just a couple years later, Roscoe Mitchell's beautiful orchestra-+-baritone setting of Jarman's poem - the real thing - appeared on the Abrams-Mitchell CD "Spectrum" (Mutable Music). Anybody confused yet?

It can be done! (sigh)

Are you familiar with free fusion along the lines of Ornette & Prime Time, Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, James Blood Ulmer? Or Hamid Drake's Reggaeology?

too bad we apply the political connotations of "conservative" to every other use of the word

Xlnto!