John Litweiler

A delightful and exasperating man. Albert Murray taught me in a one week seminar in 1974 and I quite appreciated his insights re the influence of African-Americans on American culture, while I thought some of his ideas re jazz were preposterous. For example, 1) blues is not a separate tradition that developed alongside jazz, but strictly a precursor of jazz. The proof this that blues is a folk art and folk art does not change, whereas jazz is a fine art and fine art is ever-changing. 2) (as if to contradict 1)) "avant-garde" is a military term for the front line of soldiers who are sent out to attack the enemy and get slaughtered in the process. He had other derogatory things to say about those doomed soldiers and their musical counterparts. He was a U.S. air-force major. I believe Murray put these in a later book or 2. "The Omni-Americans" first, then "South to a Very Old Place" are his most important works, I think. The first of his novels, "Train Whistle Guitar," is beautiful. His "Stomping the Blues" is alternately right-on and ridiculous. Count Basie's autobiography as told to Murray is another beautiful book, but it may be as much Murray's book as Basie's. For example, Basie's frequent statements that Ellington was his superior look like Murray vamping on his own favorite jazz artist rather than something Basie actually said again and again. Here's a review I wrote of two Murray books: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-03-17/entertainment/9603170005_1_train-whistle-guitar-scooter-seven-league-boots. Re Murray's great love of Hemingway, he never seems to have noticed that Hemingway was a racist and a suicide. Murray loved Ellington and the Ellington band and told stories I won't repeat because children are present. He refused to come back to the Smithsonian to teach the next week because (so I was told) David Baker would be on the faculty and he considered Baker a racist.

Homework by Allen Ginsberg Homage to Kenneth Koch If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my dirty Iran I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap, scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in the jungle, I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico, Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska, Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly Cesium out of Love Canal Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain the Sludge out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again, Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little Clouds so snow return white as snow, Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood & Agent Orange, Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state, & put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an Aeon till it came out clean

looking forward to that - I saw Dennehy in Krapp's Last Tape at the Goodman Yes, I thought he was very good as Krapp. Not entirely sure Godot will transfer, but maybe someone knows more than me. I was at first a bit sorry that he wasn't Gogo or Didi, but on reflection, I think that would have upset the balance of the play too much (he has just a bit too much star power). Dennehy really gets to chew the scenery in both faces/phases of Pozzo. Yes, Pozzo is a great role for scenery-chewers. In NYC saw John Goodman as Pozzo: a great set-up for Lucky's intense centerpiece.

Who is he? Can't find any references via Google. Sorry, this was an inside joke. John was the husband of Lynne Ludy, a coworker at JRM/Delmark back in the day. John was an introvert and seemed to spend all his time composing. He had stacks of his work next to the piano in their apartment. On rare occasions he would play some of them for close friends. I'm sure John Litweiler heard a few. They moved home to central Michigan in the '70s and divorced. John passed away a few years ago. Sorry for the derailment. Sorry to learn John passed away. A good man and a wide-ranging music lover. Leon Kelert used to warehouse his trad jazz label in the Ludys' bookstore.

Von always denied that he was on this album. According to the source I trust, http://myweb.clemson.edu/~campber/mclin.html, one of the songs is a Claude McLin song. Also, McLin's presence and the Oct. 23, 1950 date are accurate. Von did play on some other recordings without Bird that night.

Soriano batted in four more runs and the Yankees won tonight. I don't like this. They could get into the playoffs via a wild card.

My favorite Shel Silverstein song. Thanks, Mr. Glaser.

So true.

Mills Brothers The Mill on the Floss Colgate University

Has John Ludy been composing during recent decades? I'd love to hear more of his work.

looking forward to that - I saw Dennehy in Krapp's Last Tape at the Goodman

In the depths of despair, in the years when I was either out of work or not getting paid, I used to buy weekly lottery tickets. After applying for dozens and dozens of jobs I figured I was as likely to win as to get employment.

