Christiern

He actually looks a lot like a conservative writer for the NY Post who often appears on TV talk shows (name escapes me).

Berigan, I just came across this thread and wish to express my deepest sympathy for what your mother and the family are going through. At times like this, one feels so helpless, but I hope you find the right medical care for her.

I'll run it past Dan Morgenstern--unless this is a totally unknown man, somebody at Rutgers should have a clue. I'll be back!

If you are talking about performance royalties, that is inconsistent with facts, as I know them. Sorry to be so inquisitive, but where did you get the information, what were those checks for, how much money are you talking about?

And so it has been since jazz first saw the inside of a recording studio. Bessie Smith, who never received more than $200 per usable selection (and no royalties), always regarded her records as promotional tools, which they were. It should also be pointed out that most artists never see a penny beyond the scale they were paid for the initial recording. This is due to two factors: They were never offered a royalty contract. The cost of the session(s) was (allegedly, at least)not covered. Usually, but not always, only the date's leader is offered royalties. The cost of the session (studio, sidemen, etc.) is absorbed by the leader (i.e. deducted before he/she sees any money) and--given the creative bookkeeping so many record companies engage in--that potential income is not something to bet the farm on. Composer royalties is something else, although that part of the music industry is also not halo-ed. At least there is a chance to make some money if you own a tune. Finally, I am in total agreement with the following statement by B3-er: I feel no sympathy for the RIAA. They've been fucking musicians and listeners for decades.

What a cop-out. The hysteria I suggested cutting somewhat was that exhibited by Rooster Ties, who went off in a most hysterical fashion. It had nothing to do with the situation in Israel, so either Greg is being disingenuous again, or we are seeing yet another instance of his mis-reading a post. Bear in mind that Greg is a fanatic when it comes to the Middle-East situation. He sees only one side, and his view of that is woefully skewed. Some of you may recall his arguments with Barak Weiss, who was a member of the IDF and an eyewitness to what was happening over there. Greg, posting from California, and with, at best, second-hand knowledge of the situation, argued with Barak--it was totally ludicrous, of course. The man has it in his head that he knows more than anybody about this (and other matters), so anyone who disagrees with that is immediately labeled an idiot, jerk, or whatever derogatory tag Greg can come up with. Barak (who, BTW, is having a great time in Alaska atthe moment) was, of course, a "self-hater." Greg is the opposite, and therein may lie one of his many problems. Frankly, I think he is rather transparent, and I find it impossible to take anything he says seriously. I know he will want the last word--well, he's welcome to it. Y'all don't need me to tell you where this one is coming from.

Interesting, so there's a "quiet, soft-spoken" person behind the arrogant, name-calling contrarian who spews his hatred on these boards? Well, you could have fooled me (and quite a few others, I suspect)! But you haven't--what we have seen on this and other boards besmirched by your obsessive rhetoric is not a very nice person, but rather one who goes out of his way to start arguments that invariably lead to his hurling puerile insults at anyone who disagrees with his narrow views. I realize that it is easy to misjudge people when all you see is their pixels, and that flareups are common, but most of us overcome that--most of us can get along even when our ideologies differ. You obviously can't so, no, you cannot convince me that there is a nice person hiding behind all that hatred.

Very funny--he used to live in my building. Doormen told me that he hated to part with his dollars--never tipped! Nice guy, however, and he loves jazz.

I look forward to being able to de-peach. I also wish berigan would not find it necessary to scream at the bottom of each post--in fact, although berigan seems to be the sole abuser, I would not at all mind if that feature was eliminated. Apropos edits, that line is annoying--however, it was far worse on the late, not-so-lamented BN board, where it added a line for each entry. And please don't have the board add a "credit" line for image posts!

