Christiern

After all these years, Scott, you remember me well. Having heard the positive result on Miles, I would consider it a waste of good glue to apply it to Alice Coltrane. Is there, perhaps, a glue that will remove her pseudo spirituality?

My Mountain Lion ate my Lion—and my iMac smiled. I bought an external drive only because I wanted the LightScribe feature, but I'm glad I did, because the built-in drive sometimes misbehaves.

Books ought to be fireproof.

I just came across this on e-bay and thought I'd share it. I'm sure there are people who would love to see my book expurgated, but I rather think this is a case of a vocabulary mishap. Notice that it is both expanded and expurgated!

Stanley is an opportunist (Exhibit 1: Wynton) and, yes he has agendas that get in the way.

Stanley's previous attempt at writing fiction was a disaster.

Congratulation, Pete. I hope it does well.

That very good news, Augustín. I was hoping that it was just in a long slumber, which is why I kept the Mule link on my own blog.

I'm sure I've posted this before, but...

Hjertelig til lykke med dagen, Victor!

I sometimes find myself thinking in regional Bulgarian, and it drives me crazy, because I don't understand a word of it.

One very important factor is the label. A major label competing against an upstart is far more likely to win, regardless of artistic merit. Same goes for all categories—I know that one of my Grammys should be collecting dust in someone else's dark corner or closet—It came to me because that label read "Columbia."

The Grammy awards should never be used as a measure of artistic quality—it's all too political and too driven by the bottom line to be taken seriously. I only watched the first hour last night, but five minutes would have sufficed. The show is still a colossal waste of time: horrendously inept production numbers and performances that inexplicably generate enthusiastic responses from the hearing-impaired teenagers who fill the balconies. Great music is still being created in our time, but it just doesn't make it to the Grammys, and one has to wonder why some of the truly talented continue to participate in this charade. The "music" is generally bad and often appallingly so. We can only speculate as to what it would be like if the voting wasn't rigged.

What I saw/heard during the first hour of the Grammys was predictably abysmal. What I saw for the next two hours was predictably exquisite: it was called "Downton Abbey."

I am about to start writing the notes for an 8-CD George Lewis boxed set to be issued on Storyville. The recordings were made between 1953 and 1959 at various locations: Ohio State University; Hangover Club, SF; New Orleans; Bakersfield, CA, and Denmark.

I am not familiar with John Fisk, he must have joined WBAI after my time there. They got rid of most jazz programs when I left: Dan Morgenstern, Ira Gitler, Don Schlitten, Marian McPartland, et al. They also discontinued the 2-hour Saturday afternoon jazz show which was guest-hosted by such musicians as Ray Bryant, Jimmy Rushing, Coltrane, George Wettling, Toshiko, Bill Dixon, Cannonball, and others. Today, the station has lost most of its audience, resorted to fraudulent fundraising, and, basically, stagnated on a bland pedestrian groove. I think it is close to dying as a listener-sponsored station. Bob Fass (whom I rehired in 1965) is still there!

I know that Eastwood called her, that's why I refer to it as his mistake, and it is compounded by the fact that there were people around whose knowledge and honesty would have stood him (and us) in good stead. The same mistake was made when Motown hired Louis McKay as advisor on the "Lady Sings the Blues" disaster. I mentioned that to the screenwriter, Suzanne De Pass, when she called me to ask about the film rights to my Bessie Smith biography. "I know what you mean," she said, "but we don't do that anymore."

I don't think there was a sincere fiber in Beverly Berg's body. She was an exploiter. Eastwood made a very bad mistake when he used her as a consultant for his Bird film.

This boxed set has now arrived in Europe from China (where else?) and is about to be released.

For more: http://www.mrjcpagan...ajazz/home.html

I rather like to think of Bolden as an early clean air advocate.

Great to see Don Pullen, but Cosby is an over-rated idiot who has used jazz musicians to further his own career, and treated many of them disgracefully. If he really had respect for these players, he would have stayed off camera rather than hog it with his nonsense.

A household name.

That was a tribute to John Hammond special. Goddard Lieberson hosted. Benson was great on "Seven Come Eleven". Dylan also showed up. The details are in the link above. Dylan agreed to appear on one condition: that he be allowed to perform his Hurricane Carter song in toto (it is rather long for such a TV show as this). George Benson was included because the hype was that he was a Hammond "discovery." Having written the notes for George's first album (it was on Prestige), I was ever so surprised to hear of this Hammond find.