Here's a cheer for Martin Davidson, too. His Emanem, his love for the music and its artists, his dedication, and his great energy have done a world of good for improvised music during these last four decades. It certainly has also been good to see him and Evan Parker working together on Psis.

I went to one of the great games of a lifetime last night at White Sox park. It's great fun to boo Alex Rodriguez even though I don't give a damn whether or not he used steroids. In the 9th innings, sure enough, the Yankees brought out the great Mariano Rivera for his final appearance in our ballpark. After two outs, we got two hits and a tying run off him - and after that clutch single, I take back all the mean things I've been saying about Adam Dunn this summer. With 2 outs in the 12th a Sox hit a grounder off the pitcher's leg, beat it into a single; the winning run scored 2 hits later. Lots of other fun stuff too. On nights like that you can't help loving this game.

Along with being a kind and generous Organissimo man, Aloc has widespread curiosities / interests that help make Organissimo interesting to me.

Thanks, Aloc.

Tomorrow, August 5, 2013, a radio show devoted to Armstrong's and Roscoe Mitchell's birthdays: Zoundz! on WHPK Chicag 88.5 FM and whpk.org - 6:30 to 9 pm Chicago time, 5 hours later Universal time.

I got quite a shock in South Bend a month ago. For the first time in many years I bought a Monday morning South Bend Tribune. The pages are all smaller than they used to be. Section 1, news, was just 8 pages; just 5 of those pages had advertising and only 1 had as much as 1/2 page of ads - the rest were 1/3 of a page or less. The other two sections comprised a grand total of 16 pp., including a grand total of less than 1/3 of a page of display ads. Most impressive was the 4 pp. classified-ad section. The most impressive classified ads were the calls for an Executive Editor and Digital Sales Executive of the South Bend Tribune. It looked pathetic. What a stunning reversal. I grew up with the South Bend Tribune, which was sold throughout a radius of at least 40-50 miles in all directions from SB, in IN and MI (probably still is). It was a big, fat paper full of local and national news, more news than the two Fort Wayne dailies, as much as the 2 or 3 Indianapolis papers (Indy pop. was 4-5 times that of SB). As recently as 20 or so years ago the SB Tribune was still outstanding - incidentally, its jazz critic, Mark Stryker, was far superior to the Chicago Tribune's jazz hack. (I used to work for a newspaper clipping service in the 1970s and saw that, for quantity of news and quality of reporting, the SB Trib was superior to almost all other newspapers from similar-sized cities and far superior to the Gannet papers in San Antonio and Rochester, as well as some other big-city papers.) Michael Collins wrote a novel, The Keepers Of Truth, about a the Daily Truth, a dying newspaper in a dying midwestern city. Collins attended Notre Dame and must have seen the Elkhart Truth in its decline. Grim stuff. Ah, obsolescence. What happened? Did circulation go to hell, did the www. grab all the readers, why a minimum of advertising?

You can now buy Sundidos from amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979874521 and from 57th Street Books and Seminary Co-op Books at http://www.semcoop.com/ as well as from goodbaitbooks.com, which offers an Organissimo discount.

I may have posted this elsewhere: One night I dreamed that I was composing the most beautiful melody in the world. Woke up and wrote it down, even. The next day I happened to play (for the first time in a few years) a Freddie Redd album and there it was. Coincidence?

The two Sonny Boy Williamsons. John Lee Booker and John Lee Hooker. Theonious, Thelonius, Thelius.

The verse of Stardust, which Carmichael composed years after he composed the familiar chorus. Some of the most beautiful melodies depend, to me, on who played them and how. Several King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton pieces, for example, or the At The Window version of a Jimmy Yancey blues - he also recorded it under two other titles.

This discussion reminds me of the many wonderful performances over the years at Joe Segal's various Jazz Showcases in Chicago. Joe recorded them all and surely nobody else will ever hear them.

San Clemente San Andreas Fault Andreas Altenfelder

Corey Wilkes, when he plays inside.