Since a couple of you have said you wanted more—here is the rest of my capsule bio : When I left Prestige Records, Riverside was going belly-up, but I decided to start my own production co. I did four albums, one each by Howard McGhee, Cliff Jackson, Bud Freeman, and Elmer Snowden. Oddly enough, Orrin wanted to release them—we made a deal, but the label was going under, so I took my tapes elsewhere. They ended up on Fontana and, subsequently, Black Lion. I lost money on the deal—never was business minded. In the meantime, I had taken an apartment with a fellow Dane and jazz enthusiast, Timme Rosenkrantz. We rented a basement apartment from Billie Holiday’s widower, Louis McKay, a real crook who cheated us royally on the rent (that’s another story). Disenchanted with the record business, I decided to look for a job with no heavy responsibilities, one that would give me time to think. I found it at Current magazine, a highly literary subscription-only monthly publication that each month gave its subscribers a choice of three other publications from a list of 10 or 12. My job was to fill those orders—I was working in the mail room. When I applied, they wanted a reference, so I gave them Nat Hentoff’s name, because he had told me to feel free to do so. I noticed an odd look on the interviewer’s face when I mentioned Nat—it turned out that he was a major contributor to Current. After speaking to him, they expressed some bewilderment, but said I could have the job if I accepted an editorial position that would be vacant a couple of months later. That’s not what I wanted, but I agreed. To put the chronology into perspective, this was the week of the Cuban crisis. Just before the editorial position was going to be available, I was offered a job at WNEW as continuity Director. I accepted that and started volunteering at WBAI, Pacifica’s NYC station. I won’t go into the WBAI story here, but I ended up being appointed general manager. It was a taxing but highly interesting job. Taxing, because money was always low and 25 employees had to be paid, interesting, because it meant working with the likes of Ayn Rand, Gunther Schuller, David Amram, Malcolm X, Andrew Sarris, and just about everyone who was prominent in the Civil Rights movement. My music director was John Corigliano, and Yoko Ono was our music dept. file clerk. Around 1966, I think it was, I decided to leave WBAI and accept a job with the BBC, which entailed spending every other month in NY and London. At the BBC I worked with everyone from the Beatles and Marty Feldman to Gustav Holst’s widow—my job was to package and repackage BBC programs for the U.S. market. It was my last salaried job—I left to go freelance in 1967, and I’m still at it. In 1969, I began hounding Columbia Records with a suggestion that they release the complete Bessie Smith—took 2 years to convince them. In the meantime, I was writing for down beat and working as a proof reader at Forbes magazine. The result garnered me several awards, including 2 Grammys, and a book deal. In 1971, as I worked on the Bessie book, I hosted and co-produced a weekly half-hour TV show, The Jazz Set, which was picked up by PBS and some of which (Mingus, Bill Evans, for ex.) will be released on DVD. I also started writing for Saturday Review, and became a contributing editor to Stereo Review, a side trip that lasted 28 years. I bought my first computer in 1979 and it began replacing my typewriter a a couple of years later. When the Macintosh grew up, I saw an opportunity to reach back to my old profession, so I got involved in computer graphics. At first, I saw it only as something fun to do (Macs can be so inspiring ), but it actually became a nice source of income. That’s about it for me. I have occupied the same apartment for 40 years, I still write, and my Macintoshes rarely rest.

