Ken Dryden

Masters of the Air, Chapter 5, on Apple +

I'm in the midst of transcribing interviews I've done since 1987 and ran across Bob Brookmeyer's remarks about Herbie Hancock's Gershwin's World and Wayne Shorter's solos on that CD, they were not positive. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but writers may want to avoid becoming the butt of jokes, like John Tynan's "anti-jazz' labeling of the early 1960s work of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. Their music has stood the test of time better than his writing.

I have always maintained that the liner note writer should check song titles, spelling of names, composer credits and instrumentation as part of the job. I have found mistakes on nearly every release as I was prepping liner notes, while one best of compilation initially included a track where the artist didn’t even solo. The track was removed after I mentioned it.

The opening track on the CD is correctly labeled "Moanin'." I don't know the tune "Cisco" nor "Gator Whale," so I will have to research them tomorrow. "Samba de Orfeo" does seem to be "Meditation," I compared it to the version on the Joe Pass album Meditation. The Disc 2 track 7 medley labeled as beginning with "So What" is correct.

The Four Queens Jazz Night From Las Vegas collection at UNLV should also include a broadcast that she did with Larry Coryell. There is also a Jazz at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild broadcast by Emily Remler, where she plays solo, with a trio and in a duo. I have both of these shows and I imagine that additional material was recorded that was not aired in both instances.

In our first house, one day I received a bundle of CDs in padded envelope, along with one that had a book. It was not addressed to me, anyone on our short street, or even anyone in our subdivision, but it had a delivery confirmation sticker. I stuck it in my maiblox the next day and hoped they would get it to the right addressee.

The only Tim Hardin I remember was the junkie folk singer who wrote ”Hang On to a Dream” and overdosed young.

Wasn’t Hawk in pretty bad health by the time Sirius was recorded?

Hopefully they lost a lot of money.

Liebman always has numerous diverse projects in the planning stages, limited only by finding funding, never by finding the right musicians or composing the music for them. The man is fascinating to hear in person and a captivating interview guest, both of which I have experienced.

I’ll have to find my playlist, but I remember including two Ellington tunes, “Track 360,” “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” and Mulligan’s “K4 Pacific,” one of the tunes played by his big band that Concord Jazz chose to omit from his CD with Mel Torme and George Shearing.

It's funny how some titles suddenly jump in price once they are out of print. I get the idea that Uptown was more of a hobby than a business and once the founder died, his heirs had no interest in continuing the label.

I have respect for David R. Adler, a good hire by the new ownership. Hopefully he and his staff can repair the damage done by the group of clowns that ran the magazine off the cliff with their garbage writing.

I am barely into the Dolphy biography, it only arrived yesterday. I am not much on reading e-books, they tire me...

I remember all too well from my retail management days when the reel to reel had issues with pitch, causing a wow in the sound. We were warned not to play the radio over the sound system, to avoid ASCAP complaints. One of these guys used to drop in on a little luncheon place in an office building, the owner told him he wasn't playing music for customers but for himself on a little cassette playing boom box. They will check every possibility for potential revenue.

My cousin’s husband in Tampa bought a duplex, half of which he uses for his extensive train layout. I sent him a CDR of various train themed songs, not all jazz.

Given the age of many of us, we won’t be around to see a list in 2074…

All that's missing are those annoying in-store ads inserted for Kmart's goof proof picture perfect guarantee.

I was very impressed with the sound and scope of this set.

One of my questions to Marian during that interview in 1988 was who did she want as guests whom she had not had yet. She got two of the three, but Floyd Cramer never did appear. I also shared Keith Emerson’s phone number with her but he told her that he didn’t have the confidence to do it.

Dave Brubeck told me during an interview that Paul Desmond blocked the release of the Christmas concert where he joined the Modern Jazz Quartet. The audio was awful on the CD, which I heard on headphones during my initial hearing. When I went back to listen to the LP, I discovered that it was far worse than I remembered. From my 1988 interview with Marian McPartland: KD: Did you ever happen to perform with Paul? MM: I always wanted to and he always promised.He would sit in and he used to come and see me and we were good friends and we hung out but he never did. I always felt so badly about that because I think we would have sounded good together but... KD: Both being ballad lovers in particular. MM: Yeah, he was rather snickety about what he wanted to hear behind him. Imight have played the wrong change or something and upset the apple cart but it was a shame we couldn't just have done that informally. Anyway, I'm happy that I got to know him at all as well as I did.

It would be a long list: Art Farmer, Horace Parlan, Johnny Griffin, Ben Webster, Kenny Drew and Oscar Pettiford are among the many who moved to Europe. Sir Charles Thompson moved to Japan.