John Litweiler

One of the most accurate book covers ever. The book is a gigantic feast. I may decide to start writing like it.

Hey, thanks for Aurelie Tropez, Larry. I like Paul Asaro, the piano player, too. He's one of the Fat Babies. His CD of Fats Waller songs is due one of these days. I heard Les Rois du Fox-Trot in Paris in 2010. Michel BEscont played the clarinet solos, no Marq et on that band. Their "Deep Creek Blues" was mostly an exact replica of Morton's. Great piece. Has anyone heard Alain Marquet in recent yeaars?

A man I used to work with in the 1960s tried to write a joke: A man used to like to drink beer and play poker with his pals, and his wife didn't like him drinking all that beer. If he came home late at night she would meet him at the door and smell his breath. If she smelled beer on his breath she wouldn't let him inside the house. He got tired of her treating her like that after awhile and decided to give up beer. So one night he brought some cans of sardines to the poker party. Whenever any pals offered him a beer he said, "No thanks," and ate another canful of sardines. That night when he came home from the party his wife met him at the door and said, "Have you been drinking again?" He said, "No," and she said, "Let me smell your breath." My co-worker could not think of a punch line.

I remember some accompanying musicians complaining that David Newman played the same solos on the same songs every night. He sounded perfectly fine to me the one night I was there. If you like what you're doing, why not do it again?

Roscoe Mitchell's alto solo that starts about 1/3 of the way through "Number One" and after a gong crash, turns into a fierce duet with Lester Bowie.

I usually stop loving it after a few missed meals.

Yes, if you haven't yet heard Adasiewicz, his own group is definitely worth hearing.

Short stories by Chandler, Hammett, Conan Doyle, Ballard, William Tenn, Eric Frank Russell

Where do you and Skvorecky live? I like that novella. Tony Bevan has been playing bass sax exclusively for some years now.

Yes, and games west of Chicago and up north have been called off because of snow.

Congratulations on your new job and your setting.

His memories of Mississippi make this especially valuable.

I have an enjoyable Tony Bevan solo 4- (I think) inch CD that I keep losing because it's so small. Curses. Some of the music on the old juke-box 45s I used to own never showed up on LP or CD. Sigh.

I hope so too. After a beautiful, lyrical concert of Bradford and Fred Anderson I expressed hope that he and Fred would issue an album together. Bradford: A record company'd have to pay us a small fortune. Me: Good, because the Chicago record companies' fortunes are extremely small.

When did Starker come to Bloomington? He played at least 1 David Baker composition and I wonder if David studied w/him.

Greg is right, the Savory collection at the Jazz Museum is a highlight of anyone's trip to NYC.

An incidence of good things happening to very good guys.

Two albums by trombonist Paul Rutherford: Tromboleneum and The Gentle Harm Of The Bourgeoisie Kaoru Abe's solo alto sax CDs are powerful. I hope Roscoe Mitchell's old Solo Saxophone Concerts is still available (Aeco reissued it.) . I think I mentioned these in another thread.

Not before Brian Sandstrom or Curt Bley from the Russell crew or Russell Thorne from the earlier Joe Daley trio! Maybe not before Eddie de Haas, Charles Clark, Leonard Jones, Mchaka Uba and a bunch of others. Kessler is wonderful but the Chicago heritage is rich. edit to ad a comma. Don't forget Betty Dupree. I'll never forget her on the stand at the Gate of Horn on Monday nights circa 1956-7 in IIRC a skin-tight yellow cocktail dress. Also at that venue on Monday nights as a member of the more or less regular rhythm section (with Jodie Christian and Wilbur Campbell), Victor Sproles. Bill Johnson, John Lindsay (not born here, but...)

Jim, you remind me that as a 1950s teenager I worked a couple summers in a church camp (in IN) with several kids the same age from our denomination's mission school in Harlan county, KY. It was a conservative denomination. I asked one of the KY guys if they allowed dancing in the mission school. He said, "No, but they have what they call folk dancing, and you can't tell that from the real thing." I took this seriously for many decades. Only lately, I began to wonder if he was country-boying me. BTW these kids knew a lot of songs and hymns that I came to like. Now-archaic music. In years to come I heard bluegrass singers assassinate those songs.

As you know from elsewhere on the web, one of my favorite novels. A favorite of mine too.

Jazz swing feels like 4/4 or 2/2, country swing feels to me closer to 2/4. I used to enjoy Willie Nelson, including a TV purported Charlie Christian tribute that had him with a 3 guitars-fiddle-bass quintet doing songs in a Hot Club style. (Johnny Gimble was the fiddle player and I wished jazz fiddle players could have a sound as good as his.) But in the last decade or two Willie has become so mannered, especially his singing the lines before the next chord change, that he's lost me.

Is Nica's daughter still around - the daughter who was arrested for riding in a car w/the Jazz Messengers? Did she ever telol her story?

Can't read the scribble on the cover. Is it "SIU6WPEIV NU ONE IN COITTRU2"?

One of the most annoying people in Chicago got hired on the same day I did. She couldn't stop talking and was an expert about everything. For example, if someone ask you something about a jazz musician, before you could answer she would tell him about that musician (she didn't like jazz). The most annoying part was that she talked in cliches. Used to be a Quiz Kid on the radio (some of you graybeards might remember the Quiz Kids). Fortunately for me she refused to do any work and got fired after awhile.