Commercial artist Hotel desk clerk Record store clerk Temp Disc Jockey Record producer Writer Mail room worker Radio station manager Continuity director Proofreader That's basically it--some details follow Born in Iceland, I began my few school years there, then moved to Forest Hills, NY (1941-44), where—in 2 1/2 years--I learned little more than rudimentary English (their excuse being that we were at war and the male teachers were in the service!). Back to Iceland in ’44, but I had forgotten Icelandic and I was way behind academically. The war ended a year later, and I was sent to Denmark, to be with my grandparents. Unfortunately, I had also forgotten my Danish, so we communicated in English, with a very limited vocabulary. Due to my language setbacks, it seemed impossible to place me in a Danish school, so I was sent to England, where I attended a boarding school in Canterbury. Here the level of education was much higher than any I had previously encountered, but English boarding school life (remember Goodbye, Mr. Chips? Was not for me. Back in Denmark after a year, I managed to talk my family out of returning me to Canterbury, so it was decided that I should go to art school (I had long shown an interest in and some talent for drawing)—thus my formal education ended at 15, without having actually reached the level that is normal for that age. My first job was in the art department of a Copenhagen-based music store that had branches all over the city and the rest of Denmark. The chain sold radios, record playing equipment, records, and musical instruments. I was an apprentice in a department of five artists who designed window displays and posters for the company. I eventually became a full-fledged artist. By that time, the company was carrying the first B&O wire and tape recorders, and I had accidentally come upon Bessie Smith on the Danish radio. Bessie led the way to my broader appreciation of jazz, and there came a time when I spent all my money on 78s, which I smuggled home, past my mother, who always thought that purchasing a shirt or a pair of socks would have been wiser. In 1952, Karl Knudsen (then working for the Copenhagen Telephone Company) started the Storyville Club, a weekend gathering place for trad-minded young people. It was the first jazz club in Denmark that actually featured live music—everything before that had been for listening to recordings. The club led to Karl’s formation of Storyville Records, which he initiated by releasing 3 pirated 78s that featured, respectively, Ma Rainey, Clarence Williams Blue Five, James P. Johnson. Storyville was doing well and I still don’t know how it happened, but I suddenly found myself replacing Karl as its president. The club was house in a very large room, appropriately—we thought—by the docks, and I had volunteered to paint murals on every wall, which I did. The theme was New Orleans, and the success of these murals probably had something to do with my becoming the club’s head. In the meantime, Karl pushed on. He made arrangements to bring Ken Colyer’s new band from London. Colyer had just returned from the U.S., having gone there as a merchant marine and ended up overstaying his welcome—he was jailed in New Orleans, which made him quite the hero in our eyes. Having become a fan of the Humphrey Lyttleton band, I decided to go to England and record it on my new B&O tape recorder, so I—in my extreme naivïté, I wrote a letter to Humph telling him that I would be coming to London to prepare a program for the Danish radio, and would like to record him and his band. Of course the radio assignment was not rue, but I received a reply from Lyn Dutton, Humph’s manager (I didn’t know jazz people had managers). It would be ok to do an interview, but union restriction would get in the way of recording the band, “however, we can discuss this further when you get here.” That last part sounded lie an opening, I thought. To make along story shorter, I sold some of my 78s and bought a 3rd class rail/boat ticket to London, lugged my 65 lbs tape recorder, two reels of tape (I still have them), and a dynamic microphone with one of those heavy floor stands. It’s amazing what young people will do when they have the enthusiasm. Mind you, the recorder, microphone, and stand were installment purchases, far from paid for. My little lie became truth when I sent the tape to the music department of the Danish radio and was asked to do a program based on them. That led to more radio programs and another career, in a way. When the Colyer band came to play at Storyville, my trusty B&O was again put to good use. I recorded a series of selections that became Storyville’s first original releases, and they are still in the catalog! Now it was time to go to the source of all this great music, so I looked into immigration. That was not easy in those post-war years. Canada was looking for farmers, so I gave that some consideration, but it was a silly, desperate idea. I found out that the immigration quote was used less by Icelanders than Danes, so—having dual citizenship—I decided to go back to Iceland and apply from there. It was 1954 and I found a job as a desk clerk on the U.S. Air base. Soon thereafter, however, I was hired by the U.S. Armed Forces Radio and TV Service as an announcer, ostensibly to conduct a program of classical music. It was not long before I was doin a couple of jazz programs, and I even had my very own country music hour. Two and a half years went by before my papers came through. I arrived in NYC on my 26th birthday, in 1957. As I looked for a job in commercial art, I very quickly found myself without any proof of past experience in that field; I had sent all my samples, photos, letters of recommendation, etc. to anonymous NY Times box numbers, and nothing was returned to me. Starving in New York, I got a job at Doubleday, working behind the record counter as Christmas relief. I lived in a $8-a-week room and it was difficult for me to pay the rent, so I went to the Greyhound bus station on 50th Street with $10 to my name. The ticket agent told me that I could get to Philadelphia for 3 dollars, so I boarded a bus with my little suitcase. In Philly, I found a very clean rooming house where I could stay for $5 a week, and I purchased bread at a Horn & Hardart day-old shop for the remaining two dollars. Again, long story shorter, within a week, I landed a job as radio producer and writer at WCAU, the local CBS affiliate—I had to pretend that I had been a producer in the old country. They bought my desperate story and, by keeping my eyes and ears open, I handled the job without them ever suspecting that they had been lied to. A year later, CBS bought WCAU, and the writer’s union came in. The Program Director fired me for not having “lived up to expectations,” which came as a surprise, because he always told me that I deserved a raise. Anyway, when I told Mrs. Burke, the head of the Writer’s Guild East, she said that I should go to work as usual, because they could not fire me to avoid paying me union wages. I went to work every day, but all my shows were taken from me, so I just sat in my office, writing letters to friends and family, and getting paid for it. That eventually became such a bore that I applied for a job as morning dj at WHAT-FM, which was then a 24-7 jazz station. From WHAT, whose owner was an obnoxious racist therein lies another story), I went back to New York, where Nat Hentoff arranged for a job interview at Bill Grauer Productions. Bill was a great guy and he was well aware of my situation at WHAT, which was a major outlet for his Riverside Records. I became a producer (and obligatory liner note writer) there, and stayed for a year—leaving largely because of Bill’s partner, Orrin, who seemed to resent my production activities, especially a successful recording trek I made to New Orleans in January of 1961. Next stop was Prestige Records, where I got along splendidly with my boss, Bob Weinstock, who had Bill’s enthusiasm and ear for the music, but none of Orrin’s peculiar jealousies and insecurities. My work at these two labels can be seen by going to allmusic.com and entering Chris Albertson in the search spot. This is far too long, so I will stop now. If anyone wants me to continue, let me know.

There was a time--in the 50s and 60-s, especially--when jazz disc jockeys were frequently asked to write notes. The trouble was that these people generally had a limited vocabulary, they lacked a writer's imagination, and their knowledge of jazz was largely gained from reading other simplistic liner notes. There was also a formula: "XX was born to a musical family, his mother sang in church....blah, blah, blah." I should know, I wrote too many of those myself.

If that photo was taken near WalMart, don't tell Berigan! Sorry, I just realized that it's from a catalog: Martha Stewart's 2003 Spring Collection.

Aug 14 4:11PM - all power went out Aug 15 6AM - power restored Aug 15 2:30 PM - cable (TV and Internet) kicked back in. That's how it was here.

The Ustinov album was fun 45 years ago--it will be interesting to see how it holds up. Apropos out-of-character releases by jazz labels, has Fantasy ever reissued the Prestige Lively Arts album of Burgess Meredith reading two Ray Bradbury stories? That one, produced by Don Schlitten, will definitely not have aged. Bill Grauer Productions also released (on its Riverside label) a comedy album called In Our Own Image, which featured two guys whose names now escape me--it was somewhat off-beat, and it included a funny (back then, at least) skit that made fun of Miles Davis' GQ image. And, although it is eminently forgettable, let us not forget this cabaret act.....

Maurice used to cringe whenever I brought out this early album...

No, I heard Johnny Hartman sing, but not in the shower--not even in the hallway, because I was in the second floor and he had the basement apartment. Moondog did not perform music on that corner--he just stood there, tall and solemn, for hours on end, wrapped in an od (olive drab) army blanket, wearing a bogus viking helmet (the real ones did not have Wagnerian horns), and looking very imposing.

Chris, have you tried to record anything like a Vhs tape? Or even burning a cd to dvd? Can you change speeds like I read that you could on the back of a blank disc? Why is the sky blue? I have not tried to burn a VHS onto a DVD disc, but a friend of mine has, with very good results--it is, however, a mighty slow process. The DVD burner I have is Apple's so-called "SuperDrive," made by Pioneer. I have used Apple's iDVD and Final Cut Pro, but only when I want the result to have the bells and whistles of a commercial DVD release (menus, scenes, etc), for straight copying (archiving) I use Roxio's Toast software, which is far more flexible than Apple's built-in OS X (Jaguar) software. Changing speed is an option. Is the sky blue? I hadn't noticed.

I don't have a stand-alone DVD burner, but there's one built into my main Mac. Works fine, albeit slower than the CD burner.

Brownie, I removed from your list names of artists I didn't catch. I left Moondog in although I never saw him perform. He used to stand on 53rd and Sixth, on the southeast corner, by the CBS (Blackrock) building. I guess that was, in a way, a performance.

Ditto

August 10, 2003 Gregory Hines, Tony Award Winner, Dies at 57 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 12:32 p.m. ET LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Gregory Hines, the greatest tap dancer of his generation who also transcended the stage with successful film and television roles, has died at 57. Hines died Saturday in Los Angeles of cancer, publicist Allen Eichorn said Sunday. Hines won a 1992 Tony for the musical "Jelly's Last Jam.'' He first became internationally known as part of a jazz tap duo with his brother, Maurice. The two danced together in the musical revue "Eubie!'' in 1978. The brothers later performed together in Broadway's "Sophisticated Ladies'' and on film in 1984's "The Cotton Club.'' In "The Cotton Club,'' Hines also had a lead acting role, which led to more work in film. He starred with Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1985's "White Nights'' and with Billy Crystal in 1986's "Running Scared,'' and he appeared with Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett in 1995's "Waiting to Exhale,'' among other movies. On television, he had his own sitcom in 1997 called "The Gregory Hines Show,'' as well as a recurring role on "Will and Grace.'' Last March, he appeared in the spring television series "Lost at Home.'' Gregory Oliver Hines was born on February 14, 1946, in New York City. He has said his mother urged him and his older brother toward tap dancing because she wanted them to have a way out of the ghetto. When he was a toddler, he said, his brother was already taking tap lessons and would come home and teach him steps. They began performing together when Gregory Hines was five, and they performed at the Apollo for two weeks when he was six. In 1954 they were cast in the Broadway musical "The Girl in Pink Tights,'' starring French ballerina Jeanmaire. "I don't remember not dancing,'' Hines said in a 2001 interview with The Associated Press. "When I realized I was alive and these were my parents, and I could walk and talk, I could dance.'' Paired with his brother Maurice, he was a professional child star. In his teens, joined by their father, Maurice Sr., on drums, they were known as Hines, Hines and Dad. Later he earned Tony nominations on Broadway in "Eubie,'' "Comin' Uptown'' and "Sophisticated Ladies.'' He won a Tony for best actor in a musical playing jazz legend "Jelly Roll'' Morton in "Jelly's Last Jam.'' There was a time, he said, when he didn't want to dance. He was in his mid-20s, "a hippie'' in a brief moment of rebellion, he said in 2001. "I felt that I didn't want to be in show business anymore. I felt that I wanted to be a farmer,'' he said with a laugh. Invited to work on a farm in upstate New York, he quickly learned a lesson. Beginning before dawn, "I was milking cows and shoveling terrible stuff and working all day. By the end of the day all I wanted was my tap shoes -- I thought, `What am I doing? I better get back where I belong on the stage where we work at night and can sleep late!''' Hines had a falling out with his older brother in the late 1960s because the younger was becoming influenced by counter-culture and wanted to perform to rock music and write his songs. In 1973, the family act disbanded and Hines moved to Venice Beach. "I was going through a lot of changes,'' Hines told the Washington Post in 1981. "Marriage. We'd just had a child. Divorce. I was finding myself.'' He returned to New York in 1978, partly to be near his daughter, Daria, who was living with Hines' first wife, dance therapist Patricia Panella. His brother, with whom he had reconciled, told him about an audition for the Broadway-bound "The Last Minstrel Show.'' He got the part, but the show opened and closed in Philadelphia. Hines landed his first film role in the 1981 Mel Brooks comedy "History of the World Part I,'' in which he played a Roman slave as a last-minute replacement for Richard Pryor. Hines' has been nominated for a number of Emmy Awards, most recently in 2001 for his lead role in the mini-series "Bojangles.'' His PBS special "Gregory Hines: Tap Dance in America'' was nominated in 1989, and in 1982 he was nominated for his performance in "I Love Liberty,'' a variety special saluting America. He also won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1999 for his work as the voice of "Big Bill'' in the Bill Cosby animated TV series "Little Bill'' and NAACP Image Awards for "Bojangles'' and "Running Scared.''

It is always particularly sad when a relatively young person dies, but Gregory suffered from liver cancer, and had not been working in quite some time. I guess the news will reach the media today. I did not know him well, but I met him on several occasions, before and after his celebrity--he was the same warm person.

Nothing "dinky" about it, Guy. If you want to see dinky, you should see what my list would have looked like after a couple of years!

But I do have the recording. There were two cylinders?